Another weekend draws to a close

I had a sum total of five hours of real, true relaxation this weekend. I spent these hours eating chinese food and playing 1984-themed Mafia while talking to Kathrya in person and Leila via skype.

The theme ended up not really functioning in practice, since we didn't have enough people, although it's possible that the second round, after I had left, went better.

I've decided to drop A.P. Spanish and take two frees. Getting my homework done not including Spanish still had me swamped, so I'm thinking that's a good idea, although once I get my college and science fair stuff in, I'm going to have a lot time on my hands.

Maybe I'll learn perl.

Well, that or sleep. I have a feeling I'll end up alternating between sleeping and reading trashy romance novels, just like I typically like to do. Predictable me.

I at least got round one of the Sieman's paper rewrite done. On second thought, I'm not sure if that competition name should have an apostrophe. Ah, well.

Yay for blogging! I'm going to go write another RSI post :)

Moving Along to Saturday

Most unfortunately, I was up bright and early Saturday morning. The alarm went off, I smashed at it, it stopped beeping, I got up, I stumbled about- I can go on, but I can assure you, it is both repetitive and predictable.

And besides- How Not To Write A Novel advises not to start stories with waking up.

Nyx was already awake, and she looked tired. Come to think of it, Nyx has looked tired for quite some time. I blame Saltine. It is all his fault.

By the time I got out of the house, I was running late, although I am still uncertain of how that always happens. I then discovered that my dad had been the last one to use the truck, and he has an absurdly odd manner of parking, so I of course got stuck, and I would have taken out another two or three bushes if Mom hadn't shown up and helped. By helped, I mean "sit in drivers seat and drive." I am totally competent.

I made it to the train station at a time that was, overall, very close to on time. This week, Helga and Archie were there, but Archie was sitting with his Dad, so I sat with Helga. The three of us went outside, Archie left his Dad to stand with us ("That's my Dad." "Cool." "He's working." "Okay.") and we made idle prom related chitchat. Helga was going with someone I hadn't heard of, Archie was, naturally, going with Renna, and I said "with friends," as I wasn't in the mood for more confused glances. I complained about the time crunch, Archie looked confused, and Helga said her parents were picking her up so that she could go get her hair done, or something to that effect.

The train arrived. We sat in some order that I no longer remember. Wait, no, I do. It's all coming back to me! We lucked out and got one of those five-seaters, so we all got a bit of leg room, which is always appreciated.

I took out an English multiple choice packet and tried to do it, but every time I got more than a sentence or two in, conversation would resume. Archie, it seems, is quite good at regulating small talk, and Helga, who can do nothing but stare into space on the train, is always a willing participant.

By the time we reached Harlem, it was raining a significant amount. Even just walking from the station to a cab, by shorts were speckled with droplets. This week, the driver was friendly, spoke a bit of Spanish, and made no racist remarks. It was, all and all, a relatively wonderful cab ride.

Upon arriving, I left to forage (i.e. buy a snack from Nussbaum and Wu). I waited in line, and they guy in front of me was speaking Spanish, so I was only half thinking in the right language. I ordered a cranberry muffin, the guy working there said "cranberry?" and I accidentally responded with "si," so he responded with "quiere cafe," at which point I figured I couldn't not order a coffee, so I said "un latte," but I didn't know how to say decaf in Spanish, so I ended up with a caffeinated beverage. "Para llegar?" "Si."

You have no idea how proud of myself I am for that exchange.

Un Día De Estos

Narrator (N): One day, a dentist and his son went to the village to buy food for dinner.

Hijo(Son)(H): Father, I hoped that we had eaten sweets for dinner yesterday.

Dentist(D): If you had eaten sweets for the dinner, you would have died of an illness of the teeth.

H: I want that you buy for me more sweets and chocolates right now!

D: I cannot buy the sweets for you because there are big and ridiculous taxes.

H: What are taxes? I hope they hadn't eaten my candies.

D: The taxes can't eat nothing, but they are very evil.

N: They didn't know it, but during all of this time the militant mayor had listened and he became very angry. If he had not listened, he would not be angry. But now he wanted vengeance.

-The Militant Mayor enters-

Mayor (A): My taxes are very important for the populace. If we had had this good taxes, our village would be better.

D: But these ridiculous taxes are only for the dentists!

H: But father, you are a dentist, and I want my candies not the taxes. I hate that you are a dentist.

D: I'm going to start a demonstration against the grand taxes.

A: *laughing evilly* You shouldn't do this for two reasons. The first is that you are the only dentist in all of the village. And the second reason is that a demonstration is illegal.

H: What is a demonstration? I haven't heard of the demonstrations.

A: The demonstrations are very bad and we're never going to speak of them in the future. If we didn't have demonstrations, there would be more peace in the world.

N: The dentist became very angry that the mayor would insult the demonstrations.

D: In the past, I have become very angry that the government was military, but never like now.

A: If anyone had a demonstration, I would put them in the jail, and the same is true today.

H: You cannot but my father in the jail. Father has big and powerful weapons, and he can kill you.

N: The mayor drew his sword of light and said a threat.

A: No, poor son, I go to kill your father.

D: You are not correct, Sir. I will kill you in a minute. If I were you, I would have fear for my life.

A: Don't speak to me using the inferior form of the pronoun "you" and its respective variations in conjugation! I am in the superior position!

N: The mayor became very angry that someone would use bad grammar.

-fighting. the dentist is mortally wounded-

D: My whole body hurts. I can see a tunnel of light.

H: Father! No! You cannot die! I want to live with you for forever!

D: If I had won, I wouldn't have died in this manner.

N: In this moment, the dentist dies in a very dramatic manner.

A: I have won! I am victorious! You have died, and your death is not sad.

H: No! My name is "Son of the Dentist." You have killed my father. Prepare yourself to die!

A: You cannot kill me. I am much larger than you.

H: I will grow.

A: Where will you grow? You don't have parents.

N: I will adopt the son, and we will live together happily for always.

-THE END-

Script by Tea, Julie, Gretchen, and Avon.

What I've Found Under My Desk

Because I'm cleaning, despite my possibly broken but probably just badly bruised pinky toe.

• Notes, in Spanglish, from a debate in Spanish (ex: niños have a right to choose what they see.") Written on the bottom, in Tea-ish is "why care."
• The second page of my Rockefeller application, an essay about PHD finger proteins that is covered in black scribbles.
• Practice Intel essays from October regarding my promise as a scientist, mathematician, or engineer.
• a torn piece of paper with nothing written on it
• An outline, in pencil, of the essay about PHD fingers, written on the bottom of a Nature paper.
• Fallen, the Sturken paper, printed with only every other line because the printer is running our of ink.
• All four pages of Dr. Verona's resume.
• The first page of the PHD finger article, with exactly two 'annotations.' The first is a box around Hox and a note, "hox = important." The second is a circle around "A control group of mice" and a note, "the importance of a control."
• Oh, wait, just found another page of Dr. Verona's resume. I guess it had five pages.
• The envelope that Nyx's birthday present came in.
• Introduction to Anthropology worksheet.
• First page of Spanish dialogo, with corrections.
• The schedule for the first day of school. As in, Tuesday, September 1, 2009.
• An AP math problem about a diver.
• Our entire Super Student Challenge paper.
• the first page of the Rockefeller essay with scribbles all over it
• The Rockefeller personal statement, without any scribbles.
• A middle page of the outline of my research paper.
• A piece of notepaper with "PLAN" written on the top, followed by a roman numeral I with "Batteries" next to it. The rest of the paper is blank.
• The entire contents of my Anthropology binder, minus the actual binder.
• A black sock that is actually dirty.
• Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson.
• Two separate miniature notebooks
• Some Anthropology notes that never actually made it into the binder.
• A letter from Duke University
• A Paperclip High School Directory.
• A void railroad ticket
• 8 index cards covered in Utexas calculations
• Two bank receipts. The first says I have $1,011,01, the second says $1145.16. I'm assuming that the second is more recent.
• My $18 SAT score report that I didn't look at.

Now, time to cover the rest of the floorspace...

After School Unadventurous Adventures

I left Spanish this afternoon with Gretchen and Avon, and we were the nearly last, if not the very last, people to leave. Avon went down the first staircase to catch her bus, and Gretchen and I sped up, soon overtaking Dino and Sonny, who, while moving at a reasonable rate, couldn't match what Richard calls Gretchie's ridiculously fast pace. We then proceeded to talk about Dino, but, despite his relative proximity, he didn't notice.

Then Gretchen ended up wrapped in some conversation with Sonny, Dino forged on ahead, and I followed far enough behind him that it didn't seem worth the effort to chase after him just to awkwardly disengage upon reaching the bathroom.

By the time I extracted my wallet from my backpack and journeyed downstairs in search of a bake sale, the lobby seemed almost deserted, and there was, alas, no bake sale. I located Nyx by means of her floral shirt (which is very pretty, by the way) and announced myself to her, Kathrya, and Tybalt by means of a request for food.

I was very disappointed to discover that Tawny's baklava, which had previously been in the locker she shares with Nyx, had been removed. I pulled out some pretzels, which Kathrya and Tybalt agreed didn't taste like "real pretzels," and Nyx left for the dodgeball game, and the three of us stood somewhat oddly in the lobby for a few minutes. Brian came by asking for members of his team, and a bit later, in a matching tee, Rodney walked past.

Rodney can be identified by the fact that, in my English class today, Ms. Seltzia mentioned tessellations. I said that they were my absolute favorite, and Rodney was, sadly enough, the only person in class who got the joke.

Kathrya, Tybalt and I eventually started walking towards the cars, and we saw Bryant walking towards us, and then we all turned around and walked out to the parking lot.

The only bit of the conversation I can remember is that something about Dino came up, and Bryant said, somewhat out of nowhere, that Dino has a really annoying voice. I then mentioned something about being really confused when he started laughing at me in the language lab until I realized that the audio system was making chipmunk voice, and there was a fair amount of me trying to figure out where to walk, because I didn't like being way out on the edge, because it's hard to talk across four people, but it felt sort of weird to drop back, so I think there ended up being a fair amount of weaving about, but I suppose it worked.

When we reached the vehicles, Bryant requested his ride to unstickered parking, and Kathrya and I both volunteered.

"You want to ride in the truck?" I asked. "It's pretty fun."

"It is," said Kathrya, "extremely cool."

Bryant consented, so we waved goodbye to the lovebirds (yes, I am going to call them that). I stood on that random black bar on the underside of the truck that is probably not random at all and meant for standing on to throw stuff in the back, and threw my backpack and lunch into the bed of the truck. Bryant seemed apprehensive.

"Do I need to put mine back there?"

"Just hang onto it."

"What do you do when it rains?"

"I don't. I mean, I haven't had a passenger when it was raining. Actually, wait, no, I drove Ginny home. She just held everything. It's a bit crowded, though."

He nodded, and I put in the key and rolled down the windows. As soon as power reached the stereo, Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" started blaring at a somewhat inhuman volume. I turned it down a bit and pulled out of the parking spot.

"You mess with it," I said.

"This is fine."

"I hate this song."

He did something to the music controls that I didn't see because I was driving. Britney started singing "and I'm caught in between, counting 1, 2, 3-"

"Oh, that's loads better," I said.

He laughed and did some different button pushing and the music changed again, to something instrumental, familiar, and yet somehow out of reach.

"Should I go right up here?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'll go straight then."

I turned out of Paperclip, still trying to figure out what the song was. "It's Lady Gaga, singing, well, something, I just...."

"Bad Romance."

"Ah, yes. I probably ought to have known that."

I wasn't looking at him, but I could practically feel his shrug.

From there, we somehow managed to discuss both what house the blueprint on the dashboard was for (he read off my address, so I assumed it was my house, but it turns out that he actually read the builder's address label, and it was for a different project) and, after I took a turn a little bit too quickly, whether I was allowed to have passengers in the car.

I said that as long as he could pretend to be my twelve-year-old sister, we'd be fine, but I wasn't sure he could pull it off, and, oh, wait, my sister is actually thirteen, I totally know how old my siblings are.

I think I got a laugh for that one.

And then there was something about parallel parking, and then we were at his car, parked as crookedly as predicted, and he was gone, and I was coming to an intersection I wasn't accustomed to, trying to determine the best possible route to a pastry.

Gretchen and Tea add Kathrya to the Conversation

Gretchen: OMG, OMG, OMG.

Tea: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Kathrya: hahahaaa

Gretchen: aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tea: AAAAH

Gretchen: AAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Kathrya: good god you two hahaa. It's not that big of a deal :)

Gretchen: YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: hahaa. It's just a first datee relax.

Gretchen: did he ask you out? What movie are you seeing? Are you excited? omg.

Tea: AAAAAH. I NEED DETAILS.

Kathrya: nah, we're watching movies at his plate, which was kind of the general plan, as Tea can say.

Gretchen: oh

Tea: TYBALT HAS A PLATE. OMG.

Gretchen: haha

Kathrya: Plate? What?

Gretchen: place*

Tea: You said plate. Got it. Wait. What were the precise circumstances?

Gretchen: Yes, do tell.

Kathrya: Okay, okay anyways we were going to watch movies, and then Ali texted me asking what chocolate I liked and then Tybalt texted me telling me he bought it, and then she told me he was going to ask me out tomorrow and we had a conversation which I think all got relayed to Tybalt, because eventually he just cut out the middle man, so no one said it straight out but now it's like a date. Does this make sense?

Tea: Dino is yelling at me for not telling him why I'm leaving, by the way.

Gretchen: haha.

Tea: Anyways, YAY KATHRYA!

Gretchen: Congrates :)

Kathrya: haha thanks.

Gretchen: that's so cute!! ahhhhh. This is more exciting than the Olympics.

Tea: AAAAAAH I KNOW!

Kathrya: hahaa

Tea: Gretchen and I have been going OMG for like EVER

Kathrya: really gus??

Tea: yes!

Gretchen: YES

Kathrya: hahaa. Well, I'm glad I can entertain you guys.

Tea: I'm going to need a big report afterwards. And also, Dino is still yelling at me.

Gretchen: Haha.

Kathrya: tell him to go away.

Gretchen: second. By thew way, do you (Kathrya) mind if we bug Tybalt when he signs onto fb.

Kathrya: uhmmmm yes. Feel free to do so after tomorrow though.

Tea: Okay.

Gretchen: ok

Kathrya: I feel like it's not official enough. I don't know, I'm fairly confused, cause he didn't say it straight out, but it like, is, so whatever.

Gretchen: When it's on facebook, it's official.

Tea: Don't put it on facebook, that's awkward.

Gretchen: I guess...not that I would know.

Kathrya: Well, it's just one date. We'll see. I sound like Avon.

Tea: Dino is now threatening to remove friendship. I wasn't aware we were friends.

Gretchen: Just tell him you're going to help your sister with something, or just tell him you have to go. The end.

Tea: But we're getting into a really good fight. It's fun? and BACK TO KATHRYA. AAAAHHH OMG OMG OMG OMG cough.

Gretchen: OMG OMG OMG OMG

Kathrya: I'll take it this means you approve?

TEa: YES DUHHHHHH.

Kathrya: hahaaa

Gretchen: Kath, you have no idea, Tea and I have been FREAKING OUT.

Kathrya: it's okay I was freaking out earlier. It went from OMGGGGGGGGG YAY to OHNOESWAH to COMMITTMENT PHOBE TIME to YAY. :)

Gretchen: Stay at Yay :)

Kathrya: I plan to.

Tea: Be married to someone else on fb, and then don't worry about it, because if it's not on fb...

Kathrya: hahaaaaa if it's not on fb then I have privacy.

Gretchen: Kathrya, will you marry me?

Tea: I PROPOSED FIRST. I DID. WITH MY SHIRT.

Gretchen: WHAT!?!?

TEA: SO THERE.

Kathrya: with your shirt.

Tea: HA. HA. HA.

Kathrya: SO TRUE

Gretchen: MINE WAS SO MUCH MORE OFFICIAL

Tea: MINE WAS FIRST

Gretchen: MINE WAS BETTER

Tea:AND WE LIVE IN A FOURTH DIMENTIONAL WORLD

Gretchen: ?

Tea: WHERE TIME FOLLOWS A MOSTLY LINEAR PATH AND WE CANNOT GO BACKWARDS BECAUSE WE ARE NOT FIFTH DIMENSIONAL BEINGS. BOOYAH!

Gretchen hey, does facebook let you marry more than one person?

Tea: polygamy.

Kathrya: No, it doesn't, stupid. I wish it did. But anyway, I just took my relationship status of facebook. I think that just solves a lot of problems.

Tea: I agree. Also, Dino is still yelling at me.

Gretchen: ABOUT WHAT??

Tea: WHAY DO YOU THINK

Gretchen: AMC? beach coverups?

Tea: I told him I was leaving, and he said why, I said can't tell, he says TELL ME, I say no, etc., for like ten minutes.

Gretchen: I'll tell him you're talking to me, and I'm hogging you.

Tea: NO. Then he'll think it's about you and Tybalt. Sorry.

Gretchen: Then suffer. WHAT!?!?! Did you mention Tybalt?!?!??!?!

Kathrya: what??

Tea: he says it's that KATHRYA HAS A CRUSH ON TYBALT. He came up with it by himself.

Gretchen: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tea: What the hell am I supposed to say.

Kathrya: ommmmmmmmmg WHY IS HE TALKING ABOUT ITTTTTT

Tea: I don't fucking know.

Gretchen: DON'T SWEAR. just log out...

Tea: Then he'll think it's true.

Kathrya: just tell him it's none of his business and log out.

Gretchen: woah, I said log out first. Credit it to me.

Kathrya: Also, why do I feel like EVERYONE knew he liked me before I did.

Gretchen: :P

Tea: Oh, shit. I swore at him. Now he says Tybalt likes Kathrya.

Gretchen: Well, he's not wrong.

Kathrya: This is true.

Gretchen: Kathrya is very likable.

Tea: He blatantly just told me that Tybalt likes Kathrya, by the way, so he's clearly a crappy confidant, and I should have told him this sooner, because then you would have found out sooner.

Kathrya: Well, it's cuter this way. I like the Valentine's Day theme.

Gretchen: What's he saying now.

Tea: WHAT'S THE SECRET TEA? ROHO. ROJO. BASTARDO.

Gretchen: HAHAHA.

Tea: I responded with: TALK TO TYBALT. ROJA. BASTARDA. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Gretchen: Presuming he understood that much spanish.

Tea: We've devolved into all caps. I should probably just log out, but I'm enjoying myself way too much.

Kathrya: This is amusing. I vote stay put and keep us updated.

Tea: I think he's giving up. I need to give him something though. He's starting to stop responding.

Kathrya: Something what?

Tea: Am I allowed to end with him finding out or not? Because otherwise this is just cruel.

Gretchen: Well, he basically got it.

Tea: I just dropped a massive hint and he stopped responding.

Gretchen: My dad is playing dramatic classical music in his room and I can hear is and it totally fits!!!!!!!!

Kathrya: I like dramatic classical music.

Gretchen: It's Beethoven's fifth symphony. duh duh duh DUH.

Libros Para México

I'm working on lining up seven posts for the next week, so you won't have to miss me while I'm gone. This "planned posts" thing is really ingenious.

For now, I'm lining up books for break. I'm bringing twelve. Dad says I'm insane, but I think it's important to make certain I have enough with me.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith: a retelling of Pride and Prejudice that involves zombies. The first sentence in this book is "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." This is vastly superior to the opening of the original, which reads, "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Impossible, by Nancy Werlin: This book has the all-time most beautiful cover I've ever seen. It's got a girl, I think she looks Asian but her face is covered so I don't know, in a blood red dress, standing in a marsh, with these huge, gorgeous mountains in the background. The cover quote is by Gregory Maguire, who wrote Wicked and is awesome. It's based on the song Scarborough Fair, which I love, so it should be good.

A Fine Passion, by Stephanie Laurens: The Baron has come home to intrigue, duplicity and peril . . . and the only woman in all of England who sets free his hidden passions, reads the caption on the inside front cover.

I Thee Wed, by Amanda Quick: Another romance novel. It's heroes are Edison and Emma, and I think that's so adorable I just had to read it.

The Forgotten Legion, by Ben Kane: Ben Kane is a solid name. This one is Ancient Rome, from the perspective of the scum rather than the leaders. If it's any good, I'll probably loan it to Gretchen, as it seems like her sort of thing.

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale: Princesses, princes, animals, and magic. Exactly the sort of books I was devouring in middle school. I couldn't resist the urge to get just one more.

Remember When, by Judith McNaught: another romance novel, but this time set in the modern era, but with all of the same silly ideas about marriage. It also has an extremely unscandelous cover, so can be easily hidden.

A Summer Affair, by Susan Wiggs: These protagonists are Isabel and Blue. Again with the wierd names. It's about a doctor and a fugitive. Should be horrifically exciting.

Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson: A fun book about teenagers from the woman who wrote 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Should be a good read.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N. K. Jemison: This one is coming out February 25th. I got a pre-publishing copy from the school library, and it looks to be an exciting bit of fantasy. Weirdly, I got through the first chapter and thought to myself "this girl feels black," and proceeded to read the next chapter with that as my mental picture. Turns out the author is African American, so she probably imagined the hero as such. I'm still not sure how I got that out of it, though.

Harry Potter y la cámara secreta, de J. K. Rowling: Opino que sea apropriada si leería una novela en español cuando estoy en México.

City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare: the second book of a series that is very, very good. However, the fact that the main character is named Clary by an author called Clare is a little bit weird.

Found Objects

in my A.P. English pocket divider that literally exploded last week:

• R-rated movie permission slip for Spanish class
• A New York Times Op-Ed article we analyzed about 4 months ago
• 1 sheet unreinforced blank notepaper
• 3 sheets reinforced blank notepaper
• 8 pages of museum synthesis prompt
• registration details for a science fair I'm not participating in
• 2 scoring commentaries written in incomprehensible handwriting (even worse than Peter's)
• Leo Africanus's description of Africans from Shakespearian times
• 4 pages of synthesis essay prompts
• The first page of Umber's research paper from last year about plastic bags
• an exemplar photocopy of my essay about pennies
• my actual essay about pennies
• the first chapter of Sarah Palin's book
• an 8 page packet on invasive species
• 2 more sheets of unreinforced notepaper
• a full transcript of Obama's speech on race
• 6 page packet on space exploration
• Othello 4.2.52-80
• the actual penny essay exemplar
• 10 page packet on pennies
• my entire A.P. English midterm

Days for Dreaming

Last night was the second in a row that was full of oddly vivid dreams. I'm still trying to figure out what, if anything, they mean.

Dream 1:

I walked into Spanish class, late, per usual. Gretchen was already there. There were laptops from the cows on all of the desks, and Tom sat behind me in Rae's desk, which I find strange, since I'd never noticed that he was in our class. I shrugged it off and logged into facebook on my laptop (which should have tipped me off that this was a dream, but, alas, it did not). I went to Tom's page, because I couldn't figure out why he had spontaneously showed up in my Spanish class. I started flipping through his profile pictures, and for some reason, I had the ability to change which photo was his profile picture, so I did. Then Gretchen started coughing violently and gesturing towards Tom, who could see over my shoulder at my screen and had turned bright red. I turned around to apologize, and his eyes got all huge and he looked the way he did in fifth grade that time he told my my braces looked nice, which is really the only old memory I have of him. The bell rang and Gretchen and I left class. I was still flipping out about what Tom thought of me.

I went up to physics on the third floor. The only faces I can remember are those of Tybalt, Genevieve (British, not in my physics class or any A.P. English) and Leda (in my gov class, used to be going to counties with Sergio but now has a boyfriend). Right before class ended, Tybalt kissed Leda and then confessed to having a massive crush on Genevieve.

We left class, and Tybalt, Gretchen and I were suddenly walking out of the cafeteria into the music wing. We all realized that we were going to miss our buses. Tybalt and Gretchen took off, speed demons that they are, and I tried to keep up, but these large crowds of Players and Orphenians, fully costumed, kept getting in my way. By the time I reached the orchestra room, Tybalt was long gone, and Gretchen had emerged out of the farther door and taken off running. By the time I reached the front entrance, I was the only one there, and the buses were gone.

End Dream 1.

Dream 2 is weirder. Much, much weirder. I promise you, it is nowhere near as inappropriate as the beginning makes it sound.

Dream 2:

Harry and I were both doing pit orchestra for Little Shop of Horrors, and for some reason still unknown to me, this entailed him staying in my room. I woke up in the morning and he was in the other bed and I started flipping out because I thought that I'd forgotten and gone to sleep naked for some reason. I stood up out of bed, panicked, but discovered that I was wearing cute green pj pants and a blue tank. However, the tank was kind of see through, so I decided I needed a different one. A newer, brighter blue tank top with conveniently built in bra was located on the foot of my bed, where I had presumably dumped it at some earlier time. After I took off the first tank top to swap, I looked into the TV on wheels like they had at the middle school that had been set up where my keyboard usually lives. I could say Harry reflected in it, standing behind me, frozen in place and staring at my reflection in the TV. He had slept in the same clothes that he always wears, a white t-shirt and somewhat too-short cargo pants. He decided that if I was changing, he should to, and by the time I had my arms lined up in the second tank, he'd swapped from a plain white t-shirt to one with these blueish glowing peacock feathers on it.

As I was putting on the second tank top, it turned into a dress and I got stuck, the entire skirt of the dress facing upside down around my head like a pathetically limp dog cone. I attempted to maneuver myself into it, but was unsuccessful. "Harry? Could you, uh, help?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," he said, and pulled the tank down over my arms and torso. He didn't let go of my wrists. I looked up at him, confused, and his eyes had gone all brownish greenish, and they were swirling in a weirdly hypnotic manner. He said something unintelligible, containing the phrases "can't let go," "God," "Jesus," and something about loving arm muscles, which is absurd, because I hardly even have arm muscles. He started to back away, still clinging to me, and I followed him, entranced. He stopped after a step and leaned forward, closer and closer. When we were about two inches apart, I leaned forward and kissed him, a sloppy sort of first kiss in which all that happens are squished noses and lips pressed together, and for some reason I could feel the imprint of my braces on the inside of my lips, which is absurd, since I haven't had braces in years. I pulled back after an instant, and his eyes had turned pale blue and he looked like he was about to pass out. "Was that nice?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," I answered, and the entire dream shifted. Harry was gone, but I was still standing in my room, and I knew, somehow, that he would be back, and that I just had to kiss him again and we'd get further than that stupid clashing of metal on teeth. I opened the door and walked down the hall to the basement. There was a window that doesn't actually exist, and through it I could see Corbin Bleu's hair as he walked through the jungle that had sprung up behind my house. I had an abrupt fear that the Harry here had turned into Zac Efron, and I was very worried. I decided that I'd have to wait and see and I walked down the stairs. Sparky (Aqua's dog) and Rufus came running up the stairs as I descended. Purdy (she advised Becky to temporarily break up with her boyfriend to show him what was important) was down there. I asked her what I should do about Harry, she said she'd get back to me later, since she had an appointment.

Elaine (Julie's friend who is fond of lolita dresses) came down with a girl who was about ten years old; I assumed the girl was her daughter. The daughter and I tried to play chess, but none of the pieces were actual pieces, so I decided to transfigure them and pulled out my wand to do so. I tapped each in turn, but the bishops stubbornly refused to do anything, and the pawns remained little pieces of trash.

I woke up in a cold sweat, the only thought in my head that I had to find Harry.

Tea Does Spanish

Señora is really a tad to prone to personal questions. For instance, my responses to the homework today:

If I lived on the island and didn't have a job, I would look for work as a babysitter because the children are pleasing to me.

If I could ask for the autograph of any person, I would ask for the autograph of the President Obama because he is pleasing to me.

If there was a limited amount of water, I would shower less times.

If I saw a person for the first time, I would not be capable of falling in love with that person.

If my parents made a toast on the day of my wedding, they would give me felicitations.

If I were Mario and I read a letter from Neruda (don't ask), I would hope that the letter is interesting.

If I had a son, I would give him the name Pedro.

If my spouse died before my son was born, I would become sad.

Guidance from Above

Or, more aptly, those wonderful people installed in our school whose sole purpose in life is to help us navigate the many pitfalls of the modern educational system. I refer, of course, to guidance counselors.

Today, during my period four drawing class, I went to the guidance office. When I got there, the secretary with a slightly chipmunk-like appearance and a grating New York accent informed me that my counselor was still in the freshman parent breakfast, so I settled in for a good long wait. While I was there, an extremely loquacious freshman shared with me her entire long, drawn-out story of trying to go down a level in Spanish. Apparently her teacher refused to sign a form, the department chair is on vacation, and the whole thing is a giant puddle of mess.

So, after my counselor made it back from the breakfast, escaping past the hoards of garrulous parents, he had to run off with the unnamed freshman in search of her spanish teacher. When he finally got back, the period was half over, so I only received a limited amount of my requested college guidance.

However, I did learn the following.

- "Just between you an me, you should really take four APs next year."

- "I don't think a tech would be the right approach for you"

- "You really shouldn't rule out Yale."

Right, because I could get into Yale. Honestly, Mr. Counselor, I think we're raising the bar a tad too high here.

Sighting

Now that OFM is over, I am going to have to continuously struggle to prevent myself from simply using this blog as a medium to record Mario sightings and the various short, pointless conversations that ensue.

In fabulous news, I made pit orchestra for Guys and Dolls! I'm so excited. I'm sharing the piano part with Harry (I'd apparently nicknamed him already. Who knew?). I'll have to talk with him to decide who gets to play what. Getting him to talk should be interesting to say the least. He isn't exactly gregarious. The whole "I'm now going to have to talk to this guy I don't know" situation reminds me of last year, when I first started taking the train with Mario and was regularly freaking out over how awkward it was.

Also, I've begun studying SAT words. My word for today is disparage, which means belittle. For instance, after hearing that Rachel was going to the dance with Mario, I made many disparaging comments about her, trying to make her seem less important.

My funny story is actually from a few days ago. Actually, I lied, it was only yesterday. I was walking with Avon and someone else (I think it was Red, but that doesn't really make sense, since she isn't in Spanish, so it may have actually been someone else, but I really think that it wasn't Julie or Gretchen, and I'm not sure who else I would have been walking with, since it was definitely a girl) after Spanish. We were headed towards the bridge. I had my weird Mario-is-nearby sensor go off a little bit, but I assumed it was a false positive (considering the fact that it hasn't been wrong yet, I should probably stop doing that). Then I realized that I had a physics test next period and was walking in the wrong direction. I did a 180 and headed back towards the stairs and lo and behold, Mario was actually behind me. We both said hi, I passed him, and then about a millisecond later, I ran head on into a senior girl who gave me a very dirty look.

La Piedra Filosofal

Estoy leyendo el primer libro de Harry Potter en español. Me gusta mucho. El libro es devertido en todas las lenguas. Mi parte favorito es:

"Aquella tarde, Dudley desfiló por el salón, andte la familia, con su uniforme nuevo. Los muchachos de Smelting llevaban frac rojo oscuro, pantalones de color naranja y sombrero de pajaa, rígido y plano. Tambíen llevaban bastones con nudos, que utilizaban para pelearse cuando los profesores no los veían."

Estoy felíz que no necesite llevar esté uniforme.

Gym Class!

As I already informed the Fabulous Vicky, I caught the football twice today (*victory boogie*). I also wore no shoes the entire gym period. The teacher, who is the football coach at school, spends the entire period on his cell phone, so most of the kids in the class dump their shoes on the track and enjoy the squishiness of shredded tires between their toes. Kathrya caught the ball, too. I will sometimes swear when the ball comes towards me. She, however, released an extremely annoyed "you have got to be kidding me." She then proceeded to catch the ball, and even remembered to run. Yay Kathrya! The only other occurrence during gym today was that while I was totally looking where I was going and being a good little football drone, Peter, who was going in entirely the wrong direction, ran headlong into me. It hurt. I'm still a bit annoyed with him about this, but I suppose I'll get over it. Eventually. Maybe.

Again, I'm working on my portfolio, and really don't have anything long and drawn out in me. I did, however, manage to locate some Spanish homework from last year. It isn't as exciting as Harry Potter, but it'll do. By the way- most of my grammatical errors are kept intact.

In 2005, I went to Italia. First, I went to Piza. I saw the inclined tower of Piza. I tried but was unable to go within the tower because it could fall. I took photos of my sisters in front of the tower. Later, my family and I went to a restaurant and we ate pizza. It was delicious, but I like more the pizza of Westport.

Later, we went to the house of my uncles, near Florence. I spoke little Italiano, but I understood more because Italiano is similar to Español. We went to a parade of Easter. There was a Jesus and many youths were apostles. In Italy, they celebrated all of the Easters with a parade. It is a very interesting tradition. My family and I went to Lucca. We saw the Cathedral of San Martino. It was old and big. The Pope Alexandro II made the cathedral in the year 1003. There was a very big wall outside of the city. We rode bicycles and strolled with bicycle on top of the wall. It was very fun.

The last week, i went to Rome. I saw the Vatican. The Vatican is wear the Pope lives. I had to wait for two hours before I went inside of. When I arrived, I heard the pope, but I did not understand him because he spoke Latin. The church was very pretty, and it pleased me a lot. Then, I went to the hotel, and in the morning I left from Rome and returned to Connecticut.

The End.

And, just to be annoying and pile MORE old, boring schoolwork on you (at least I don't have to read it!) Here's my English recruiting letter. Boy, do I make the class sound like fun.

Welcome to English 9H! That is an example of a boring and unoriginal leading sentence. Which, had I not put this off until the night before, would not exist. If I had started this letter in advanced, my sentence would read more like “Your path through English 9H will be a rocky one, but the difficult journey will be well worth it when you reach the finish line.” Well, maybe not, that has too many clichés. A word of advice for English 9H- avoid the clichés. This teacher can’t stand them. And putting papers off until the last minute, well, I’d avoid that too. If you like to knock out the whole paper in one go, go right ahead, but do so a few days in advanced. Editing and revising does wonders. That’s why grades go up with second drafts.

And another bit of info- try to avoid over-stressing about the grade. As your writing improves (and with the number of papers you’ll write, it will), your grade will go up. The first few quarters it’s a lot of work, but after that I was mostly adjusted. By the end, some of the papers were even fun. I realize that grades are important, but I’d say the writing improvement is worth a couple of Bs (which are a perfectly good grade anyways). I haven’t received any grades this year lower than that of my first reading quiz. I’ve had a few equal to it, but none lower. I think. I’ll have to ask my friend, who keeps track better than I do.

That’s another tip; work with your friends. (I apologize for any unintentional improper semicolon use). Having someone else proofread your papers can be a lifesaver. And we have a lot of readings. A friend who complains about a reading you didn’t do functions as an amazing alarm clock. Just talking to people about English class can help a lot.

My last tip- and this one is going to be in all capitols, because it is both obvious and important- DO THE READINGS. Sorry, just had to get that out there. We don’t read things for no reason. Either they help with the books, the essays, the quizzes (hint, hint), or just class discussions. I talked to someone in the class (and I won’t name names) in around February who informed me that he/she (and I don’t mean he/she is a he-she, its subject-verb agreement) had read only two of the books. He/she was not having a great time in the class, mostly because they didn’t understand what was going on (shocker). Anyways, we read something like fifteen pages per school night (only not that continuously, and mostly on weekends), so keeping up would be a good idea.

So, basically, (this is getting more unprofessional by the whatever-the-heck-so-and-basically-are) English 9H is hard work, but writing everything gets better as the year goes on, (we just read Shakespeare and wrote some fiction stuff. Yay!), and, um, work hard and stuff, but English is pretty awesome, and it was usually a bright part of my day (except when it wasn’t, like when we had a reading quiz), but overall my writing got better and it was fun. So, while I know The Odyssey looks scary, take a deep breath, and remember that things will get better. Although thing is a nonspecific word, which I should not be using. But that is beside the point. Welcome to English 9H!

A.P. Assassination

Well, it's a good thing that Nyx and I didn't go for a spontaneous walk on the beach last night, because there was some creeping going on on my street. Clark, in my music theory class, was assigned to kill Aqua, my neighbor.

His first attempt was yesterday afternoon. He hid in her yard, but could only see legs and feet clearly. He saw someone in a white skirt walking down the driveway. When they began skipping, he jumped out and shot, certain that nobody but a teenager would skip. However, the skipper in question turned out to be Fae, Aqua's mother. She was terrified at first, but after she realize that it was someone in A.P. assassination, she calmed down, and politely asked Clark to come back when Aqua would be home, at such and such a time.

Clark's next plan was to surprise her in the morning, before she went to school. He drove down at two or three in the morning and climbed into what he thought was Aqua's car, which was unlocked. He fell asleep after a while, and finally woke up when Fae and the dog climbed into the car. "Oh!" she said, upon seeing Kevin. "It's wonderful how you're trying so hard, but Aqua uses that car."

Despite her help, however, Clark did not succeed in killing Aqua. She made it to her car without being shot, then saw him.

"Hi Clark."

"Hey."

"You trying to shoot me?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you're a lot more into this than I am. You can just shoot me, if you want."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

So, Clark was the first person in this round to assassinate his target.

To complete this post, I leave you with another Spanish translation, this one of Harry Potter, who is played by Natalie. Avon is Hermione (of course), and I am the narrator and Draco.

Narrator (N): This year, the school Hogwarts, of magic and spell making, will have a championship between the four houses. It will not be like a quidditch competition, with seekers and chasers. Instead, the students will use enchantments and magic.
Harry (HP): Hermione, please, help me! I don't know how to prepare a solution for shrinking and I need to make it for the competition
Hermione (H): ¡Ay ay ay Harry, why did you not learn how to prepare a solution for shrinking in the class of potions? This magical solution is very easy.
Draca (D): I don't need the help of a girl who has dirty blood because I have the help of a phenomenal professor of Potions that is called Professor Snape.
H: Leave, Draco! Harry, you only will need a part of a magical creature, like a unicorn, and the feather of a big bird.
HP: I already bought the feather of a special bird when I went to the Flowing Cauldron the previous week. But I have a foot of a giant spider in place of unicorn.
D: With my magic wand and the correct ingredients of a solution of shrinking, I'm going to win this competition of magic.
H: The magic of Harry is stronger than the magic of you, Draco.
HP: Yes, I am going to practice my magic and I will win this magical competition.
N: Then, Hermione and Harry go to the Flowing Cauldron, but Draco follows.
HP: ¡Look, Hermione, delicious frogs of chocolate! I want to buy them.
D: I saw that Harry bought the frogs of chocolate, and I went to the store of articles of pranks. I bought something I could use to pull a prank. We will see who has the strongest magical abilities in the competition tomorrow. I'm sure that I will win against Harry Potter.

(Draco leaves)

H: I think that Draco will use the Dark Arts in the competition.
HP: I know some counterspells that can protect me against the Dark Arts of Draco. Don't worry yourself.
H: You need to practice for the tournament, Harry. Gryffindor is not going to win without you. Obtain your cape of invisibility and we can visit Hagrid in order to learn about the magical creatures that you will fight in the competition.

(The two leave and Draco enters)

D: ¡Harry Potter no would not compete in the tournament if he were to eat his frogs of chocolate!

HP: I have hunger, but I also have the championship in few minutes. What can I do?

H: Here, Harry. Eat the frogs of chocolate.

HP: Thanks, Hermione.

N: Harry took a bite of the frog of chocolate.

HP: AAAhhhh! My teeth, my teeth! I hurt my teeth and I have a magical ailment!

H: The frog has turned into a rock! I need to make a spell in order to repair your mouth.

*reparo*

HP: I feel well. Now, I can compete in the competition.

-The End-

Spanish Homework

Here comes another interesting translation, courtesy of yours truly.

We had to write what our schedule would be if we went to Hogwarts, using real teachers from school.

In History and Rights of Magical Creatures Class (taught by Opmin, of course), we learn about the history of magical creatures like ghosts and houselves. We visit the kitchen and meet some houselves. We read books that were written by ghosts and centaurs.

In Divination (taught by Mrs. Leon, my English teacher), we learn about the future. We have to write long essays about the information that we find. We use tea and a crystal ball. We observe dreams and look for a good future.

Arithmancia (taught by my math teacher). The teacher loves aritmancy. In this class, we learn how to use the numbers of the letters in our names to learn important information. We have tests and use calculators to do the homework.

My Spanish teacher teaches ancient runes. In this class, we translate the runes to English and Latin in order to understand them. We study the grammar and spelling of the runes. Sometimes, we talk in the language of the runes to practice.

The Music of the Mages (taught by my Music Theory teacher). The ancient wizards had interesting music. In this class, we listen to music like gregorian chants. Also, we talk a lot about whatever the teacher wants, like her new granddaughter. Sometimes, we write songs and play them.

In Artistic Transfiguration (taught by everyone's favorite drawing teacher), we make works of art that use skills we learned in the Introduction to Transfiguration class last year. We recreate what we see to practice and at the end, we can use creativity.

In potions (taught by Dr. A.P. bio) we use the rules of chemistry to make important potions. This year, I have created a sleeping draught, a love potion, and a potent poison. We spend a lot of time in the potions lab and use magic equipment and machines.

-------------

To complete this post, I leave you with a brief essay on religion, crafted using my notes from last year's western midterm.

In the middle ages, religion was the only unifying force. This is because we don't have The Force, like in Star Wars, which would have been a much better unifying force, because, honestly, the church wasn't all that wonderful. It started with Charlemagne, who's name has a completely unnecessary silent G, because he was crowned by the pope. This basically consisted of Charlemagne dragging his butt down to the Vatican for a ridiculously long ceremony that culminated in the decidedly boring action of placing a crown on his head. The pope did stuff until the renaissance, but there were actually a lot of different popes, because, despite the divine power they supposedly have, they don't life forever.

The reformation was the reformation of religion, so, duh, religion changed. Big whoop.

In ancient greece, religion was used to explain life, because for all their super-intense pythagorean theorums, those greek peeps didn't know squat, and they used religion for values as well, and it provided entertainment, because they didn't have T.V. and needed religious ceremonies to fill their horribly empty days.

The End

Dialogo

A Literal Translation of my latest spanish dialogue:

Narrator (N): For many years, the Marquis had the wish to kill the servant who had torn the fan of his wife.

Marquis (M): Today, I am happy that I can finally complete my goal.

N: The servant didn't know that his life was soon going to end.

Servant (S): You're blocking where I need to walk in order to obtain my serving platter.

M: You tore the fan of my wife many years ago.

S: I only tripped. I don't thing that I have culpability.

N: Like a lightning-bolt, the Marquis took the serving platter and began to fight with the servant

*the boy playing the waiter grabbed the platter and began hitting the boy playing the waiter over the head with it. Needless to say, I, the narrator, was laughing*

S: I hope that I win this important fight and that you lose.

M: You are an arrogant man and I recommend that you surrender.

N: The fight continued for some minutes, but at the end, the Marquis didn't vacillate and killed the servant.

M: Finally, I am capable of avenging myself of the servant!

N: Then, the Marquis left from the scene of the murder and went to his house.

Condesita (C) *played by Avon*: Hello, my good looking spouse. How are you? My god! You have blood on your hands! You have tripped?

M: I spoke to a man that I abhor. Now, he is not in the life.

C: I hope that you did not kill a man when you were at the embassy today.

Son (S): Dad, you killed the servant? I have wishes to see the body!

C: I hope nobody finds the body of the dead.

N: All the people of the family had a lot of fear. The Marquis recommended that the family flee the country.

C: We should change our names and flee the country.

S: Let's form a group of the freestyle rap music!

C: What a good idea, son.

N: Then, the family moved to Detroit and participated in many rap competitions.

M: My family, we have won many competitions and tomorrow is the big championship. How would you like to celebrate?

S: I want to go to the zoo in order to see the elephants.

N: While they were at the zoo, an elephant ate the family *(at this point, I was laughing so hard I had to stop and attempt to gather myself before spitting out comió)

C: We are in the stomach of the elephant and the championship is tomorrow. What are we going to do?

N: The family hoped that they could go to the competition, but they didn't leave from the stomach for ten years, and finally, they went out.

M: How good that now we are not in the stomach of an elephant.

S: Yes, I have much hunger because I have not eaten for ten years. I want sweets.

C: Good, son. Let's go to the store in order to obtain sweets that you can eat.

S: The sweets are very pleasing to me and I abhor the elephants.

M: Yes, never are we going to go to the zoo another time.

C: It is evident that the rap doesn't function for our family. We need to form a team of badminton!

THE END

The other presentations included one in which the Condesita is sitting with her husband (the Marquis) and her daughter, when the man she is having an affair with appears (handily gripping a rose between his teeth to denote his status as a Don Juan). The Condesita decides she likes the other man better, so the Dad kills himself dramatically and the daughter cries unconvincingly.

In another, the narrator came armed with a guitar. Archie wore a blonde wig to play the Condesita, and he and his hubby started a basketball team with ten of their eleven children. the eleventh wants to be a singer, so delivers most of his lines in song while the narrator plays guitar (yo amoooo tiiii, etc.). Unable to cope with his athletic parents' disapproval, the boy steals their money and runs. His parents don't hesitate to buy firearms and follow him, and the boy booby traps the path behind him. His father falls in a booby trap and dies (dramatically, of course), so Archie takes it upon himself to shoot the son, who also dies (dramatically, of course).

In another, Dino (short for dinosaur) plays the Marquis and must choose between John (he has a female twin) and Sonny (also a guy). Sonny spends the entire time devising devious tricks to get Dino to leave John, but in the end, Dino announces that he really just loves John, and hugs him.

It was all very silly.

Science Day!

Another Saturday, another morning devoted to the Columbia Science Honors Program. On this particular morning, I rode the train in with Mario, Sean, and Grandma Rose. It actually ended up being hardly awkward at all, since my wonderful Grandmother seems to have no problem talking to people. One interesting thing I discovered is that there is this program at MIT the weekend before Thanksgiving, where you basically get to take fun, but totally random classes, and I totally think that we should all sign up for it next year.

When we got on the train to go home, there were no three empty seats together, so, after canvassing the entire train, Mario and I sat together, and Sean sat nearby. Sean spent literally the entire ride on the phone with his friend, and it sounded like he was explaining the entire curriculum of calculus, or something, but regardless, he talked the entire time, and Mario and I settled down and listened to our ipods. I had rather a bit of difficulty getting comfortable because for the first time, I got stuck in the seat with the low back, and whenever I tipped my head back to far, I slammed into a useless metal bar.

There was an adorable small child seated in the row in front of us, and he spent a lot of the ride sending his beanie-baby giraffe on reconnaissance missions over the back of his seat before peering slowly up over it, grinning maniacally at me, and ducking back down. I smiled every time.

There were quite a few interesting conversations, so I'll share one a day for a few days. It'll give me something to write about, at least.

I was sitting quite contently in my seat, listening to some random spanish song I had gotten for free on itunes. I was slouched down so my head was leaning against the back of the seat below the weird metal bar, so the top of my head was about level with Mario's shoulders, when Mario started cracking his knuckles. I went, "Ughh!" and made a face before shivering.

He looked down at me, confused. "What?"

"That knuckle thing! It's just, like-" I shuddered.

"What, this?" He cracked his other hand.

"Ew, don't! My hands don't do that, it's so weird," I said.

"Seriously? You can't crack your knuckles? It's Co2 build up, or something, right? I don't see why that wouldn't happen to your hands."

I tried to crack them again, before giving up. "How do you?" I asked.

"you just, like-" He hooked the lowest segment of a finger on his left hand between the pointer and thumb of his right. "Pull in, then out."

I attempted it again, but still could not succeed. "Maybe it's cause my hands are stretchy."

"How?"

"Like, I can touch my thumbs to my wrists," I said, demonstrating.

"Hmm" He took his right hand and bent it forward, tugging the thumb towards the wrist. It stopped about a half and inch away. He frowned at it for a moment before hooking it between the pointer and thumb of his left hand and tugging, producing a series of loud cracks.

"ahh, god, that's so... ick!"

He grinned, producing the second true smile that I'd seen out of him today, and did the same to the other hand.

"Mario!"

"What?" he said, feigning innocence.

I gave a mocking glare, and we both returned to our ipods. During the next few minutes, he yawned repeatedly, rubbing his face.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I think the coffee's wearing off." (he had gotten a massive ice latte thing before class)

"Are you really that addicted to caffeine?"

"No, it's just, like, the crash afterwards. And the train, and everything. It's just, ach" He tilted his head left, like I do when I crack mine, and made an "ach" noise.

I didn't see what that had to do with the conversation. "Is that a tired noise, or a neck cracking noise?

"Tired, but-" he grinned, and tipped his head sideways, trying to gross me out again, but couldn't get his neck to crack.

"Oh, here," I said, and cracked my own.

Awkward Turtle

My embarrassing moment of the day:

I'm sitting in Spanish, and we're about to go over the homework, so, as always, I have to go get my textbook (the scoliosis-not-having-to-carry-it thing has advantages). While standing up, I attempted to step over my backpack, but tripped on it and did about five one-legged hop thingies to stay upright. No one laughed, but I sit in the front row- I'm sure somebody noticed. So, I got the book, and, when walking back to my chair, went the long way around my desk, in order to avoid the backpack, while concentrating on not tripping. I had almost reached the desk when Archie looked at me and said, "me presta un boligrapho?" or something to that effect. "Uh-eh-er-wha?" I responded, since I realized that I had no idea what he had just said. He repeated the question, I said, "uh, sure, si...yeah? um, here." I sat at my desk and tried to avoid looking at him the rest of class. It's rather annoying that he blocks the window.

I had a thing for Archie for a couple of months during freshman year. It faded, but I still have a slight tendency to spontaneously turn bright red when talking to him, because I remember how I always turn bright red when talking to him, and I get embarrassed about that, and then I blush again. It's a vicious cycle, really.