hihi!

hi! ok i know this is my second post in a row but stuff has been happening and i feel like sharing :D oh yeah but first i found a funny picture so i'm going to post it, lol

hahahaha i have no idea what i am even doing but it's from august :) anyway, guess what! i passed my pianoTHING with a perfect score!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it was the first perfect score the judge ever gave out, and then she told me to go to julliard lol. i don't think that will be happening but i'm so happy because it's over and i did better than i thought i would. so yesterday was great :D

then today i had a cello recital and an academic awards night. we were there for FOREVER because there were 104 kids in total who maintained a b- or higher average in every subject since 6th grade i think, so there was a bunch of clapping and reading and my hands are numb right now. i got a special orchestra award and a french award, hahahaha i found that kind of funny because i am constantly getting in trouble in both classes but i guess the teachers see that as participation or something. whatever it's cool :) so today was fun too except my parents have been pissing me off recently. like, two good things happened today except right after the cello recital, my mom points out how i smiled ridiculously too much and squeaked too many times. then right after the awards ceremony my dad says it's super annoying how i am always continuously shaking my leg. i mean, i see how those things aren't good but i just wish they would at least make me feel good for a few minutes before breaking in the criticism. but whatever it's all ok because tomorrow it will be JUNE!!!! and then school will be over yayayayayayayay :D

love you all & hope you're super happy
geena :)

after this post there are 5 until 500!!! whooooo we're goood

hey everyone :D hope everyone had a good 3-day. our school had the annual 8th grade washington d.c. trip which was a lot of fun, and then over the weekend i slept a lot and went biking and kayaking with an assortment of people. it was fun but now i have to practice piano, like a TON because my exams / evaluations / tests / auditions or whatever, i'm just going to call it THING, so my piano THING is tomorrow and basically ummmm .. yeah whatever i'm just super nervous. wish me luck? because if i don't pass i'm pretty sure my dad's either going to 1. throw the piano and the computer and me out the window or 2. shut me in a closet for a month or 3. not talk to me for forever basically, ahhhhhh ok i'm exaggerating but i know he'll get upset :P

anyway aside from the nervewracking (sp?) stuff, school's wrapping up finally. we get out in 3 more weeks but a few days don't count for different reasons. then it's cty again, and i don't even know how to describe i feel about that. i am just having this bad feeling that it's going to be bad and i'm going to end up rooming with some weird person who won't talk to me. i don't know why, it's just the thought of taking a math course, and then i think "who takes a math course???" but of course, the answer is "ME" so whatever am i making any sense? i just don't feel like there will be any people in the class besides me, and if there are people i guess i'm just expecting them to be stereotypical social outcasts or something. ew i am so mean, but that's just what i'm picturing. i know it won't be as social and intimate of a class as writing was, so i guess i'm just going to go, and if i don't meet great people then at least i learned a lot of math. :p

but, like angie said about not having much more time for reminiscing, i totally agree. i was thinking, what is going to happen to the blog after this summer? i'm just going to say it here and now that if everyone makes new friends or just stops posting or whatever and the blog dies, i'm still going to be keeping in touch with whoever will still talk to me and that's a promise. =) but i'm probably getting ahead of myself here, i was just thinking about it

anyway got to go practice piano *fall*
tons of love like always :)
geena

Random Thoughts with a Sigh

So. I really don't have much of anything to say. Today's Memorial Day. I'm sure you're all having Barbeques and such things. That's what I'm doing. My dad's having one at his house. Small-just my dad, his girlfriend, my grandparents, my uncle, and me. But since everyone in my family is obsessed with poker (mainly Texas Hold 'Em) there will be a poker game. Unfortunatlly, I got stuck with a stupid project on the Oregon Trail to do over the long weekend because since it's the end of the year and my teachers have to get their grades in there have been projects and quizzes and homework left and right. I graduate on June 15th, but my last day of classes is the 6th. Less than a week left of my evil math teacher. And besides, this week we have two masses that we have to go to- one for the second graders making their communion that we have every year in the gym, and one for all of the eigth graders going to Catholic schools on Staten Island that we have to take a bus too. You know, graduating from Notre Dame (even though this is a terrible analogy) is like getting out of a street gang- they don't let you out without a fight. I still have all of those letters to do. Did I mention that? We have to write a hand written letter to everyone in our grade outlining one of their positive qualities. That's 43 letters. Other than a select few, they're are absolute murder to write. You can imagine. And my dad's making me write a speech for graduation. Because at my screwed up school we don't have a valedictorian or anything. Anyone who wants to write a speech can and then my teachers combine them all and all of the people that wrote them split it up to read. Oh-and we have to decorate sneakers that we will wear at the anual Walk-a-Thon on Friday. With stuff about being nice to each other on them. Ew. It's probably going to be hot to walk too. It's been really hot here the past couple of days. Like in the 80s and close to 90. I'm sure that's nothing for you Amita. I can only imagine what it's like in Arizona right now.

Hmmm. Spring is always supposed to be the season of beginnings. Like, new life and all of that. But spring always seems like it brings so many endings with it. End of school, and my years in the polyester uniform prison. End of my piano year, and possibly piano for good, though now I'm not so sure I want to give it up anymore. End of my dance year. The really painful one. Because I don't really see my dance friends outside of dance, and I can't stand facing the thought that I then can't dance for two or three months after that. And it always ends in lousy circumstances. Because we have our big performance (well, small. It's a small school.) and it's on a really hot day and there are a lot of people there so you don't get to really talk to anyone and it's so...rushed. And in all of the classes before it they usually just bring everyone in and make it a dress rehearsal and Rosemarie gets a bit crazy every year and starts kind of panicing. So it's not like my normal classes which are all small and intimate and stuff. I remember last year, I didn't really count the performance as the end. The Sunday before, we still hadn't finished the jazz dance, so even though it wasn't a normal class, Allisyn called all of the girls in my class in to finish it. It was our last chance to be our crazy wacky in class selves. Especially for me, because I knew I wouldn't be coming back until November because of stupid Kaplan classes. I think I've opened up a lot in dance in the past year. Because up until just a few years ago, I never really felt at home there. I've always been quiet. Shy. I'd hardly ever say anything. And whenever I'd get close with someone they'd quit dancing. It was frustrating. I've come out gradually over the past years-very little at a time, but this year I felt like a really made a huge step. I think CTY might have had a hand in it- it gave me more confidence. I remember even just two or three years ago, Allisyn said to me in the fall, "Miss Mary Emily, we're going to have you talking by the end of the year." Well, it took a little longer than that, but I finally feel really at home at dance. I've come so far and improved so much in the past year. With my friends. With Allisyn. With Rosemarie. In my dancing itself. Now I find that I never want to go home, and I hang around even after class is over. Because I don't want to leave. It's funny. With my theater group, I live for the performing, not the rehearsal time and social part of it. I don't really feel that close with anyone there. But with dance, I live for the classes each week, for the social aspect and the need to practice and perfect rather than the performance aspect of it. Since I became an assistant teacher on Saturdays, I knew that I would have to pick between that and theater in the fall because the times conflict. I don't think I'm going to do theater in the fall. I asked myself which I enjoy more. And the answer was simple.

M.E.

AI

Anyone else watching/watch the American Idol finale 5/23?

beautiful disaster <3

Ok check out Paolo Nutini and Jon McLaughlin's music...
Personally, New Shoes, Last Request (by PN) and Beautiful Disaster and Human (JM) are like my fave songs right now...

So I realized I've been a downer that's like mellow so I decided to be all superfical on this post. It shouldn't be too hard.
So I didn't go to junior prom... But he found another date so it was all good. I kinda regretted it later but I'm pretty sure I did the right thing for both me and him.
I'm going to this politics thing at Yale (in response to Geena's question) and I'm happy because last summer I was actually supposed to do Law and Politics but put it wrong on the sign up thing. Thank god or else I wouldn't have met you guys.
What else...
Oh yeah there was this nasty rumor spread around the whole school about me and this guy named Phillip who's a sophmore so school is kinda ehhh right now. But I'm really happy because I went to a Gwen Stefani/Akon/Lady Soverign concert last Sunday with my friends. We had pretty good seats and it was at Jones Beach so it was outdoors and really pretty. Akon was amazingg and Gwen has the flattest abs for someone who just had a baby like last year. Lady Soverign has the craziest British accent. Like you can't tell from her music but she was talking and she was all like "Cherrio... Bloody Bastard" It was hysterical...
I didn't really know how I felt about the Harajuku girls though... I kind of hate that Gwen is portraying asian girls as like giggly, dancing, weird outfit wearing people. But they were really good dancers.

What else... M.E. you looked really cute in your dress!! My house is also going under some construction in the basement and the bathrooms... It's cool but very chaotic at the moment. Also, I can smell paint from my room which isn't cool. I bet I'll get high sleeping tonight...

So yeah...
life goes too fast

angie

Come one, come all

Just wanted every one to know that Amanda will be at Lancaster for the first session. I've seen some of you mention that you'll be at that site. Stop by and say hi and send her my love.

CP

"...and Tell Brady to HIT THE ROAD JACK..."

Hey Everyone!!!

So first things first- let me show you all my BEATIFUL NEW SMILE!!! (Note: I got my retainer today to keep this smile intact. My mouth hurts now.)



And my beautiful graduation dress!!! This time with me in it. (Yes I am aware of its poufy-ness and the fact that I look like a cupcake.)



So yeah. For the past couple of weeks, my life has virtually REVOLVED around planning this surprise 30th birthday party for my dance teacher. Well, we threw the party on Thursday (the day after her actual party) and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!! My friend Fran and I got there like, two hours early to decorate (we weren't supposed to leave THAT early, but my uncle came to pick us up earlier than he was supposed to, so oh well) and we decorated the whole floor of our building with all of these streamers and balloons and banners and stuff. And then we went on a 20 minute search around the grounds for a folding table to use, which turned out to be pointless because my dance teacher had one in the closet already that we wound up using. It was good she had the table though because we asked this security ranger (former coworker of Brady) for a folding table and he said he'd have someone bring one up in two minutes and we STILL haven't gotten it. Ah vell. Stupid security rangers. So then we went back upstairs and we finished making her card and decorated more as the other people in our class started arriving. We had two versions of it- a funny one and a gushy one- and we couldn't decide which one to use so we just put them both on. I wrote the gushy one and my friend Ursula who has never even met my dance teacher wrote the funny one. And for both of them we incorporated all titles of songs she's choreographed to. (My post title is from the funny card. She started hysterically laughing when she read it. She cried when she read mine.) So when she finally got there she was so surprised and we ordered pizza and mozzarella sticks and chicken wings and ate all of that stuff. But then it was time for the cake. OOOOOOOO the cake. We actually got the picture of her hugging Brady th security ranger screened on the cake. For the whole party we wouldn't let her look in the refrigerator in the office because we didn't want her to see it beforehand. So when it was dessert time, me and a couple of other people went outside in the hall to set it up and the rest of my class occupied her in the studio. So we lit the candles and then made her close her eyes and led her out and when she opened her eyes she screamed really loud and starte hysterically laughing. It was great. And we had this cake knife that you press a button on and it plays "Happy Birthday" among other songs. And the cake itself was really good too. Chocolate with chocolate mousse filling. Mmmmmm. So we had a lot of fun. Here's the cake...



Anyways, in other news I got me a summer job!! I'm working at this little boutique store in Greenich Village (the owner's daughter goes to the school my mom works at) a few days a week. It's called "I'm the Girl," it just opened (well, technically it's not even really open yet. They have the space but nothing is actually set up in it yet), and they sell all of these funky hand knit things. It sounds cool. And it pays.

Speaking of, I also started getting paid for demonstrating dance on Saturdays (I think I wrote this already but I can't remember) and I'm now in the Thursday tap dance number. So I'm very happy.

And I'm going to CTY at Lancaster for the Pop Culture course. So Scott and I are in the same class!!!!

Well, I can't think of anything else to say. I feel so self centered because I'm just talking about myself. What's happening in all of your lives? I feel like I never hear from anyone anymore.

M.E.

Padua

Ok so I found all my CTY stuff randomly. I was cleaning out the drawers next to my computer when I came across my landyard and this map of Siena along with all these forms about Keys and deposits and stuff. And then I found pictures and it was just really overwhelming.
I still remember I was completely lost on the first day because I'm not good with those ridiculous one sheet maps that have random squares and markings. I was standing right in front of Padua and I had to ask Anne (remember the RA next to our hallway?) where Padua was. She gave me a really funny look. I still remember that.
Has every girl realized that they had it extremely good at Padua and that they may never come across a dorm that was as nice as that? Like seriously. M.E. and I were complaining that the toilet got this weird thing growing in it by the 2nd week but then we had cleaning ladies! We each had our own bathroom and extreme space. But most importnatly A.C!! I got my acceptance letter from the Yale summer program so I think I'm headed there. And it told me to bring a FAN because there's no A.C. I like cried. And will my roommate be as considerate as M.E? (Meaning not minding the noise, the choas of my showers, and my overall messy clothes like EVERYWHERE (including on her bed if I remember correctly)
I know we've outruled reminising because that was getting repetitive but seriously. THere are not many days of reminising left. Once summer starts, I'm afraid that'll be the start of the end of us. Ew I could write a fricking sob novel with this. But anyways, that was my passionate mushy outburst of the day.
Oh wait one more thing, I will always remember wearing the lanyard around my hip as the ultimate accessory.
The end.
I really gotta finish this Global essay...

Angie <3

hihihihii!!!!!

HI everyone, sorry i haven't posted in a while. things have been pretty busy ish i guess, but i've been reading everything :) right now what is going on in my life is:

- school washington d.c. trip this coming tuesday, so everyone has been stressing about that and i have to pack and talk to roommates about packing stuff and junk, it's going to be boring but i guess i'm kind of excited for the trip =)
- piano exams in two weeks and since i'm missing 5 days of practice to d.c. i have to spend every waking minute of being home practicing (but, i am not practicing now as you can see heehee) actually it's not as intense as it sounds, because i am really lazy and i end up taking a million food breaks and stuff. but still, i am super duper nervous about it because i haven't been as good as i should've been with practicing even though that's my own fault but still, i am nervous :p lol i don't even make sense don't listen to me
- i crocheted a red hat for my grandma, an orange hat for my brother, and then i found this really cool organization called "afghans for Afghans" where you crochet stuff (under certain guidelines and stuff because of border transportation) and send it to the organization which sends the items over to Afghanistan to give to the orphans there. so, i am crocheting another hat and maybe i'll send over 15 of them when i finish, which could take a long time because the only time i've had to crochet is when i'm in the car. whatever it's really fun :D
- SCHOOL ENDS IN ONE MONTH!!!!!! WHOOOO
- i have something called a skintag under my eye, which is actually a benign tumor but it only looks like this weird piece of something sticking out from under my eye, and i have had it for 2 months now and it's really really pissing me off, and i was going to get it removed yesterday at the doctor's but they only set me up a new appointment for JULY! sdlfkjsdlfj i hate that about the doctor's, that's like ninety two bajillionmillion days!!!!! ahhhh
- when i came back from china i think i brought bedbugs with me or something the first two days, because i got 50+ small itchy bites on each of my legs when i woke up for the first two nights back. but, then i washed my sheets and everything on my bed and i haven't been getting them anymore. it's disgusting but the bites are healing, they just look brown and gross now. i've had to wear long pants for almost a month now, even through the 80-90 degree weather. but, today i got sick of long pants so i used zit-concealer to blot out a lot of the bug bite scars and i wore capris. woohoooo smart me. ;P (it didn't work that well actually, oh well)
- i really should practice piano now lol

ok i love you guys!!! keep posting and i'll post some other day when i am less frazzled ish and make more sense, although i think most of the time my posts are pretty much just long stringy sentences that are hard to understand anyway. whateverr i will hope you all get it, ttyl!!

love,
geena!!!!

...stupid title..

ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!
gosh i almost wrote burthday...
yea...as i was telling M.E. i forgot it was my birthday again...until my dad nd my friends reminded me...
i didnt rly do nething special today...i mean walking around not knowing it was my bday nd all i did was go to a stupid picnic and get sunburnt..(that how u spell it?..w/e)
o yea nd i watched 2/3 of Fracture and all of spidey3, good movies..u guys should watch them
im so bored...now im hungry...cept its 11:53 nd its too late to eat something...hey!! in 7 minutes it won't be my bday nemore!!
hmm nd im done

Checking In...

Hello class. I miss you dearly... who's doing CTY this year!?!? (I expect you're all taking writing courses because I see that you have become quite amazing blogger-columnists, photo-journalists, & etc.) What's up, what's new, what's cookin'?

I can/can't believe you're still writing! You've far, far surpassed my hopes and dreams.

Till next time,

Christina TA :)

the name?

Hey, does anyone remember the activity in which we watched scientific clips with "Bless you, ants. Blants!"? What were they called?

its me :)

yay i'm posting but i'm going to have to make this fast. it's my birthday tomorrow! monday, that is. blehh. but hooray i'm finally 14! my parents celebrated today with some relatives over and a cake and balloons and stuff :) i love carvel cake its reeaaally good.

i finally have some quebec pictures :) i don't have many since most of them were taken on my disposable which was just developed at costco today, and my dad might be scanning them later this week so yeah.

lunch :)

my green tongue :))))))

btw guess what?! bamboozle was yesterday and it was pure ahmaazzzzinggg! i saw boys like girls, meg & dia, the hush sound, cartel, hellogoodbye, my chemical romance, bayside, and ...i think thats it :D blg was a little disappointing bcuz it was hard to hear but overall reeally good. i actually met meg & dia and got pix + autographs! they were terrific live, dia has a great voice! it was all very fun but when cartel perfomed, me and my friend were up near the front and people started pushing like crazy! it wasnt just a little, we honestly were scared and thought we wouldnt make it out alive. but other than that little scare :/ it was great :) plus i don't know if anyone knows the band holiday parade. they're not big but they have great songs! and they are so nice and funny! i met them yesterday too and got autographs yay :)

i got pictures of all those so i'll put them up later <33

Rob Thomas is AWESOMENESS!!!!

Okay, if you haven't already, you absolutely MUST download the song "Ever the Same" by Rob Thomas. It is like, my new obsession and it's so pretty and awesome and in a way, it sort of reminds me of you guys, especially this verse:

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Hey, look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

and the chorus of course:

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

Give it a listen!!!
M.E.

P.S. And BTW, props once again to Geena!!! The China things is SOOOOO AMAZING!!!!!

CHINA china china china :)

HI EVERYONE! =) i got picures up from china (about almost two weeks late lol) and it took me a long time so i really do hope you read and learn. =)

and.. action!



this is a picture of the school we visited. the group of us (11 kids in total a few adults) stayed on the fifth floor so we all got a big workout when we wanted to get up to our rooms. :) in comparison to other places it actually is quite a nice middle school building. the community is a very poor place but it's getting better. years ago the middle school would've been like a small mud shack.



street vendors, the street was really disgusting and the vendors didn't bother to clean up after themselves. their merchandise in general was dirty and cheap, although they were a good place to get fireworks ;) (see some picture below)




the first day we climbed a mountain to a buddhist temple. the buddha symbol thing is like a backwards swastika which i thought was pretty interesting. except maybe you guys already knew that and i am just not as smart. :P



these are the students cleaning up the trash in the yard in the morning like they do every day. basically they have to sweep for a pretty long time and dump all the stuff either in the river or in a huge pile of junk.



this is a rural farmer guy's house.



and his cow =)





abandoned farmer's house, made out of baked mud. it was SO disgustingly bug-infested and holey i freaked out and ran out. :P



fireworks :D we bought them every night (sweet deals too, like 8 american dollars for a box of 600 firecrackers, 4 american dollars for sparkly shooter fireworks) they were a lot of fun to set off at midnight =)







we rode on this small boat for awhile on this HUGE lake, a fisherman's community. that small tiny shack-like thing in the middle of the water in the second picture up is the house of a fisherman. it has maybe like one room made out of wood boards and straw, and it was perched on fishing nets. there were a BUNCH of these types of houses and they made me really sad to see. if you wanted me to describe this whole region's financial situation i would say they are borderline-poverty-stricken, although some families are much better off than others, but the bottom line is that they all struggle pretty hard just to get by. it is really eye-opening when you actually go there.



this was the school for the fisherman community. it was on a small island and the kids that go are like probably kindergarten to second grade aged. when they are older they most likely either stop schooling or they take the entrance exam to the middle school that we were teaching at.



and this is a girl that i found absolutely adorable =) she literally did NOT ever move, while all the other kids were running around and screaming she just sat in that spot for the whole time with the exact same expression on her face. (you'll see her in a picture a little later and she pretty much still looks the same :P)



this is one of the classrooms. in total at that school there might've been 2 or 3 classrooms and the desks are all falling apart. the wood is rotting so you can pretty much just pull it apart.





we brought the kids snacks and they just absolutely STUFFED themselves, it was cute but they are all incredibly messy eaters. ;p



and there's the girl again :D



this was one of the classes that my friend and i taught. there were about 50 kids and these kids are in seventh grade. =) we mostly taught seventh grade but sometimes we'd also teach 12th grade, which was fun and less wearing-out because they were much more mature and laid-back. in contrast the seventh graders screamed until my ears bled, seriously. you had to yell a TON to get all of them to hear because they were just so much more energetic.



this was on the last day, and we had to make speeches to all 2000 of the students and for probably 1500 more on the area's tv. i spoke first and it was SO nervewracking! (sp?) but i got through it and it was fun :) later that day when we left we all got foot massages! (and since it was china it costed like 4 american dollars in total. YES! :D)



this was the room where we all lived. the floor was stone and it was super dirty. the blue bed was mine :D



and this is me and my new penpal shan-shan. :D she was the first person i met and she's really outgoing as opposed to like, the other 1999 people in the whole school. =) she looks a lot smaller than me but she's almost as old as me. all the people there were pretty short (first time i've ever felt tall in my life! yes!)



and i do believe this is the best picture i took, lol! it was an advertisement on a huge ice-cream vendor's cart in the city. we all cracked up when we saw it lol, chinese knock-offs what can i say?


that's all i uploaded it and i hope you enjoyed. =) otherwise, today was pretty hectic and stressful. a friend and i were doing a book project together (which was due today) and we worked on it for 9 hours straight yesterday and didn't finish (it's a really major grade :p and i am a loser) and so we brought it to school today and tried finishing in the morning. but, we didn't so we both skipped first period by asking to go to the nurse ("feeling nauseous") and then we met in a girl's bathroom and spread all of our work out on the floor and finished maybe like 5 minutes to the end of the period, and then we went to the nurse's office anyway in case one of the teachers called the nurse, and then her spanish teacher did end up calling the nurse and she was like, "wait.. i sent her down 35 minutes ago!" and the nurse was like well she's only been here for 3 minutes....

so the assistant principal got involved and basically now my friend has an in-house suspension and i got away with it for now. but i am scared now! because if it becomes a big issue then my french teacher will probably tell the assistant principal that i went in the beginning of the period too and i would have to talk to the assistant principal and that wouldn't be good because we do not get along because i've gotten in trouble with her before a few times. so i am nervous now but i am also happy that we finished the english project and saved ourselves from getting an f. :) !!!

good day in general =) ok bye much love!
geena

Where is everyone!?!?

I have absolutely nothing to say but no one has posted in like, four days, so I thought I'd post anyway. I sort of feel like I'm talking to myself here.

M.E.