7:41 p.m. - 2002-09-17
a short description of this entry
Firstly, some plugs for various LOTR sisters.
Alex for creating an Eowyn ring. Georgie, Amy, and Samantha for joining it -- so far.
Ivy for writing this entry and for many other reasons too.
Sally for being my long-lost twin sister. And for offering to give me a template, along with Pheebses and Tiffany. Eep, I don't know what to do! So many wonderful template designers in dland! In my next entry -- or maybe it shall be the entry after -- I'm going to post something about the template. Stay tuned. :D
Cela because she's creating a Legolas harem.
All the new LOTR sisters that I haven't had as much time to check out.
There are lots more people I want to plug, but unfortunately, I don't have too much time for this entry, so alas, I will stop there. Expect more next time. :)
Alrighty. So where did I leave off (ignoring the three-sentence entry yesterday)? Sunday. I saw "Blue Crush" with Alexis, which was a lot of fun. The movie was okay, but really it was just fun to spend time with him one-on-one, because I've never actually done that before. Oh, I'm sure I've driven with him just the two of us sometimes, but we'd never actually called each other up and planned to do something. Anyway, we got a chance to talk, about hating high school, and what to do for college, and about each sibling... David screwing up, living up to Lauren, Kelsey and Alexa's social lives at school, Alexa's current attitude of smart-ass... yeah, it was just a nice thing for him to do. We also talked about this girl he went out with two or three times, Melissa. She's an occupational therapist in NYC, and he says she's perfectly nice, but he doesn't see it going much farther, so he can't decide if he should go out on another date with her knowing that, or just say screw it, this isn't going to happen. It's kinda interesting though... I mean, I can't remember the last time he had a girlfriend before Robin and Lauren. Now, he's interested again. He will be thirty this February, so maybe he's kind of stopping and thinking WHOA, time to get settled down and have kids. The clock is ticking.
After the movie, I came home and redid my cds with the lovely case I got at Virgin Megastore, chose a French essay with Dad, and wrote up an allowance proposal. I proposed $15 a week, but pointed out that I would be okay staying with $10. At the time, everyone got $1 a week, and if the rooms were clean, Alexa got $4, Kelsey got $5, I got $10, Lauren got $15 (obviously before she went to college). Mom and Dad came up with a new plan. The base is still $1. If our rooms are clean, Alexa gets $6, Kelsey gets $8, and I get $13. But that's not all. If we work out four times a week for at least half an hour each time, we get a five-dollar bonus: Alexa gets $11, Kelsey gets $13, and I get $18.
Now, I have absolutely no problem with getting more money, OBVIOUSLY. But might I point out that Alexa is 11 years old, and if she works out (which she will; she has dancing three times a week, so she only needs to work out once more) and cleans her room, an 11-year-old will be getting more than I got at 15 years old? And I will be getting more with my $18 than Lauren got at 17 years old. Kelsey, with her $13 at the age of 13, has already long-passed what I got when I was 13. (For the record, I believe it was $5 a week.)
Anyway, Sunday evening I had to take a practice French SAT II for Lisa. I got a 720 cold, which shocked me (but the curve is INCREDIBLE).
Monday was Yom Kippur and Maggie's birthday. We didn't go to temple, which felt a little odd. Last year we had been miserable at services -- they were sooo long and the sermons were not that great and the singing was terrible -- so this year we decided not to go. But I felt like I didn't really repent or anything. Then again, I've always hated Yom Kippur services. Actually, make that most services. I think that the prayerbook we use, especially for Rosh Hashanah, completely, hmmm, sucks up to God. That sounds bizarre, but let me explain. It's like, "O God, you are wonderful and almighty and perfect, please inscribe me in the Book of Life." Perhaps that appears to be blasphemous, but I AM trying to be serious here. It's just... I don't know. Too much.
Anyway... Maggie came at nine, and I had the first lesson. We started out with a twenty-minute rant about various classes and various rules (such as: Jessica needs to go to bed at 10:30 every night). Then we got to work. I really, really like the textbook we've been working from, we're doing probability and permutations review, and it's a fantastic textbook. Easy to understand, good examples, even funny at parts, much better than the shitty textbook I've been using for the past two years because it's the school's honors textbook which made me hate, hate, hate math. I never liked math, but over the past two years as I tried to follow the Regents curriculum, I grew to despise it. Maggie made me take the tests: I got 89 on Level 1 and 79 on Level 2. (Granted, the Level 2 grade was because I had a complete anxiety attack/nervous breakdown during the test. I'd taken a practice the day before and gotten a 93.) Math is really difficult for me to understand. I do better with letters than numbers. When I truly understand, I love it: logic puzzles, even this probability stuff we've been working with, physics equations when I solve them and get the right answer. That kicks ass. But otherwise, I just struggle and cry and am generally miserable. Math is definitely my weakness.
If only I was as good at math as I am at staying off topic.
Right. So after classes with Maggie I went upstairs and got some work done. I wrote to Amanda C. from CTY 2001, because it's her birthday today (she's 18!). I did my damn physics homework. I drafted my essay for French on Dorine's character in Tartuffe. She's the servant, and she's the voice of good sense and also a bit of comic relief. I then edited the essay with Dad's suggestions and finished it. I called Laura, because I was getting conflicting information: Lisa thought I should take the French SAT II instead of math IC, and Maggie thought the reverse, and Mom agreed with Lisa. Laura said that you only really *need* math IC for engineering, and that my SAT score will show that I can do math (but it's gotta be in the 700's, fuckaduck) despite the fact that I don't have any regular test scores because it's homeschool, and that I can probably use the chemistry and physics SAT IIs for quantitative SAT II's if required (Middlebury requires that). So, yes, in short, I'm not taking math IC unless something drastically changes. Memorized another fifty vocab words, and called Lisa.
Apparently, she had sent me a whole bunch of material via 2-day mail, but to our address, with the zip code in Utah! (She worked with David some when he was at school in Utah. So she's resending it today and I should get it Thursday. We'll then probably have an hour-long session to look at the material on Friday. 12:30-1:30 is looking to be the time slot, because I have Marsha from 4:00-5:00, and Kelsey and Alexa have music too, so I wouldn't be home until nearly 6, and that doesn't work for her. Anyway, we worked out my test dates. I'm going to take the PSAT in October (obviously), take the SAT in April and if absolutely necessary again the following October before early decision applications, take the French and writing SAT IIs in May (I'll already be cramming for the AP French exam, right?), and take the physics SAT II in June. So we've got plenty of time to work. I faxed her my PSAT results from last year so she knows exactly what we need to work on.
Ah yes, and the fast. We were getting really hungry by lunchtime. Actually, I wasn't as bad as the year before, when I had a killer headache, but I mean, my stomach was definitely telling me, "Eat, damnit!". Everyone fasted but Alexa, because it's a household rule that you can't fast until you've had your Bat Mitzvah. Even Lauren fasted at Middlebury! We allow ourselves to drink, because dehydration sucks ass (trust me, I was dehydrated three summers ago at Pathways). We're not like in the All-Of-A-Kind-Family series when they have to be super-careful even brushing their teeth that they don't swallow a little drop of water!
Technically, you're not supposed to eat until the sun sets, but the sun sets really LATE in September!
We broke in and had dinner at five.
Bad, bad Jews.
:)
I was Not Happy to go back to school today. I had a fun free though, Jackie, Justine, Etan, Julie, and Rohan all had it too, and I got absolutely nothing done except drafting a short note to Emma saying that I'm thinking of her because this weekend IS the tenth anniversary of her mother's death. More on that later. We had a double physics lab. Oh, and in AP Psych, Mr. K. gave me a huge heavy textbook because I (and two other people too) got 100 on the quiz. Yay for 100, boo for heavy textbook. When I stood up, I almost fell over.
Actually, once I did actually fall over... it must have been two or three years ago... We were going to this adventure outdoors camp in Utah, and I had just packed this huge backpack with my sleeping bag and everything, and we put it on my back and strapped it on, and I actually fell over backwards. It took Mom and David ten minutes to regain their compusure.
Roight, back to today. Had Spanish with Mrs. L.. I think I like her more this class than I did last time -- perhaps because it was one-on-one and not as boring as the first class. (Wow, I am going link-crazy in this entry, aren't I? Plug to Katy who told me how.)
Afterward, I walked to GSA [Gay-Straight Alliance]. Go Missy! Last year I only ever made it to the last meeting, but I'm determined to make it more times this year. Anyway, it was great, there were so many people there. Walked back. Mom said that walking three ways to and from school in one days counts as one half-hour's worth of exercise. She ignored the fact that it takes 45 minutes total. I get the feeling that this is really going to piss me off.
Didn't do much for the rest of the day. Wrote to Emma, practiced ten sentences' pronunciation in French with Dad and then recorded them onto the tape, did my damn physics homework (henceforth referred to as DPH), and emailed Ben. Oh! Guess what? Kelsey and Alexa got their packets for this tutorial! Alexa has Lara as a tutor, who was there when I took Level 3 with Stef four years ago (ah, the nostalgia), and Kelsey has the same one I had when I took fiction last year!
Dad left for France about an hour ago. He won't be home until Sunday. Who will I go to for help with the conversions on my DPH, to get rid of scary bugs, and to substitute for a French-English dictionary?
Goals for this evening: do my Hebrew homework (that isn't only a goal, it's a must, because Joanne is coming tomorrow), call Lisa after 8:30 to confirm Friday's time (also a must), and start reading the psych module on neuroscience. My least favorite unit, I know already. It would also be nice if I could start my math and global studies homework for the week, but I have a feeling that since it's already 7:40, that is not going to happen.
Actually... I just found a post-it note of random funny things that have happened in the past few days I meant to post up here. Alright. It looks like it's going to be a two-entry day. Sorry about that, guys, but at least you won't have to read through one gigantic entry, right? Though, actually...
