3:28 p.m. - 2002-09-10
Wow, I was so naive three years ago!
I found this time capsule thingie that I wrote in in eighth grade. One of those things that they put in the end of an agenda book, ya know? My Millennium Mission. I wasn't supposed to open it until January 1, 2020. Whoops. Sorry about that.
My innocence and stupidity amuse me greatly. I thought the 3 worst addictions were smoking, alcohol, and caffeine. (Drugs? Of course not.) I wanted to be able to do forty situps. (Why couldn't I?) I considered my four best friends Emma, Sarah K., Melodie, and Marilia. (MARILIA?) Recently, a random act of kindness that I had performed was staying up much later than intended to help edit Katherine C.'s essay on Frankenstein. I cared deeply about feminism, racism, and the environment. My pet peeve was "people who refused to listen." When people spread rumors, lie, and emotionally & physically hurt someone, I saw that as hurtful. I enjoyed going online, finishing a ceramic piece, planning my birthday, and listening to Z100 that particular day. Mom and Dad and my siblings cared about me. I read and wrote to relax. French fries, chocolate, and chips were three junk foods that I like but should eat less of. Picabo Street was a sports figure who represents who I would like to be. The coolest thing I wore were spirit beads and today's goofiest fashion craze was lots of tiny braids. (Huh?) I most enjoyed learning about famous women, word roots, and weird trivia. I wanted to learn to be patient, less shy, and less jealous. I wanted to read "Summer of my German Soldier" (whoops), "The Far Pavilions" (whoops; it's over 1000 pages long!), and "A Separate Peace" (yay!). My best learning resources were Maggie, the web, and books. My favorite subject was Language Arts because I loved to read and write. In my life, I wanted to achieve happiness, family and friends, and fame. (How can you achieve family and friends?) The "two" things I needed to learn to be successful in my eyes were determination, talent, patience, and reason. (Yeah, you try to teach me talent, okay?) "Three" things that I was proud of about myself were my poetry, how I could make friends pretty easily, how I could sing (was I kidding? I sucked! ok, maybe I was deaf), and how my interests were well-defined. (I also clearly couldn't count, or chose not to, as I wrote four things in the spaces for three.) My coolest day that year occurred in Cozumel, Mexico. "A guy in the market fell in love with Lauren! At dinner Lauren dared me to eat a gross onion and not eat or drink for five minutes, so I tried to translate Old MacDonald into Spanish and I pretended to make out with a spoon and Mom thought I was drunk." (Dude, I remember that day!) The tv shows I enjoyed were Friends, TRL, Karaoke, and Popular. (I don't even remember what Popular IS. Where's The Simpsons on that list?) I was paid $4 for working an hour (it's now $5 with Dad, $6 typing for Dr. Joan). If I had an extra $5, I would buy pens; with an extra $20, I would buy a CD; with an extra $50, I would buy CDs, movies, stationery, or books. My favorite magazines were AmericanGirl, New Moon, Cicada, and Writer's Digest (yeah, the one issue I ever read). I wanted to have a grey Ford Explorer... how coincidental, exactly like one of the ones we had. I wanted to buy every single movie by Mel Brooks. The junk foods I bought were candy (55 cents - $1) and chips (same price). My favorite songs are a bizarre mix because I was then in my well-if-I-pretend-to-like-teeny-bopper-pop-music-people-will-like-me-phase, which I didn't get out of until high school. Listen to this combination: "Say My Name," "American Pie" (CTY!), "Graduation," "Oops! I Did It Again" (AAAAAH! BRITNEY SPEARS!), "Truly Madly Deeply," "From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart" (was I on drugs?), and "Forgot About Dre."
I embarrass myself. Was that really me three years ago? Wow.
Almost nothing has stayed the same on that list. Well, hopefully Mom, Dad, and my siblings still care about me. And I do still like Friends, and I still like to read and write. But I think everything else is different. Language Arts isn't even my favorite subject anymore; it's joined by AP Psychology, chemistry, AP French, and global history.
That's wonked-out. And yes, I just made that up. Could you tell?
Last night we went out for dinner for Mom and Dad's anniversary, at the same fancy French restaurant where we went for Gramie and Grumps' 50th anniversary, used as fuel for this story. Dinner took forever, and was incredibly expensive, but yummy anyway.
Mrs. H. told us the dates of our AP's. AP Psychology is May 13th and AP French is May 8th. Both in the afternoon. Damnit, that means I'm going to be cramming for French on my birthday!
I spent an hour today working on the typing for Dr. Joan; basically, I'm retyping this book. She now owes me $18, because I've put in three hours of work more than the $30 she advanced me in early August. Kick-ass. I think I'm going to be doing okay on the money front this year. I'm still saving $5 a week, and I have $140ish in savings (and that would be twice as much if I hadn't had to pay back that fucking watch last year). Mom and Dad are currently debating raising allowances; as it stands, everyone gets $1 if our rooms are messy, and if we clean them, Alexa gets $4, Kelsey gets $5, and I get $10. Lauren gets $15, but, well, she's at college.
Speaking of which, Lauren's first day of classes at Middlebury were yesterday. She said her dance class was awesome, psych is really hard, she hasn't had another freshman seminar yet (her seminar is about mythology in Latin American literature), and Spanish is really easy, so she's seeing if switching into a more challenging class would totally mess up her schedule.
I finally got a message from Lisa yesterday, so I have to call her back tonight and we'll discuss the results of the SAT II's I took a week ago. Unfortunately, this means I need to memorize those fifty vocab words today. The good thing is that I already used the vocab words in stories last year, so hopefully I'll remember them.
French: We're starting a grammar unit this week. We have to record ourselves pronouncing ten sentences into a tape for Friday. We have an essay due Wednesday on Tartuffe, and we got to pick the topic out of a choice of seventeen, and it can be in English or French! (The reason is that we're taking the language exam, not literature, and we don't have the skills to write that kind of critical analytic essay in French.) We also have an extra-credit essay due a week from Friday, which I'm definitely going to do, because this is the first time I can remember in three years that Mrs. H. has EVER given extra-credit.
Still confused in physics. We're doing velocity and acceleration and all that. The good thing is that Dad loves physics. Dad buys these huge series of videos to watch when he works out on poetry, the history of New York, the English Language, Roman mythology, French comedy, what-have-you, and he watched these physics videos, which... are you ready for this?... are lectures from a professor at Middlebury, where Lauren goes to college. Not only THAT, BUT, the professor is my friend Zach's uncle! It really is a small world!
AP Psych is still great. Mr. K. assigned me to be Resident Advisor in learning, which was my second choice (states of consciousness was third), but I really, really wanted psychological disorders, which Kris got. Grrr. So I asked Mr. K. if there was any way I could switch, and I didn't think he'd let me because after all I did get my second choice, but I'm doing it! :) YAY!
I need to do some global and math today. Maggie's really serious about working on each topic every day or every other day, and I didn't have time yesterday. I also really want to read my psych textbook: we have that outline due Friday on the first two modules, and a quiz on the first two modules. So I'm figuring that if I read the modules today, I can start the outline tomorrow, and finish the outline and study for the quiz on Thursday. Tomorrow I think we have our first Hebrew classes with Joanne, and Thursday is our first language classes with Mrs. L. (Latin, Spanish, and French). Heh, if I don't get to the French tape before then, I can always record it with her. ;) I think Laura and Lorenzo are coming over on Thursday night, so that should be fun.
So, yes, it's going to be a busy week. On Saturday Dad wants to take us to get our skis, boots, and poles checked. Jackie wants to come over so we can watch "The Matrix Revisited" and do Elvish braids. Sunday is my cousin Scott's birthday (he'll be fifteen), so there may be some sort of party at Aunt Dale and Uncle Jon's house. Monday is Yom Kippur. I think we're going to the 10:00 service, because Rabbi W. is doing it, and we don't really like the new rabbi/cantor combo. Rabbi W. and Cantor R. were amazing and irreplaceable. After the service, we'll have classes with Maggie... and it's her birthday! We have school on Tuesday though... it's the first GSA meeting. Wednesday and Friday are the due dates for those French essays, and I have an appointment with Marsha, my psychologist, at 4:00 on Friday.
I don't know if I really need Marsha anymore. I have a lot to say on this topic, so I'll save it for another entry.
Oh! I almost forgot! I got TWO LETTERS yesterday! I was SO HAPPY! Snail mail makes me so happy, it's not even funny. Both from CTYers. One was from Rob, the other was from Emily. Emily sent me two pictures, yay! They're both going to the NYC reunion the day after Thanksgiving -- actually, Rob is staying with Emily, who lives in Pelham. I don't know if I want to go yet. I mean, Rob and Emily will be there, and probably Wang and Rachel, but it'll be the whole clique of people who have known each other for years. Yes, there ARE cliques at CTY. They're more open and accepting and inclusive than your usual cliques, but they do exist. So I don't know how well I'd manage at the reunion, I could have one of my classic anxiety attacks. Whenever I felt like I didn't belong, I always hung out with Dakota, and she's not exactly going to fly down from Alaska to save me. Anthony and Matt won't be there from California, and I doubt Dana will come, and Pippa might but if she does she'll probably spend the whole time with Wang, and I don't know if Hannah will come but if Scott's there same deal as Pippa. I guess I have a little while to think about it, it's the day after Thanksgiving.
We're going to Utah over Columbus Day weekend. I'm missing a day of school. I didn't want to, but I think it's too much of a hassle to get me to the SLC airport a day early and then to have Alexis pick me up and stay over here that night.
I had fun with Jackie today during our free trying to write limericks. Our best rhyme was schmoozer/boozer/loser, and the middle two lines were "They always make fun/Cuz he's just not The One"! I love limericks! So much better than villanelles, which are like, as Missy knows, "a thousand hells."
99 days until The Two Towers! My heart is murmuring "I wantsssss it! My precioussssss!" Well, actually, my heart is just plain murmuring, but I can let it say whatever I want, can't I?
