2:39 p.m. - 2002-03-12
On everything I've been doing since February 24th :)
ALL OLD ENTRIES AT HTTP://JESSICA5787.DIARYLAND.COM
Will someone please teach me how to insert hyperlinks? PLEASE?
I finally finished the Olympics entry, go back and read it if you're interested.
The day after we got back, February 24th, Alexis came over to do his laundry and to eat pancakes in the morning. They were yummy. Not the laundry. In the meantime Mom and Dad spent much of the day on the phone, because Jen and Chris, who had been spending the vacation at our house, had broken a thermometer on the kitchen counter. Jen was our Language Arts teacher a few years ago, Chris is her husband. In the meantime, I had my own crisis. Alexa had told me that the computer was being crankier than usual, so I went to take a look and decided the way to do it was to delete stuff. I went to uninstall iMesh, some music program David had downloaded for me in the fall but I never ended up using. As it's uninstalling, I'm idly reading the list of things it's deleting and see My documents: Jessica, and think that's kind of strange... yeah, it deleted my documents. How fucked up is that? I was hysterical. Dad couldn't get them back, so I had to call my Uncle Jon, who's a computer expert (but never does anything with that talent), and we spent two hours getting them back. I lost all my photos, but I have most of my documents, which is most important. It's this great program with Norton Anti-Virus, called Unerase Wizard, or something. I was so relieved, but it was so scary, and wasted so much time. So so so so so so.
I had another computer problem last weekend. When the computer doesn't shut down properly, it runs Scandisk when you start it up again, and every time it did that a message popped up saying you needed to run Scandisk for Windows. So I found the program, and it said Kelsey's file had some sort of problem with it. Before I said ok, delete the problem, I backed her file up onto a Zip disk. Then of course, it had to start all over again, it deleted the thing on Kelsey's and then... Alexa had a problem. So I'm thinking there's something on everyone's and that I need to back up our entire 874-MB My Documents, which is a pain in the ass. Grrr.
I got asked so many questions about the Olympics. I kind of ran out of adjectives. Haha.
I don't want to talk about classes yet, so I'll talk about everything BUT classes, and then I'll talk about classes. Aren't I so organized? :)
On Wednesday February 27th, I had a youth group board meeting, which sucked, as usual. I got in trouble because I had absolutely no interest in either attending or making my parents chaperone the annual dance on Saturday. I had to call the rabbi on Thursday and basically make up reasons for why I no longer go to any of the events, which was not a pleasant conversation, though he was perfectly nice about it. I have a mailing there tonight, which I'm going to go to, not that I have much of a choice. Then in late April our temple is hosting the regional conclave, and I HAVE to be there, or else I can pretty much never show my face at temple again. (It's already a stretch that I'm not allowing people to come stay with us that weekend. We have "host families," and everyone else in the board volunteered to take care of 5+ people. My excuse is that we live half an hour away, which we don't, it's about fifteen minutes, but still.)
I got a letter from Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth. Apparently they got my name from the College Board (through the SAT? PSAT? eh, I don't know), and they offer "advanced computer-based distance-learning courses in a variety of subjects." So I might look into taking something with them next year, or even in my senior year, which I guess I'll talk about in my next paragraph. Maybe a computer programming course. That could be interesting. But for now, I'll just settle for learning how to put the damn hyperlinks into an entry. Here's the web address, http://epgy.stanford.edu/ap/ now how do I make that a link???? Grrr. Someone help me out here?
Senior year. In case I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm a sophomore, but am probably graduating high school next year, since I'll have enough credits. I am not getting a Regents diploma or a high school diploma, since the majority of my classes are still with homeschool. I'm not sure yet what I'm doing for senior year. Maybe I'll study abroad. Maybe I'll get an internship. Maybe I'll do an interesting combination, and do some distance learning courses, or take some AP classes independently so I can get the college credit. I'm not sure yet. I'd apply to colleges that fall; I *could* apply this fall and defer a year, but I wouldn't be ready, mentally or academically.
Speaking of internships, our friends the G family came over for dinner on March 1st. (I don't remember this off the top of my head; I have a planner, without which I would die. Heh heh.) Neal had lost his job at some big music company, but he got a new one at some big publishing company, and if that works out, that might be a really cool place for me to intern. I had been planning on working with Judy, the publisher/editor, which I might still do, but she kind of drives me crazy, which isn't a good thing... Dinner was fun. Dan, their son who's a sophomore at Yale, is probably going to go to prom with Lauren. Just as a friends thing. So that's cool. She has a very pretty elegant long black dress. And speaking of dresses (how I love long, not-very-connected paragraphs), we all got dresses for the Bat Mitzvah!!! :) I can't really describe them, but they're all black with either flowers or little designs in white, beige, in Alexa's case some are pink, and in Kelsey's case some are red. I, however, did not get a new dress. I am wearing the same one that I wore to Gramie and Grumps' fiftieth anniversary party. I had been going to get another one, but they're very similar, and it doesn't make much sense to spend $150 for a similar dress, plus they both fit about the same. Mom says she'll just spend the money on something else for me, which I know will never happen, but if I had said I wanted that dress, she would have let me have it, but I would have gotten too much grief. And speaking of the Bat Mitzvah, plans are finally underway. Mom and Kelsey picked out tablecloths, and they met with the people who are going to set up the tent in our backyard and do the flowers. To rehash, her Bat Mitzvah is Memorial Day weekend, and she wants it very small. We have problems with the new temple administration, so we're not even having it there. We're, hopefully, going to have it in our backyard, or our living room, which I think will be really nice. Dad's also going to compile most of the service, like he did for mine. The actual list of blessings and prayers that you need for a service is quite short. Most of it is just "fluff," as Dad calls it. So he's going to find some meditations and poems to put in the service that will be more meaningful for us. At my Bat Mitzvah in Israel, everyone had a little part to read. (Of course, "everyone" was only sixteen people. haha.)
Musical theater is going okay. Of course, the one class I missed, we learned *my* song, "One Brick At A Time," for anyone who knows "Barnum." I would much rather have less singing and more talking, and I would much rather not have to call the shortest kid in the class my darling! There is more than a foot height difference between us!!! Grrrr. It's a nice song, but it goes too high, it strains my throat, and I hate singing loud and alone. Gah. We staged "Join the Circus" last week. We don't have class again until April 6th because of spring breaks, and then the performance is the week after, aaaaahhhh! No one's going to be ready, and Kelsey, Alexa and I promised we won't tell anyone about it, because it's such a bad play and we don't like our parts and we don't want anyone to see it.
On Sunday March 3rd, Gramie, Grumps, and Zip (their dog) came over. Gramie brought Lauren and I our Bat Mitzvah presents!!!!!! I guess, like Mari (who gave me the handmade box), she's trying to catch up before Kelsey's!!! She had a diamond ring from one of our great-grandmother's, and she set the diamond into two necklaces, one for each of us. Mine is set in gold and hers is in white gold. We don't particularly like the settings, but oh well. Dad's going to get the necklaces appraised. Gramie wants to get Kelsey a diamond necklace for her Bat Mitzvah too. You know what sucks? Mom gave Lauren her beautiful, very valuable pearl necklace, and she gave Kelsey her beautiful, valuable pearl earrings! What about ME? (Then again, Kelsey had more earrings before she even got her ears pierced than I did in a year of having pierced ears. I had to wait until I was thirteen, Alexa's probably getting them for her eleventh birthday. It's not fair.)
On Monday the 4th, Alexa got her braces on. She had always taunted Kelsey and I that she would never have braces OR glasses -- now she has both!! (Well, contacts.) Ha ha ha!
On Tuesday, we went out for lunch at the great local Japanese restaurant. Then I had the National French Contest at a high school about fifteen minutes away. Pablo, Ashley and I were the only ones taking it for our level. Katie and Marilia were taking it for Level 3, so I was able to hang out with them, and a ton of 9th-graders were taking it. Apparently they're a very good class, they won first place for some sort of project they did. The test didn't go very well. First of all, we sat right in front of the tape player, and then they moved it! Then we had the stupidest proctors in the world. They gypped (noooo clue how to spell that) us of five minutes on the test. And then towards the end, they were just chattering away! It was so annoying, they wouldn't shut up!!!! The listening was really hard. I did better than I thought I did on the grammar/reading comprehension/culture & civilization (6 wrong), but still not good, I don't think I will get any sort of ranking, which is kind of frustrating, but oh well. The good thing was that I saw Kate, from CTY last year! She was one of the few people who I actually liked, though I barely got to see her, since she was in a different class (physics) and hung out with a different crowd, all other Asian people who had been to CTY before. She came just as we were starting and left before I did, so all I got to say was "hi!" and I'm not even sure if she recognized me. Oh well. Speaking of CTY, there was a reunion last weekend at Eva's house near Boston, but I didn't go. The logistics were too hard, I didn't want to miss musical theater, and plus I'm not really sure if I want to see everyone again. I know Dot and Andrea went, Kim and Mer might have, I'm not sure. Anyways, after the test, Mom picked me up and we went to the Gap. I got a pair of dress pants, which I really needed because my other ones don't fit, and two new short-sleeved shirts, which I also really needed because all of my other ones don't fit. I'm in a bit of a desperate situation. Hmph. Then we got pizza for dinner, which was yummy.
On Wednesday I went to chemistry extra-help and spent the rest of the day doing homework and studying for the chem test, but I'm not going to talk about classes yet, so I'll write about it later. :)
Thursday night I had to miss Friends so I could go to my aunt Jill's reading and signing of her new book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374281807/qid=1015963709/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-5286076-6312948) at a nearby library. It was packed, 99.9% with old people who my grandmother had coerced into coming!!! I thought her speech was way too prepared. The jokes were too calculated, and some of what she said was straight from the book, even when she wasn't READING straight from the book! Dr. Joan and Alexis came too, and we went out for dinner beforehand, which was good, and they had yummy cookies there, which were also good, but it still wasn't worth missing Friends. Grrr. Fortunately, she was too busy for us to really talk to her, we had to go home and do homework, Mom still got in trouble for not staying to go celebrate at Gramie and Grumps' house. Come ON! It was 7:30 when it STARTED, and it was a school night! It was so stpuid.
On Saturday March 9th, after musical theater, we went into the city for the rest of the day (for WAY too long). We did SERIOUS food shopping at Fairway, Zabar's, and Citarella. Then some other slightly more interesting shopping. I got three new bathing suits at Morris Brother's, which I desperately needed. The night before, I tried on all of my old ones (under duress), and none fit. Grrrr. I also got a pair of new Skechers sneakers, which I don't like as much as the ones I have now -- their whole new line is glittery! -- and a pair of Skechers flip-flops, because my old pair is kind of falling apart. I did most of my math homework in the car, and I was extremely proud of myself for that. Then we went out for dinner with Mom's old college friend Dirk. Dirk is cool. He's very tall, and he's from Holland.
On Saturday, we spent most of the day helping Mom fix dinner for our guests that night. She TOTALLY over-did it, we had to clean the entire fucking house and we did a zillion loads of dishes. Our guests were friends of Clara Louise and Henry, who were like grandparents to us, and who are now dead. They were distantly related somehow on Dad's side, but we became very close. Anyway, the woman, Nancy, works at the Jewish Museum in the city. (Mom and Kelsey went there a few days ago to pick out a kiddush cup. Henry and Clare had wanted to pick out and engrave a kiddush cup for each of us on our Bat Mitzvah. Mom and I picked one out for mine in memory of them, and Alexa and Kelsey will do the same. I think they actually got the same one as I did, which pisses me off, but what can you do.) But back to dinner, the man, Morris, is on the Board of Education at Johns Hopkins, so I spent a lot of time talking to him. He was nice, but he looked a little too much like George Bush, plus he asked me what my SAT scores were. Oh well. He also showed us something that had been published about him in the business section of the paper that day, which was pretty cool. Plus, dinner was GREAT: steak, noodle pudding, salad, homemade brownies...
And now, I guess I have to do classes.
MAGGIE (MATH/GLOBAL STUDIES): We're doing radicals in math, which are cool once they work out. We're trying to pick up the pace in global studies. I read about most of the kings in England and had to write up characteristics and acts for each one. Last week I read about the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, this week I have to do questions on that, plus reading on the French Revolution and reading one other chapter, I forget the topic.
JUDY (WRITING, ONCE A MONTH): I spent ages working on an article on the Olympics for her, which was due yesterday. It's long, about four pages, and a really rough draft, not very well-written at all, but at least it's done. There was just too much to write about! She's coming tomorrow.
CARLEY (LANGUAGE ARTS): We've done a bunch of stuff. The first day we got back, she gave us cereal boxes and wanted us to decorate them with things about the Olympics, pictures and things we wrote. I didn't do it, because by then I was pretty sick of talking about the Olympics. I said I'd do it once I finished writing the article on the Olympics, but I may just "forget" about it. Then we played a game where she wrote all the letters of the alphabet on little slips of paper, then the numbers 1-10 on little slips. We made categories, of things like "Food" and "Lord of the Rings" (of course) and "Book Titles" and "Things Found In A Park." Then, you have to choose a number, which will tell you what category, and choose a letter, which will tell you what letter your responses for that category have to begin with. Then after forty seconds, you all compare answers. If someone else has the same answer as you, it doesn't count, but if you have an answer which no one else has and which actually belongs in that category, you get a point. It was fun, and I won by a lot (I had 20 points, Alexa had 4, Carley had 6, Kelsey had 8). Then she gave us a new assignment, I wasn't there though because I had the National French Contest. We had to choose a book which we hadn't read and didn't know very much about, write a book report about what it COULD be about based on its title, and then read it and write a book report on what it really WAS about. So I chose "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," mostly because I want to read it anyway. Haha. I wrote the "psychic" book report yesterday, which was fun, VERY strange (Alexa says it's Douglas-Adam-worth-strange; is that good?), and I think I'll read it over spring break. We're leaving on the 23rd.
CHEMISTRY (MR. C): I made up my test on solutions on Wednesday the 27th, and I got an 88, mostly through stupid mistakes, so I'm mad at myself about that. He did give me two extra-credit points for the outline I did, and I handed in another outline (14 pages) on kinetics, plus I'm working on another one on equilibrium, so hopefully I can keep getting more extra credit and get a good average despite getting in the 80's on two tests. We had another test last Thursday on kinetics, and I think I did well, especially since the last two pages were straight from LAUREN'S test! YES!!!!!
FRENCH (MRS. H): We're still doing the subjunctive. We had a quiz on its formation, which I got 100 on, on February 27th, and then a pop quiz last Friday, and I got a 90, so my average dropped from a 97 to a 95.25. Bah. I don't like the subjunctive. It's too hard, and it doesn't make sense!!! I have a lot of French homework to do tonight. Bleh. Plus she's still giving us those dumb writing packets which we have a test on every Monday. I got 100 on the last one, but we had another one yesterday and I know I got something wrong, I don't know how much was deducted. :( Then we have two next week, Monday and Friday, because she wants to cram them in before vacation. :(
SPANISH (MAGGIE, FOR NOW): For two weeks I did ten minutes a day from the Level 2 book, but it moves too quickly since all I really want is review so this week I'm just going to try to read through the Level 1 book, again ten minutes a day, and get the review I want, then I can go back to Level 2, and then to Level 3!
HEBREW (JOANNE): I have homework for that too which I should probably do. Same old, same old, she still has this bizarre idea that I'm going to take some kind of test in it. Joanne, if I'm not taking the global studies Regents, why the fuck would I take the Hebrew SAT II? If I'm not taking the FRENCH SAT II until near the end of my second year of AP French, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT TO TAKE IT IN HEBREW? It's so annoying!!!
DIGITAL MEDIA (MRS. M): My quilt project, applying the filters to the skiier, was due on February 26th, and I got a 93. Kris got a 95 and Katie got a 92. I wish I could have gotten higher, especially since I'm probably going to get in the 80's for this next project, since it's not very good. We're supposed to be working with opacity, and nothing I want to do is working out. It sucks. I have no good images. I have a dune, and I had put a big transparent (ooooh) eye on the dune, and then two little slightly transparent eyes in the sky, plus I had my skiier in the sky too because he's cool, then I changed the colors so there are no reds, only blues and greens. But she doesn't think the skiier really fits, in which case I need to change stuff with the eyes and find something else to put there. We need a minimum of four images. I guess I technically *HAVE* four: the background, which is my dune; the sky, which I altered so it looks like glass; the big eye; the little eyes. But I need something else because it looks strange. Hmmm. Maybe I'll put in a LOT of different eyes? The problem is, my image of the eyes is in black-and-white, and they're a pain in the ass to change. in fact, I can't change to colors until I'm totally done with the project. So I'm frustrated and not happy. Grrrr. I'm not a very good artist. I missed ceramics last class, too, because I had to study for the chem test.
MENTORING PROGRAM: I think I've mentioned that Mr. J can't teach it anymore, Ms. I is taking over, who is very nice but well she's not Johnson! Oh well. We started watching "Almost Famous," which is a good movie. Plus, she brings in popcorn and candy, so of course I like that. :)
JOURNALISM (MS. M): We haven't been doing much. That one issue from January still isn't out, fortunately, my article on the SAT is not going in it because it was too long. Gary's is in instead, which she says isn't as good, but it's short. Then the issue which will have all the articles on America As A Superpower is hopefully coming out on April 1st. They're going to have a special wrap, with lots of stupid "spoof" articles, and then the real articles inside. I spent one class looking at the rankings which were in that magazine article, comparing the percentages of students who passed the English, American History, and Sequential Math III Regents. The thing is, it's so stupid! I mean, a lot of the top-ranked schools are top-ranked because they only submitted results for the students who are going on to four-year colleges. So of course 100% will take the SAT's, of course 100% will pass the Regents, of course 100% will go on to colleges! GRRRR! The magazine got a bunch of angry Letters to the Editor, many of which were from principals of the schools, which were kind of cool to read. Last class we just talked about current events. Journalism interests me, and I wish we had a better teacher. She's perfectly nice, but she gives way too much leeway on assignments.
VOLUNTEER SERVICE IN THE COUNSELING OFFICE (NOT REALLY A CLASS, BUT HEY, NEITHER IS MENTORING PROGRAM): I've actually been doing stuff for a change. I did some serious filing, sorted four two-inch binders alphabetically and by symbol, pain in the ass, the persun who did it before me was an idiot, but I didn't say that in case it WAS Mrs. B. :) Have also been doing photocopying, and filing the juniors' papers that talk about their plans for college & stuff, just, yeah, more stuff than usual (which isn't saying much)!
You know something? I'm such a klutz. I will probably be in eternal debt. First of all, when we went to the Chihuly exhibit in Salt Lake City, Lauren asked me to carry her camera in my bag, and it fell out and is now non-working. (She's actually happy, though, because she has a pretty shitty camera, but still.) Then I broke the microwave handle before we went to Utah, which was going to happen anyway, but still, it was ME who did it. Then on Friday Mom told me to turn the oven on and put in the chicken parmesan, and I had never used the oven before, and I didn't realize you had to PUSH the knob before turning it...
Alexa's birthday is on April 3rd, and we put in a big amazon.com order which was shipped yesterday for her. Lauren, Kelsey, and I are splitting the cost of the DVDs of "Can't Hardly Wait" (which she's seen) and "Save the Last Dance" (which she hasn't seen). Plus, Kelsey's buying the DVD of "A Knight's Tale," and Mom is getting her the DVD of "Dralion" (the most recent Cirque du Soleil performance). Speaking of birthdays, Jackie's was on Saturday, and she may have a party sometime this weekend, but she can't invite too many people or else her mom can't afford it. So I don't know if I'm coming or not, and I don't want to ask, but we'll see.
Maggie's schedule was screwed up yesterday, and I didn't have classes with her until 7 pm. Argh! So frustrating. Still, strangely, I managed to wash my hair, do some of my global reading (a week in advance, go me) and get to bed before ten. Yay!
I have that stupid mailing at temple tonight, and I want to do more on my chemistry outline, plus I have a ton of homework, and Judy's coming tomorrow, and right after Judy I'm being inducted in French Honors Society. (Yay!) So I'm going to go now. (The only good thing about right now, well semi-good, is that Carley's sick and couldn't come, so I have an extra hour.) Note to self: In next entry, write about music, and The Phone Call. Now I'll leave you with that... :)
-Dernhelm
