Destination the First: Pittsburgh

I have a little bit of explaining to do. I wrote the first part of my previous post last Sunday but got distracted and didn't have time or motivation to finish it until yesterday, at which time, I still had more information to add, thus, the second post. Now onto the new information. But I was too tired to finish this post, so her it is today. I'm pretty sure that I haven't even mentioned that I am on spring break vacation right now. I'm been so busy, it kind of slipped my mind to mention it in my previous few blogs. Anyway, today and yesterday, my family and I have been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania looking around, but more importantly, touring the University of Pittsburgh. We left on Wednesday after school on what was supposed to be a five hour drive, but it didn't turn out that way. But before I start complaining about that, I must start at the beginning, per is usual. Anyway, like I said before, we left on Wednesday after school. We still had school on Thursday, but my mom figured that we wouldn't do anything on the last day of school before Spring Break, right? Wrong. I had a chemistry test planned, as well as math quiz (which got postponed to the Monday after break) and in English, we were learning something really important about my multigenre project. In the end, though, I took the test on Wednesday and it wasn't that bad, and I only ended up with homework in English (my multigenre project, who's due date was fortunately moved back to the Monday after the week we come back, so we have an extra weekend). Well, by the time we finally got packed and ready, it was past 4:00, and we still had drop of my dog at his breeder's (who is watching him for the duration of our vacation). It was so sad when we dropped him off there - he seemed so shy and didn't want to leave us, which is a first. Usually is he full of energy and eager to meet new people, but maybe he sensed that we weren't coming back for a while. We all had to sneak out the door while he was held back, and it was so pitiful to see him in the doorway, looking at us. Now we were finally on the road. The weather had forecasted that it would be cold, but still good weather, but, as usual, they were wrong (you really can't trust those weather forecasters!). By the time we got into Ohio, it was raining, which soon segued into snow and icy conditions as the temperature dropped. I swear, we must have seen four wreaks along the way - the first we saw, a car was straddled across the right two lanes at the top off a hill, so we didn't see them until we were right on top of them, and had to quickly change lanes. The worst was when we were stuck on the Ohio turnpike for more than one hour after I guess was a pretty bad accident. After the first ten minutes, I was starting to get annoyed, but we cracked out the M&Ms, so all was well. At one point, when we were flipping channels on the radio, the first words that we heard were "we're going nowhere." It was like a sign. After that bad wreak, the roads were traffic free, and we made it into Pittsburgh by 11:20ish PM. Luckily, though, we're staying at this really nice bed and breakfast, the Inn on Negley, which has very comfortable beds, and nice, spacious rooms. I would definitely recommend it if you are ever in Pittsburgh. The breakfast is great here, too. Yesterday, I had french toast and today, I had oatmeal. Both were delicious. Now on to the events of yesterday. Like I said before, we toured University of Pittsburgh, and man, did we walk a lot. First, my mom, sister, and I sat in on an organic chemistry class, which was pretty interesting. I didn't really understand anything they were talking about, except for a few words, but I still enjoyed myself. The professor was quite interesting, and kept on saying things like, "this should bother you," and was very energetic and bouncy, especially for that time in the morning. After that, we had a campus tour, but by some accident, we walked to the wrong building - Allen Hall instead of Alumni Hall, and were a little late. We finally got to the right building, but we still had to wait for my dad and brother, who were coming on the tour with us. All and all, I thought they had a pretty nice campus, but I think that I don't really want to go there - it's too urban. We did get to see a dorm room and several of the building, which was pretty cool. My favorite was probably the Cathedral of Learning, which kind of looked like the Great Hall from Harry Potter inside (later I actually saw some people playing what looked like quidditch on the lawn outside). There was also these nationality room, meant to represent classroom from around the world at the school was built, and the one we saw, the Syrian/Lebanese, had gold and really expensive looking stuff in it. Pretty cool. After the tour was finally over (my feet were kind of hurting by then), we were going to eat lunch at this one deli, but my mom thought it looked dirty, so we ate at Five Guys Burgers and Fries instead. It was good, but nothing new, which was what I was kind of looking for. After that, we walked to the building where my sister, mom, and I were going to start the tour of the Engineering Department. That tour was pretty interesting - we got to go to the basement and see this room where a group was building a car for some competition. I'm sure that if my dad had been there, he would have stayed the whole time. From there, we went to a bookstore and then walked around until my dad picked us up and took us to the Carnegie Mellon campus so that my mom could find a t-shirt from there. By then, I was bone tired from my day of walking and desperately wanted to go back to the inn and do nothing. So, I decided to wait in the car with my dad. After what seemed like a super long time of waiting in the car, my mom called us and told us that she and my sister were going on a campus tour - something that they hadn't planned on doing. Later, my sister told me somethings that she learned like that the tartan used to be their mascot, until they changed it to the slight more intimidating Scottie (that's kind of like Kingsley being a mascot!). So, my dad and I had been waiting there for naught, but at least I got to go back and rest my aching feet. Unfortunately, though, my sister had the keys to her and my room, and as a result, I was locked out of the room, and we had to go get the innkeeper to unlock it for us. But that was not the end of our day. At 5:30, we met up with my cousin, who goes to University of Pittsburgh (I can never say "Pitt" - that just sounds weird) and went and ate dinner at Joe Mamma's, an Italian restaurant. The food there was great - I split a chicken and pesto pizza with my mom, as well as a hummus and chips appetizer, and a white chocolate desert thing (one word: tasty!!!). It was nice to see my cousin again, who I haven't seen in quite a few years, and talk and catch up. After the dinner, we went to see her dorm room - which took forever because she had to sign each of us in individually and the security guard was really strict (though I did see her reading an US magazine later...). All and all, though, I had a good, albeit long, day. Although I don't really think that I'm going to go here, it was still nice to see all the aspects of college life. Today, there are a few more things to do - a Honors college meeting, then a Study Abroad meeting, and maybe some shopping or a visit to the Andy Warhol museum, and and then it is off to Gettysburg!! I'll fill you in on the details later, but for now, people are telling me to wrap it up, so I will.

Winner!

The past week or so has been really hectic - so much so that I haven't been able to document a momentous occasion until now. What might that momentous occasion be, you may ask. I will give you a hint. It happened last Saturday. Haven't guessed it yet? Well, I suppose I'll tell you. Both the middle school and the high school Science Olympiad teams won the Regional competition on Saturday!!!! Before I talk about that, though, I must backtrack a day to March 18th - my brother's birthday. Although it's kind sad to say this, but we didn't have anything planned for his birthday. It was the day before Regionals, and the week had been hectic. My mom did make a white chocolate chiffon cake, which was delicious, and my brother did get a few gifts (actually he just got one of the main gifts promised yesterday - an electric guitar), but other than that, it was kind of boring - no fanfare or excitement. But enough of that; on to the Science Olympiad competition, which I know you are just full of anticipation to hear about. Well, the day began early, as usual. Actually, it was the same time that I get up every day on school days - 5:45 AM. We left at about six in the morning, and drove for around an hour to get to our final destination - Mott Community College. I tried to sleep on the way there, but my sister was blasting the music super loud, so that plan went out of the window. Once we got there, we had to unload all the stuff from the car, which was jam packed, and haul it up to our room. As you can imagine, that was tons of fun. From then to my first event at 9:00, our homeroom was bustling. Both the high school and the middle school were in there, so, with so many people on both teams this year, it was packed with participants, coaches, parents, and siblings. The rest of my day wasn't much more relaxed. Although my schedule had been fixed so that I didn't have to run between two buildings after every event, I still had to run up and down flights of stairs. Luckily, though, most of my events finished before the end of the hour, so I had time to kill in between what was supposed to be back-to-back events. One thing that was really stupid, though, was that the Anatomy test was the same exact test, except for one question, from last year!! And that test, as well as this one, was only four question long. Not to mention that the questions weren't that good. One asked us name ONE (that's how it was on the test, no joking) hormone from each of the organs in the endocrine system. Not two from each, just one, and we didn't even have to say what was their purpose or anything. If someone just had a list of muscles and a list of hormones, they probably would have done just as good as we did (which was fifth place - what are you going to do?). Although the day was a little exasperating, the award ceremony was very fun and exciting. While waiting for the ceremony to start (and trust me, it takes a long time), a bunch of us on the team played the game, Apples to Apples. It was really fun because we were all on different bleacher levels, so the playing itself was a little difficult, but still, amusing. When we finally started the award ceremony, both teams had good rankings. In fact the middle school had ll first places, and everyone, on both teams, as well as the alternates, got at least one medal. Pretty good, huh? My placings were first in Optics (which is an event where you take a test on, well, optics, and then have a demo portion where you use lasers and mirrors to shoot the laser around a obstacle onto a designated point), fifth in Anatomy, third in Sounds of Music (an event where you have to build two instruments from scratch and answer questions on the physics of sound), and third in Ecology. When it came around to the overall placements, it was very suspenseful. All the people in our team were holding hands in a "circle of love." The problem was that the middle school was announced first, so by the time they got around to announcing the high school placings, all our hands were warm, sweaty, and uncomfortable. Pleasant, I know. Anyway, when it came to it, both teams won first place in our region!!!! The margin of winning wasn't as large as it was last year, but still, it was nice that both teams won. Not expecting anything to come from our double win, I was surprised to learn that the school board had decided to give both teams a "shining star award." So while I know that may sound very prestigious, it wasn't. All we got for all the hard work we put in was a certificate and a handshake from everyone on the board. Exciting? The ceremony itself was really stupid - we were only three minutes late or so, and the people had already given out the middle school awards without us and my mom, the head coach for both teams. It seems that they just couldn't wait to get rid of us. The world of school, however, has not been as rewarding as receiving that award. I've been so busy working on my Honors multigenre project, it's not even funny. I spent last weekend, which was a three day weekend, writing a 12 page essay. Granted, it didn't need to be twelve pages, but still. I just couldn't par anything down. I have finished one of my two genres - an oil pastel portrait of my poet, Dorothy Parker (if you don't know who she is, look her up), but I still have to do a ton more things. Overwhelming, someone? That's pretty much all there is to recap for now.

Two Weeks in my Strange Life...

These past two weeks have been really crazy. I'll start with the weekend of February 18th - 21st. As you can see, that weekend was actually four days, instead of the customary two days. That is because that weekend was our mid-winter break at school. Unlike some schools in the area who also had the whole following week off of school, we only got the Friday before and the Monday after. Still, I was going to make the best of it. Unfortunately, though, that whole week before, I was sick, and the coughing and sneezing didn't stop just because it was mid-winter break. Yes, you read that right. I was sick for the whole vacation - not fun. Actually, the week before (when I thought I was getting better, but actually wasn't), my mom offered to let me stay home, but me being me, I had to tough it out and go to school. That wasn't a pleasant experience, especially in classes without tissues. I wasn't feeling any better when Tuesday rolls around, and low and behold, we have a snow day! I certainly wasn't expecting that, since it had snowed a while ago, but I wasn't complaining. After that surprise, the rest of the week was relatively normal.
That Sunday was not only the Academy Awards, but also my sister's birthday. She was kind of feeling worn out, so she had decided to not have a birthday party, but we still had an ice cream cake that she had made herself, and later, ate pot pie for dinner (dessert first!). I had no idea what to get for her (and had no money to buy anything), so I decided to draw her some drawings. I drew/painted three: one of an ice cream cone with watercolor pencils, and two with oil pastels - a picture of the earth that is now hanging in her locker and a drawing of what is supposed to be her in Regency-era dress. I thought they were pretty cool. She also got some books and a Pride and Prejudice trivia game (which I thought was pretty appropriate). While eating dinner, we watched the Academy Awards. I must admit, though I was excited to watch, they were pretty bad. The hosts weren't that funny and Anne Hathaway seemed to be overcompensating for James Franco's seemingly lack of interest. It was kind of boring and a waste of a couple of hours, but I did like seeing the fashion...
Anyway, this week was really messed up, as well. It was testing week - the Juniors had to take the ACT/MME/some other test, and I had to the PLAN test. Monday was a normal day, but the rest of the week, not so much. On Tuesday, the Juniors/my sister had to take the ACT, while I got to stay in and sleep!! I slept in until around 9:30, at which time my mom woke me up and had donuts waiting for breakfast. Yum! I did go out and shovel the pathway in front of our house, which left me with several bruises - some of which I still have. The rest of the day was pretty much filled with pointless amusement. On Wednesday, I got to sleep in a few hours (while my sister had to go in early, again!! Haha!) because the other half of my grade was taking the PLAN test. Apparently, they couldn't manage the whole grade at one time, and had to split us up?? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense (not really). Finally, on Thursday, I had to actually get up early. The PLAN test itself wasn't that hard. The first portion,English, I didn't really pace myself, so I had to leave two questions unmarked at the end, but the others I finished with plenty of time left. Although it doesn't really count, I still want to know how I did (hopefully well...). Lastly, on Friday, we were thrown another curve ball. Apparently the roads were really icy in the morning, and so we got a two hour delay, which was something I certainly wasn't expecting. We were about to leave for school, when we heard about the conditions on the road from the TV, and decided to call just to make sure that we still had school. Low and behold, we had a two hour delay. Even though I was already dressed and ready, I went back to bed for two hours, which was nice. When we got to school we found out that we just weren't going to our first and second hours. So all and all, these past two weeks have been verrrry strange. Until the next bizarre instalment of my life!