New Year

I learned something cool today. Apparently tonight is the blue moon, meaning that there were two full moons in the month. And seeing as tonight is new year's eve, that makes it even cooler, because this particular occurance only happens once every twenty years or so. I just thought that was coolio.

The last thing I do this year and the first thing I do next year (which is going to occur in 18 minutes) is post a blog. Might as well...I mean, there's nothing else to do, so...


As per my own self-inflicted tradition that manages to depress me to my very soul every time I perform it, I'm currently looking back over my last year's list of new year's resolutions. I haven't gotten a total count on how many I've actually gotten done, but it's not looking good.

#1 was to use every word in this really cool book of 100 words that make you sound smart. Not only have I not succeded to my knowledge, I have, in fact, lost the book, so it won't be happening any time soon, either.

#2: Switch out of aerobics. Okay, that was a dumb one, because at the time I had written that, I ALREADY HAD! Chalk one victory up, I guess, because that one definitely did get achieved. I am so lame.

#3: Start doing all my homework the night it's assigned. Ha. As if that's EVER going to happen. I'm the last-minute-panic type, and it works well for me.

#4: Wake up early enough to do homework that I didn't get done the night before. I, for one, and just going to snort at this. I don't get up early unless there's choir.

#5: Text more people. No problem whatsoever. The texts I get from Facebook alone are enough to fill up my inbox, but I guess that doesn't count, 'cause I don't text it back. Hmm. But either way, the score stands at 3:2 in favor of the slackishness.

#6: Partake in at least one piece of junk food per day. The score is now tied.

#7: Learn some new piano music. Yes, indeedy...I have learned about three new songs, all of which now bug the bejeebers out of everyone who has ever had to listen to them.

#8: Blog occasionally. Sure. I've done that. Once a month on average definitely counts as occasionally.

So actually I did pretty good on those. I think the final score is 3 slackishness to 5.

Granted, that wasn't actually my real list. I lost the real one.

So for this year: (it is now two minutes to 2010)

1) Get a job, make moneys, put in bank, go to college. We'll see how this goes.

2) Spend some of above money on pointless trips to Oregon and California. And Great Falls of course.

3) Eat a little LESS junk food.

4) Do something stupid in public. Shouldn't be a problem. I went pro at this quite a while ago.

5) Pass both of my AP exams and do good on the SAT. Yes, I'm a nerd and proud of it.

6) Get better gas mileage.

7) Figure out some way to make my room stay a little neater. Storage units that hang on the ceiling maybe, considering there IS no floor space besides the little bit needed to open the door.

8) Think of some better resolutions for next year.

I've had the intention to blog for quite a while. In fact, I've even clicked on the page to post one and then got sidetracked three times in the last week. So I think i'm going to post one now.

This trip has been kinda wierd...usually I have it mapped out in my head exactly where we're going and when, but this one has just been kinda sporatic. And it's mostly my fault because I keep making plans lol.

So we got here Wednesday afternoon and I went to see a movie with a few friends from school at 8. Fun stuff. Thursday we just hung around the house, and Friday was Christmas, of course. Got a laptop. Pretty sweet. It's called an InspironMini. Which is nerd talk for a little tiny computer that's just adorable. 'Cause nerds don't have words like "adorable" in their vocabulary. Obviously, I've been spending lots of time on it lol. The only problem with it is it's lack of a CD drive. But that's easy enough to fix. Someone got $70?

Barton's got down to Cali on Saturday. we didn't actulaly see them until Sunday though. Sunday was bingo night at Grandma's and Grandpa's. Ended up with the coolest set of pans that you use to make checkered cakes. IT'S SO COOL! I've always wondered if people actually like cut the cakes into little squares and them piece them back together with frosting. It sounded a little like a waste of time. But there's actually a kit, so now I have to try it =)

We currently have the Cruz's over at our place...Vanessa and Ruben are amusing themselves to no end running up and down the stairs and tormenting the dog and very effectively adding to my current headache. I have locked myself in my room until further notice. Both of them love to ask why...which is wierd, because I thought that was just supposed to be a four to six-year-old thing. But no, the two-year-old has also picked it up and I have come to hate that question. However, I've come to realize that the best way to answer them is to just say "I don't know", because then they begin to think that you're hugely ignorant and you don't know anything, so why ask anymore? Actually, that's just how I wish it would work. 'Cause it really doesn't.

Bah.

This makes no sense to me. I spent the entire second half of special meeting almost nodding off in my chair. Every time I blinked, I had a hard time opening my eyes again. So I slept a bit on the way home, fully planning to go straight to bed after finishing the homework that couldn't be avoided. So I did some, and then decided to clean up my room. And then when that was done, I did some dishes. Well, not some, per se...all of them.

And now I'm making cookies at 1 in the morning and I'm not tired in the slightest. I will be in the morning though. At the rate these cookies are baking, I'm gonna get about five hours of sleep tonight. Fun stuff.

It's been a hectic bunch of days. Mostly just yesterday, but there was some other stuff too. Monday was really the only normal day I had this week. (Normal meaning I got all homework done, and didn't have to go to school an hour or more early)

I blame it on the gingerbread. It's ridiculous, honestly. We had a gingerbread house challenge in cooking. We thought it was gonna be pretty easy and we fully intended to win by a wide margin. So I made a batch of dough and brought it in. And we baked it on Monday. Turned out, we had about half what we needed (only five of about 10 pounds) so I went home to make another batch, then went in early on Tuesday to bake it all. Turned out that was completely unnecessary, because that day in class was another day to bake. So we pretended instead. Anyway, long story short, EVrything went wrong. The dough didn't get brittle enough (it remained floppy throughout the entire week), the frosting took to long to set up, so the walls fell over and broke multiple times, the stained glass windows were a joke and didn't set up...
The list goes on and on. So Friday, we just winged it. Instead of the 20x20 inch mansion we had planned, we turned it into a trailer. Like a trailer park trailer. Yeah. it had a pond with fish in it, an indoor recliner sitting on the front porch, "Git 'er done" and "Larry's Pad" written on the roof in frosting and Red Hots...And of course, there was yellow snow, courtesy of my teammates. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and thought that there should be a "Worst in Class" award.

Wednesday, we had Chanson rehearsal, because of the concert on Thursday. So up an hour and a half early for that...Then I had to stick around after school to talk to Mrs. Beard about why my DBQ sucked so much. Talk about depressing. Now I just have to write another paragraph to prove that I get what she told me, which, just for the record, I'm not sure I do.

Thursday was definitely the most eventful. Left at 6:30 in the morning to sing at a breakfast for some club down at the Country Kitchen. It wouldn't have been worth it except that they treated us to breakfast. Yummy. Then, of course, we had the concerts that night, at 6 and 8. They went pretty well, but by the end of it, it was 9:30, my throat felt like it was full of cotton, and I still hadn't done my APUSH. I gave up at 10:30. Found out today that it wasn't really worth doing anyway, because we had a sub in that class who just talked about himself.

Today, there was no early morning (thank goodness). We got to critique our concert (we had to watch the whole thing over again. gah), and then fourth period, we got out 15 minutes into it to go sing. Again. But again, it was worth it. They had a whole bunch of food there for us. And then we finished about 11:50, so we skipped the last ten minutes of fourth and went to lunch early =). Seven of us went to Rose's pizza and had a pretty entertaining time. I was even pretty considerate and saved some of my breadsticks for Steph, but I kind of forgot them on top of the car when we drove off. Didn't realize it until we got to the train tracks, and by then they were long gone. I think they got left in the parking lot.

Sad day. They were pretty yummy.

Tis the season

To be catching up on blogs. I feel a little bit slackerish, because so many people have been catching up on their blogs, and I most certainly haven't. So here goes.

It definitely "Tis the season" for a lot of things around here. The first and foremost being the cold. People tell me that it's a fairly frequent phenomenon in winter, but that doesn't make me any happier about it. I'm sure most of you have seen my complaints about it one Facebook. Lately I've been reminded of a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Calvin walks outside into the snow and strolls down the sidewalk before stopping to make an absurd face.

"Don't you just hate it when your boogers freeze?"

Yeah. I do. And it's an experience I could probably do without.

Moving on.

Choir has remained pretty hum-drum, but enjoyable for the most part (despite the fact that that teacher of ours is still convinced that I'm a soprano. Ha. Hardly. I'd sing tenor if he let me.) We've started learning Christmas carols for a fundraiser that we're going to do that involves door-to-door caroling in the classrooms. Gah. But Christmas is definitely the season for people wanting to hear Christmas music, so we're getting hired out all over the place. We've got a thing at the Country Kitchen (or whatever it's called) on the 17th, and rumor has it that they feed us breakfast for it. Therefore, I am totally down wi'dat.

One rather huge-ish event (that I probably should've mentioned first...or at least second): I got a job. And then I quit. It was pretty much a "Veni, vidi, vici" moment. Except vici isn't quite the right word. I don't know the latin term for "I gave up", though, so the whole thing is pretty much just moot.

Going to California on the 22nd! Pretty exciting stuff. Gonna spend most of it with dad. It should be kinda interesting opening presents...I kinda forgot to send dad my "wish list", so he got to get whatever HE wanted. Lol...this could be problematic. Maybe.

I've also kinda got some college plans figured out, although it's been quite a process. At the beginning of the week, I talked to Amber, who very helpfully informed me that I should go to U of Idaho, because it's got a really good music program (that's what I'm planning on majoring in), and also because Emily is already living there, and Amber was planning on going down after she graduated. So my plan right off the bat was to skip my senior year in favor of a GED (I was planning on it anyway), move to Idaho, get a job, work for a year, and then go to school.

Then I talked to mom. Who told me to talk to a councelor about the options. Who told me that I was really only three classes away from actually graduating (!!!), so why get a GED when I could take them online and actually get a diploma?

So then I relayed this information to dad, who decided that I shouldn't move to Idaho right away, but either stay in Montana to work, or go down to California for a while, and, heck, I might even decide I want to go to Cal Poly instead.

Okay...I thought I had this figured out. But it's really not. The only thing really set in stone is that I might go to U of I. Or Cal Poly. And I might graduate early.

Anyway. I just spent a good half hour writing this, when I really should be rewriting a couple of essays that are due tomorrow. And I need to do the questions for the next chapter of APUSH. And I'm pretty sure I've got math, too, but I forgot my book in my locker (for the third day in a row...). I guess that just makes my life easier. Kinda. Now I have to do it at lunch tomorrow. Ick.

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!