6:21 p.m. - 2002-09-08
I feel like a chocolate croissant
At breakfast this morning, I randomly said, "I feel like a chocolate croissant." Only my sisters would follow this comment with hysterical laughter and a discussion about the life of a chocolate croissant.
So, hmmm, let's see. On Thursday, my brother David turned twenty years old. Lucky ducky, he's out of his teens. Whoa, where did I get that phrase from?
Moving along. I didn't even talk to him, since he's at Bates. Mom did, and apparently he was really crabby, so she was pissed. On Friday I had school. lovely. we had our first physics lab. I don't like our teacher very much so far, but hopefully that'll get better, because after two years (Lauren took AP Physics too) Lauren really liked him. Speaking of which, I had a long conversation with Lauren yesterday. She told me about getting absolutely smashed the night before and about the guy who brought her upstairs and tucked her in. She says I can sleep in the dorm some night, hmmm, that might be a very interesting experience! It was good to talk to her though, I got to tell her all the latest that's going on at school, and we talked about the responsibilities of being the oldest, and she said how much better college is than high school... shit, graduating early is going to be my only salvation.
Anyway, Friday, let's see, I finished my global studies reading, wrote to Matt, did my French homework on Tartuffe (she gave us some multiple-choice sheets, and she's going to give us a take-home essay next week), called Katie, started making a list of LOTR sites, emailed to find out when "Wicked" is coming to Broadway (did I mention that? there's going to be a musical adaptation of "Wicked: The Life And Times of The Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire! I LOVE That book! Stephen Schwartz is doing the music and lyrics, who did "Pippin" and "Godspell" and a whole bunch of others. it won't be here for over a year, but I'm psyched!). In the evening, we had a mini-Rosh-Hashanah dinner. Mom made matzah-ball soup. Yummy! Except that I find the broth boring, so I have matzah-ball-soup-hold-the-soup. That is, just a matzah ball. Anyway, just the five of us, such a reduced number! We didn't go to temple this year, which did NOT make Jane happy, but we really don't like the new rabbi/cantor combo, and after my issues in youth group last year with Rabbi P. and all the kids, I have no desire whatsoever to see anyone from there again. We're probably going to go for the morning Yom Kippur service though, because the rabbi emeritus is doing it, and we really liked him. Right, so after dinner, Kelsey, Alexa, and I went downstairs and watched about half of "Young Frankenstein." Not Mel Brooks' best, but it has its funny moments. The first time we started watching it, Kelsey and Alexa got scared! "Young Frankenstein" is a COMEDY! It SPOOFS scary Frankenstein movies!
Grumps came over with Zip and chocolate croissants on Saturday morning. We spent the day ... hmmm... to be honest I don't really remember... wow, where DID the day go? No, actually, the K.'s came over around two, so it wasn't really the whole day. Sarah cut her hair short! The others had seen her over the summer when they went to Serendipity, but I didn't, so it was a bit of a surprise. Um... David's as cute and earnest as always. The two had seen "Lord of the Rings" over the summer, so he kept asking us all these questions, it was adorable. "I didn't understand why the lady in white [Galadriel] went all scary." "Why didn't the elf lady [Arwen] just use her magic before she reached the river? Did she have to be in her city or something?" Neither one has read the books, GRRRR, but oh well! And they both agree that the scariest part is when Bilbo reaches for the ring and his eyes bulge out. Eep.
Sarah hates her school so much that she's thinking of taking a bunch of courses online, so we talked about the JHU tutorials for a while. Then Lauren called, and I talked to her for a half-hour. By the time I relinquished the phone, the guests had nearly started to arrive. We had 23 people for dinner! The five of us (sniffle, I'm used to saying the EIGHT of us!), Gramie and Grumps, Aunt Dale, Uncle Jon, Allison, Scott, Dr. Joan, Jane, Dirk, Andy, Charlie, David, Sarah, Renee, Neal, Dan, Teddy. If that doesn't add up to 23, then I've forgotten people. Bad Jess. Whoops. Anyway, I got to talk to Dan a bit, which was nice. I can't believe he's already a junior at Yale! He's been in a Spanish class for two days, so he was very proudly showing off his skills. I talked to Teddy (his younger brother; a high school senior) a little bit too. Teddy did a really cool job over the summer. He worked with this publishing company, and they gave him books to read, and he read them and reviewed them and they decided whether or not they should publish them! That would be fun to do! After dinner we had killer Asshole/BS games with Scott, Teddy, Kelsey, Alexa, and I. Much laughter ensued. By 10:30, everyone had gone home, and I was able to finally go to bed.
We had our first classes with Maggie today. For those of you who started reading this over the summer, she's the only persun who's been with our homeschool since the beginning (more than eight years), and besides being our general consultant on everything, she's currently teaching us math and social studies. This year I'm going to be getting biweekly tests, unfortunately, and writing a formal research paper on some topic, so that it's a bit more structured. In math I'll be doing precalculus and preparing for the SAT II; in social studies I'm going to finish up global studies (this week I'm reading about imperialism in Africa and Asia) and then do American history.
I've spent most of the day downloading CTY music. I got a letter from Taube, which delighted me. She sent me three photos! One is of Dakota, one is of Matt giving Pippa an angel-kiss (like a mini-hickey, they last for only five minutes, and feel AMAZING!), and one is of Rob looking very happy and me looking very sad with the uber-pen. But anyway, Taube really wants some canon cds, so I'm making her two as an early birthday present (she'll be sixteen on October 23rd), but I've been downloading more songs for the mixes. I might not be able to burn them onto cds until next weekend, though.
I got a letter from the dean of undergraduate admissions at Johns Hopkins, which apparently they sent to everyone who's been involved in their tutorials (or possibly with the CTY program too, I don't know). Mom wants me to email him back. I should do that sometime soon.
Tomorrow is Mom and Dad's 23rd wedding anniversary, and I have no card, no gift, and no clue.
I fixed my archives page, though.
Alright, I'm going to go get a bit of work done, so we have a prayer of watching "Young Frankenstein" tonight.
I smell potato pancakes. I feel like a potato pancake. Dude, it must be terrible to be a potato pancake. You start out as a potato. After you're dug up and hopefully washed, you're peeled and fried with a whole lot of scary foreign stuff and then eaten! Actually, I have no clue how they're made, but that's ok.
I should stop rambling.
