Take Five, People, That’s a Wrap

Estoy: Okay, but suffering from a bad case of "the Fridays¹"
Currently Reading: Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. Adult Fiction. 5/5, but there's a definite reason that it's adult.

Imagine if you will…poor schoolchildren being forced by their slightly insane and not even cool teacher to do a stupid assignment. Especially at the very end of the day on a Friday when the week feels like it's been forever though in reality it only lasted for four days. I'm sure that most of you don't have to imagine that; it has probably been a sad reality for you at sometime or other in your life. For those of you who have figured out that I'm not just into hypotheticals right now and that I'm actually maybe talking about my day, that is what I call talent.
So, you may be asking, what is said stupid assignment that us poor school children are being forced to do²? Well, today we were being forced to write a "commercial" persuading people to join the Greek army. Okay, we are studying Greek Mythology in English, and we are reading The Iliad (or a very cheap and not nearly as eloquent copy³), but explain to me how this translates into making a commercial so nonexistent people can join a nonexistent army in order to fight a nonexistent war? It doesn't, as close as I can figure. But if anyone has a good reason for it, drop me a line, kay? Anyhow, it was…well, quite a disaster if you ask me. Our group is slightly grouply impaired, i.e., we can't seem to do anything without arguing. Needless to say, I ended up writing the whole script. While I thought it sucked, my partners were quite pleased. Recording it didn't go too badly, and when we listened to all of the others, we discovered that everyone else's sucked as well. I guess there's really not much you can do with an assignment like that. Also on the subject of exciting English assignments would be our hero essay. Our hero has to be "a realistic person" who can "solve a [world] problem or improve the situation greatly." Again, I'm not quite sure how this relates to English and our subject right now (yes, I realize the Greeks had heroes, but they were hardly realistic. Half of them were deities), but I just chalk it up to the fact that our teacher is slightly insane. I believe I may have said that before. Anyhow, for those of you who either know me personally or at least have been keeping up with the books I'm reading, you know that, while I read a bit of pretty much everything, I love, love, love Science Fiction and Fantasy. So writing about a "realistic person" may not be too easy for me. I mean, no uber technology, no magic, no superhuman powers? Knowing my teacher, super smarts probably wouldn't go over to well, either. Obviously, this is going to be a bit of a problemo for Caryn. I don't know that I'll be able to make it interesting. Creative writing project? Hah. English has a way of sucking all the creativity right out of me.
On the plus side, I do have a band concert in 4 days! On the downside, we have one and a half rehearsals left. And oh yeah, people are still making way too many mistakes with the music. I mean, yesterday, a certain trombonist was say, a note sharp. Let me tell you, that is quite a bit of discord. I don't get it, I really don't. We've been playing for 4 and a half years now. We tune every day at the beginning of band. And we've had the music for probably around 2 months now. Practicing is not that hard! I think our band director is pretty nervous as well, but maybe everyone will practice this weekend! And maybe the sky is not really blue. Ah well, we can still hope, right? Well, wish us luck…we'll probably need it. Until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ Thanks to my State Studies teacher for that one!
² And if you weren't asking it…well, sorry, but I'm answering it anyways.
³ But somehow, it's still just as sexist. And worse, it's illustrated. Tell me, is there a reason why the Greek Goddesses couldn't seem to keep their boobs in their shirt/dress/toga/whatever it is they wore?

V For Valium

Estoy: Sugared out, becoming pink-o-phobic, and fulfilling my position as your resident cynic.
Currently Reading¹: Airman, by Eoin Colfer. YA Adventure. 5/5
Pagan’s Vows and Pagan’s Scribe, by Catherine Jinks. YA historical fiction.
Books 3 and 4 in the Pagan Chronicles. 5/5.

Happy Valentines Day to all who celebrate it, and happy sugar fest to all who don’t really feel compelled but are surrounded by lovestruck ones. I fall in to the second category, personally, but don’t hold it against me. That's the reason behind the title—I almost needed Valium to make it through the day. My school decided to tell all girls to wear pink today and all guys to wear red. I felt surrounded and slightly scared. Needless to say, I wore black. Back on topic, though. In my opinion, Valentine’s Day is nothing more than another time for marketers to make a lot of money. Not that I’m against the idea of it—I do think that love is a good thing, despite the fact that it hasn’t found me yet². However, Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers has no historic significance. And for all of the people I love, I don’t feel I need a day to remember them. I tell them I love them often. After all, they deserve more than one day. I know that for some of you, Valentine’s Day can be painful—Scott likes to call it “Singles Awareness Day”—but there’s no reason you can’t have fun today as well. Instead of focusing on the fact that you don’t have a significant other, take time to realize that you are loved by your friends and your parents. If nothing else, get on a huge sugar high.
I think I did I bit too much sugar-highing today, which is quite surprising. I didn’t really get that much candy…just a box of hearts from one of my closest friends, a bag of goodies and a sucker from other close friends, and candy in Spanish class. However, I’ve already eaten it all and am therefore a bit hyper. And it’s taking me awhile to type this, because my fingers are even more dyslexic than usual³. But I have laughed hard and often today, so that’s something.
DataMatch—ah, DataMatch⁴. I must tell you how this turned out. I’m not sure, but I think I did mention this in a previous entry. If not, go back, read the footnote, and then try to keep up as much as possible, kay? And if I didn’t mention it, I do apologize. Anyhow, I’m sure you’re just dying to know who was on my list. Well, the first one happened to be the boyfriend of one of my friends—Wiley⁵. Well, I wasn’t going to tell him, but as Katie (his girlfriend) was reading my list, he saw. Everyone else in the band found this to be hilarious, but Wiley and I were kind of…not so thrilled. Not that we hate eachother, but we seem to be in a perpetual argument. I mean, of all the people on my list, he is probably the one that I like the most. Not that I would date him, really, even if he wasn’t going out with Katie. My list seems to be filled with nerds, which I guess is fitting. I’m a pretty big nerd myself. My top match in the whole school was sophomore Connor. According to Katie (who is on swim team), he’s a good swimmer and also pretty cute. Not that I’m going to go seek out any person off of the printout.
I suppose I should be off now to do some valentine-y things, so I hope you all have a good rest of the day. Until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ And Currently Read, since I don’t blog nearly as much as I read. Just so you know that I really don’t read 3 books at once.
² Ah, how tragic, right? No, not really. I am still young and face it, everyone gets their share of heartbreak.
³ Believe me, fingers can be dyslexic. It’s a special talent that mine have.
⁴ For Datamatch, everyone interested in participating fills out a questionnaire. You are then matched with people who have similar interests and given the percentage of things you have in common. Just for the record, my highest was 57%.
⁵ Wiley was the guy, for the record. Not the friend.

In Sickness And In Health

Estoy: Enferma¹
Currently Reading: Ptolemy’s Gate, by Jonathon Stroud. YA Fantasy. 5/5²

Take it from one who knows (which would be all of us, in most likelihood): it is no fun being sick. Somehow, I managed to get myself sick, again! I was just sick over Christmas break! Actually, it’s really no mystery how I got myself sick, seeing as how half of the people in school are currently sick³ as well. But still, all those germs floating around don’t make it any easier to get better, either.
Honestly, it’s not like I’ve done that much physically or mentally strenuous stuff while I’ve been sick. I only read one book this weekend. Okay, it was a bit long, but hey, what else was I supposed to do? I had already been kicked off the computer for spending too much time on there and before that I had been watching DVD’s⁴. I didn’t do any homework that I didn’t need to, and I didn’t practice. Heck, on Sunday at my dad’s, I got bored enough to take a nap⁵! And did that help? Erm, no, not really. I’m even wondering at my reasons for doing it.
While I did do a lot of things to get better this weekend, I suppose going to the party on Friday wasn’t one of them. The party—Lara’s birthday celebration, to be precise—was pretty dang fun, though. And don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t one of those wild parties that you all hear about high-schoolers having⁶. I mean, for one thing, this was Lara! I guess some of you may not know her, but Lara follows pretty much every rule there is. Not really to the extreme, but she’s a smart girl and she likes to keep her nose clean. And to tell you the truth, even if I was invited to a party that I knew would be like that, I wouldn’t go. I have a future, people. I don’t want to be pinned with an MIP or some other stupid thing like that. For me, a party is just me and some close friends, food, board games, movies (especially those with yummy guys in them), and some good quality time together⁷! Call me stupid if you want, but I think that must be much more fun than getting drunk and high at the same time⁸! Lara’s party was my kind of party, though. We just hung out, played the chocolate game (no, I won’t explain it here), sang karaoke (I sat this one out), watched Stardust (pretty good movie!), ate pizza (of course), opened presents (it was her birthday), and talked. So pretty low stress, I’d think? Apparently not enough so, though. Either way, I enjoyed it immensely. It was pretty much worth being sick.
That’s all I have for now, so wish me well! Until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ Enferma is Spanish for sick. It logically follows that saying, “Estoy enferma,” means I am sick. Remember that whole ser/estar thing I was telling you about, though? If you say “Soy enferma,” it means that you are mentally sick, and you don’t want people thinking that. The lesson is, watch your verb choice. Oh, and also with subject-adjective agreement, boys would say “Estoy enfermo” so it is made clear that they’re not a girl. Quite confusing, don’t you think?
² Doubtless, some of you have already noticed that I have read two books by Jonathon Stroud recently. Yes, they’re a series. And this is the third one. So read the other two first. One quick thing I love about these books: Bartimaeus uses footnotes!
³ I kid you not. It’s pretty hard to have a silent time in class these days, because even when no one is talking, you can still hear sounds of sniffling, nose blowing, coughing, and sneezing. On the plus side, at least I’m not the only one.
⁴ Only one DVD, actually, and it was Jeff Dunham. Nothing like a good laugh to make you feel better, right?
⁵ It also was a good strategy to get me away from my dad, though it was perhaps slightly wasted at the time. He was out shopping.
⁶ You know the type—no parents, loud music, alcohol, drugs, who-knows-what going on in the bedrooms/basements/bathrooms/couches.
⁷ Shannon and I were actually compiling this list at lunch—I forget why.
⁸ I refuse to say “crunk…” it does mean something like that, no? And that right there shows how innocent I am.