Monday, June 30, 2008

Trente-Trois

It's my 33rd post!

Okay, so I lied. I wasn't able to take pictures like I wanted to. So this will be yet another boring, picture-less post. Actually, maybe not. I have the scarf I'm making for my friend's birthday right here.

I just took the picture, but there's some kind of "internal error" involved with uploading it right here. I'll try one more time.

It's definitely not working. I just took another picture too. How frustrating.

Now I just uploaded them to flickr. I'll try using the url.


Hooray! Amen for flickr. I think the scarf looks pretty darn cool, if you ask me. :) I'm proud of it. I think my friend will like it.

Cheesecake Factory > any other restaurant. Amazing salmon + creamy mashed potatoes + decadent rich fudge cake = my kind of meal. Lemon sauce with the salmon and mashed potatoes too. Yum.

I have this incessant craving to go to San Francisco. I could go so easily; just hop on BART, sit there for half an hour, get out, and there I am. Round trip is less than $13 I think. But I have an exam for US History tomorrow (the course I'm taking at a community college) and I have to study. Tomorrow, our History groupie wants to see WALL-E after class. Thursday, I'm going to the fair with my mom, dad, and aunt (she's taking BART here). Then my parents will drive me to my aunt's house in Mountain View where we'll spend the weekend at her friend's house who's on vacation (they needed someone to watch over the animals). We're supposed to go to her local yarn store and stuff too, so that should be fun. I'll be sure to bring my Seeing Green Scarf (pictured above) and the blanket I'm making, along with my trusty camera. I'll be sure to document the weekend to prevent my posts from being overly boring and text-heavy.

One of my best friends is in Omaha, Nebraska right now, hoping for a spot on the national swim team. She's competing.. actually right now. Right this second, actually! Omaha's on Central Daylight Time, and swimming finals (semifinals, for her) begin at 6:45 pm. It's now 6:46 pm over there, and her event is the first. She swims 100 Back and 200 Back, and I hope the best for her. Her birthday was on the 15th, and I gave her this charcoal-black earflap hat with a tassel on it. I called her a few days later for the events she was going to be participating in for the Olympic Trials, and she said that she loved the hat so much. Not only that, but she was also going to take the hat to Omaha with her! I get to watch her performance (that's going on now) tonight at 8 (that's when it will be televised). I'm so excited; just over three hours until I get to see one of my best friends on TV doing what she loves!


So that's the view out my window, wonderfully blocked by the annoying shutters. But there you have it. The sky is a bit yucky because of all the Californian wildfires right now, so there's tons of smoke around. On the news last night, they were saying that there is a mass of unhealthy smoke floating above California. I've been coughing and sneezing, and I really hope it's just from the smoke and that I don't have another cold.

And I have news: I CAN DRIVE. Officially & legally. I got my permit on June 24th, 2008, and I had my first driving lesson on that very same day. Now, I can drive my mom to and from the store. I also drive to pick up the two girls we carpool with for class, but I don't drive them all the way to school.

Lots of studying for the big exam tomorrow that must be complete before 8 pm.

The Final Word:
+ "She's my little deuce coupe; you don't know what I got." - "Little Deuce Coupe", Beach Boys

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Results

It's been ages. Eons even. I've been so preoccupied with school and finals and other commitments that I haven't even had time to blog. But don't worry, I haven't forgotten! I suppose this post will be all about results. So here goes:

Didn't make jazz; didn't make Chamber Choir. Pathetic. But I made Women's, so I guess I'm stuck there. However, one of my friends consoled me as I was looking at the list, saying, "It's all politics. Trust me. There are tons of girls in Chamber next year who don't deserve the spot. They're just placed there because their mom is best friends with the teacher or have some other political affiliation. Don't worry. I've heard you sing. You're actually pretty good." So yes, I was disappointed, but at least I didn't have to worry about other girls who made it directly into Chamber without stopping at Women's first. Ah well. Stuck in a class with all girls. Oh, the horrors. I've heard it's hellishly cliquey. Something that I hate. I guess I'll have to survive. I'll learn to deal.

So I entered my stuff into the county fair. I did fairly well, and there was actually quite a bit of competition. The item that did the best at the fair was my Fabala afghan. I'll post a picture of it soon. I'm so proud of it; I was looking for it feverishly with my friends, and suddenly they just said, "Well, maybe it's over there, in the Winners' Circle". I looked, and there it was! It was displayed beautifully, and not only did it win First Place, it also received.. get ready for it.. Best of Class and Best of Show! :) Hooray! Other items did pretty well. I entered a scarf with colors of our rival high school (purposely) and my friend who attends that high school took a picture and displayed it on the internet. Here it is. :) I love how they displayed it. People have been saying they've "(seen my) scarf at the fair", but I never know which one because I entered four.

My dad's still really unwilling to let me participate in Marching Band in the coming year. He feels I'll fall behind in my studies and that I'll soon be flunking. I doubt it's going to happen, but he feels it's entirely possible. He made a deal with me: If I can get a score of 2200 on the SAT Reasoning, I can do Marching Band. The only problem is that I'm at 2000 right now, and I have about three days to get it up 200 points because if I let the counseling office know any later than that, I won't be enrolled in Marching Band and that would just be terrible. So I'm studying. Very hard.

I started a scarf with this stitch, and I also started an afghan in some old Caron Simply Soft (White) in this stitch. I'm almost halfway done with the afghan but I have a lot more to do on the scarf. I just bought the scarf yarn today. It's green in place of the cranberry on the stitch website, with the white squares. The scarf will be for a good friend of mine who is in colorguard. She's really sweet and I've been meaning to crochet her up another scarf. I gave her one several years ago, and in that time, I've seen her wear it twice. I suppose that's better than the never other people have worn the items I've made them. But hopefully this one will be more attractive for her and she will want to wear it more often.

I'm earning serious moolah from taking care of my neighbors' animals. I guess I shouldn't talk about my salary, but I frankly could care less. I got $40 + shower kit + chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for taking care of my neighbor's cat and taking in the newspaper and mail every day for about a week and a half. I worked for my dad the other night by entering contacts from a cell phone onto a spreadsheet because it's a company phone and he wants to return it. Extra $20, but I think I really deserved it. It took over two hours to enter them all because he has over 200 contacts. Ouch. So I have $60 floating around, and my parents owe me more for my grades (not all As, but really close, so I get some money), plus I went to the fair and Discovery Kingdom with my friend, and my expenses need to be reimbursed.

Ah yes, the fair. Basically all that happened was this: I hung out with my friend + her sister, spent serious money (ride wristbands alone were $25), went on rides, one ride in particular held us upside down for an agonizingly long time (I had a headache afterwards), and then went into some gallery place and relaxed in the air-conditioned building. It was over 100 degrees that day.

Then we decided it would be awesome if I could sleep over at her house. My mom agreed, and I did, which was amazingly fun. We played Rock Band for several hours, then we had to go to my friend's sister's dance recital. It was a dress-rehearsal at Ohlone Community College, and was amazing. It's traditional Chinese dancing, but it was actually really interesting to watch. It wasn't all that Oriental as I thought it was going to be; it had a lot of Western influence as well. Then the next day, we went to Discovery Kingdom (formerly known as Marine World); owned by Six Flags. Super fun. That night, we went to my friend's sister's dance recital (the actual thing), and it was more spectacular than the dress-rehearsal. I even saw one girl in Marching Band there (flautist). I didn't say hi, though, because she was too far away.

I'm taking History, now, at a community college (not Ohlone). Some people are even going as far as Laney Community College so they won't have to take History during the school year. For me, I'm clearing up my schedule so I can do Marching Band, but many other people are doing it so they can take more AP classes. I think they're just crazy.

In a nutshell, my summer (so far) has encompassed:
+ Karen's Birthday
+ Paul's Party
+ Cynthia's Birthday + Party @ Tara's
+ Fair
+ Discovery Kingdom
+ School

My summer is about to encompass:
+ Cheering on best friend for Swimming Olympic Trials :)
+ Watching Olympic Trials (Tomorrow - Friday)
+ Hanging out at my knitting aunt's house for the weekend (+ her local knitting store!)
+ Band camp
+ Watching the Olympics held in Beijing, mainly swimming + track
+ School band camp (possibly; only if I make Marching Band)
+ And hopefully movies


I want to see WALL-E so badly; it seems so cute! A few friends from class are going to see it too, so I'll just see it with them.

We're going to Cheesecake Factory tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a few pictures to spruce up this blog and keep it from getting excruciatingly boring.

The Final Word:
+ "Stop trying to make her white, Chris." "But I've already half-succeeded!" (reference to my being half white [Mom's white, Dad's not]; Chris was messing around with the white-out)