Study Session One

Estoy: Stressed/Glad it’s finally Friday
Currently Reading: Nothing new, so I’ll review um, I know! Maximum Ride, by James Patterson. YA Science Fiction. 5/5. I would go 6/5 if I could. Love these books! For those smartasses¹ out there who are saying “Which one? There’s three, O Your Brilliance,” read all of them. But read The Angel Experiment first.

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but this week has been so incredibly slow for me. It somehow feels like it’s been ages since we came back after Christmas. In reality, this is the first full week (we had Thursday and Friday of last week, too). I can’t believe it! So I hope you all had a better week than I did.
Part of the reason this week dragged on so badly is, I think, because pretty much all we did in classes was review². Why would you be doing this, I hear you asking. Well, my friends, it is because semester tests are all next week. Hence the name “finals week.” I guess it could be worse…apparently the tests were not so spread out at one time. Well, here’s how we do it, for those of you who don’t know³. Each final is 100 minutes long, and we have to be in the class for that whole period⁴. So, instead of a normal schedule with classes that are 50 minutes long⁵, we get to stay in one place with one teacher for 100 minutes! Yay! But I’m sort of rambling here. Anyhow, on Monday, we have 2^nd period finals (for me, health) from 8:30 until 10:10; 6^th period finals (my science) from 10:20 until 12:00; lunch from 12:00 to 1:00⁶; and 7^th period (Band! Yay!) from 1:05 until 2:45. And then we can go home. Tuesday and Wednesday are also structured in much the same way. On Tuesday, we have 3^rd period (Global Studies), 5^th period (Geometry), and 8^th period (English I). On Wednesday, we have 4^th period (Spanish II), 1^st period (nonexistent⁷), and then make ups. So on Wednesday, I get to go home at 10:10! That has me excited. Thursday is early release, hand in books for semester classes, etc., and then Friday is no school! So all in all, I think we’re pretty well off. Minus the tests, of course. I should be studying all weekend. But the key word there is should. I probably won’t be. I may do a bit of vocab review for Spanish and maybe some stuff for Global Studies because it’s gonna be a hard test, but that’s probably it. Oh, and I’ll make my note card for geometry. But I don’t study. It’s against my morals⁸. For anyone else who has tests soon, good luck. For those of you who have already taken them, hope you did well. And for those of you who don’t have them at all, I hate you⁹. Haha.
One last note: for those of you who have been keeping up with the Caryn-Gets-Marked-Way-Down-On-Her-Book-Report-That-She-Should-Have-Done-Really-Well-On saga, I have gained back two points. I managed to convince my teacher after he watched the tape that I had in fact, told him the genre of the book and described a main character. However, I still have a lower grade than I would have liked because I didn’t inform him that I was telling him about the conflict and climax, preferring instead to launch right into it with an (in my opinion, excellent) transition. Well, excuse me for trying to make my book report sound a bit more natural and less like just a speech. As one of my friends said, “I was trying to not treat him like the dumbass he is.¹⁰” Well said. Whatever, I’m sure I’ll still pass the class. Until next time…
xxx
Caryn
¹ Be a big boy…you can handle all of the swear words. And good job if you got that quote, though I’m rather mystified as to why you would be reading that section, still. Ah well.
² Okay, not all. But it seemed like it!!
³ For those of you who do, feel free to skip that part.
⁴ Why exactly this is, I’m not sure, but all I know is that we have to be. Leave it at that.
⁵ I think…I’ve never really done the math, and I have no idea what time we get out of classes. At least, not without thinking about it.
⁶ For those of you smart enough to figure out that the little ⁶ there wasn’t part of the time…good job. As I was going to say, I’m really excited about this because we all have lunch together! Usually, I have a different lunch from some of my friends, but not next week! Yay!
⁷ A first period class starts at 7:30, and I’m not quite that motivated, at least not my freshman year. And even if I was, my dad wouldn’t let me take a class that early. I forget why, something about not pushing myself too hard. Ha! As if.
⁸ Okay, not really, but I have never really studied that much out of class. I guess I study in other classes when I’m done with work for that class, but that’s it. I haven’t failed yet.
⁹ Umm, not really, that’s just jealousy speaking. But on the plus side, I do get Friday off! Ha!
¹⁰ The same thing happened to her. For the record (and I’m not meaning to sound full of myself or anything), the two of us are two of the smartest kids in the class.

The Joys of School

Estoy: Psyched/mad
Currently reading: Every Crooked Pot, by Renee Rosen—YA realistic fiction—4/5
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak—YA adventure—5/5
Well, I’m getting back into the swing of things at school. Yesterday, I gave my book report, and it didn’t go too bad…I just had to cut a bit out to get it under five minutes. When I first got it written, I was really excited…I was sure everyone was going to want to read my book. Unfortunately, it clocked in at 13 minutes—8 minutes too long. Therefore, I had to cut out all of the fun parts as well as some essentials. Eventually, I couldn’t take anything else out, so I had to hope that I talked fast. Well, it worked a bit, but I did have to cut short my “Why I liked (and adored, revered and reread [] multiple times) this book” section. So I knew I’d be marked down for that. I thought I had pulled it off though, I really did. But apparently, my teacher is REALLY DEAF because I know I explained in a lot of detail the main character, and you’d think that saying “this book is the first in the FANTASY/ADVENTURE series…” would count as telling him the genre. And yet, he marked me down for “not doing” those things. In addition, he randomly took 4 points off my conflict and climax portions of the report (all you perverted people out there who are chuckling, knock it off) for no apparent reason. So tomorrow after class…yeah, we’re gonna have a bit of discussion about that. Because I don’t get bad grades, and I’m gonna be so mad if he messes up my GPA. Ugh! Well, that rant has pretty much expired now…(or should I say, “retired?” Haha.) What’s that? You want to know what grade I got? Uh-uh, I am sooo not telling.
Hey, guess what? We’re now dancing in gym class. I know, fun fun, eh? And for those of you who think I should like dancing…yeah, you come visit my class someday and see how you like it. Very few boys in my class can actually dance. Actually, there’s only about two: One of them is Crew (no surprises there, though) and the other one is Sam. That one actually did surprise me a bit. Those of you who know him, you probably know what I mean. Those of you who don’t…well, it’s not like he’s a horrible person, but he just doesn’t seem like the dancing type. I’ll just leave it at that. Some of the guys, however, are really fun to talk to…while they walk around in a close approximation of the dance pattern. But there is this guy in my class who, y’know, wants to know me a bit better than I want to know him. So I kinda dislike dancing with him (I didn’t have to today!), if you know what I mean. Not that I dislike him…but I just don’t like him “like that.”
Oh, and here’s a note to any guys who may be reading this: You all need to learn where a girl’s waist is! Some of you put your hands way too high, which is a bit too close to the boobs for comfort. And sometimes either gravity or hormones drags your hand down to the butt area. Waist, men, WAIST! That’s where it goes in around our stomachs! All of you girls probably know what I’m saying. You guys need to get it, now! Well, on that pleasant note, I’ll be leaving you again, so, until next time…
xxx
Caryn

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