You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day

You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day

I guess I'm superstitious, because this afternoon Gracie attacked the Knowledge Sticks that Ms. Grimshaw gave me, and tore off the little note that says, "I know you'll all do well" from the sparkly-twist-tie-star-covered-string, and when my mom found her on the floor of my room with the Ziploc between her paws, I started crying.  My first thought was, that's a horrible omen, I'm going to fail.

But really, it's okay.  She didn't actually eat the licorice.  The bag just looks kind of dusty now, as Michael would say.  I sharpened the pencils and put them in my pencil case with my other three pencils and 4 pens.  I'm ready for this thing.  I hope.

Also, something I've been thinking about - there's this freshman in one of my classes, and from talking to him and eavesdropping on his conversations with other people in that class, I've decided that he has to be one of the smartest people I know.  Not smart like book smart, or street smart - but just, I don't know, aware.  He knows more about history than I do despite the fact that I've taken zillions of hours of it in school the past two years, he's got an amazing hold on politics and current events, and even when he's saying he doesn't know what's going on, it sounds intelligent.  And that completely amazes me, because I go to a different class and there are some of the most immature 17 year old guys I've ever met, guys who embarrass all other teenagers just by existing.  People blow my mind.

Something else that blows my mind:  how little I've accomplished in the last half hour.  I read in one of my mom's magazines that procrastination can actually lead to efficiency.  Yeah, right.    

Watch from a distance just to see you glow

Watch from a distance just to see you glow

Can I just, like, quit school, please?  I miss my friends.  I haven't scene three-quarters of my friends in nearly two weeks.  I miss going to bed at 9 and getting 9 hours of sleep and reading novels, not AP review books.  I miss lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling because I have absolutely nothing else to do.    

Pandora keeps playing Jack Johnson.  My John Green bobble head is staring at me accusingly, wondering why I'm not studying.  My room really needs to be cleaned.  I have that about-to-cry feeling in the back of my throat.  I hate hate hate this.  Sometimes I want to kick tumblr for not spitting out enough depressing crap into my dashboard.  Cute stuff does not apply right now.

Speaking of prom, not that we were or anything, but anyhow - prom is stupid.  I've developed this whole hatred of the classic American high school experience - the school spirit and the cheerleaders and the sneaking in the bedroom window and the prom dress shopping and the cliques.  But then - this is part of the whole experience, isn't it - feeling like you don't fit in, feeling like no one understands you, feeling like you're on the outside of it all? 

I got into a fight with my mom today.  She was whining at me, and I told her to stop whining, and she said that I whine at her all the time and she doesn't rudely tell me to stop.  And then she said that she has too much in her head right now too, and I didn't say anything but what I wanted to say is that - my future's at stake, almost.  The future I want, where I want to go to school, what I want to do as an adult - it all depends on those letters on my report card, the numbers I get in the mail from College Board.  I hate how much all of this matters.

I just want to be done.     

Figures:  Pandora is playing Dashboard Confessional.  What's next, Death Cab?

PS Something funny I heard today:  "That drawing's so bad, my sister could've done it.  And she's nonexistant, so that's saying something."

If this little light of mine combined with yours today

If this little light of mine combined with yours today

How many watts could we illuminate?  How many villages could we save?

I am in a surprisingly good mood right now despite the fact that I've used up an entire box of tissues in the last four hours and have a headache and have to read Hamlet.  I'm listening to Jason Mraz and getting more and more excited for Saturday by the second and smiling because Jason Mraz is adorable.  I finished all my homework for tomorrow a few hours ago and I already did a bunch of stuff that's due on Friday and I'm overusing the word "and" but Jason is amazing, so it's okay.  I don't think he'd mind.

Things I am looking forward to in the future:
1. Saturday!  Jason Mraz concert!
2. Alex is visiting?  I'm not sure when exactly.  Sometime in March, I believe?  Ellie and I are going to kidnap him and take him to Disneyland.
3.  Spring break.  France!  Five weeeeeeks!
4. The week after AP tests.  I'm not too excited for the week of - but the week after.  Yessssssss.
5. My birthday.  And then summer!  And then VidCon!  And then a bunch of weeks of blissful free time!  And then senior year.  But I can deal with that.



I can't believe it's only the beginning of the week.  Go by quickly, please?

May 14 has come and gone

May 14 has come and gone

I am so unbelievably relieved right now.

I had a pretty fabulous day, all things considered. This morning I took the AP world history exam, which was extremely long. Technically I'm not allowed to talk about it, but I will say that it wasn't as hard as I expected. (That may be only because I was wearing my nerdfighter shirt for good luck.) Now I'm wondering what I'm going to do with my newfound freetime.

After the test we all left school and headed to Souplantation, where 12 of us ate way too much. (Don't worry, we didn't cut school. We were all excused, as advised by our AP world teacher.) Then I hung out at my friend Ellie's with Alison, Simone, Taylor, and Sharon, where we played Buzzword and Taboo and Sharon took random pictures with my camera.

When I got home at around 4:10, I discovered my sister locked in her room in a horrible mood. She's nearly 13 and she's allowed to have bad moods; I go through that all the time. She was fine by dinnertime but her best friend called about 10 minutes ago and she refused to talk, so I had to tell her friend that she'd already gone to bed. This kind of makes me feel bad about the fits I threw when I was her age. Sorry, Mom.

I do want to note how epically awesome this shirt is. I really, really, really want one but unfortunately they don't ship to the US. I actually saw it in a picture on the nerdfighter ning, which led me to the collab channel Nerds of a Feather. The girl who had the picture actually shows the shirt in this video. I think I may have to make my own so I can be a nerdosaurus too.

DFTBA, all.

Brain Explosions

Brain Explosions

I've been trying to put off blogging until after the AP on Thursday so as to not distract myself, but since I'm not doing much studying right now anyway, it can't hurt. This may sound weird, but I'm more worried about the logistics of the test, like not bringing enough pencils, and my cell phone getting stolen when I leave it in my locker, than I am about the actual test.

I honestly feel like my head is getting bigger as I try and cram more and more knowledge into it - come Friday, everything world history related is getting thrown out. I don't know what good studying is going to do me right now. It's all little things that I can't remember, so even if I look all of them up right now, the chances of remembering all of them are pretty slim. I'm kind of to the point where I know what I know, and if I don't know it then I don't know it.

Plus we have state testing starting Thursday, so I'm missing the first bit of it. Meanwhile all of our teachers are trying to reteach everything they (attempted to) teach us during the year. No one is motivated to do well, though, becase the state tests don't do anything for us; they just make the school look good and earn money from Schwartzeneggar. I guess that's only good in the long run if it means they'll not have to cut as many teachers.

So basically I'm trying to retain everything I know about the history of the world, plus relearning everything I partly learned in geometry and chemistry this year. There's also french vocab to memorize and things to read for English and a LINK crew application to fill out, on which I have to articulate a reasonable answer to the question, "how do you view your role as a mentor to the incoming freshman class of 2013?" Would it be too blunt if I said that my role as a mentor to the freshman class of 2013 was a stepping stone to college?

This had better pay off in college. Or at least after college, when I get a good paying job and win a Nobel prize and marry the man of my dreams, who happens to resemble Milo Ventimiglia and has the voice of Landon Pigg, with a dash of Green-esque nerdiness thrown into the mix.

Complaining as a Homework Avoidance Technique

Complaining as a Homework Avoidance Technique

I really should not be blogging right now. I've had to hold myself from blogging for the past few days, because after blogging so much during April, it was pretty much natural instinct to want to sit down and blog. But I didn't. Nor, unfortunately, did I do much studying. Instead, I watched JONAS, and a new episode of Hannah Montana, and a new episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, and a new episode of Sonny With a Chance. Now I have 9 days to read a zillion pages in my review book, internalize all that information, and somehow mentally prepare myself to survive a 4 hour test.

Meanwhile, the pile on my desk is growing larger by the day and is now overflowing onto my dresser. I have 2 framed posters leaning on my wall and bed that are ready to hang up and have been for the past 2 months, but my dad just left for Spain for 10 days and they're now going to be stuck in their current positions until he returns. I have about 6 hours of Chuck to watch and 7 hours of Pottercast to listen to. I've actually been writing the last few days and not totally hating it when I reread it, and now it's going to be ignored until I get through my AP exam.

May 15th (the day after the AP test) is going to be quite a day, let me tell you. No matter that it's a school day; when the bell rings at 2:30, I'm free. I'm going to come home, watch "10 Things I Hate About You" about 12 times while eating ice cream, and finally paint my nails like I've been wanting to for weeks. I'm going to dance around to my wrock playlist for hours and reread Harry Potter and sleep. A lot.

The sad thing is, I know I could make time to paint my nails or watch Chuck or listen to Pottercast if I really wanted to. Instead I make time for blogging - or rather, I push other things out of the way so I can blog. I'm doing it right now - I have 2 different books and 3 different writing untensils on the desk in front of me, and yet here I am, blogging.

Ah, well. History will still be here tomorrow.

Oh, hey! You can follow me on twitter! Yet another way to waste my time!

Wal-Mart and Questions

Wal-Mart and Questions

Today I have a short anecdote for you about Wal-Mart and then a bunch of BEDA buddy questions because I've been ignoring those lately. (Even if you're not my BEDA buddy, you can answer. I don't mind, really.)

WALL-TO-WALL-MART-OF-CRAZY

I've only been to Wal-Mart twice in my life. The first time was with my grandparents, who one year decided that instead of buying my sister and I Chanukah presents, they would just take us to Wal-Mart. It was no consolation, let me assure you. Even though I was only 9 or so at the time, I was really really conscious of how much things cost and wouldn't ask for anything too expensive, so I ended up with a rolling backpack.* (It broke a couple months later.) My sister came home with massive amounts of Polly Pockets, and I seem to recall and Shrinky Dink Oven. All I really remember of that trip was the McDonalds in the store. I thought that was amazing.

My second trip to Wal-Mart occurred last year. The new Eagles cd came out, and they only had it at Wal-Mart, so of course my mom decided it was worth the risk. She generally avoids Wal-Mart at all costs - she says it's because the isles are so small that they make her claustrophobic. We pretty much ran in, speed-walked in circles until we found the cd, then ran out. (We did stop to pay for it, of course.) Basically the entire trip was two minutes long, but it was enough for me to see the kind of people who shop at Wal-Mart.** And I recall dollar bins. Lots of them.

BEDA BUDDIES, SORRY IF YOU FEEL IGNORED

1. How do you suggest studying for the AP World History exam, which is in 14 days? Or, if you are studying, how are you doing it?
2. Would you please tell me a crazy story? Something that happened to you in Wal-Mart, maybe?
3. What are your favorite kind of sunglasses?
4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
5. What's your favorite color of highlighter?
6. What is your opinion on papier mache things?
7. What's your favorite t-shirt have on it?
8. Name 3 songs I have to listen to. Now. (Or on May 15th after the AP.)
9. What spell would you like to use on Britney Spears?
10. What is your favorite thing to put on your head?

Ahhh, gotta run.
Shower. Study. Bed. Possibly study in bed.

- Tash

* These were quite in style in elementary school. Everyone who was anyone on the playground had one. And then they all tripped over each others' at recess.

What High School's Done to My Weekends

What High School's Done to My Weekends

Eighty-nine percent of me loves the weekends. Weekends are great, right? No school, sleeping in, time to take more than 5 minutes to eat breakfast. On the weekend I can wear my pajamas all day and disregard the appearance of my hair and stare at the wall for hours if I want to. But then I remember that actually, I can't.

Here's where dreading the weekend comes in. I am a high school student. Therefore, I procrastinate, leaving my homework until the last possible second, at which point I am hyperventalating about finishing it and failing the test and my grade slipping and omygosh omygosh. This weekend I have an entire history chapter to outline (and read), a gigantic worksheet* for history as well as some thoughtful analysis comparing the Holocaust to another genocide,** about 15 math problems, and various chem assignments.***

On top of this I've committed myself to Chuck, 90210, Greek, a Masterpiece Theater of Little Dorrit that I think may possibly be 6 hours long, and The Au Pair 3: Adventure in Paradise.**** I did manage to catch up on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles with my mom this evening, but my DVR is still threatening to delete things.

I bet you're really interested in how many weeks behind I am on PotterCast. That, my friends, would be 7. And of course there's BEDA, which, thanks to the Ning, takes up more time than just ten minutes a day that it takes me to write a post.*****

And then, there are, of course, these guys. I find myself sitting in front of my computer late at night watching them.

But before I get to do any of that I have to get up at 7 tomorrow morning to go volunteer at the food bank. Then I'll come home and spend the rest of the day attempting to do homework but getting distracted every 10 minutes instead, which is going to suck on Sunday, since I'm going to a college fair that's probably going to be half of the day.


I love you, high school. Just look at what you've done to my desk.

* My teacher is a fan of legal-size sheets of paper.
** This one requires outside research. But we get to use Wikipedia!
*** A formal lab that requires about 8 pages of typing and makes me want to hit my head on the keyboard repeatedly due Tuesday, and companion questions for another lab due Wednesday, as well as two worksheets due the same day.
**** I also watch Heroes live on Monday and Kings on Saturday, but since I don't have to watch those later they don't count.
***** Not that this is a bad thing at all. :]

Bycicle Man in my shower

Bycicle Man in my shower

No worries, it's still Monday where I live.

I spent today watching last night's episode of Kings, doing homework, and reading BEDA blogs. I've been scanning down the page and clicking a name on the blogroll this at random. I've read some pretty interesting things so far.Overall, I pretty boring day, although I did encounter an odd sight in my shower this morning. (All right, this afternoon. It's spring break; I can shower at 1 o'clock if I want to!) I was just standing there, shampooing my hair, when I noticed a little man riding a bycicle on the wall of my shower!

Here is the little bycicle man, just minding his own business, riding his bycicle along.

So I stood and watched him for a minute, peddling his bycicle. Then I started thinking that it was actually quite sad; he peddles all day, going no where, condemned to a boring life on the wall of my shower. (It actually kind of reminds me of a line from a Jack's Mannequin song about a spaceman who can't get high; that's a pun! Or that car commercial with all the hamsters whose weels are locked so that they can't move.) Poor Bycicle Man! (Or, as we say in French class, Pauvre Man de Veilo! Or something. I'm horrible at French.)

After I waved goodbye to Bycicle Man, I went back to my homework. (I finished chapter 30; just have to do chapter 31 tomorrow, then I'm home-free for the rest of spring break, which is good since I'm not going to be home and won't be able to do any homework anyway. AP had better pay off in college.) Then my mom and my sister and I went to Islands for dinner, and then, like the nerds that we are, took a trip to the library. I always have trouble finding books, especially in the YA section. (As much as I love MJ and John Green, once I've read their books, I've read them. As John's said, he's not James Patterson; he can't crank out books quite that fast.) Has anyone else noticed that everything seems to be about vampires these days?

So I tried a new strategy: I sat down on the floor and looked at the books on the bottom shelf. I'm betting those don't get read very often, as people tend to only look at the books at eye level. I now have a pile of 9 books sitting in front of me. Granted, I probably won't like most of them, but they should last me through the rest of break.

I just finished watching tonight's episode of Heroes, which was amazing as always (or, as usual; they've had some off weeks). I'm not going to go into details here because it's boring and complicated unless you watch it - but if you do and want to discuss it...