all wrapped up for christmas

let it snow!... but, on a school day
this weekend, it is supposed to snow 12 inches! 1/3 of me is happy; 2/3 of me is annoyed. this is because every time it snows, it is on a weekend. it snowed the saturday before last, it is going to snow this saturday, and it is going to snow next saturday. you know, i would really appreciate some snow on a school day. i would even be happy with a two-hour delay. there's nothing better than waking up to my mom telling me there's no school.

we are prepared to be trapped inside for the whole weekend. we have groceries and (most excitingly) the christmas tree! i can think of a few good things that come by being snowed in:

1. i have time to blog, which i usually don't.
2. i don't have as many excuses to put off doing my homework.

the magic of saran wrap
i realized today that places can get a lot of money for christmas trees. today, we got one for $30. one year, we got one for only $6! well... that's probably since it was a few days before christmas... now, my mom's always looking for a cheaper tree.

we couldn't get the christmas tree for the last few weekends since it has been snowing (hmph). today, we stopped by home depot and picked out a cute little tree. then, they came out with a giant roll and saran wrapped it to our car. yes, saran wrapped. who knew the powers of saran wrap were so amazing?


once we started driving, the tree kept making this loud flapping sound. the faster we drove, the louder it was. i never thought that a 10 minute drive on the freeway could be so unbelievably annoying. my mom's solution was to turn the radio up even louder.

the snow is starting to stick to the ground right this second. ella just looked out the window and said, "that's a fair amount of snow."

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."

if it's required, is it really volunteering?

SSL. or as my mom says: forced volunteering. we need 75 hours of student service learning to graduate from high school, and trust me, it isn't hard to find something to do... there are a ton of options.

my mom thinks my school is just looking for free labor by asking us to take phone calls for them during the summer. thankfully, i have found much better things to do with my time. i worked on the virginia obama campaign (first photo), ran a food stand at a school event, collected trash on the bay, made origami to donate to a children's hospital (second photo), and even poured lemonade into cups.


the worst part is filling out the "reflection" sheet. we have to write what we learned about ourselves and how we helped the community. it's hard to think of things to write. hmm... collecting trash: i learned that i will never do something like that for fun. pouring lemonade: i helped the community by making sure that they didn't die of thirst.

recently, my mom forwarded me an email, with the subject being: [Fwd: [pylenet] Looking for Teens Interested in Reading]. i was already thinking, oh my god, what was she thinking. i reluctantly opened the email, and saw that nearby libraries are giving SSL to teens for reading new books (that haven't even been released yet) and writing reviews for them. it doesn't sound bad, so i'll be doing that.
 
i'm currently doing two other projects. my friend lisa and i are doing a collaborative project, making the cutest origami stars. they are really simple to make. we have already made more than 1,000 of them! our plan is to put them onto necklaces and bracelets, sell them at our school, and donate the money. then, i had the idea to make earrings with wire and beads, and sell them at the same time. ella helped with some of the designs, and left the wire work for me. 

here are only some of the earrings i made after 16 hours of wire work:

these are the big earrings that i made. they have big glass beads, some of them with other little beads. in person, you can see the silver inside the glass. i could only make some, since those glass beads cost a lot! i'm selling each pair for $7 each, and the smaller earrings for $5.




here is one of the small pairs. when we went to the store, i fell in love with the colorful, floral glass beads in the picture. so, i got the square, cube, and cylinder ones. i guess i went a bit overboard, but i couldn't help myself!

this is a design with three beads. the hoop around the circle is a separate bead. i made hoops with many different things inside: squares, tiny clear beads, turquoise beads, etc. you might be thinking that i am crazy for spending my free time making different versions of hoop earrings, but it is much more fascinating that you would ever imagine.