Exam time!

Tomorrow, I’ll take my last midterm (hopefully my last exam!) of my high school career. That exam is Spanish.
Ha.
It’s not that I don’t like Spanish. I love it. The language is beautiful. And it’s not that I don’t understand it. I do. It’s just… I don’t like the class. And I’m not good with grammar, which may or may not be partly why I don’t like the class. I know exactly what I want to say, but I get tripped up trying to think of verb tenses and the correct adjective form to use that my words get lost and I end up saying something completely wrong. Oh, and did I mention that the class thinks I’m racist? (I’m not.)

But I love Spanish. I’m just not motivated to try. I love Señora, and I love the language, but not the class. Isn’t that the grand dilemma. Hence why I’ve been sitting here, writing thank-you notes to maybe put on my other blog at some point in the future, starting a story centering around Liza, the fiancée of Micheal, my favorite character, and writing an essay on Dvořák’s 9th Symphony instead of studying the preterit and subjunctive tenses. Thankfully, I suppose, the subjunctive won’t be on the exam! Praise the Lord.

Bien. I’m in Starbucks and it’s probably going to close soon. The door keeps opening and letting all the cold air in. It was -1 when I walked to school this morning and doesn’t really feel like it’s gotten any warmer. I am not looking forward to getting into my car!

This is a ramble. I’m sorry. I blame the caffeine. Oh. Wait. It was decaf.

I give up.

Ha. ha, ha, ha.

So remember when I said I would be updating this?
Yeah, right.
It’s a little sad.
And I want to get back to the swing of things.
So I will.
I’m going to write, dammit.

I originally started this as a college blog. It hasn’t really been much of one. Highlights:
- I applied to seventeen schools.
- I’m still not done applying.
- I just switched my application to to Early Decision II.
- I’m hoping I get in.

Acceptances:
UMass Amherst
Ithaca College
Alfred University
Salve Regina University

Deferrals:
University of Michigan

Still Outstanding:
A hell of a lot.

So yeah. I started a new blog. It’s a secret for now.
I’ll be posting more. Eventually.

time together with time to spare

I know I haven’t updated this in a long time. I don’t want this to be something that I start and never finish. Like most things in my life. It’s just been sort of weird.

Getting back from camp is the worst feeling in the world. Spending a month with people you love so deeply it hurts and then having to say goodbye? It’s never fun. I had my two best friends – a drawer and a painter, and there was me the photographer. My drawer friend was driving home, so we hugged her goodbye at her car. I wasn’t crying. I was supposed to see my painter friend on the bus to the next morning, so we didn’t say a proper goodbye. I don’t know what a proper goodbye is, but I didn’t say it. I never wanted that moment to end. Standing together in the dark, everything was possible. There was still time for all the things that never happened. And as soon as we turned away from each other, that was it. Possibilities died. Five steps and I was crying. Ten and I was blind. And I get back to the cabin and I collapse on the floor. A writer bent down and held me until I stopped. I look up and there’s a skittering, scratching shoebox on the bed. Inside is a baby squirrel named Eric. I probably shouldn’t have held him, but he was the sweetest thing in the world. He fit in my two hands, I could hear feel his tiny heard and every bone. His tail twitched but he didn’t know what to do with it. His claws clung into my shirt and climbed.

And the first thing the painter said to me at the airport the next day was “Are you serious?? That was the worst thing you could do to him! You just made him unafraid of humans. It’s like you took a normal animal and made it retarded!”

Sigh.

College Touring

So, since this blog is theoretically about college, I figured I should probably talk a little bit about it. Just maybe, you know?

We’ve seen a bunch of them so far: SUNY Albany, RPI, Union, SUNY Syracuse, Cornell, Ithaca, Alfred, SUNY Alfred, SUNY Rochester, RIT, Canisius. And we’ve still got U of M Dearborn, U of M Ann Arbor and Hillsdale. And that’s the shortlist of schools we could see.

We only really toured Union, Cornell, and Alfred so far, and we’re touring U of M Ann Arbor and Hillsdale, but we drove through the campuses and towns of all of them.

I really loved Union. It’s a small school not too far upstate NY, and it seems like a really close-knit community. it’s beautiful, been around since 1792, I think, lots of brick buildings and grassy lawns. Even though there weren’t any students walking around, there was an Irish dance camp in the theatre building and some other camp groups doing yoga, stretching and jogging around the lawn. It has an accelerated trimester system, so they have three terms a year and each course lasts only 10 weeks. I know a couple of people who went there and graduated between five and ten years ago, and let’s just say I really want both of their jobs. Union is a test-optional school, which means that you can send SATs / ACTs if you want to, but it’s not required. If I apply there though, I think I will send them since they’re, shall we say, better than my grades and fit neatly into the high end of the average score bracket there.

Cornell I wasn’t crazy about. It was definitely more urban than Union and it was a lot bigger than I expected. I thought it was going to be about 7,000 students – which for me is big – but it turned out to be about 20,000, which is a lot bigger than other schools I’m considering. There were people all over, and I did get the sense that there was a bigger summer community there. Our tour guide seemed like she’d done it a lot before: the tour sounded scripted and it was hard to stand right up front next to her because she was so loud. I was amazed that, speaking at her volume for an hour and a half that she didn’t lose her voice. The buildings themselves were nice, although the long hallway in the English one reminded me of Kilmainham Gaol in Ireland, which probably isn’t the greatest comparison: a prison to a school. I was surprised that I have the SATs / ACTs to get into an Ivy. Grades, well, they could be better, but I’ve got enough other stuff on my transcript that I’m not too worried.

Finally, I loved Alfred. It’s probably my second choice, Union being the first. It had the Union-esque feel of a small campus, and it was gorgeous. Some of the buildings were sort of eclectic: there’s a big castle in the top left corner of it and a remodeled church and some ultramodern buildings. We ended up on a tour of the art building, which I wasn’t really interested in but it was a gorgeous building. I don’t want to be an art major but I do want to be able to take art classes, and this was a beautiful building. It reminded me of the Dow at Interlochen: all white, exposed ceilings, lots of windows. I’ll admit that I spent a bunch of time taking photos of the ceiling, which the rest of the tour probably thought was weird, but whatever. I am… un artiste!.

And that’s all I’ve got! I’m sitting in a hotel room, loving being on the end of the time zone because it’s 9:40 and still light out! Three days til Interlochen!

On the road again

Travel buddies!

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Syracuse, which is much nicer and so much less sketchier than ours in Schenectady! (Thank God.) My daddy and I are driving out to Michigan to drop me off at Interlochen, and visiting colleges along the way… fun. It’s not bad, though; we stopped at Union today and it was gorgeous. I love it there. I think that’s going to be my top choice!

So yeah. Nothing really to say, but I’ll be back sometime this week / sometime in August!

Jumping on the tramp – what?

For my middle-school graduation, I received a Coach purse. It was $80 and I felt so adult walking around with my pre-pubescent friends carrying a purse that cost more than I had in my bank account. Of course, it was also tiny and didn’t even hold a wallet. So I would stuff wads of cash in there with my old-school iPod mini. It is green. Its name is Satin Gloom. I was obsessed with that name. I got it out of some Goth-name-generator way back when and used it as my MSN screename… yeah.

For my sister’s middle-school graduation, she does not get a purse. She gets a trampoline. Which took an entire day to set up because it’s so obnoxious. But really. What’s the point in setting it up? I mean, she’s having so much fun the way it is, and it’s not even bouncy! Although a it is fun to bounce on the tramp. I mean, I enjoy it so much! I just get up on top of that tramp and bounce away. It’s really tiring though. I woke up today after using the tramp for five hours yesterday and let me tell you, my muscles are sore. I’m sore in places I didn’t even know existed! Sadly, though, I think I’ve done everything there is to do with a tramp! What else can you do but bounce and roll around on it?

Hi.

On a side much cuter note, here’s what my puppy thought of it:

The cuteness is overwhelming.

Socialites frequent CVS?

On my way home from voice today, I stopped into CVS to covet the entire stationary aisle. I’m a sucker for anything that writes, or anything that can be written on… especially if it’s smooth and brightly colored. Like fancy pens. And pocket-sized notebooks. And Sharpie Pens. And day planners. It’s a wonder how, despite the fact that I love a nice planner, my homework grades always tank because I never write it down. In my fancy, expensive planner. I mean, really. I have notebooks for everything. A reading journal, a theatre journal, a movie journal… and I can’t keep track of homework? Sigh.

Having finally wrenched myself away from left the aisle (some tabbies and pens in my hand – what? A girl’s gotta get something), I go to the checkout counter and there are two women standing in front of me. They’re all dressed up like they’re going out to a party. I’m taller than both of them. They’re both wearing heels.

The one on the left has her clutch and her left shoe up on the rack, and her friend is squealing as only a 30-something can squeal about how adorable her heels are. (They were cute, I will admit.) The woman with the one shoe on is trying to figure out how to put Dr. Scholl’s inserts into her shoe.

Woman on the Left: How do these work?
Whatever she tries fails.
Her Friend: No, see, this goes on the right shoe. See the “R” right here? It goes in the right shoe.
Cashier laughs. I laugh. We get glared at.
Woman on the Left: I changed the reservations to 7:30. Do you think that’s enough time?
Her Friend: It should be.
Woman on the Left: My daughter told me I looked like I was going to the ball!

I’m sorry, Lady Woman on the Left. You’re wearing a plain black sheath dress and plainish black and white shoes. Somehow, I picture balls to be more… I don’t know, fancy?