Monday, December 31, 2007

Last post of 2007

NOthing cool happened in the last few days, so I reckoned I better not put second rate material on the blog. What was really awesome was that the Redskins are still writing an inspirational story. Dallas can't play right in the rain- or, they wanted to help write the inspirational tale. Thanks, Dallas. The New England (Boston) Patriots won a 16-0 season, setting a record. Other than these signs I've been finding dimes all day. What an omen. Backtrack to yesterday, I nearly left my coat in the same store in Maryland that I usually nearly leave something at. Creepy. Now on Saturday, I enjoyed a long trip to wild and wonderful West Virginia, enjoying big, empty freeways between small towns. We went to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and of course I ate too much...
Happy 2008.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Shopping Rush

Today I went to Inkstop. I got up at 7am to do so as to get massively discounted technology, but there was a little problem. The ad said the store opened at 8am, when it really opens at 9. So I was stranded for an hour, walking around "Little West Virginia", as the neighborhood is sometimes called, and playing with my cellphone waiting. At 9 I was like a child in a candy shop, the discounted technology on one neat shelf. I got memory cards, reams of paper, a labelmaker, for $27. or so. Anyway, according to my original plan, I was supposed to take the D5 shortcut bus directly home, but that was a rush hour only service and I was stuck taking a transfer trip. At least the D6 was a new bus, which took off some of the pain. Anyway, Inkstop, great values.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

First Christmas, Blogged

It was a rare day when the computer remained off all day. That's why I couldn't say:
*"Merry Christmas"*
last night to everyone before the special day.

Before next Christmas I will have received my Driver Learner's Permit (isn't it 15 and a half in DC) , had a nice, long summer vacation and experience, Dr. Wood's Physics class, and a February 29th will have gone by. Lots of things.

Back to yesterday and the day before, I took the Tony bus to New York (Not recommended) via 4 stops and had a lunch in Chinatown. ($3, Fried Dumpling, Avenue of the Immigrants/Allen Street, Fried dumplings, wonton soup, spring roll and tea egg) I rushed back to a lesson and carol service for the community, and then had an alumni school dinner. Afterwards, we checked in our hotel, Doubletree at Times Square. Nice views from room 1403. Fun to ride the elevator to the top and down for thrills. Of course, time flew and it was time for midnight mass. It was so hard to stay awake while sitting down during the festive music, but I was somewhat awake by the end of Mass. Bed at about 2am.

Later morning, Christmas Day, Breakfast at a little deli east of the hotel on 47th street. ($3.25, breakfast sandwich.) Rockefeller center had a long fountain which was about a foot thick in pennies and various other change. Got some pictures, will post. Another service at 11, and Eastern bus at 2:30 home. The only store that would have been somewhat appealing there in Times Square, waiting for the bus to pull up was Office Depot. Yes, no better place to play in Times Square. Not too many people. But Office Depot was closed that day.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Hodie christus non natus est.

Kristmas Kounter: 1 day

It was very foggy this morning, especially when I crossed the street into Foggy Bottom. Heeheehee. I felt like going back to sleep. While I was working on Facebook, I came across this link:
http://www.fighthunger.org/en/node/2683
Click on a button and you charge a 19 cent donation from a corporate sponsor. That is apparently enough to feed a hungry kid, and something charitable to do during Christmas"If you have a computer, can you save someone's life with the click of your mouse?"

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Target

I enjoyed my first year of Christmas shopping. I enjoy going to the large store and grabbing last-of-stock items off the shelf, the only time one may grab items one after another. But, unlike the news kept on saying, there were no entrancing sales and price cuts that made me feel like I was in heaven. (buy a hot dog griller and get an ice shaver free, eh?)

After that I had a sad time- while I was being nice and filling my daddy's car with gas. I finished and topped the gas off for safety, and pulled the nozzle from the tank, which, brokenly, splurted 39 cents of gas on the side of the car and on my pants. Ick.

In another pair of pants we went to Rodman's and bought about $40 of European imported sweets.

The Redskins are fighting for a Wildcard spot after dominating the Giants. No matter what happens, the inspirational-coach-movie will portray the Redskins winning.

Friday, December 21, 2007

It's something important

I don't have to get up at 6 am until January 7th. Yippee! If you want to know where to buy electronics at half price and don't have any objections in pumping money into China's economy, visit the website, www.chinavasion.com. Or, if you are so tech savvy you must get massive quantities of American electronics at a Chinese price visit Shenzhen, China. Says a website, there are hundreds of multistory wholesale electronics shops. I'm planning on going there in, about, 2016 or so, if the stuff's still cheap.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

One last exam

What is in my way before a merry Christmas Holiday break?
Studying for the final final exam
Doing the final final exam
Having a school mass after the final final exam.

Main question- do we get any holiday homework, or is it given to us tommorow to our discontent, or is it mailed to our cheery homes to remind us of the real world? Or do we not get any at all?

A new cooler of coins is starting to grow. Unfortunately, I can still lift it with one finger. As I sort through the incoming coins to pluck out the collectibles over the coming holiday, I think the bucket will get quite heavy by New Year's Day. Of course, I'm going to fill it to the brim. Also, I can only guess how much money is in the cooler, for now I have no need, and it takes too much time, to put them in neat little bank rolls.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Post 50

Hurray. It's my 50th blog post, half of which came in the past two months, when I made an attempt at 5 posts a week. Now we had our ("50"/10)th exam today, and one exam only, which let us out at 10am. Since the shuttle wouldn't come for another half hour, some of us had a nice walk through the community on Michigan avenue to Brookland Metro. Somewhat quicker than taking 12th street.

Nevertheless, there are still two exams left and I know the readers want these exams to be over as well! Maybe the 100th post could be on Feb. 29, 2008? That's a special day.

Jack Evans sent us a nice "Happy Holiday" card on glossy paper in full color; the type you receive from relatives. Paid for by Evans 2008, Treasurer, Dennis Black. Evans has been the area councilman longer than I've been alive and he's probably going to be elected again and again.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Exams, my life for now

The English exam was simple- completed poet ID and names and an essay on the allegory in The Grapes of Wrath. Science- there were only 30 card questions and about 10 Hardy-Weinbergs. Tomorrow- some Latin and going home at 10am.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

O Tannenbaum

Today we got a Christmas tree! A sign of a Germanic dark age ritual. Other than this reminder, I was nearly insistent to take the bus to get the tree, because I was in fear that there would be no parking out front. Of course, it's only what one would do if they wanted to make a statement, but we were lucky in that we had a parking space just about were we left from. There surely are exams tomorrow. Science may require thought, but the English exam will be jolly. I will do good on the English exam! HAHAHA. Lame joke. Starbucks is irritating me; they opened another new one two blocks from where they opened a new one in June. Worse than McDonald's, I think. Did you know you could fireproof a tree ? More on that later, I got to catch some sleep.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

What's Better?

The exams went fine, however, I did use all two hours of both exam sessions to dolly some extra credit, in French. What is better? a little kid asked, a half day of exams or a whole day of classes?
The two hours didn't make much of a difference, though. The fun part will be getting out at or before 10am on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Exams

Our very first high school exam. In a mere 15 hours I will be sitting nervously while some teacher, who comes on time, hands us our language exams. I'll fill out most of it right, trip up over the pronouns. Then I start doubting my answers. I avoid changing the multiple choice and it comes out sweet. Three hours later, someone will hand out the Religion Exam and I will miss some part of the doctrine (God is...) or be misguided on an essay. That was based on the last test, but I just have to get the Christian philosophers straight.

In my other life, a girl who I have never met before tracked me down to my Facebook from a piece of apparel. During the summer of '05, I think it was, while I was at Saint Thomas', the boy's school hosted a choir week for girls. "There I was a hero". Sweet and nice.

Monday, December 10, 2007

A weekend, a poem

This is highly compressed language, or POETRY

Weekend come and gone

Saturday
DC Youth Orchestra, yep, nothing better to do with a Saturday. Afterwards I went to a Chinese supermarket in Rockville to load up on Chinese groceries.

Sunday
It's already Sunday?
Went to church group
Performed at St. Anselm Christmas concert

Friday, December 7, 2007

Two and a half day weekend

It's Pearl Harbor day today, and nobody told me before TV did. For some reason they forgot to mention that this is the second day of Hanukkah.

The 8 hours of free time on Friday should not be misrepresented. It is the best part of the weekend just because there's more weekend ahead! Intramurals were fun today, because Main house dissed Moore at volleyball- 3 games in a row! In orchestra today, I had the feeling that I was outperformed by a little sixth grader who played a solo maybe better than I did.

I submitted an article for the Press last night after blogging (or as I call it, E-Journaling) I won't spoil the secret until the paper comes out. I would like to encourage more "freshies" to write material for the paper, because good literature comes out of hardship. Not like being a Freshman at this school is difficult.

Anyway, that was so cool how we used the new school lecture hall. Those nice seats are as part of the future as a Segway.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Another Post (Happy style)

(insert a phrase from George Horton paraphrasing Greek literature)

Because I did my Math homework last night I did not have any homework tonight! That's a first in a while. For the record, Montgomery County Schools opened 2 hours late today, and therefore we had a neat-o 1 hour delay, which I used half of for a snooze and half for treading through ice. I didn't have a problem with the trains, but apparently some people did. There are automatic snowmelters on the tracks to take care of the ice. While the temperature barely broke over freezing, parts of the park's snow/ice has broken into islands in the park outside my window. Likewise certain streets are still in a thick layer of frozen wintry mix, while other (side) streets are melted. Whatever was going on with ice adherence today will not disturb my normal Friday and Friday night tomorrow!

Also: I found my Biology folder back where it belonged. Nice people-returned my exam study material.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

DCYO Recruiting

Can you play a Vivaldi Concerto? If so, great, because that is what our conductor wants.

Last Saturday, Mr. Vales revealed yet another ambitious plan for our Junior Philharmonic. He compared us to the other, (top) orchestra and said we could be as good as them, when we had enough people. He pulled out a board with all the available seats, and had us all fill in a chair to represent ourselves. We had 35 people. There are 88 places, which is the size of a full Philharmonic. We were always called the Philharmonic, and now Mr. Vales wants a Philharmonic. "We will fill these seats by 2009". "Three oboes!" someone exclaimed "It's lucky if we have one!" He said that if we all brought someone to our ensemble, then the rest would take care of itself.
according to Mr. Vales, "We can be the best in the county".

Most of us have been playing with this institution for many years. That is testimony to the enjoyability of the program. Timewise, this takes no more than 4 hours of your Saturday, and requires only a few hours of practice a week. For this you receive the chance to perform at high profile events and a great portfolio for college applications.

So I encourage everyone out there, if you think you are qualified, or for that matter have any sort of musical inclination, visit this website, www.dcyop.org. All orchestra positions are avalible. Harps and Percussion and all woodwinds and brass and strings, including violin!

Thank you all for your time, and remember, you can be great!

Ice Day?

Snowball-able snow so early in December? Cool.

The only reason I'm here right now is that the mayor decided to take a snow day. You see, the DCYO-JP (DC Youth Orchestra Junior Philharmonic, who is recruiting), which I am a member of, was supposed to perform at the livable walkable community event. This was called off, as many other things were, tonight, for a reason I don't see. Now tomorrow, I believe that there will be ice on the roads when it refreezes tonight. (Actually, it was below freezing nearly all day- the roads just didn't freeze like everything else, and the snow would not adhere.) And when there is ice on the roads it isn't safest to drive and the government says not to go to school or work because of that, even though it doesn't bother my travel.

Keep posted on wtopnews.com for the latest school closures. Rappahanock county in Virginia and The Potomac School, VA have already posted 2 hour delays for tomorrow. My opinion: It doesn't matter to me if we had school tomorrow or not. After all, it is going to be Thursday and it's not a bad schedule...

Saturday, December 1, 2007

The Big Idea

I promised on Thursday that when I had more time, I would give my big plan. I read online about these High School Entrepreneurs. Their stories are amazing! But there is a benefit- they also give scholarships for these people for college. I suppose that this is a limited field and that I may have a chance to shine, and to get pocket change without being dependent on a parent. I've done lots of buying and selling and much of the other professional matters like evaluation... This is something that I will think about over the long Christmas break in 20 days.

The worst night ever

Last night was the worst night I ever lived through! This all-youth lock in at the cathedral could have been the fraud of the day. You see: They showed pictures of happy children on their website. The real faces were those of people who did an all day long test. Exausted faces emerging into the sun for the first time in more than 14 hours. These high school age group leaders just could not manage anything. For example, we had to wait a whole half hour in line just to get a bagel! and not to mention the warm orange juice. The disrespect of the church- how terrible! Sleeping and eating in the nave of the cathedral! Not like I could get to sleep; there were people screaming and stomping all night, waking me up at regular intervals. After all, the light was on over my head all night. Between 7pm and 1 am these big children stuffed us with propaganda- they actually did traumatize more than one person about what they said about how there was no justice in the world. That was from 7 to 10pm. Then we had a Woodstock-esque christian revival song event. They can be fun, but I don't have to tell you about this one. Then we had a midnight mass of the most sacred sacrament of Holy Communion while we sung improvisational church music. In sleepwear on the altar of this high church- How dare they! So with less than 2 hours of sleep in all I slouched over to my orchestra event. These big children destroyed at least half my weekend.
Main problem- too many people!How were you supposed to meet people when there were 440 paying participants? Each participant paid $38. Go figure. The diocese recieved $16,720 (Nearly all the staff were volunteering.) while apparently the majority of the participants were in misery. I would have happily given 2 $20 bills to support whatever nice mission the church was trying to achieve. This was unnecessary, I thought. A few people, however, liked it and want to go back again next year. It just must not be our parish's style. Don't take me wrong- Most Christian sleepovers are great fun and whatever this sleepover was trying to claim they did. For example, I would have preferred watching a DVD in a cozy sleeping bag with people I knew at my local parish over the cathedral's own movie theater and that rock band that was there.