So, it has been the first few weeks of summer, and so far, it's been pretty nice - the weather, for the most part, has been great, and I have enjoyed sleeping in. But, that being said, I haven't just been just lying around and doing nothing these past few weeks. For one, I got a job cleaning my neighbor's house on a weekly basis. I don't remember if I've already mentioned that, so if I did, I apologize for being repetitive. I've gone over two time already, and mostly, I have been vacuuming her entire house. In addition, I have washed windows and mirrors. It's not the most interesting or fun job in the world, but at least I am doing something useful and making money in the process (which I have been putting into my savings account for college). What I find ironic is that I wouldn't be someone you would call neat, and I don't really like cleaning up after myself, and yet, here I am cleaning up someone else's house and being paid for it. Next thing you know, my family will be using my "expertise" in this field to their advantage...
Other than my new job, I - along with my sister and mom - volunteered last Friday by ushering for "A Winter's Tale" at the Nichols Arboretum at the University of Michigan. For those who are confused, the University of Michigan puts on a Shakespeare play outdoors in the arboretum every summer; the whole thing is called "Shakespeare in the Arb." As ushers, we are supposed to show people to the next scene and where to sit (again, for those who don't know, the scenes move around to different locations in the arb). Basically, though, we don't really do anything and get a free show and t-shirt out of the deal. It's pretty awesome. This year's t-shirts are especially interesting - on the back, they say "exit, pursued by a bear," which is a stage direction in "A Winter's Tale." Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - on Friday, it was raining on and off all day, so only about 7 people actually bought tickets. They weren't going to put on the play, but they decided to just do it anyway. Because there were so few people (about half the audience was ushers), you didn't have to fight for a good place, and could hear everything well. We are volunteering again tonight, but the weather looks much better, so there will probably be a bunch more people. It still should be fun, though.
The next thing I did, and probably the most significant, was that I took the ACT for the first time last Saturday. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be, but it wasn't as easy as the practice tests I took. I ran out of time for the science portion, so had to put random answers, so hopefully, I'll still do well. The results are supposed to come in 5 to 8 weeks after taking the test, so until then, I have my fingers crossed. Talking about school related subjects, I started reading A Tale of Two Cities for my Honors English summer reading, and so far, I have really enjoyed reading it. I have finished Books I and II, so all I have left is the ending. I hear that it is surprising, so I'm looking forward to finishing it.
The last thing I want to talk about is that yesterday, which was my parent's 32nd anniversary, my sister had a few friends over while my parents went out to eat and we watched the four hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Since we hadn't really cleaned up our house for quite a while, we had to spend the whole day cleaning up. Of course, the vacuum had to die on me during right when I was almost finished. You know how these things work. Anyway, everyone came over at about 7:30, but we didn't start until about 7:45 or a bit later.Since we started so late, only one person stayed to the very end (it was at about 1 AM), but it was still enjoyable. My sister had made a cake, which was kind of pitiful because the layers had slid a bit, but still delicious, one of her friends made peanut butter cookies, and there were tons of M&M's. I was stuffed by the end of the night - I ate two pieces of pizza, a piece of cheesy bread, a piece of cinnamon bread (that was all part of our dinner), two cookies, a slice of cake, and probably too many M&M's. This pizza-movie night is supposed to be a regular occurrence, so next time, I will remember not to each so much.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
School's Out for the Summerr!!!!
I apologize for the long delay between posts, but my schedule has been very hectic the last month or so. Before I talk about my past month, I must issue an apology Aunt "Rose" and my oldest uncle, who feel that in my last post, I portrayed their quick visit in an unfavorable light. That was not my intention. I enjoy their visits so much that I wish that they could stay for longer periods of time.
With that out of the way, I can go back to what has happened in my ever exciting life. In May, it is as if my teachers realized that we had basically a month left of school, and piled on the work so that they could fit everything in. It always confuses my why this happens every year - they, like everyone else know when the end of the year is, so why couldn't they plan it out better. In Chemistry, for example, my teacher was teaching us stuff that would be on the exam the in the study hour beforehand because we couldn't fit it in the actual school year. That being said, I did extremely well on my chemistry exam (only one wrong, which apparently is very good), which probably had something to do with the last minute explanations and cramming. But all the stress and worries of school are now past me, for it is officially summer break. Our last day of school was Friday, and because we got out so early and don't go back until after Labor Day, we practically get three whole months for our summer break. That sort of compensates for all the stress I was put through this past month or so.
Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly free to go after school got out on Friday because my sister and I had decided to stay after and recycle with Green Group (which I was elected representative for next year - don't ask me what representatives do, but it is a step). Anyway, because it was the last day of school, all the teachers were unloading all their paper that they had collected over the year (my chemistry had 5 full boxes of periodic tables), so we had to recycle paper as well as sort the bottles. That split our already small group of people into smaller groups. That is why, even though we began at 10:34 AM after school got out, we didn't finish until sometime after 1 PM. But that can be partially attributed to all the troubles we encountered. First, the paper bin was already overflowing when we began to recycle, so we had to place our bags around the outside and hope that they pick it up sometime soon. Also, one of the bins that we collect paper in had its tire fall off, so we had to transfer all the paper in that bin into another bin so that we could unload it. It seemed that everything bad that could happen, did happen. Fortunately, once we were done, we all went downtown to get some ice cream, which helped even things out. I got a sundae with caramel, apples, and cookie crumbs. It was delicious!!! Interestingly enough, by the time we got home from school, it was about the time that we would have gotten home if we hadn't had a half day.
So, onto what I've done so far in my first taste of summer. First of all, I've been outside quite often. The weather has been and is currently so nice and warm (sometimes too warm...) that like it is actually summer already. It's especially nice when you compare it to the "spring" we've been having. Basically, we had a super long winter, and then it went straight to summer. Sounds fun, doesn't it?? Yesterday, I went to a going-away party at my friend's house. She's moving to Colorado in a few weeks and this was kind of our goodbye to her. There were tons of people there and I enjoyed myself immensely - except for the ever present swarm of mosquitoes who seemed to be attracted to my bug spray, not repelled. Seriously, I was eaten alive - I went from no mosquito bites to over thirty in one night!!! But besides that, it was a nice night. As a going-away gift for my friend, I drew a picture of her, which turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself, and gave her a "Don't Mess with the Mitten" t-shirt to wear with pride when she is in Colorado. Then today, I went to the movies with another friend and saw Kung Fu Panda 2. We had watched the first one at a Science Olympiad movie night and had some good memories, and decided when we were still in school that we had to see the sequel together. I enjoyed the movie, though it wasn't quite as funny as the first one. All and all, I would have to say that this has been a good start to the summer. I even have gotten a job cleaning my neighbor's house, which starts Tuesday. I don't really have plans yet for the summer (except Honors English reading...which I haven't exactly started, even though some of my friends have already finished a book), but as of yet, it looks like this might be a good one.
With that out of the way, I can go back to what has happened in my ever exciting life. In May, it is as if my teachers realized that we had basically a month left of school, and piled on the work so that they could fit everything in. It always confuses my why this happens every year - they, like everyone else know when the end of the year is, so why couldn't they plan it out better. In Chemistry, for example, my teacher was teaching us stuff that would be on the exam the in the study hour beforehand because we couldn't fit it in the actual school year. That being said, I did extremely well on my chemistry exam (only one wrong, which apparently is very good), which probably had something to do with the last minute explanations and cramming. But all the stress and worries of school are now past me, for it is officially summer break. Our last day of school was Friday, and because we got out so early and don't go back until after Labor Day, we practically get three whole months for our summer break. That sort of compensates for all the stress I was put through this past month or so.
Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly free to go after school got out on Friday because my sister and I had decided to stay after and recycle with Green Group (which I was elected representative for next year - don't ask me what representatives do, but it is a step). Anyway, because it was the last day of school, all the teachers were unloading all their paper that they had collected over the year (my chemistry had 5 full boxes of periodic tables), so we had to recycle paper as well as sort the bottles. That split our already small group of people into smaller groups. That is why, even though we began at 10:34 AM after school got out, we didn't finish until sometime after 1 PM. But that can be partially attributed to all the troubles we encountered. First, the paper bin was already overflowing when we began to recycle, so we had to place our bags around the outside and hope that they pick it up sometime soon. Also, one of the bins that we collect paper in had its tire fall off, so we had to transfer all the paper in that bin into another bin so that we could unload it. It seemed that everything bad that could happen, did happen. Fortunately, once we were done, we all went downtown to get some ice cream, which helped even things out. I got a sundae with caramel, apples, and cookie crumbs. It was delicious!!! Interestingly enough, by the time we got home from school, it was about the time that we would have gotten home if we hadn't had a half day.
So, onto what I've done so far in my first taste of summer. First of all, I've been outside quite often. The weather has been and is currently so nice and warm (sometimes too warm...) that like it is actually summer already. It's especially nice when you compare it to the "spring" we've been having. Basically, we had a super long winter, and then it went straight to summer. Sounds fun, doesn't it?? Yesterday, I went to a going-away party at my friend's house. She's moving to Colorado in a few weeks and this was kind of our goodbye to her. There were tons of people there and I enjoyed myself immensely - except for the ever present swarm of mosquitoes who seemed to be attracted to my bug spray, not repelled. Seriously, I was eaten alive - I went from no mosquito bites to over thirty in one night!!! But besides that, it was a nice night. As a going-away gift for my friend, I drew a picture of her, which turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself, and gave her a "Don't Mess with the Mitten" t-shirt to wear with pride when she is in Colorado. Then today, I went to the movies with another friend and saw Kung Fu Panda 2. We had watched the first one at a Science Olympiad movie night and had some good memories, and decided when we were still in school that we had to see the sequel together. I enjoyed the movie, though it wasn't quite as funny as the first one. All and all, I would have to say that this has been a good start to the summer. I even have gotten a job cleaning my neighbor's house, which starts Tuesday. I don't really have plans yet for the summer (except Honors English reading...which I haven't exactly started, even though some of my friends have already finished a book), but as of yet, it looks like this might be a good one.
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