Time for Another Post

School’s, well, school.

 Woopdeedoo.

 (Anatomy = Easy, minus that “getting up early” part, Calc = Easy when you don’t screw up, English = Easy when you READ and STUDY, MadChoir = Fun/Awesome ALL THE TIME, and Bio = Fun, especially when you have really awesome study-group thingies)

Church Handbells is fun. Especially now that it is “Youth Handbells” and not “Children and Youth” handbells.

I’m the President of the Forensics club! Awesomeness!

Other clubs we need to start so we (by we I mean me and all my friends who would cooperate in a scheme like this) can be President/Vice President/Secretary/Treasurer for, for College Applications:

Trashcan Band

Crafts and Crap (not actual name, but a club that builds stuff because we can)

Big Brother/Sister Program (pair a Freshman with a Senior or Responsible Junior, and cut them loose!)

Experiment Club (work with Chemistry to see what happens when you do different things, may not be safe due to accidentaly creating toxic fumes…..)

Team Games Club (Team Trivial Pursuit all the way to Ultimate Frisbee. Team games, yeah)

Thematic Party Club (okay guys, this week, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving with a Pilgrim themed party! Next party is before Christmas break, dress up in Wintery costumes!)

Yeah. That’d be cool.

School, mostly back to Full Swing….

Lots of things going on, let’s list them!

~Locker troubles. Lock missing, two textbooks from IN the locker are gone. NOT cool. (especially when I have to pay a $60 before I can get issued a new English book, when I’m still not sure what even HAPPENED to the FIRST one! Stupid school is screwing me over with the locker mess. I have an AP Calc book, not too bad, kinda small, but a huge English book, AP Biology book, an Anatomy workbook, an Anatomy textbook, an Anatomy coloring book (might leave it at home), my binder, 2 spiralbound notebooks, and whatever ELSE I happen to need to carry that day. LOTS of weight)

~AP Calc is easy. Lots of basic stuff, no problems.

~Need to get an Ipod, both to listen to stuff IN class, and so I won’t have to continuously swap out CDs.

~Need some new CDs to listen to on the way to/from school. (short drive, I know, but I listen to music nonetheless)

~Need to catch back up in English. (not having a textbook for a weekend really screwed me over)

~Anatomy will be easy once I remember all the terms. (had work to do out  of the lab book, and did it, but didn’t have a textbook to know what I had right and wrong)

~My TI-89 Titanium calculator is sentient. I think that if I plugged it into my computer to download games, it would take over the world.

~Having understanding teachers is cool.

~Madrigal Choir ROCKS, because it’s not the awful “concert choir” (I couldn’t stand that anymore, because I’m usually the ONLY good tenor) Not only that, but I’ve learned that I have better rythm than most people do. (I can’t get all the notes right in sight-reading, but I sure can get the rythm down)

~I need more time in the day for both fun, a possible job or other source of income, and maybe even to clean my room…..

~AP Biology is fun, because most of what we do I have done in Anatomy a day or so before. (or I go over it the next moring) GREAT, beacuse I get it hit into me twice in a day, meaning a better chance of remembering it later.

~That “quiz-lab” we did in AP Biology was crazy, and it didn’t help that Rachel kept stealing my little tray thingy (we were saring it, but she would carry it off and I couldn’t use it), but luckily, the “Jake-Method” saved the day. (do it twice, once with water, once with the stuff, and compare, it’s GARUNTEED to make sure you know if it changed or not) I got 100, awesomeness!

~I need the CD for those AP Biology songs. That stuff is awesome. (chai-ai-ains, Biology’s all full of chains…)

~Having someone tell me I smell good is an interesting way to end the day. Especially when that person was Kyndal Payne, I couldn’t remember WHAT could have made me smell good (cologn stuff should have worn off well before Lunch, becasue it was applied before 6:30 this morning), I was on an “energy drink” buzz, was in the middle of a test, and instantly remembered the last person who told me I smelled good (Daniel, while he was sitting between me and HIS GIRLFRIEND, you know, how does that make ME feel?). Interesting day, nonetheless.

~Twinkies are funny, because Randy LOVES them, and can’t open them half the time.

~Cheese balls are great too. (cheese puffs in “ball” shape)

~Cheeze-Its rock. (get your own box)

~Very simple video games are the best, especially when they are 4 player. (thinking “Kirby Air Ride” here, as it uses the joystick and the a button, but not the b, x, y, z, l, or r buttons, OR the directional pad or c stick)

~That stupid energy drink is going to keep me up for a while….

Back to the Madness…. Update 1

Okay.

Anatomy and Physiology is okay. Not too hard yet. My books are in the mail (had to order college books, but instead of paying $300 for the new edition I got the old edition pre used for about $90) Once we get to learning what the muscles do (more Physiology and less Anatomy) I’ll actually be building on AP Biology stuff. That’s cool. And I finally realized that my extra class lasts just under an hour, which isn’t bad at ALL.

AP Calc is okay. Kinda wish some other people were in it. (12 person class is cool, but there are other people in the other AP Calc class who I’d rather have in my class in place of some other people……) AP Calc is easy, minus the whole “I don’t remember this stuff” problem with the begining of school, as well as trying to do today’s lesson with no teacher… (his son has a fever, so he was home with the kid)

AP English was cool, because we got to listen to some cool old TV music! (Twilight Zone and original Batman themesong were cool; and later on we listened to Under the Boardwalk and It’s My Party) We’re working on a poster/chart thingy, and it’s about character, so my group shouldn’t have a very tough time for the next day and a half.

Madrigal Choir rocks. We’re singing fun songs (Operator! yay!) and having a fun time in general. (great after a zero period and two AP classes, and it helps when they let us go to lunch way before we were supposed to….. )

AP Biolgoy was ok, at first. Got 127 of the 200 questions “what do you know” quiz correct. She didn’t mind that I finished as class started. (turns out I don’t know my worms and mullosks, or my protists, but if you want to know about Biomes or Photosynthesis, I’m your man) Turns out, there used to be an old AP Biology Key West trip. Guess what? Now that she told us, looks like we’ll be going to Key West at the end of the year. Awesome. (just because we won’t let them tell us we can’t go!)
So, the school days that at first seemed okay, and then horrible, have finally leveled off at about “pretty good, all things considered”. I think I’m going to try and squeeze in 8 more online classes (“Web Design” will be an easy one, among others) Then, that prediction on Facebook that said I’ll be “Most likely to take 18 classes and still make straight A’s” will be true! If the CPE (Coolest Person Ever) thinks that’s my predicition, it is my job to make it true!

I’m off to convice my parents that extra online classes can’t be a bad thing!

Back to the madness….

Summer is over.

Discount shopping every other weekend.

Various specials from clothes to furniture to new TVs.

Upgrades in technology (both calculators and laptops)

This can only mean one thing.

Back to school.

So, day one is out of the way! Huzzah! The first chunk of the never-ending nightmare is being chipped away at!

My day:

6:00 ~ Wake up

6:45 ~ At school. Class Zero: Anatomy and Physiology. Looks like it’ll be easy enough, unless Mrs. D’s prediciton comes true and I don’t call who I’m supposed to in our “class for today is cancled, so sleep in!” calling chain. (she made fun of me 10 minutes into class on the first day of my senior year. Glad to know I’m still loved…..)

8:00 ~ Homeroom (nothing new, other than the rearrangement of our homerooms bumped me into a different homeroom with all the “Harringtons”, but added several others that I know)

9:10ish ~ AP Calculus. Found out that Mr. Duncan is an Eagle Scout. That’s just cool. (as is the 12 person class!) For those who SHOULD be in AP-Calc and aren’t (you know who you are…), Mr. Duncan was complaining about who wasn’t in there. (the only names he gave were Matt Hill and Kyndal Payne, but I suspect there may be a few more…)

Whenever 2nd period started ~ AP English was fun, but it kinda wasn’t, because I read Heart of Darkness twice, and was on my third run through it, when we were supposed to finish it before class today, and I still didn’t know what was going on…. So, we started a quiz, and I answered #1, and kinda answered #2 (pretty good for first day of school answer, but BAD for an AP English answer), and didn’t have ANY idea on #3. So that wasn’t cool.

Whenever 3rd period started ~ Chorus was fun. Sorta. Singing again is great. The fact that Madrigal Choir is “Seniors only” with “a few” Juniors “at most” and over half the class are Juniors, with a few Sophomores, and I know less than 1/3 of the class, I have a problem. I would rather be in Chamber choir, JUST because I know more people in there. How can I sing and have fun with my friends if hardly ANY OF THEM ARE IN THERE????? (rant over, Mad Choir should be LOTS of fun when I get to know people)

11:12 ~ 4th Lunch (I refuse to call it Lunch D, that’s just retarded) Lunch was okay. I think I won’t have a problem finding somewhere to sit (not like that year it was JUST me and Josh in lunch, with no one else we really knew, that sucked) Lines were too long, but once we get our “go to lunch 5 minutes early” cards, life will be good. Maybe the Freshman won’t be allowed to eat so lines are shorter. (I can only pray)

After Lunch ~ AP Biology. Good, small class. Looks like LOTS of fun. (split-class stuff for “spead review” type stuff, ice cream parties for baby cougars, more “applied” versions of my Anatomy/Physiology stuff, cool people IN the class, looks like lots of fun ahead!)

But now, I’m tired.

I started this review shortly after school ended, and due to phone calls (it rang off the hook from 3:30 to 5:00) then Randy came over (5:00 to 8:00), then supper (run to KFC at 8:30), so I’m just now finishing. And my wrist hurts. Damn you, bad keyboarding posture!!!!

Well, starting Monday, it’s full time, back to the madness…..

Things I have learned this summer…. Vol. 4

Speacial “Summer’s End” Edition. (extending from the end of Vol. 3 until the night before school starts back, which is, for those who aren’t very smart, tonight)

~Icebreaker’s followed by water = bad taste in mouth.

~No one reads my blog…..

~When you eat and drive, it is very easy to swallow a lot of air while eating a cheeseburger. This results in the hiccups.

~Video games make me more secure in my ability to kick someone else’s ass.

~Seriously, just try and fight me, and I’ll whip out my lightsaber and go to town on the side of your face. That’s what we call the Force, friggin’ idiot!!

~I play too many video games.

~Not seeing my friends all summer means that I don’t feel bad for playing too many video games.

~I plan on doubling my video gaming ammounts once school starts. (when I lose a bunch of free time from 6:45 and 3:00)

~I wonder who all I have classes with…

~I wonder why hardly no one uses those “course” things on Facebook….

~I wonder why hardly no one uses Facebook….

~I wonder why MySpace is so popular in the first place….

~I have one more day to once again try and understand Heart of Darkness. (read it twice, and I STILL don’t know what’s going on…..)

~I’m glad I still remember Lord of the Flies and don’t have to read that accursed book ever again.

~I still think church youth groups should use D&D to promote teamwork, character building, group interaction, choices and consequences, planning in advance, initiative, self confidince, trust, loyalty, creativity, money managing, and banishing evil demons back to the Plains of the Abyss.

~We (me and whoever else wants to) need to start a montly “movie night”. Just to get together, and either go to the movies, or sit at someone’s house and watch a movie, or something.

~I must say, just from open house, I think this year’s Freshman are cooler than last year’s Freshman. (the current Freshman seem cooler than the current Sophomores)

Things I have learned this summer…. Vol. 3

~Painting makes a mess, no matter how careful you are.

~Bleach designed for car tires works VERY well at cleaning the shoes known as “Crocs”.

~Video games are a GREAT way to pass the time away.

~Especially if that game is the Sims 2. (Sim City 4 is pretty good too, but lacks the spark that MAKES you play it, like with Sim City 3000 Unlimited)

~Games that cost $10 are probably worth it.

~Especially the Temple of Elemental Evil. (got to about 2/3 of the way through the game, and through a chain of events, beat the game when I lacked the strength to FIGHT most of what was left in the game. I was just trying to loot some gems, and accidentally banished the evil demon princess back to her lair for 66 years. Cool, but I wanted to gain strength and kick @$$ instead)

~My new dishwasher is evil. (it beeped at me once, and that just wasn’t cool)

~I need a new UPS for my PC.

~Correction: I have a new UPS, I just need to not be lazy and hook it up.

~I need money for City of Villains.

~I need money for ANOTHER Sim 2 expansion. (I’m behind, there’ll be ANOTHER one out soon!)

~I need money for a paintbull “marker”. (gun offends people)

~I need money for the Wii. (new gaming system, Viva la Revolution!)

~I need money.

~I need a job.

~There aren’t enough “good” jobs in Taylorsville.

~To many old people won’t let their little buisiness hire highschoolers. (come October, I can get a job at Wal-Mart, but who REALLY wants to work at Wal-Mart?)

~I’ll probably get a job doing fastfood.

~Hopefully at the new Checkers!

~We need a bowling alley, movie theater, putt putt place, or SOMETHING.

~Joe Zema needs to hurry and get a paintball place started, and then I could work for him.

~South Park, once you get passed the “bad stuff”, is one of the funniest shows on television, AND does an EXCELLENT job of making “important issues” in the world look as stupid as they really are.

~I need to continue playing Guild Wars and Battlefield 2. (as opposed to buying NEW games)

~I need to go to the movies with my friends again soon. (last 3 or 4 movies have been me and my little sister)

~Earning the Eagle Scout Rank, while the highest achievement in Boy Scouts, is actually easier than getting to the halfway mark. (my Eagle Scout Project consisted of painting two rooms and moving some furniture into one room, while yelling and laughing with my friends, how easy is that?)

~Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Creame is one of the BEST DRINKS EVER!

~I read too much.

~If I read 100 times what I read now, (100 times as often and 100 times as fast), I still wouldn’t read everything I would like to.

~I need money for Star Wars miniatures.

~”Tales of” books make Star Wars all the more enjoyable.

~Dungeons and Dragons should be used in church groups to promote teamwork, character building, interaction with the rest of the world, planning, creativivty, self confidince, trust, initiative, money managing, and banishing evil devils back to the Nine Hells of Baator.

~I’m tired of getting more e-mails and snail mails from people wanting me to use their money for college than those who want me to go to their college. (I even got one that said I had to be attending college in Fall of 06. I’m a friggin’ Senior this year, and they sent it to me “just in case” I was going to be in collge. Dumbasses)

~The USS Enterprise may never make it to “Boldlygo”.

~We need to start a brand new club for the Senior class of 2006, and change the school with it.

~I wish people would stop asking me what I want to do when I go to college and where I’ll go to college. I’m a Senior! I’m worried about my Senior year, not college! Bug off!

CEGMO

All join CEGMO.

All join CEGMO!!!

(MySpace group, be there)

Things I have learned this summer…. Vol. 2

Special Fuge edition! July 17th – July 22nd.

~Packing is hard to do when you, um, don’t do it.

~Packing sucks when you start with a bag that is WAY too big and end up having trouble getting it to zip shut.

~It is easy to pack everything you need, and not use half of it while you are there.

~Taking a backpack for daily use is great.

~You can NEVER have too many Umbrella Hats.

~Next year, I take a Camera that has good digital recording. (everything I videoed is on a tape, that I can’t copy to my computer, I’ll find out how to move it over eventually)

~Fuge food is never any good, but it is at its WORST when it is mass produced in the Ridgecrest cafeteria.

~You meet cool people at Fuge.

~You meet REALLY cool people at Fuge.

~You meet a few scary people at Fuge.

~You meet people so scary, that you have to perform “Evasive Maneuvers” to save Josh.

~Josh is such a nice guy, he won’t avoid the very scary people.

~Josh is SUCH a nice guy, he got Vincent attacked by scary people.

~Justin laughs at Josh’s scary people problems.

~Justin doesn’t laugh at the fact that Vincent got hurt.

~Amazing, how things can get packed that are NEEDED (razor, for example), and are never used.

~Amazing how things get packed, and aren’t noticed in the bag until unpackign at home.

~Amazing how you can throw away stuff you brought, and go home with MORE crap than you arrived with. (I bought a CD, a FRIGGIN CD, and I couldn’t get my crap back in my bag for the trip home)

~Breaking your dirty clothes basket/hamper thingy when you get home isn’t cool. (while it was designed to fold up, it didn’t take the stress well)

~Getting a new dirty clothes basket/hamper thingy, that is larger, and says “LAUNDRY” on the side is cool.

~Finding out I CAN move that video stuff over is cool.

~Finding out I don’t have the right cable isn’t cool.

~Not having completely unpacked from Fuge, several several weeks later, is cool. Yay me.

Things I have learned this summer…. Vol. 1

Starting with the end of school, up until July 16th.

~Being a junior marshal is boring at the end of the school year, and people you don’t know will say “congradulations” until you wish you had failed the previous school year.

~Cheeze-Its are addictive

~So is any soft drink that is caffinee free. (you don’t get that caffinee buzz you expect, so you just keep drinking it…)

~Having family in Texas means you don’t see them very often. (last time I saw them, before this summer’s visit, was 3 or 4 years ago, even though when I last saw them, they lived in Florida)

~Cleaning becomes harder when you have more time to devote to it.

~Keeping things mess free to begin with (thus, not having to clean) is harder when you have more free time.

~Church youth events are crazy when we don’t meet often enough to keep everyone informed.

~Not being able to play old computer games (Sims 2) due to scratched disks is not cool. (especially when replacement disks would cost $40+)

~There just aren’t enough Star Wars books.

~Having to wash dishes by hand for a few weeks truly sucks.

~Having to wake up early for first the dishwasher repair man (we need a new one) and then the electrician (to install an outlet to plug in a new dishwasher) truly sucks.

~Not having school results in major boredom.

~Former Seniors who are going off to college look truly terrified when an adult asks them what their plans are.

~You can’t escape Taylorsville

~I need to go on vacation (outside of Fuge)

~Wearing Jeans (pants, not shorts), inside all summer is fine and dandy until you forget and wear them out in the heat. Not fun to wear pants in the heat on a summer day around noon.

~I don’t see my friends near enough.

~I REALLY need to go on vacation.

~The guys must get together and

1) Have a Halo match, with a minimum of 8 players.

2) Continue our D&D campaign.

3) Start a Star Wars RPG campaign.

4) Practice skits and short movies to record with my camera.

5) Learn to cook stuff, just to say we can. (I have some tape that says “Caution: Men Cooking” that would be AWESOME to get to use)

~Murder Mysteries are hard to plan.

~Having a car and no way to fill the gas tank to garuntee to get to drive it when I want to, is not fun. (having to conserve gas that I know my parents will resupply anyways isn’t fun, either)

~Getting lost between downtown Hickory and the movie theater is not cool.

~Finding out how to get between Hickory and the movie theater by your own bizzare intuition is cool.

~Watching movies at around noon to 2PM is cool, because no one else is there.

~I really need to go to the Spilled Bean more often.

~I need a job….

Back from Fuge!

Survived the trip to Fuge, had to be the best year yet! Can’t wait until NEXT year!

Anyways, I’m exhausted. Still haven’t had time to slow down.

Saturday, I had to wait in line to get some barbeque at a special luncheon fundraiser for my mom (the food was for my mom, not the luncheon, and it was an extra 45 mintues before getting to go home)

Then I had about an hour to get my clothes into the washing machine until I had to go to a funeral. (friend’s grandmother passed away, and his grandmother lived a street up, and his cousins, aunt/uncle, and other grandparents live on the same street I do, and I’ve known him forever, so I HAD to go, and thankfully, he was doing better than I thought he would)

The rest of the afternoon involved a few virus scans, spyware scans, and doing laundry from Fuge.

 Sunday was packed too.

Church (nothing is funnier than watching people’s reactions when they see that the youth are all dressed in jeans and green Fuge shirts, when everyone else is dressed up as nice as possible, but at the same time, they were completely thrilled that we got to go to Fuge in the first place, so yeah)

 Then more computer work. A few more anti-virus and anti-spyware and anti-adware scans, then a defragment, then a scandisk (which on an XP with 112 GB of memory, both of those take a few hours), then an ice-creame social at church. I knew they were going to show the Fuge DVD, and everyone was going to share if they wanted to, but I didn’t know I was supposed to show up early and that I had a speaking part until there was nothing I could do about it….

Randy got up, told his story. (he re-accepted Christ, because the first time he did it he said was just because everyone else did it and he saw the feeling it gave them, but everything finally snapped into place for him on Tuesday at Fuge)

 Then we gave him his Marine’s Bible (Josh told everyone how Randy wants to be a Marine, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he already is a Marine). Then James told everyone that we had all signed it while Randy was giving everybody a hug. Then Randy told everyone that he prayed on the way over to the church about whether God wanted him to be a Marine or not…. (and he got there and got the Marine’s Bible that we gave him, so yeah, that was cool, because we had been planning for almost a week to answer a prayer he hadn’t made yet… more proof that God is cool)

So, after more hours of tweaking my computer, it is finally working again! (for those who haven’t heard the tales, my computer is a high-end piece of crap that never does quite what it is supposed to, and is sometimes down for weeks or months at a time)

Anyways, Monday morning rolls around, and I have to get up early because the electricians are coming. That’s bad, cause I have to get up, but GREAT! because now that they are done, we can get a new dishwasher put in! (no more doing dishes by hand! Huzzah!)

Anyways, now to finish unpacking, then for some good ol relaxation time….