Holidays!

Busy times are a'comin'.

Thanksgiving weekend is coming up quickly. We've got Wednesday through Sunday off for it, and we're heading over to Oregon for Rick's wedding. That is, given I can actually get those days off of work. You'd think it wouldn't be a problem, because there are so many people working there, but they only let a few people request the days off, so I put my name down (even in the spaces that said "Full! No more entries!") and I'm really hoping they don't schedule me anyway. Gonna spend the rest of the time at the Barton's, for which I'm hugely excited.

Next Tuesday would be our school's talent show. And for some reason, I volunteered myself to do a piano solo. Slightly regretting it, now, because it's nothing like Pizza and Song at NU, where it's completely informal, and no one really listens anyway, unless whoever's up there is completely phenomenal.

But this...it's on a stage. Oy.

But it's a Jon Schmidt song, so it'll definitely rock, even if I screw it up.

And then there's Christmas...Pretty 'cited about that too. =) Going to California, partially for Kyla's wedding on New Year's day, and partly to see a certain parental of the male persuasion.

Hoping to get time off for that, too, but the 31st and the 1st are completely booked. Seriously crossing some fingers.

Oooh...surprise of the century...I actually got an A on the first paper we wrote this year. Huzzah. Back in California, with Hoover, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised in the least. I honestly never turned in a paper to him that hadn't been written in the last half hour before I went to sleep the night before. In one case, I actually wrote it during sixth period the day it was due, and turned it in seventh, even though it was due third. I got A's on every one of them, which highly amused me. Seeing as I didn't know what to expect from a teacher who actually grades on content, instead of just punctuation and grammar, I was pretty psyched to get a good score.

I think it's going on the Wall of Fame.

I've gotten hooked on the King's Singers lately...and in case you care, I'm putting in some of my favorites. If you don't wanna watch the vids, well, this is the only text in the post, so...






This one is just stinking fantastic. I actually lol'ed. In the literal sense of the abbreviation.

I can't count the number of times I've slapped my own wrist for not blogging enough, and considering I haven't posted in a good three weeks or more, well, this is an extra hard slap.

So the last while in a nutshell...

Went to Mexico on a cruise....it was pretty fun. Got a little seasick in the way of being hugely dizzy half the time, but other than that...
Food was awesome. They had buffets almost 24/7, or you could eat inside at the dining room, which was a kinda sorta formal thing. Everything was free, so if you wanted more than one entree or appetiser, you were free to do so. I didn't take huge advantage of that. Only once or twice. Or three times. Idk.

Funny thing....out of the 950 crew on the ship, only six of them were actually American. Our waiter was from the Philipenes. Our room steward was Mexican. There were a few Germans, and a bunch of Dutch and Indian. But only six Americans. How wierd is that?

Moving on, I finally got a job. At McDonalds. I start tomorrow at four. I am a little less than thrilled, but at least it's some money. I'll finally be able to pay off my car and pay for my own gas (whoopee...). And shop. Shopping is good. I'm just worried about getting time off for X-mas/New Years and Spring Break. Oh well.

I don't really think that this was actually worth blogging, but it's out there now, so I don't feel guilty about not posting.

School again. Even though this particular occurence happens after nearly every weekend, I still really dislike Mondays. Today wasn't terrific...I stayed up late last night to try to finish a history chapter and the questions that went with it. I ended up with four questions done (out of nine) and about 12 out of 30 pages read. Believe you me, those textbooks actually make you work for any information you might get out of it. The material is incredibly dry, but ironically enough, you have to slog your way through it like it was a swamp. When I got to class this morning, I realized I was one of about three people who had even made it that far.

Wow.

I was looking through my homework load earlier, and realized that this must be the time teachers really start piling it on. Ha....but then I looked a little closer and realized that I wouldn't actually have this much if I didn't put off all my long term projects. First and foremost on my list was a monstrous assignment that I have to do for Occupational Childcare. It's completely outrageous the amount of stuff they want me to do...we're talking interviewing six couples, three of which had to have been teen parents. (this includes actually thinking up fifteen questions for them to answer...yes/no's are not allowed) Then all their questions have to go into a venn diagram, and from there into an essay. but THAT'S NOT ALL! Then I have to go look up six articles online having to do with teen parenting, summarize them all and do a bibliography. And THEN there's another essay about what I learned from the experience.

I plan on not doing it. I'll probably end up with a D in the course, but I'm really okay with that.

Anyway. Then there's Yost's essay. I completely forgot about the paper I had in my binder with the topic and all that. I found it this afternoon. The rough draft, it would appear, is due on Thursday. And the topic is a couple books that were assigned as summer reading. Seeing as I got here about a week before school started, I was pretty obviously exempt from that. However, he suggested I get the books anyway, and at least skim through them. I finally got around to ordering them a week(ish) ago. When I realized that I had to do an essay on a topic that was still in the mail (and that I haven't exactly read yet) I panicked a little. So I ran to the library here in Belgrade to try to find them. I found one of the two, but they told me that the Three Forks library had the other. Forty minutes of driving later, I finally had it.

Now all I have to do is read both of them and write an essay by Thursday.

Plus:

-Monster math packet due tomorrow (will probably get done during lunch)

-Reading through the vocab packet for APLaC...I've forgotten to the last couple weeks, and have consequently bombed both tests on it. I was using words like "onomatopeia" and "refrigerator" and "monosyllabic" in sentences that were supposed to hold words like "boistrous" and "amiable" and stuff like that.

-Reading the rest of the history chapter

-doing the rest of the questions on the chapter (it's more like 20 of them this time, not just nine)


And here I sit, posting a blog.

Whoever might have said that I have common sense was sorely mistaken.

Every time I click the "New Post" button, I feel a strange sense of accomplishment. Maybe I should start setting higher standards for myself. I dunno.

So I've been actively job hunting all week. Defintely not my favorite thing ever, but it was necessary. Still is, actually. Anyway, Monday, I went into Bozeman (having exhausted the supply of stores around here that I could actually apply to) and went into every store I came across that I would actually work in willingly and asked for an application. Of the fifteen I went to (ambitious, aren't I?), NINE of them told me to fill one out online. What is our world coming to? The other six I actually got turned in. I then made a mental note of it to go back and see if any of them had actually looked at it.

That is what I did today.

I went to Subway, MacKenzie River, Old Chicago, Applebee's, that one BBQ joint in the K-mart parking lot...and a couple others...can't actually remember what ones. I also dropped off a couple more applications, figuring that at this point, the least I could end up with is a trophy of some sort. But no one is hiring. No one at all. And in this attempt, I effectively used up five of the ten dollars worth of gas I put in my car on Monday, and still ended up with no job to get the funds to refill it.

I think that in the future, I need to send out a public service announcement before I actually start job hunting, just so that everyone knows that they need to fire at least one person of their crew, on the off chance that I might want to work there. At least then, there would be plenty of selection.

But until I can actually figure out how to work that...

Babysitter at large!

I discovered today that I'm pretty much the only person (besides Yost) in my English class that has a blog. It really isn't surprising...most people have lives beyond blogging about their lives. I don't. But the sad thing is, I actually WAS surprised. Seriously...it's an AP class...for people who apparently like English and writing...And not a single one of them actually writes in their free time. I'm feeling a little bit like an overachiever. But change is good. It's really kinda cool, 'cause for once, I'm ahead of the loop in SOMEthing.

Too bad I'm not ahead in math...I have to go finish up that assignment (that I really haven't started beyond the first two problems) during the rest of lunch (18 minutes and counting...why am I sitting on the computer again?) to be turned in next period. I'm actually taking a test on all of it tomorrow. Kinda stinks. Tests are no good.

Random news: Wittkopp finally made me an Alto. It's lovely. I definitely prefer sounding like a man to having my voice crack every time we go above an E. The one bad thing is that now I actually have to re-learn every song before our first concert in October (serioiusly...who does a concert in October? It's pretty much suicide. Getting your hopes up high enough to actually think we can have seven songs ready by then is gonna result in a pretty resounding thud when you actually go to the concert and hear the reality of it first hand).

Oh yeah...we got fitted for dresses today. They're not half bad. NOT navy blue, thank goodness. Just plain old black. I think there should be some green in there somewhere though, 'cause with the guys wearing penguin suits, it's going to look slightly...I dunno...black and white.

That was redundant.

Off to go finish up with math. I might even eat something if I get done soon enough. My priorities are so wacked.

Once upon a time, there were two men named Ben and Jerry who made a lot of people fat and happy.

I am on my way to being one of them.

Blame it on Neopolitan Dynamite...it's their best creation yet. Half Cherry Garcia, half Chocolate Fudge Brownie. IN the same tub.

It's like heaven in my mouth.

Yes, it's been like a week. I'd say sorry, but I'm not. I seriously have barely touched a computer since Thursday, and I have been suffering. But now that that's out of the way...

Had an amazing three day weekend in Oregon at Boring 2. I've got pictures of everyone, but seeing as much of technology shuns me, I'm going to put off loading the pics onto the comp and my flash drive until I have completely filled up the memory card on the camera and therefore have no other choice. Like I said, Boring was amazing. And moving on.

Guess who finally got a new phone!!! I might actually have to load a pic of it just because it's so stinking amazing. It's got a touch screen. I feel so cool when I get to pull it out of my purse and text people on it's touch screen QWERTY while other people are still using their regular num-pad, which is so five minutes ago. Actually, I have been the source of amusement for more than one person, just because I keep finding new things that it can do. For example...I just recently found out that you can actually write letters straight onto the screen while texting and it'll turn what you write into text. I couldn't resist the temptation to mess with that all through sixth period. The girls who sat next to me gave me a few wierd looks, 'cause I kept giggling.

Yes, I am that wierd. I also just downloaded Tetris. Coolest thing EVER. It's just like the regular tetris, but your controls are all on the touchscreen and you get to move it around with your fingers! I really want to get that one game with the ball that bounces off the platform that you move around. And Pacman. That would be amazing.

And yesterday, I figured out the best part of all of it. I made one little change to one of the settings, and I FINally got my phone to start recieving messages. I don't have any idea how many people have sent me things that I didn't get just because I wasn't smart enough to figure out that the little thing that said "Block all text messages" was actually stopping my messages from entering my inbox.

Yes, I am also that retarded.

Anyway. Mom's making us go to open house tonight. I daresay I haven't been to one since eighth grade. Bah humbug.

School

Ladies and gents, yet another first.

First day of school in Montana...Pretty much equated to kill-yourself-boring, but I survived. Mostly by pointing out (in my head) differences between BHS kids and ones at NU. It's really odd, though...there are at least three people who remind me so much of a couple kids in Cali, it's just uncanny. But the major difference between NU and BHS is that there are hardly any wangsters here. It's amazing. I almost started squealing when I realized that. AND, the FFA kids aren't quite as wierd. Granted, they still walk around wearing their monstrous belt buckles (that they probably actually picked up at the dollar store lol), but they definitely pull it off a little better than the wanna-be's at NU.

(Okay...there's gonna be more than one first...)

And then there was my first second day of school in Montana. Yes, that's stretching it. I don't think I'll even go there, actually. It was pretty much just as bad as the first day, minus a few key miseries. The second day was completely comprised of hearing EVERY teacher read their class syllabuses (sp?). Most of them pretty much say the same things...the only difference being minor word changes, about once a paragraph. I was spared from that by ONE teacher. We got to spell our names phonetically. VanDermyden started looking a little Greek with all those upside down e's and all that. The truly rotten part of that day, though, was when I realized that I had the same teacher for two classes. She's one of those teachers who doesn't think kids are responsible enough to read a piece of paper on their own, let alone four pages, so after giving each of us our own copy of it, she then went on to read the whole thing aloud, word for word, and explaining in detail just what every section meant. Definitely reminds me of my English teacher last year. Hoover. Like the vacuum? As in, he sucked the fun out of EVerything. Anyway. Didn't I say I wasn't going to blog about that day? Moving on.

Today was the first real first (which was actually the third) day of school. I obtained my first two assignments. One of which (math) I finished the next period. The other (a short writing thing about me) will probably get put off until the night before it's due. I'm not sure if that method is going to work out this year, but I'm sure as heck going to try...if not for the sake of actually testing it, then for sheer procrastination's sake...or perhaps my often faulty memory.

Anyway. Beddy-bye time for the writer. Ciao.

I can't rightfully say that lack of exciting happenings has been the reason I haven't blogged in quite a while, but lack of internet did have something to do with it. And then, it was laziness, when it came to actually setting up the computer (but I did, eventually). Anyway, we're now in Montana.

The last couple of weeks we've been pointing out our "lasts" in California and our "firsts" in Montana. For example:

-The last trip to Asian Garden for their amazing chow mein and generals chicken.
-The last trip down highway 49 (good riddance)
-Last drive down I-80 (even more good riddance)

Anyway, some of our firsts have included:

First night in Montana (that's pretty much a duh, right?)

First rainstorm. Followed very shortly thereafter by numbers two and three. In the same week. I love this state. No joke.

First time getting lost in Belgrade. Don't ask me how, but I did.

First time turning around in the truck stop parking lot because of the afore-mentioned. This was also followed by the second and third, within about 10 minutes of each other. In the same parking lot. How I got lost going the same direction three times in a row is beyond my knowledge.

First time going the wrong direction on the freeway. This only happened twice. (I won't mention that it was on the same day as the turnarounds. I was having a bit of an "out-of-common-sense-of-direction" sort of day.)

First Dr. Pepper in Montana. A truly momentous occasion.

First time playing the piano in Montana. Also doubles as the first time I've played a piano out of doors. The stupid thing won't fit into the apartment, so it's living in the garage. Whenever I play, the neighborhood gets a concert, whether they like it or not. I'm a little worried about what will happen to it during the winter. There will definitely be no playing it then.

There was also the general unpacking of my roon, which turned into a bit of a nerve-wrending happening. I somehow managed to pack 13 or 14 boxes...all of which had to then be UNpacked into a room roughly half the size of my old one, and a closet the width of a regular door and maybe a foot and a half deep. That being my only source of storage, it is now a solid wall of clothing and lots of miscellaneous things that didn't have any other place to go. I have one bookshelf that is loaded to the gills with books, surprisingly enough. I wasn't actually aware that I owned that many books. My dresser consists of three boxes stacked on top of each other, sideways. Two of them hold shoes (No, there wasn't room in the closet) and one holds PJs. I seriously considered taking over Stephanie's closet, as well.

Quote of the day:

Teacher: Brian, what's the "I before E rule?"
Brian: Uhh...I before E........always!
Teacher: *sigh* What, are you an idiot, Brian?
Brian: Well, 'pparently!
Teacher: No, it's "I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in neighbor, and weight, and on weekends and holidays, and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong, no matter WHAT you say!"

Actually, here's the whole thing. It's way better.