TEE--EYCH

Day 4! The day we got ads! Yes, we have ads now.
 Anyway, I just read Kendall's two posts for yesterday and today and I feel the need to react:
LIAM HEMSWORTH, a.k.a. MILEY CYRUS' EX-BOYFRIEND, AS GALE?!?! Unacceptable.
I don't support Gale-Katniss--I'm on the baker's side (he makes awesome cakes!)--but Gale is a fine young man who doesn't deserve this treatment! I approve of the choice for dear Peeta Mellark. And Katniss Everdeen? Hmmm, she seems a bit old to me but dyeing her hair would solve that problem.


The Malta post was great. It really was. Green-worthy, even. 


Moving on, I felt like I should tell you about something I witnessed today. I have a free period 8 (second period of the day this week) and I went to W-Lab to type up a Spanish composition. There was an English 9 class inside but there were a couple of computers free so I sat down at a computer and logged on. Other older students were also in there working papers or whatever. Just as I opened a new Word document, however, two more freshmen that belong to the class that was officially using the lab that period came in and there was only one computer left. The teacher kindly asked for one of the students not in her class to give up a computer for her student.


There was a pause. Not a short one, not really, but one of those that seem to be longer than it really was. All the older students inside the computer lab slowly looked over their shoulders at their fellow upperclassmen, including myself, waiting, even daring, the others to move from their seats. No one would look at the teacher. No one spoke. And to my surprise, every single head slowly turned back toward the computer screens, confident that someone else would stand up and give up their computer. I admit, I thought the same thing, too. But it was quickly followed by another thought: If we all thought to ourselves, "Hey I'm working on something important so I'm not leaving. Someone's bound to leave, right, but it won't be me," then no one would leave.


I also turned back toward my computer screen, just like the others. But I logged off. 


"I'll go," I said.


I'm sure I heard the faintest of sighs from behind me as I said that. And I walked out of the W-Lab with the greatest disappointment that I have ever felt for my school peers.


School is hard. And we all have homework that require the use of a computer. It's great to see students so keen on working, putting so much effort, thought and, most importantly, value into their papers and projects. As students, we should value the products we turn in to our teachers because of the amount of time and effort we put into them. And these upperclassmen, I understand, had every right to feel "protective" about their free time spent on working. 


What we forget, however, is that school is also a community. And in a community where everyone believes that someone else will do it eventually, what gets done? Who ends up doing everything or anything at all? We have to somehow stop that reflex in our minds that say, "I don't have to do it 'cause I'm sure someone else will do it." How are you so sure? Who is this "someone else" that everyone seems to trust will do everything in due time? Because, let me tell you, that "someone else" doesn't exist. That "someone else" should be you.


Taking pride in your work and making sure that you do all of it to the best of your ability isn't considered selfishness. But when your doing so affects someone else's efforts to do their best, it might as well be.


TODAY.......
I really loved...JAW.
I smiled because...I did better than I expected on my Physics test.
Lyrics playing at this very moment as I type this portion of the blog:
"...my sweet, sweet Madeline. Every time I look into your eyes, I feel like I'm alive..."
(Hello by Hawk Nelson)
Hours of sleep last night: 5 hours, 20 minutes
Times it got COLD today: 5 (that's a record?)
Friend(s) of the day: Winney and Adrienne (tie!)


--Jen :)

No relationship should start with a drunken kiss. No. Just...NO.

Really. Just...NO. It can start on a kiss, but the two people have to be completely sober. Not drunk. Okay, maybe a sip of something like champagne is acceptable. But that's it! Basically, if they shouldn't drive, they shouldn't kiss either. Or do anything questionable that might follow the kiss. Gah--anyway, I'm getting off topic, here!

Moving on...

So, my subscription box for YouTube is just overflowing now. Yeah. I will watch all of them when I have time! I haven't even seen Hank's make-up tutorial yet! Sad.

Anyway, so I was reading THG (I'm on page 86) and it suddenly hit me why I was feeling depressed at the beginning of the book and why I was so excited and awesome and o-eme-ge I can't even explain the feelings of reading this book. It was because Ms. Collins decided to write the book in first person, present tense. So instead of reading, "Katniss this, Katniss that" and feeling like, "Oh yeah, that's Katniss and yada yada yada," I was reading, "I did this, I did that," which of course makes me feel, oh I don't know, EXACTLY LIKE HOW KATNISS IS FEELING. It's easier for a reader to put their feet in the character's shoes when the reader reads "I feel this" or "I do this" instead of having the feeling of watching the character do it. WE HAVE BECOME THE CHARACTERS.

Anyway, I might or might not finish part one. Depending on how much homework I finish so yeah. I have to get back to that. Anyway, you asked for a picture of our creation this summer so here's how it looks like from Josh's window:

 Can you see the wind chime in the top left corner? Maybe not. It's super windy over here. I wrote my blank verse and read chapter two of my APUSh textbook here this weekend. It's been super windy lately so the wind chime has been going non-stop and I felt awesome sitting there and just doing my work. We haven't painted it yet, though.

Anyway, my Physics blog will be up and running by tonight, so I guess you'll just have to wait for me to post about it tomorrow or something because this is my Sunday one. Unless you call me and ask for the URL or something. Which I don't expect you to do.

LEARN TO PLAY THAT GUITAR!!!!

Ciao, man. (an example of "clash of cultures")

--Mucho fruta-ish??

The Europeans, greedy as they were, bought, tricked many times, a freshman in order to take your lunch and/or lunch and long rice.

I am ashamed of myself. I can almost imagine you ranting how you're ashamed to call me your friend, how you're super disappointed in me, and how terrible it was that the Europeans tricked many freshmen in order to take your lunch and/or lunch and long rice.

Please forgive me because I didn't post last night. My dad turned the wireless router off on me. I was gonna post. But. You know. I was just distracted by...stuff. On the Internet. Like, other stuff. Yeah.

I'M SORRY! Does this call for a punishment?

Anyway, on to my regular bloginessities:
1) I'm gonna have to do a blog for Physics. I am excited. I hope you (or we) follow it.

2) I'm trying to revise my blank verse, the four-lines that grew into ten-lines by the end of the week. That one has a "Yeah-you-know-I-knew-you-were-cheating-on-me-this-whole-time-so-it's-over-you-bastard-and-no-I'm-not-gonna-waste-my-time-fighting-to-save-our-relationship-because-guess-what-the-girl-your-cheating-with-is-also-cheating-on-you-whaaattt?!?!" kind of feel. And I don't like it anymore, so now I'm trying to come up with a whole new iambic pentameter blank verse that has a more "Do-you-remember-that-one-summer-we-spent-together-catching-dragonflies-in-the-meadow-and-stealing-tangerines-from-Mr.-Kline's-yard-and-we-decided-that-we-weren't-gonna-be-kids-anymore-but-now-we-grew-up-but-we're-still-young-yeah-I-miss-those-days-because-tangerines-taste-bitter-to-me-now" kind of feel to it. But I'm having a hard time trying to get inspired. So I'm listening to Luke's songs.

3) Did I tell you about that wind chime thing that came from Japan that was given to us by Trisha (Shayne's friend) that we decided to hang outside of the house in that hut-slash-gazebo-like thing that we all built as a family project this summer? Well, it keeps tinkling all day and all night. I can hear it now. But it's so not irritating at all. I love listening to it. The neighbors probably hate it though. Oh well.

4) About my title. Okay, so maybe I have never told you this, but back in English 10H we had to write Reading Responses for the chapters that we read every night. For most of the year, I wrote those RRs half-asleep. And the next day, I'd print it out and in class, I'd read along as the students or Mr. B presented the chapter summary. Then I'd come across a super weird sentence that doesn't belong there at all. This is the evidence that I wrote the RR half-asleep, but my fingers kept typing. But the cool thing is, the sentences were always grammatically correct and the words were all spelled correctly. Here's one from one of my RRs from A Midsummer Night's Dream: Hermia and Lysander enter again and they decide to sleep separately in order to be able to perform in theater class. Haha. There are weirder ones but I didn't wanna go through all of my RRs from last year (I think I wrote about 150 of those things!). Anyway, I stayed up pretty late earlier in the week working on my DP for APUSH and the sentence I used for my title was one of my answers to the questions. Yeah. I embarrass myself, even when I'm half-asleep.

5) Assessment of my schedule!!!
HR: I'm glad that I have you in this class. Shayne thinks it's super unfair, though.
Period 1: Spanish 3H. Sra. Melo again. I'm gonna have to start gearing up for this class because I don't want her picking on me ever again. My first quiz was "D"isastrous. I was sad. From the mafia, I have Adrienne here with me.
Period 2: Shakespeare. Except you have to say it more like, Shakespeehre. Or something like that; the last syllable has to be said dramatically. It's cool that way. Dr. Webb is my hero. He's funny. And we're writing poetry. Not my forte. I like The Taming of the Shrew, though.
Period 3: Scholarship. I'm at Main Office for the third consecutive year! YESSSSSSSSS! I work with Drew from the grade below us. It's very quiet.
Period 4: Precalc with Mr. Guillou. We're doing LOGIC, the easiest math that I'll probably ever do in my whole entire life. It will get harder later on though.
Period 5: AP Phys B. Mr. Heyler. He's cool. Our class is big. I think there are....wait...um...maybe 20 of us? Which is kinda a lot considering the normal class size. The labs are fun and I'm getting it right now. But, again, it's gonna get harder later on. And we have to do blogs, so that's exciting! And, oh, the most important thing: it's way better than Chem H.
Period 6: I have this period free on Mon, Wed, and Fri. I hang out at chapel with Jaime, Sid, Kelsey with a K, and Shann. I do homework when I can. On Tue and Thurs, I have a lab period for Physics.
Period 7: APUSH with Mr. Reppun. He's different. But he's a new teacher, so. I like that class though. Kinda heavy on the reading, which takes time. That's probably the only bad thing about this class. From the mafia, I have Krislyn.
Period 8: PE! I have Nakoa, not Martin. Sad. But I have Bogs and Shoobie with me so that's a good thing. We're running the mile-and-a-half on Monday. *sigh* I think I'll run the mile, then walk the half.

6) It was a hard first week. It felt like it was the middle of the year.

7) I met a lot of new people, mostly freshmen. Hunter. Jaylene (sp). Schuyler. Aja. Ryan. Jack. I like meeting freshmen. They're cool.

8) Okay, so I guess now is a good time to talk about the status of FECs/FroBros/SECs/JECs. Okay, so FECs. There aren't any. Yeah, I changed my mind after the Friday-after-school incident. I decided to wait and see. Now, SECs (It sounds weird when you say it out loud--I made the mistake of saying, "Do you have SECs? I have SECs," to Tiffany when we were discussing this topic. It was embarrasing.--so from now on, SECs will be said as "SEC-plural"). Acai Cup is still a SEC. The two "conjoined twins" (en mi clase de español) are still Fro Bros. Except now they're Soph Bros. Doesn't really have that ring to it anymore. I don't have any JECs (Fitzwilliam is dead). Tiff has her TBO, though. As for the older SECs, there aren't any (Yeah, I changed my mind about the one Rachel and I shared, too. She can take it.) And, yeah. That's all.

9) Does Kristina have a "malt liquor video"?

10) The Hunger Games. Like I said, I think it's super depressing. But it's good. the pace is a bit slow in the beginning, though, which is where I'm still at. I like Katniss. Josh asked me if I was on Team Gale or Team Peeta (Btw, what kind of a name is Peeta??) and I said I was on Team Gale. I'm guessing this will be important later on. I'm still struggling with the fact that they use bows, and yet there are cameras. I can't accept the fact that District 12, to me, looks like, you know, all cobblestone-y but they have technology. It has that small, cozy, rustic feel to it. Like, I can imagine a kid running in the rain, puddles on the cobblestones, towards home where his kinda rotund but cheery mom bakes warm bread above the fire. But the cameras during the reaping kinda felt out of place to me. But I guess I'll get used to it later on. I don't think I can finish this weekend. I'm sorry.

11) I made this calendar, kinda like the one that we had last year? With everything on it? Well, this one doesn't have everything on it, just stuff that are related to 11th graders and important stuff. Do you want one? I can give you a copy on Monday. It has the stuff for Fac Rels on it. Oh and my Speech and Debate schedule, too, but you can just ignore it.

12) Luke Conard likes me and Milee. (Dern Milee. Why can't it just be me?) I like the songs that Luke wrote for Kristina. And Milee.

13) I remember I was supposed to say something else, I remembered it during our convo on the phone but I said I was gonna just tell you here. But I forgot what it was. Oh well.

14) Okay, this was super long, so I hope this makes for last night.

15) Oh!! I just remembered! I was gonna say how happy I was that Josh seems to have adjusted so well, so quickly. He has friends. And game (haha!). But more importantly, friends. He has his first speech for English on Tuesday. I was helping him practice earlier. He told me that he feels like he fits in perfectly because his classmates are all exactly like him. I'm not worried about him anymore. And I appreciated your concern this past week whenever you asked how he was doing and everything. Josh thinks you're cool just because I think you are, but I hope that he'll eventually think you're cool because you are.

Okay, I'm done. Yes, I'm coming, homework!

--Fruitaaaayyyyyyiiiieeeeee :D