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.

Study Session Two

Estoy: Lethargic
Currently Reading: Pagan’s Crusade, by Catherine Jinks. YA adventure. 5/5 for the witty narrator!

Well, finals week is half over, and I only have one final left to take. Sadly, though, I have two days left of school. Sort of. As you may recall from my previous post *coughcoughhinthint, * tomorrow we have 4^th period finals (which for me is Spanish II), then 1^st period finals¹ and then make-ups. My only final starts at 8:30 and ends at 10:10, so I have the rest of the day off. Which means I get to come home and just chill out and laze around for the rest of the day! Then, on Thursday, we have 25-minute classes. That means early release. And then, of course, Friday we have off. Geez, I wish you’d remember these things²!
Thankfully, all of my hard finals³ are over. Or, well, I think they are. On Monday, we started out with the Health final, and that was fun. The owner of a dance studio in town came in and taught us hip-hop⁴. And although I felt like I was just stomping around the gym, (hey, it was part of the dance….) I apparently did it in style and looked like I was dancing. And I didn’t think I could dance! The only downside to that one is that I’m still sore. After that, science. I’d heard from the upperclassmen that the teacher I have⁵ didn’t really prepare you for the final, but I did fine. See, another teacher in the department writes it, and that teacher does everything from the books. In contrast, my class doesn’t have books⁶. But we had a review sheet, and I think that helped. And I’m sure I passed. I needed like, a 9% on that final to maintain an A, anyhow. Last on Monday was band…and boy, was that fun. Most of the time, we just rehearsed, but every final has to have a written part, too. So we were quizzed. The questions ranged from music terminology to whom it was exactly that Rocky fought in movies three and four⁷. Thankfully, it was graded on effort. Otherwise, I might have failed. I mean, Rocky? C’mon. That is so a boy thing! Then today, I started off the day with Global Studies. My teacher had told us that this was gonna be a reeeaaally hard test…in fact, I almost studied for this one…but it wasn’t. I finished it with like, an hour to spare. In fact, everyone finished it early, and we started watching Shrek. Good times…. I’m gonna miss that class! Second was geometry. I think I did okay on that one, too. I even double-checked my work! Plus, we were allowed a note card. In geometry, if our semester final grade is higher than one of our test grades for the semester, that test will be brought up to equal our final grade. If that makes sense. See, I find that sort of funny, since my lowest semester test grade in that class was a 93. So I’m just hoping I did that well on the final, too. Last was English. I thought this test was gonna be really hard—our teacher is notorious for being extremely picky⁸ and picking trivial questions—but it was fine. We had an easy reading/writing assessment, and then the rest was just a compilation of all the tests we’ve taken before. I mean, lazy much? The least he could do would be to pick different questions. Not that I’m complaining. Easy tests are always good.
Well, that brings you up to speed on my finals week. I hope all of you with other, normal schedules are surviving as well. This is the part of the year I like to call the “doldrums⁹.” It just seems to fit! Until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ Aka those good ol’ 7:30 classes that I don’t have.
² Kudos to you if you did! Oh, and in classic Caryn style…2 points.
³ Hard being a relative term, of course.
⁴ Which I’ve always wanted to learn, coincidentally.
⁵ Whose name shall remain strictly confidential,
⁶ What with our school being the poor dump it is and all…
⁷ We had for some reason discussed that earlier in the period….
⁸ If you remember the book talk fiasco and all,
⁹ A bit of weather terminology for you there…it just means “slow” in the context I’m using it in.

Guidelines for the Holidays, Part II (on reasons to NOT take the train)

Estoy: The same as I was last time.
Currently reading: See above. Okay, I don’t read that fast, especially when I’m typing.

Due to the extremely long nature of this list, I decided to split it up. So here’s the next segment.

Number One¹: Whatever you do, whomever you’re visiting, and wherever you’re going, DO NOT take the train. Let me repeat this for those you less intelligent readers²: DO NOT take the train. Get it? Got it? Good. My family has been taking it to Minnesota each Christmas for three years now³, and not one of those years has it actually been on time. Also, we’re not exactly close to the train—the nearest depot is a good five hours away. At least, it is with my dad driving. He drives slowly. Anyhow, back to the train: It may be slightly faster than regular travel since it goes 79 miles per hour⁴ and only stops about once an hour for 15 minutes⁵, but it gets old very fast. Sure, the seats are a lot bigger than airplane ones and yeah, they have more foot room, but after five hours of sitting, your butt gets reeeeaaaally sore. The bathrooms on the train are insanely small⁶, the water has issues⁷, and the food is way too overpriced⁸. I had to deal with this for about 18 hours…and if you can do math, then you know that it is fairly impossible for a person to go 18 hours without sleep⁹. Well, not unless you’re a Meth addict, drink way too many energy drinks, or are having a sleepover. But the first two, I don’t do, and the latter is next to impossible on the train. If, by some misfortune¹⁰, you have to take the train, make sure you bring your own pillow. I had mine, but many people on the train were left pillow-less after the attendants at Chicago forgot to give us pillow covers. Secondly, if you’re spending a night on the train, try to be next to someone you now. I was next to a random lady on the way there¹¹, and it’s hard to try to not do embarrassing things when you’re asleep. I think I did okay on that one, though. As I mentioned earlier, our train has been late for the past three years. Third time’s the charm? Not so much. Unless you want to count the fact that it wasn’t as late this year—only 2 or 3 hours—but that’d be stretching it. You know, there’s only so many ways you can amuse yourself if you’re in a small town that you’ve had plenty of time to explore in the past two years. Make that too much time to explore. One year, I think it was last year actually, there was some accident further up the route were an engine braked so hard to avoid hitting a car that it flattened one of its wheels¹². A new engine had to be brought in, which delayed the train. Unfortunately, all they could get was a freight engine, which apparently can’t go as fast as an Amtrak one. The time they got to our station, they were somewhere between 5 and 7 hours behind. By the time we got to our destination, 11 hours. When you get off schedule, you have to yield to everything that’s on schedule and that sets you back even more. And that, my readers, is why, even though flying may be an expensive hassle, it is still better than the train. Until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ First, just to get this out of the way, no this was not there to help you with your number skills. Two points if you knew that and are therefore down here wasting your time by reading that last sentence. But, as I was going to say, it is there simply because I felt like pointing out that, since I’m feeling a bit Max-like right now, this is also numero uno! Two points as well if you know who Max is. And if you haven’t gotten many points so far…brush up, my reader. Brush up.
² Which of course we don’t have any of. Right?
³ Ever since flying got to be such an expensive hassle…
⁴ Which is faster at least than my dad drives.
⁷⁹ Okay, now this is a freebie: two points if you noticed this only cause it’s in between 4 and 5 and not because you looked down here after reading the number 79.
⁵ Okay, so maybe for normal people, driving is faster now that I look at it…
⁶ they always make me hope that no fat people are aboard; they might get stuck…that’s how small they are.
⁷ Of course it does, it’s stored in a tank under the train.
⁸ We’re talking like, 22 dollar meals here. And they’re not even gourmet!
⁹ Another two points if you came to the same conclusion.
¹⁰ i.e., your parents make you
¹¹ Because for some odd reason, my dad wouldn’t let Diana (my sister) and I sit together.
¹² I’m afraid the same thing happened to the car…life lesson number 1: do not try to cross the track when a train is coming really fast.

Moving Day (Part 3)

Hey all…sorry there’s such a backlog on my blog entries. I really need to get with it, don’t I? I’ll just quickly post what we did on Sunday and then update you on the rest of my fan-tab-u-lous¹ week.

Sunday morning, instead of being referred to as a “moving morning,” would better fall under the heading of “nothing-important-really-happening.” This was actually sort of a lucky break for me, cause I was mucho sore from moving things the day before. Back on topic, it’s apparently state law here in nowheresville that you have to inspect your apartment (or condo, I suppose), and record any…deficiencies you find for posterity² when you first rent it. With any normal person, this job wouldn’t take too long…maybe a half an hour at the most. But with my dad? We didn’t get done til 1 in the afternoon! Mind you, we weren’t doing it all morning…I didn’t even get up until about 9, and then spent about an hour “doing homework^3”. So all in all, we probably didn’t get started until about 10:30 or 11. But still, that’s a long time inspecting. We had to write down every chip in the paint, dent in the wall, slightly bent part of the ceiling⁴, and splatter of paint on the doors. Actually, to be more accurate, Dad wrote it all down. I followed him with my notebook⁵ and did some more “homework” while he freaked out about random faulty paint jobs. All in all, not the best morning I’ve ever had.
After our almost freakishly late lunch, he decided to go look at the closing furniture store in my town to see if we could get anything that we needed for bargain prices. We ended up getting me a new bed⁶, which I have mixed feelings about. On the plus side, it was an extremely good deal and probably better than anything else I might have gotten for the same price⁷, and it’s really comfortable. On the not-so-plus side, now that I have a bed, I can start staying at his house regularly. And he doesn’t even have internet yet. Joy.
By about 3 o’clock, Dad finally got his head in order and decided to start moving things. We didn’t take much that day, just the rest of the stuff from his room and some more food for me (I’ll tell you why I need that some other time…) and then the entertainment center. The nice thing about this was, it took a lot of time, and when we got back to his place and got everything inside, it was pretty much time for dinner. So that meant no more moving things that night! While I was preparing dinner (Campbell’s soup out of a can…yum, yum), my dad hooked up the VCR to the TV. We had taped two basketball games on Saturday, and we watched one of them (Duke vs. Michigan) during dinner. I won’t bore you with everything I could say about this at the time (Duke is my team), but suffice it to say that Duke won…by a lot. When that was over, I just decided to go to bed⁸ and thus avoid talking to him. As you can see, my weekend was so fun it was unbelievable. Until next time…

xxx
Caryn

By the way…2 points to BlackOpal for catching my book reference. Figured you’d get it!

¹ of course without that tinge of sarcasm…
² umm, not really on the posterity thing. But you take my point.
³ because apparently “reading Harry Potter” has been added to my curriculum ;)
⁴ in our apartment, we have those school ceilings…the ones with the removable tiles.
⁵ the one with the story I’m writing in it
⁶ actually, it was just the mattress and box springs, but whatever.
⁷ for those of you who missed the memo the first time, my dad is extremely cheap.
⁸ on my new mattress, mind you

Moving Day (Part 2)

Sorry I haven’t been on anywhere all weekend…I was stuck with my dad who doesn’t even have a dresser for my room, much less a computer with an internet connection. Here’s my weekend. Saturday-We got to move—again. As I said before, my dad’s apartment is a nice place. It’s just him I dislike. He and my mom have come to a custody agreement¹, but since they haven’t really told me about it yet², we’re just doing a temporary arrangement now. Well, that’s also due to the fact that up until Sunday, my dad didn’t have a bed for me. So I had to stay with him all freaking weekend long while he borrowed my bed from my mom’s apartment. I think I’ll be staying with her for the rest of the week, but you never know. Anyhow, all annoying things aside, we actually got quite a bit moved over there on Saturday. Okay, so maybe moving is quite an annoyance as well, but you get my point. The first thing we moved was all of the bedroom stuff. Well, all of Dad’s bedroom stuff would be closer to the truth. I don’t have much bedroom stuff that will be going over there. But all of Dad’s stuff was brought over to his new place and dumped unceremoniously on the floor in his room. I wouldn’t want to be him cleaning that mess up! Then we brought his dressers—I was amazed at how few clothes guys can really survive with—and then his bed. It’s, I believe, a queen-sized bed, and very awkward to carry. And, oh yeah, hea-vy! We had to lift both the mattress and the box springs on top of his van³ and drive to his new place with it. Thankfully, it’s only about a half of a mile away from Mom’s. Small town life. We somehow managed to get his whole bed into the apartment without major incident—a good thing, since he tends to be slightly anal about his possessions getting ruled. Yes, Grub⁴. Next came my bed. Actually, the one we took was my sister’s bed, but since she’s in Washington at college, we figured it would be safe to borrow it for the weekend. Plus, it needs to be fixed. Half of the legs on one end of her bed was cut off⁵ so we need to remedy that before it’s sleep-on-able⁶. We also brought a few more of Dad’s possessions and some stuff for the bathroom (gotta have that!) and the TV. Then, it was time for me to pack what I’d need for the weekend and Monday, and then say goodbye to Mom for the night. It was hard on both of us, let me tell you. Dad and I drove over to his place for the last time that night and took everything inside. He then went to get dinner for me⁷ while I made my bed and unpacked the bathroom stuff. When he came back, he set up the TV so I could watch the two-hour long Red-Green special (“You’re watching Red Green and no one can stop you”)⁸ while I ate. For the record, it was 8’o’clock by that point. After that, needless to say, I went to bed. On my mattress which was laying on the floor. Ah well, it was still comfy. And let me tell you, moving is hard work! Until next time…

xxx
Caryn

¹ But only for now—he wouldn’t move out til they did. We’ll fight it later.
² My mom has, though she wasn’t supposed to—she wouldn’t keep it from me. Shh!
³ Minivan, if you want to get technical, since he for some reason won’t get a U-haul for a day. Oh yeah…it’s because he’s too cheap to.
⁴ Kudos to you if you get it.
⁵ To clarify, the legs weren’t removed…just shortened.
⁶ Shut up. It’s a word.
⁷ Wendy’s—do what tastes right^{©® (and whatever else you need there…)}

⁸ We’re now in week 3 of pledge week, er, period.

Swimming!

currently reading: nothing. I can't be arsed.
current mood: okay-ish?

First period class: Gym. And I am one of the lucky people who happens to be in the middle of their swimming unit at the moment. Actually, not even the middle. We just started it on Friday. Of course, swimming in gym class is just loads of fun. Especially since all the popular¹ guys are in my class. I know, lucky me, right? Wrong.
Today, all we did the whole time was work on our strokes and kicks separately, since most of my class apparently put them together yet, and it's absolute hell. The strokes, I'm very good at. I've been taking swimming lessons for the past, oh, eight years, so my skills have definitely had enough time to develop themselves. But when we do the kicking? Not fun. It's so tiring for me! Yeah I may be a bit our of shape, but still…hated it!
When we were working on our backstroke kick (which is just doing the flutter kick on our backs), enough water went up my nose to drown me. My nose has been hurting ever since. And when we were working on our front crawl stroke with floaties taking place of the kicking, I swallowed half of the pool. Not being able to do it all together really gets my timing off, let me tell you. I seriously hope you can't die from a chlorine overdose.
On the bright side, when you swim in gym class, you get plenty of time to shower off and get dressed. And the showers are very warm. On the not-so-bright side, I have gym class first thing in the morning, so all day… Ugh. It's hard to do your hair in a gym locker room, and I'm sure I'd feel the same way about makeup if I wore that as well. As it is, my hair now looks like absolute shit!
And I've just gotta mention, if you haven't done it already (and you're a Potter fan), check out James Potter and the Hall of Elder's Crossing. And I'll probably be nagging you about this for the next…what is it? 18 days. Well, enjoy, until next time…
xxx
Caryn

¹ read: obnoxious and annoying