summertime, and the livin' is easy

yesterday was the day we all wait for. the day we all count down to in our planners. have you already guessed? school's finally out! everyone always yells "FREEDOM" at the sweet sound of the last bell... and, well, it's true.

chained to the monotonous life of school? putting off work, and not sleeping 'til midnight? waking up early, sporting baggy eyes? stressing for many, many quizzes and tests? no longer! it feels amazing to be unleashed from school's wrath.

please click to enlarge!

brace yourself for something completely unexpected: when my mom and i picked ella up from school yesterday, we saw a 5th grader crying. we made nothing of it, until we saw a whole bunch of 5th graders crying, both boys and girls. why? because they were going to miss school. *gasp* can you believe that? well, i suppose it's possible. it was just unbelievable to us since the end of school is like paradise for ella and me.

now, it's time for some fun in the sun! where to begin, where to begin... i can't wait for those blazing hot days when we jump into the cool pool water.

here is a very recent picture of me at the pool. by the way, it is also my facebook profile picture.

i do have some summer goals that i am determined to reach.

minor and simple goal

1. blog more! i have been pretty lame about blogging lately. only one post per month? come on bea; you can do better!
   

major and difficult goals

1. to not procrastinate on my summer work (i usually do that and it is not fun). let me describe this summer work to you. we all have to read one drama selection and one fiction selection from the reading list they give us. it doesn't sound too bad right? that is what they want you to think, so don't fall into the trap! this is all part of their plan to keep control of our minds so we can't have as much fun as possible.
2. to gain 5 pounds of muscle (or any type of weight, for that matter). you see, i'm a 76 pound 13 year old, and need all the weight i can get. hopefully, if i stay this ambitious (which may be tough), i'll run with my dad and practice lacrosse throughout the summer.

i will tell you on the first day of school whether or not i reached my three goals... i'm not too confident though, since i'm already on the road to full procrastination and, honestly, i'm not exactly in the mood for any serious physical activity. arg. summer. it always makes me feel lazy (even lazier than usual. that's a lot).

i suppose all i can do now is enjoy summer... because, here comes high school.

wii will rock you

on wednesday, the wii came in the mail! it is me and ella's big christmas gift this year, but we couldn't wait, and got it early! my dad ordered the wii separately from the mario game, wii fit, wii play, extra controller, and numchuck. what is really aggravating is that almost everything came on tuesday... except the wii!

but, i'm so excited that it finally came! when we went to california in october, we played with allie and adam's wii. it was so awesome! we did a lot of virtual hula hooping and skiing. unfortunately, the day that the wii came was sort of busy since ella had a cello lesson, and i had some homework to do. but, of course, i squeezed in some wii time at 11:40 pm.

the all important... wii fit age
let's see...

1. when we played the wii at allie and adam's house, ella was 28 (+20), and i was 13 (+1).
2. during my 11:40 wii session, i ended up being 17 (+5).
3. yesterday, after school, ella was 9 (+1) and i was 12 (+0). by the way, my parents also tried the wii fit yesterday, and were both 45 (+4).

hmm... i am yet to find out what my wii fit age really is. it is different every time! this whole wii fit age thing is sort of blurry.

wii fit awesomeness!
i love the wii fit! it literally senses your every move. the major thing that the wii fit does is measure your balance. for example, in the yoga section, me and ella like to do the tree pose. they show you a dot that traces your balance, and it's really hard to keep totally still! the only thing about the wii fit is that it can't tell most things other than balance. i'm guessing that this is why they call me "shaky" on the balance exercises and a "body builder" on the strength exercises.

this is mii
i loved creating my mii. i'm not sure how realistic it looks. one thing is for sure: the proportions are not realistic. i copied the mii's from the wii screen. does this look like our family? can you guess who is who? please comment :)

music marathon

yesterday i went to my second all county orchestra audition (last year's audition). before the audition, i was freaking out. not because i was nervous, but because i didn't have a banana that could prevent an anxiety attack. magnesium is magical. my mom comes home and pulls out 5 bananas! sigh, i love her. she knows me so well.

longest practice period ever
i got to the auditions at 6:55 pm, since i was auditioning in the last block from 7:30-9:00. well, i auditioned at 9:44. people cheered when the numbers changed, literally every 20 minutes.

the reason it was so slow was because there was one room with an etude (2 minutes), one room with sight reading (2 minutes), and one room with 2 excerpts plus 2 scales (5 minutes). so the line for the longest one built up fast. last year was much better thought out. wonder why they changed it...

it was obvious that everyone was getting more exhausted as the night dragged on. at first, everyone was practicing frantically. as we were walking towards the practice room, my mom says, "can you spell cacophony?" which, i can't (i had to use spell check to write that). then, as the room emptied out painfully slowly, there were those long patches of silence which i hate. they make it so hard to practice without seeming like a show off. like, once, there was complete silence with no talking, no playing. and one girl just continued playing the slow piece. everyone laughed but she still continued to play. i'm not sure if she knew she was playing a solo, but i'm pretty sure she knew.

honestly, maybe it was better that they were so late. at first i was really worried since i felt so unprepared. but, after more than 2 hours of practicing, i wasn't nervous at all. was it the banana? was it the practicing? maybe a combination...

me and my mom as the night slowly ticked by:


strangely lucky auditions
mr. herman: he conducted the all-county orchestra last year and described our playing with animal analogies... some about elephants... so, i'm outside the first room (with the etude), and the girl waiting next to me looks into the room and says, "hey! that's my teacher." after i auditioned, i asked her who it was, and she told me it was mr. herman. i asked her how she knew, since the judges were behind screens only showing their feet. "the pants." i'm just glad that she told me after i auditioned.

the sightreading wasn't too bad. they only gave us 30 seconds to look at the music before playing it. i thought that was a little weird, since usually they give us as much time as we need. my mom thinks that they shortened the time because they were 44 minutes after the auditions were supposed to end. the time went by fast, so by that time, i had only looked through half of the piece. luckily i was able to wing it ok (i hope). the rhythm was pretty hard, and we had to shift to 4th position once, but other than that, it was all good. :)

when i went to the last, super long room, there was only one person in line, even though they said the line would take forever. they had the music posted outside the room showing what we would play. it turned out that for the hardest piece, brahms 2nd symphony, we only had to play the last half. half of me felt relieved but half of me was really bugged. i mean, the first half was probably my weaker half, but after all that practicing, we didn't have to play it!

me and my mom left and were like "finally!" we only got home at 10:07 pm. i was half asleep. for the all-state auditions on saturday, my mom says that we could get my number, then go get ice cream or something. :)

relaxing in right field

fitness friday update (since the last fitness friday): we were all really happy when we got to miss our friday torture session because of a holiday. but of course, they had to ruin it and make a special "fitness thursday." it actually wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. i didn't sweat at all (probably because it was 65 degrees out)! no gnats bothering me. but i was still dying from cramps and itchy red rashes. thank god it's fall.

softball: after the fitness thursday run, we played some softball! like in 6th grade, you get your glove, stick your hand in, and get the pleasant surprise of sweat. luckily, this also happened in 6th grade, so i now have my own glove to bring to school... if only i could remember it!!
i like to bat but i am hopeless when it comes to catching. in 6th and 7th grade, i would go into the outfield hoping that nobody would hit that far, but they usually did. so, this year i have found a solution that works wonders.


the orange is the path of the ball... and i try to stay far from it. 99% of the people at my school are rightys, so the chances that i will have to catch are tiny! the rest of my softball days are going to be a breeze!

P.E. should stand for Pain Escalation

recently, someone came up with the horrible idea of fitness friday. we have a system where our classes are every other day, so we have fitness friday every other friday. i guess we are lucky, since other schools have it every week. i'm already having nightmares about the first time... on fitness fridays, we have to run around the outdoor track for at least 4 laps, which is a mile. some people shot for 6 or 7, which i find strange. sure, they get a few extra points, but i'm just fine with the minimum.


it was like torture. the whole time, there was a gnat in my face, and eventually, it flew straight into my eye. and to add to that, the whole time, i was having cramps which explains all the breaks i had to take. my legs were so itchy! oh, and when i looked down, they were completely red.

before this fitness friday thing started, we had to run the mile twice a year. some lucky classes didn't have to do it at all. but now, we have to run in circles every other week. considering how much pain and suffering i had to go through on one friday, imagine how i'll be at the end of the year, after 17 more.

middle school irony

both last weekend and the weekend before that were "homework free weekends." the reason i put that into quotes is because my school has the most lame excuse for a homework free weekend. ironically, there is more homework than usual. my theory is that the teachers think nobody else is giving homework, so they decide to just dump it all onto us when they get the chance. i don't think our school should even have a homework free weekend. they get our hopes up, then send them crashing down.

but of course, they can't just give us the homework. they need an excuse. it is pretty impressive what they manage to come up with.

the friday excuse: "technically this friday afternoon is not the weekend. do your homework then."
the optional excuse: "this homework is optional, but... if you don't do it, you won't be ready for our next assignment which, by the way, is 50 points."
the high school excuse: "the homework free weekend does not apply to us because this is a high school class. in high school, they aren't having a homework free weekend."
the project excuse: "this is a long term assignment. you don't have to do it on the weekend."

oh well. perhaps it would be best to rename these weekends, "not so homework free weekends."

i walked into a door

last sunday, i walked into a door. it wasn't actually as stupid as it sounds. my mom and my sister, ella, came to pick me up from dance rehearsal, and when we were walking out... BANG. luckily, nobody but my mom and ella saw me, but i still had a big red bump on my forehead.