Day 5: Updates and Updates and Updates....

This blog will strictly be news and updates because 1) I haven't really done that in a while, 2) I don't have a good topic that I can really write about here, and 3) I'm pressed for time (I'm at speech practice right now----hey, I want to get some sleep tonight! And because I will be in school until 8:30 tonight, I will most likely be able to go to sleep at 9:15ish at the very earliest. And I needs me some sleeps, man!). 


So, okay, Envelope Update! I am on the fifth envelope (I knooooowwwww......) and I have to ask a boy out for cake! Argh! It's not a matter of who to ask, really. It's a matter of how to ask and when to go out for cake. I have no doubt it's gonna be good though. I just know that I'm gonna do it! Awesomeness!


Tum Tum update! I'm currently on a Tumblr hiatus for the entire month of April so no Tum Tum for me (unless special circumstances demand it). Everything's on queue though....I hope the ones for my purple and hands ones are long enough. I am also not on Facebook at all. Or YouTube. I'm going into serious NaNo mode in preparation for States and APs. And Life, in general. I can do this. Confidence!


Blog update! We're doing BEDA. Just in case you didn't know. Or something. Obviousness!


Period 4! Kendall and I have signed up for this cool class called "4 the Good" in which we learn about important life skills (for college and beyond) and also do good for others. It's taught by Mr. U and also one of the coolest people in the world, Ms. Ishii, who is also a tennis coach and community service coordinator here. So far, we've learned a lot of cleaning tips, money matters and how to deal with and what to say in awkward situations. On Monday, we're learning self-defense! (Hyaaaa!) Exciting stuffs!


Sophomore banquet this Saturday! Ahh! So excited. I didn't get to go to my own soph banq a couple of years ago, so I really wanted to go this year as a senior (I tried for The Trifecta--sophomore banquet, junior prom, and senior prom all in one year--but no. No junior prom for Jen.) So one of my brother's friends is nice enough to take me. Exciting! This year, the banquet is gonna be in the AQUARIUM. Even more exciting! Swimming with the fishes. I will update you on that later on this weekend. Yesyesyesyesyesyes!!!


I got back to practice early because my Little Brother (for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program), Kei, had to go home early today. Sadness. I haven't seen him in a long while and I was really excited to play with him today. Hopefully, he'll be able to stay next week Thursday because I only have several weeks with him before I have to say goodbye. I've been with him for two years now and I'm sad. Sadness!


After I do this paragraph, I have to go and make some changes to my risk-taking oration. I have been so confident and resolute about my topic for the past several months that I have been constantly working on it. But after the last late night practice, when my coach questioned the validity of some of my points and suggestions, I'm not completely sure anymore. What am I even talking about? What in the world am I asking my audience to do? Ahh, questions. Must answer them by tonight. Parts of the speech definitely needs to be hashed out. Which means I need to have a conversation with someone (that someone always ends up being me, of course...which is why people think I'm weird here...). So yes, I will get that done.


Okay, that last paragraph is over. Must go back to work now. 


Risks taken: 17
Hugs:  1
Current food cravings/obsessions: I actually just want to bathe in a tub of ice cold water right now...it's so HUMID...
Playlist(s) on Repeat: "Like an N, But Not Really"

Day Two: It's A Secret!

Hello, Official and Non-Official Creepers of the Blog (yes, we know you exist...you pretend not to, but you DO!), and welcome (back)!


I was pretty stressed today because I had so much Gov homework and I hadn't started on my English paper which was kinda-sorta-but-not-really "due" today. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night either. 


But I took a risk today! I was running out of time so I decided to wear a skirt in school. Yeahh. I know, I know, I've taken this risk before, but I still haven't gotten to the point where it's not a risk for me anymore, you know. I don't wear skirts or dresses in school or unless I really have to because I don't feel comfortable in them. I rarely ever do. I just feel insecure and weird and asdfusdfbadsfnkjsdf. So stepping out of my comfort zone in this case meant that I had to ignore what other people thought and just be comfortable and confident in my own skin. Success? Success. I feel energized.


After school, I made origami ninja stars with Kei at Big Brothers/Big Sisters. We also made a kite. He is so imaginative and clever and energetic. I will never get tired of hanging out with this kid. 


So, yesterday's gift-giving left me feeling so amazing and I was super excited this morning because I was set to do a spontaneous act of giving for today, February 2. It's funny because Thursdays, I guess, have always been "giving" days. I have 1) volunteer tutoring for Spanish during lunch, and 2) Big Brothers/Big Sisters (with Kei)! But I had no idea what to do spontaneously, so I kept my eyes open. Then, during lunch time, as Kendall and I were walking back from Sra. Melo's class back to Senior Benches, he asked me, "So have you done your Gift yet?" And then BOOM. I knew what I had to do.


BUUUUUUUUUT (yep, there's a big rear end to this story, sorry)...I can't tell you all about it just yet. Yes, I tried my best to give someone something today. It came to my attention that one of my friends did not receive something that I thought she really deserves and would appreciate and love. So I went on to try and get it for her. It's not tangible. That's all I'm saying for now. I did it anonymously and I kind of want it to be a surprise for her. 


I really hope that things work out and that the special someone "receives" my gift. But I won't find out until maybe a couple of days from now, so I'm keeping everything crossed--my eyes, my fingers, my toes, you name it! And, I promise, as soon as I find out the outcome of my little attempt today, I will let you all know about it.


Anyway, it didn't seem to be such a big deal when I thought of it today. I knew that my friend should have received something, but she didn't. So I went out and tried to make sure that she gets it. It's so simple, yes? It didn't even take a long while--just maybe five minutes max. Nevertheless, as I was doing it, it felt so right. There are so many instances in life when we have to choose between what is easy and what is right. But giving to others--you can always count on it to be both easy and right.


Risks taken: 13

Hugs: 4

Current food cravings/obsessions: just water (*gasp*)

Playlist(s) of the Week: "Add 30 Years and Some Free JD's Ice Cream" (again.............................)

Let Me Be Your Everlasting Light

EIGHTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!


As Kendall mentioned in his post this week, I am officially an adult now! (Haha, Kendall's still a minor!) 


A warm thank you to everyone who made me feel so special, even unconsciously and/or in the teensiest bit (Man on the Bus Who Smiled At Me Today, that includes you, too!), but most especially to the ones who put so much thought and effort into doing so: Mom and Dad, Shayne and Josh, everyone in the Canada and the Philippines (Facebook and unlimited country-to-country phone calls really do make the world a lot smaller), my titos and titas here on the islands, Kerms, Jaime, Rebecca, Gavin (my birthday twin), Poppet (you made me cry, love), Mr. U, Kirsten (you could have shown up empty-handed and I would have continued to love you just as well), Aid (and Mama Lee, too!), Win (<3), students in the leadership class (way to TCB, guys!), Rennel (I am confident that you'll always remember my birthday for as long as I live, man...thank you for that "Good Birthday Morning" text!), Mr. Kashi, Ate Bao, those who greeted me around school and on Facebook and on the card that Jaime had. (I hope I didn't miss any of you!) I have so much love for all of you and the rest of the world and I'm literally (literally...oh, misuses of "literality!"), to quote Mr. Waters, on a "roller coaster that only goes up," my friends. Up and up and up it goes!


Today was a really good day: I ate wonderful dim sum (so much dim sum...Kendall ate, virtually, nothing...) with wonderful people and then just walked around in Chinatown. At one point in there, I prayed to and burned incense for some sort of Buddhist goddess of mercy....I think. Very cool.


So now that I'm 18, I can now vote (I've been registered since, like, the 2nd quarter!), be tried as an adult in court (yikes), go clubbing (yeah right), sign my own documents (wow), and so much more. But at the same time, it's weird because I have never felt so young and childish and invincible as I did this past week. 


Most adults say that teenagers are foolish for thinking that they (the teenagers) are invincible. To this, I have always said, as Alaska Young and Miles Halter have inspired me to believe, "WE TEENAGERS BELIEVE WE'RE INVINCIBLE BECAUSE WE ARE. We are all greater than the sum of all of our parts." Adults forget this as they grow older and their minds fill with trivial adult-life matters and numbers. They forget that man is capable of so much more than what meets the eye and begin to value people based on their practical abilities and skills, not based on what they believe, what they stand for, what they are passionate about, what they leave in this world. Though I'm now 18, an adult, I pledge and promise to never forget that I am and forever will be as INVINCIBLE as I believe I have always been.


Finally, some updates, reminders, and announcements:
-Starting on February 1, we're doing BEDiF to chronicle our 29 Gifts Adventures.
-I'm working on Kendall's 13 Little Blue Envelopes-themed scavenger hunt. Hopefully, I can complete the first task this week!
-I've been very good at writing in my The 18th Year journal every night--no matter what! Jen's proud of herself.
-Our lessthanthree stories are due by midnight tomorrow! Yikes! Gotta go work on finishing that. (These are the stories that we're going to submit to Kristina Horners and Hayley G Hoover's new project: writing and publishing a book of short stories about how we can form meaningful relationships (both friendship and love) through the Internet.)


And that's it for now--see you all later this week!


Risks taken: 12 (I'm getting complacent about this and it definitely shows in my risk-taking speech performances...NEED TO TAKE A HUGE RISK BY THIS SATURDAY (day of the tournament!)!

Hugs: 8

Current food cravings/obsessions: I am so full from all that awesome dim sum....

Playlist(s) of the Week: "Add 30 Years and Some Free JD's Ice Cream"

There's An App for That!

After two days of MEHs, BLECHs and GRRs, the third day was AMAZING. Kendall already told you about the awesomeness of our four senior class officers but I feel like I have to add my own thoughts about it:


First of all, the "awards," if you think about it, were just simple pieces of paper and the officers had written maybe 3-5 sentences for each person. See how tiny that seems? But you can't even imagine how  HUGE of an impact they made on our whole grade today! Come on. It's the small things, guys, it's the SMALL THINGS.


Secondly, how thoughtful was that? Every person had a unique and special note. Can you just feel the awesomeness?!?!


Thirdly, it was very much an INTERROBANG moment because of how unbelievable it seemed: like Kendall said, 4 officers and 200+ students. Do I hear a whistle?


So, my note made my WEEK. It's such an awesome way to set the tone for the rest of the year. At first, I didn't feel like we were seniors at all; this felt like just another year. But the notes just woke me up and said, "HEY YOU, YOU'RE A SENIOR AND YOU'RE AWESOME BECAUSE YOU'LL MAKE THIS YEAR AMAZING."


Today......
I really loved...getting my "award" from the officers in homeroom!
I smiled because...people are just plain awesome.
Lyrics playing at this very moment as I type this portion of the blog:
"...I kinda feel like it don't make sense 'cause you're bringing me in and then you're kicking me out again..." (Love Like Woe by The Ready Set)
Hours of sleep last night: 6
Hugs: 4

On this day...

April 11, in the year…

…1689, William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.
…1865, President Abraham Lincoln gave his last speech.
…1919, the League of Nations founded the International Labour Organization.
…1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
…1970, the United States launched Apollo 13.
…1976, Steve Wozniak designed and created the first Apple 1 personal computer.
…1994, Kendall Tacon was born.
…2001, Australia beat American Samoa in an international match of soccer, 31-0.

Oh wait what? Back up there.

Happy birthday, Kendall!

You have a cool birthdate, 4-1-1.
Why does “4-1-1” mean “information”? Because 411 is the directory assistance number here in the United States. If ever you need operator assistance or a specific area code (or a really awesome best friend), you dial 4-1-1.
__________

Kendall: Instructions for your 17th-Birthday-Puzzle-Scavenger-Hunt-Mash-Up
Part 3: Remix!
You’re doing well so far… was that triple puzzle hard?
The three puzzles should have told you what you need to look at now. Just take the first eight. Each of these eight “sets” consists of two letters.

You’ve actually already started to try to crack their code. But you have to know this: these sets are phonetically spelled, so make sure you sound them out correctly. Pretend you’re in Spanish class; the pronunciations there apply here also.

You should have started with 8, but you should have 16 individual “pieces” after you finish. BUT MAKE SURE THAT YOU KEEP THE PAIRS TOGETHER, IN THE CORRECT ORDER.
For example: 1--2 becomes 1 and 2
(See what I did? I kept them together and in the same order. This part should be simple!)

After you translate them, “remix” them around. You should end up with three words, a song title of one of my favorite bands.

Once you figure out the song title, Google the lyrics and use the CHORUS (yes, just the chorus) and the following Ottendorf cipher (A what? Come on now, be resourceful) to figure out the next step.

1-6-1, 4-3-5, 6-1-5, 1-2-3, 2-1-2, 6-1-4, 1-2-1, 3-6-4

Good luck!
_________

Recap of Kendall's scavenger hunt? I'll just describe what I set up, Kendall can tell you his side of the hunt.

Okay, I got to school early so that I could set up everything in time. I have been busy for the past couple of weeks so I didn't get to do this as timely as possible. Last year, I was ready by the time spring break ended, but my spring break this resembled a senior's fourth quarter. So I didn't get a lot done, including preparations for Kendall's annual birthday scavenger hunt. Nevertheless, I succeeded in preparing something that I was proud to call mine and dedicated to Kendall.

So, Kendall and I walked up to homeroom and his locker had a sign on it that said, "Are you ready for this? Open your locker." in a ransom-note kind of font with the cut-out letters and mismatched fonts and sizes.

Inside, I placed another sign that said, "Just follow the spiders. No, not the butterflies. Follow the spiders." with an accompanying post-it on which I wrote a three-number lock combination. Oh yeah, and Kendall is deathly afraid of spiders. TERRIFIED. He wrote about arachnophobia for his big Biology research paper last year.

I taped strips with images of black spiders along the Weinberg walls and the lockers which led from Kendall's locker (thanks Spencer for taping the ones above the lockers--I couldn't reach...), through the back fire-exit-stairs near W301 and to the second floor. The spider trail led to Shayne's locker.

Inside Shaynes locker was a picture of Aragog (hahahahahaha) and a folded piece of paper with the next set of instructions, along with 6 pieces of construction paper with designs on them. These strips of paper were pieces of three different puzzles, and Kendall had to piece together each of the puzzles and flip the strips over in order to figure out the three words needed to move on in the scavenger hunt.

I believe the three puzzles formed something like, "Look at my blog post titles."

He then read the instructions on today's BEDA post (above) and the song title he came up with was, "Friend Like Me" by Hawk Nelson.

Using the Ottendorf cipher and the chorus lyrics of the song, he then decoded the next message which said, "SAO TABLE."

Under the SAO table, I taped a piece of paper with the sentence, "PRINCES BATHE EVERYDAY SINCE PRINCESSES CAN SMELL." The letters were printed within puzzle pieces and were lined up in a way that you could read "PHYSICS" downward. I alternated the highlighted the letters to trick him.

In the Physics hallway, I taped a strip of spiders on one of the mirrors. Then, I placed the next set of codes onthe bulletin board across from the mirror so that when Kendall looked into the mirror, he would see the reflection of the codes behind him.

The next set of codes consisted of pictures that basically meant, "Go to Winney and say, 'I surrender to the strawberry ice cream.'"

I instructed Winney that she would only give Kendall the instructions only, and only if, he said the exact words mentioned above. Kendall got it right and she told him, "It's in Jen's locker."

Which wasn't that big of a deal beause all that was in there was a measly, though well-picked and appropriate, card that apologized for my lack of a real present and that strongly suggested that Kendall hold the guilt card above my head until I sufficiently make up for it.

Originally, I had planned on getting him this, but I never got around to ordering it. Next year will be double, no worries, I promise. He seemed to enjoy himself though. I expected him to take a really long time (especially with the triple puzzle thing) but he was very quick. I swear, he gets better and better every year. I have to make next year's harder. Much harder.

Oh and I'm wearing all blue for your birthday week. You didn't notice last year, I think, so I'm making sure this year that you know it's in your honor!

TODAY......
I really loved... 1000 Awesome Things
I smiled because... "Wait, P-H-Y-S-I-C-S isn't a word, right???"
Lyrics playing at this very moment as I type up this portion of the blog:
"...and the world is turning inside out, yeah..."
(Don't Stop Me Now by Queen....performed by Rhys and Cole)
Times it got COLD today: 4 so far....hopefully that number will go up?
Hours of sleep last night: 3 hours and 50 minutes
Friend of the day: Kendall!!!

--Jen :)

Project4Awesome 2010? CHECK.

To make up for dismal results in this year's NaNoWriMo competition and to join Nerdfighteria (Nerdfighters!) decrease world suck, Kendall and I made a video for P4A 2010.

Dedicated to Summer Kozai '00, we created a video that we hope did two things: 1) Raise awareness for those who have lost limbs and those who are caring for people who have lost limbs, and 2) Promote AMPUCAMP.

AMPUCAP is a non-profit organization that organizes four camps throughout the year especially for those who have lost limbs and their caregivers. They have activities that provide help, support and encouragement to amputees adapting and recovering from their situations.

We had so much fun planning and making this video. And I'm sure Kendall had fun editing it, too. Thank you so much to those who showed their support by taping their thumbs! Not everyone appeared on our video but we are still very thankful for your participation. Your willingness to "take away" your thumbs was very inspiring.

For more info on Project4Awesome, go to: http://dft.ba/-p4ainformation

Check out AMPUCAMP at: http://dft.ba/-ampucampwebsite

To watch our P4A video: http://dft.ba/-ourP4AAmpucampvideo

Don't forget to go crazy rating, commenting, liking and favorite-ing our video and other P4A videos!

--Fruity

P.S. I updated The List, so I transferred P4A 2010 to Things We Have Already Done.