The one where I get run over by the train attatched to the light at the end of the tunnel

The light at the end of the tunnel was SUPPOSED to happen a week ago Saturday. That would be the day of District Music Festival, for which I was accompanying four songs, and singing in five. Not only was it a hectic day, the whole four and a half months before hand was just as bad. My schedule was completely packed. Every day, I had practice with someone during lunch and after school. My mantra became "I'm getting paid, I'm getting paid, I'm getting paid." It worked for the most part. Anyway, I figured all that would be done with after Festival. What I didn't count on was that five of my nine things made it to State, so that cycle is starting all over again. Exciting stuff.

Now, on top of that, my "volunteer for stupid stuff" application has been going into overdrive. So now, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, I work at the Admin building filing papers during study hall. Monday and Wednesday, I tutor a little girl at the elementary school. I absolutely love teaching her, and she likes the extra help, but seeing as we only have forty minutes a week to work together, I talked to her mother last night, and we're going to start after-school sessions on Wednesdays. For free. And I don't know where the off-switch for this volunteer button is. Ooh dear.

Then, to round the whole thing off, I decided to be a moron and take two AP classes. Even worse, I decided to take both of the national exams. I also have a massive project due in May that, to be completely honest, I haven't really started. Actually, I started the interview today. Part one of about ten genre pieces. Apparently, due to budget restraints, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off until further notice.

So with all this stuff piling up on the horizon, I'm on Blogger, instead. And Facebook. But in the interest of procrastination, I have a funny story for ya.

I was walking down to the Admin building to do the afore-mentioned filing today during sixth period. I was a little early and the day was absolutely amazing, so I was moseying rather than striding, which is the normal gait of preference. When I was almost to the building, I passed a house with a whole bunch of toys in the front yard. Not just a few, they could have given Toys R Us a run for their money if even fifty percent of them were still in working order. There was at least one toy still working: a plastic John Deere, much like the Barbie jeeps that every four-year-old wants. But lo and behold, sitting astride that magnificent kid-sized Deere was a little boy, putting around on his big green tractor, completely in the nude. One hundred percent starkers, ladies and gentlemen, and not bothered in the least by the fact that the end of his yard was the side of one of the busier streets in that area of town.

One wonders where his mother was. Probably doing his laundary.

Eastern A Choir trip 2010

Monday morning, the first day of Spring break, I was at school at six o'clock waiting for a bus. There are so many things wrong with that picture that I kinda want to cry. But the trip itself was fun. Eleven choir kids, our moody choir teacher, and his awesome significant other loaded up a beast of a bus. We were all pretty psyched 'cause we got to take a Panther bus, which is pretty much just a charter bus, but the school owns it. Ridiculous, no? They actually own two. Anyway. I planned to sleep the whole trip (five hours) but ended up singing the entire time because Andy had found an iPod dock.

Anyway, we got to Miles City, and basically had a blast. Our guest conductor was a guy from Canada (I don't think I ever learned his name) who has choirs there and in Africa. So all of our songs were really wierd, 'cause he got to pick them out. There were three African ones, one from Australia, and a really really odd one from India. Never again. Ever. We learned all those songs in two days. 8 solid hours of rehearsal. We also had to learn the dances to go with the African ones. I repeat, never again.

So pretty much I'm just gonna post some pics that we took. None are self-explanitory, so make sure you read the captions.



We went to Dairy Queen for lunch one day. And there were cows. So I insisted on posing with them.



The baby cow. And the other cow being fed a ham sandwich. That was just wierd.



Making purple. We had been informed at the beginning of the trip that making purple was strictly prohibited. (boys were blue, girls were pink, you get the picture. We weren't even allowed to share bus seats) It became an ongoing joke. Andy therefore made MUCH purple. That's our choir teacher sitting behind us daintily drinking his espresso. By the way it's not EXpresso, it's ESSpresso. It is in no way "quick coffee", we were informed.



Andy poledancing sideways.



Ye gads, it's a fad! Cody follows suit...



Danielle tried and failed. Kinda.



The trip back, late Tuesday night. Probably around 11. This is Drew. He can sleep in the funniest positions. Pretty much hilarious. He's got his arms draped over my seat. He woke up a little later, but his arms didn't. He had to flap them around for another ten minutes.



More sideways poledancing. This time both Andy and Cody are doing it. You can just barely see Cody way in the back. He's the one in the sideways purple shirt.

ABC's and stuff

ABCs
A - Age: 16. 17 in exactly five weeks.
B - Bed size: double
C - Chore you hate: dishes. The stinking dishwasher doesn't work =(
D - Dog’s name: Meiko
E - Essential start your day item: cell phone. Have to see if anyone texted during the night. (Yes, I actually am that attatched)
F - Favorite colors: Purple
G - Gold or Silver: either?
H - Height: 5'7
I - Instruments you play: Piano, cello
J - Job title: Moocher
K – Kids: 17 of 'em.
L - Living Arrangements: With la madre
M - Mother’s name: Shirley
N - Nicknames: None that you're allowed to use...=P
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: none. Just some late night stays while Gramma was in for surgery a couple years ago.
P - Pet Peeve: your instead of you're. Get it right!
Q - Quote from a movie: "Do you ever wonder if there's any more to life than being really really ridiculously good looking?" Zoolander.
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: 6 kinda sorta.
T - Time you wake up: 7:30. That's right, be jealous
U - Ummm moment: this.
V - Vegetable you dislike: lima beans.
W - Workout style: breathing. It's pretty strenuous. I've got one buff set of lungs.
X - X-rays you’ve had: none
Y - Yesterday’s best moment: going to bed
Z - Zoo favorite: giraffe!

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.