Tonight, I performed at my school's Classical Me, a biannual concert for musicians at my high school! My private teacher doesn't organize recitals, so it's really nice to have a regular performance that isn't as stressful as auditions and helps me practice performing. The acoustics in the church are amazing, so it's a great place to perform and listen to other musicians! To read more about Classical Me and watch one of my performances from last year, click here.
I played Meditation from the opera Thais, by Jules Massenet. I
love this piece; it's so beautiful and expressive. Here is a video of the performance:
I was fortunate to have my friend Hanalei accompany me! She's an amazing pianist! She organizes a music group at my school called Songs For Seniors that performs at senior homes around the county. We have concerts every month, and it's so much fun! It's really rewarding to see the residents enjoying the music and tapping along.
Our first performance of the school year was at The Village at Rockville in November. The person at the front desk asked us if we were all from the same family... They must not see many Asians. Or maybe all Asians look alike when holding string instruments.
The January performance was at the Brooke Grove Retirement Village. There was a good crowd of residents and their families. Later, I found out that one resident's family member once taught music. It was nice to be appreciated by someone who knew about music, and it might have made up for the fact that one resident asked me what instrument I play right after the performance.
This month, we performed at Sunrise at Fox Hills in February. The ambiance was a combination of a 4-star hotel and a minimum security prison. It
was impossible to get to the concert room without a security
escort! All the electronic locks were designed to keep residents from wandering out, but also to keep late musicians from getting to the concert.
Check out the newly published Whitman Science Magazine, a non-profit publication run by students at my high school. The magazine compiles student articles, pictures,
and opinion pieces about current, topical issues in science and
technology. We appreciate the funding from the student government that makes it possible to run a non-profit magazine.
In the first issue, you’ll find articles and pictures covering a variety of topics ranging from aeronautics to neuroscience. The cover picture may look like a psychedelic frog, but it's actually an MRI picture of my brain with the connections false colored based on their direction.
As a first time editor and graphic/web designer for a magazine, it was a huge task to create a new website and magazine from scratch. The importance of design and layout is often taken for granted. It's something that's only noticed when it looks bad. I'm so glad that everything is up and running now and I'm really proud of the final product.
I love exploring different areas of research and then writing about them to make science more interesting and accessible to my audience. I'm lucky to work with other students who are passionate about science. I know it's going to be a great year! Look for new issues every academic quarter.
Classical me. Classical you. Classical who? Classical Me is a chance for musicians at my high school to perform every semester in front of... their parents. Okay, I'll admit, among the crowd of parents, there are also some siblings, classmates, and the three school music teachers. But that's what I love about it. There isn't anything at stake, like there is at an audition, but it still mimics that horrible, anxious feeling you get every time you perform. Cold, clammy hands that make it impossible to play the violin, shaky knees, butterflies. It really is just wonderful. Apparently that feeling wears off as you perform more. Although, I am pretty sure my sister's cello teacher just said that to convince us to play at the next recital.
This was the second time I performed at Classical Me. I played Bach's Partita No. 3. The only rests are the very first eighth note and the very last one. So technically, there are no breaks for four whole pages of music. Not to mention that those four pages are virtually all sixteenth notes. Perhaps that's why I was so nervous.
My first Classical Me performance was in the second semester last year. I played Praeludium and Allegro, composed by Kreisler, and I was the only freshman! But, this year, many other people in my grade performed. That's probably because sophomores, juniors, and seniors can get honors credit for music class by performing at Classical Me and writing a music-related paper each semester. I wrote mine about the effects of music on the brain. I'm pretty proud of it. There was even a labelled picture of my own brain. :)
Here is a video of my performance. It has nice sound quality, since my parents recently invested in a microphone for videotaping. I played in the second half, fifth to last. While watching all the other performances, I had to continuously warm my hands up, then cool them down again. Like I was saying before, I hate cold, clammy hands. Luckily, when it was my time to perform, my hands were the perfect temperature.
Yay! I have finally finished my Spanish project. It is a music video to "Me Vale," a song by a Spanish group called Mana. I know, I know, quite exciting.
The theme of the song is that you should not care what others think of you. The rough translation of the first line is, "I do not carewhatpeople think ofme. Even if you wear your hair another way, I still like to wear my hair like this." So in our video, we put pigtails in our hair to represent rebelling against the norm.
My group and I chose the song because it is reasonably catchy and upbeat, but what we didn't realize was that it is extremely wordy. Then, it came back to haunt us when our teacher said she wanted us to mouth all the words. So, we had to memorize the whole song for filming, and then edit all of the clips super accurately (to the 0.1 second). I have spent so long on this project that the song is probably permanently embedded in my mind. Why couldn't we have chosen a song like "Egoista," which has one word of lyrics repeated over and over again?
Now, I can look forward to the best part: presenting it in front of the class. Nah, that was sarcasm. Last year, I had to present two Spanish (non-music) video projects, and I seriously wanted to run and hide. Trust me, it is that embarrassing.
long time no blog! it has been six whole months, and i have been feeling pretty guilty. i'll try to blog more regularly once school ends...
... and that is in just six days! just six more days, which will be stuffed with more projects and exams than we have had for the entire semester. plus a ton of yearbook signing. eeks!
on the bright side, i'll be out of school three days earlier than ella! teehee. one day for senior graduation, one day for my lunch and gym exams (which are nonexistent, as you can probably imagine), and one day for make-up exams.
so, last weekend was memorial day weekend and future shock DC danced at world of dance in brooklyn! here is our performance from saturday. i am to the far left for the first piece. :)
WOD 2011 was definitely one of my favorite shows. all the acts were awesome! on the RhythmAddictsTV youtube channel, you can watch videos of other groups that performed.
i got a red, retro-looking, t-shirt that says "5, 6, 7, 8." i guess it is sort of an inside joke for dancers... maybe? my family got dinner at an african festival near the venue, like last year.
sunday was our NYC tourist day. we took a ferry to liberty island and ellis island. it was packed on the liberty island ferry, but on the ellis island ferry, not so much. for some reason, tourists seem much more interested in a green 151-foot-tall statue than an immigration museum... strange people...
we also saw the off-broadway show, jump! the show was set in the home a family of martial arts experts. the cast was mainly professional korean gymnasts, so the stunts were awesome.
my favorite character was the son-in-law. not only did he have awesome abs... every time he took off his glasses, he would spasm strangely and become a crazy martial arts ninja!
last night, i performed my first concert with whitman, which also marked my first concert as a concertmistress! it was really exciting, yet nerve-racking, because i walked out to tune the orchestra and even introduced one of our pieces!
at whitman, there are two orchestras and four bands, including the jazz band.
i'm in the concert orchestra. it is mainly for freshies, so it is teeny tiny: 5 first violins, 5 second violins, 2 violas, 3 cellos (2 of which usually come late to class or just skip it all together), and 3 basses.
concert band is mainly freshman as well. for some reason, they are the only group that didn't buy the dresses or borrow the school tuxes.
the symphonic band and the wind ensemble are both bands for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. the wind ensemble is the highest level though. like my mom, you may be wondering: why in the world is it called the wind ensemble when it actually includes brass instruments? well, i'm sort of wondering that too.
the higher level orchestra, the symphonic orchestra, is much bigger since it includes the sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
last of all is the jazz band. it has the best trumpet, trombone, and saxophone players at the school, plus a rhythm section.
the groups performed in that order which to be blunt... is from worst to best.
it was awkward being the first group to perform. everyone was still talking as i started walking onto the stage. that was most likely because the lights in the audience only turned off in the middle of our performance. pretty bad, right?
after the rest of the orchestra was seated, i walked out from stage left, bowed to the audience, and played my A string for the orchestra to tune! sounds minor, i know, but it was quite a rush. notice my newly tailored dress!
our selection order was as follows:
Hanukkah Lights................ Barry Amass
Dance Suite.......................... W.A. Mozart
Silent Night.......................... Franz Gruber
i'm guessing that ms. alvey purposefully chose both a christian and jewish piece for us to perform. smart. maybe dance suite was meant to be the secular piece.
i announced the dance suite. ms. alvey told us that she was "a firm believer in having the kids announce the pieces." she told us during class on the day of the concert that she didn't have time to write our speeches on notecards... so during the school day, i was thinking frantically about what to say: piece or selection? we hope you enjoy it or enjoy? well, i asked a couple of people their opinions, and i think my choices were pretty good.
"The next piece we'll be performing for you tonight is called Dance Suite, composed by Mozart. It has been our most challenging piece this year and is comprised of three movements: Gavotte, Menuet, and Country Dance. We hope you enjoy it."
just for the record, i didn't want to say it was our most challenging piece. ms. butler (my middle school orchestra teacher) used to say that, and i always felt like it was an excuse for bad playing. but... ms. alvey asked me to.
after my performance, i watched the rest of the concert with my family. most people had already left by the end, but i was interested in hearing the other groups. i'm glad i did, because i heard some interesting things. there was even a piece that the symphonic orchestra played called toy symphony where the violists played bird noises (a nightingale, a cuckoo and a quail) instead of their violas. you know, you had to be there.
the banquet on friday marked the end of the cross country season. it seems like i got to whitman at just the right time, because the wwxc girls team rocked. the girls won first place at counties, regionals, AND states! as they say at whitman, "GO LADY VIKES!"
it took two hour practices every day except for sundays and even tendinitis in both of my ankles, but i improved so much. the first 5k i ever ran was in the indoor track at the university of maryland, where my mom works. i had been training for the cross country season and trying to run the distance. yeah... that took 37 minutes. you can see on my athletic profile how much i improved over the season. the last race i ran in was counties, and i ran it in 23:22.
i'm glad that all of that hard work paid off!
the coaches: coach hays and coach b
here are the races i ran in, just to summarize my season:
time trials (august 28)-- 17:07
2 miles- flat. grassy.
schools: whitman
i got spikes on "spike night," where people from whitman could buy shoes together for a discount. i wore them during the time trials! they look like this: woodward relays at georgetown prep (september 7)-- 29:58
3 miles- rolling hills. grassy.
schools: whitman, sherwood, sidwell friends
i didn't want to run in this race since my ankles had been bothering me, but the coaches insisted. when i was running they felt fine, but they felt terrible afterwards. i later saw a doctor and he said it was tendinitis! i missed a bunch of practice, and five meets because of it. but, i still went to the meets to support the team.
tri-school meet (october 5)-- 26:19.17
3 miles-wooded trails. rolling hills.
(super cold, plus a lot of people got lost in the woods)
schools: whitman, wootton, walter johnson
fall classic at georgetown prep (october 16)-- 25:55
5000 meters-rolling hills. grassy.
(the hardest course EVER)
schools: 77 schools, and i don't plan on listing them all :)
montgomery county championships (october 23)--23:22
5000 meters- mostly flat. grass and bike path.
(one of my favorite courses!)
schools: 25 schools in the montgomery county area
the turn right before the finish line
the results: do you see my name? :)the numbers are the places
at the banquet, i got the "team cutie pie" paper plate award. it was bitter-sweet: bitter because it was such an amazing season (magical, as coach hays says), and sweet because i can finally go home once school ends!
wow! i can't believe that today was the first day of high school. i feel completely old (which i guess, is considered a good thing among us children).
i packed up my backpack ahead of time and woke up at 6:20 this morning so that i could actually catch the bus... which only happens under extreme duress (like on the first days of school). my mom walked me to the bus stop which, in retrospect, was a little embarrassing. looks like i'm going to have to overcome my fear of being attacked in order to look more like a nonchalant high school student. my mom definitely sped up this process by telling me that the stalkers were probably not out at 6:40 am. when i got to the bus stop, there were two boys that i had never seen before. it was strange since everyone stood at least 5 feet apart (what are they, radioactive?)
when i walked into school, i was completely prepared for first period. then i realized. it was 6:55, and first period started at 7:25. i was shocked, just thinking about the difference that an extra 25 minutes of sleep could have made.
it was not a surprise that i got lost a whole lot. i must know: why is the gym in such an obscure place? well, i hope that this will get easier with time...
most of my teachers gave the insanely boring lecture about their rules and expectations. to be honest, they all have the same rules and expectations.
now this is not saying much, since it's only been one day, but my freshman year is looking bright! the upperclassmen aren't as freakishly large as i had expected.
if there is one thing that you get from this blog post, it should be this: walt whitman cross country is intense. i started a few weeks late, like some other people, since i was in new mexico. today was my first day of running with wwxc. i don't think i've ever sweated this much ever before in my life...
even though wwxc is no cuts, most of the members on the team are amazing runners. in fact, some newbies have already quit. i guess you have to be a pretty decent runner to survive this crazy running schedule.
people often say that running gets easier, and i suppose that this can be true for anything that you practice. i definitely believe in this concept: in middle school, i couldn't even run a mile without stopping... it felt like hours, even though it was less than 10 minutes (yeah, i know, pretty sad). i trained a bit before the cross country season, and can now run 3.1 miles without stopping! i'm not saying that i'm good, because i can't run a 5k much faster than 28 minutes. i think it's better, though, to achieve the distance before improving your time.
i thought that this was noteworthy enough for its own blog post...
while researching for a history paragraph on montgomery county homelessness, i came across the fannie mae website, where they posted a few pictures from the help the homeless walkathon. i'm not sure if i told you, but my dance group, future shock, performs at the walkathon every year! so, when they wrote, "Please enjoy these videos of the 2009 Walkathon and Mini-Walks," i thought that i might see my dance group in one of the videos. i clicked the walkathon link, and it took me to this youtube link!
then, suddenly... BAM! at 0:23 seconds (my lucky number), there i am, dancing!
it is not the most flattering or attractive picture; i had hand warmers stuffed up my gloves plus a bright, blue mouth. my mouth color is quite cryptic because i only recall drinking hot chocolate... hmm...
i'm just amazed that, out of the thousands of people there, my picture showed up in this slideshow! i'm famous! well, not really. this video has only gotten 352 views. my mom thinks it was because i was sporting my beautiful, new help the homeless shirt :)
how did i get from researching homelessness, to blogging about this youtube video?
is it possible to finish writing a homework paragraph after being sucked into the wonderful world of youtube?
so, you are attracted to the magnet program... well, today i went to richard montgomery high school to take the high school magnet test. this is for all you people out there, who were like me, who are stressing about the test and wondering why there is no good info on the magnet site. well, i'm about to give you some good info from my own experience.
just some suggestions on what to bring i am basically about to tell you what i brought today, using some tips from my SAT book.
make sure you wear layers; i wore 3. you never know what the temperature might be. some rooms might be cold and some might be hot.
bring a pencil pouch so you can carry all of your stuff. take a big eraser (you might need it for the essay), some dull and some sharp #2 pencils (dull pencils are good for bubbling answers quickly, and sharp pencils are good for writing the essay)
if you have a phone, bring it. they will make you turn it off during testing, but after it's over, it's helpful to call your parents. trust me, there is a whole swarm of parents waiting for their kids.
the process when you first get to the school, the volunteers take you to a classroom with desks in rows. there are about 30 people in each room. you take the multiple choice test for 2 hours.after that, you get a so called "break" where you get up and walk around for a while. you then have unlimited time to write a one-sided page essay to a prompt. when they said "unlimited," i was imagining people who stay for hours upon hours... do you think there are those people?
the dreaded... test
the test is all multiple choice (not including the essay which i will talk about later). questions 1-60 are reading and questions 61-110 are math. they give both sections to you in the same booklet. you can start with either section, switch between sections, and spend any amount of time on each section.
i must say, the most boring part was reading the 5 passages in the reading section. 3 times i felt my eyelids slowly closing, so i had to jerk them wide open and focus intensely (that didn't work out so well for me). i swear i could've fallen asleep right there, reading about some fireball that i can't remember the name of now...
verbal section
1/4 of the problems-- word selection (choose a word that best replaces a word in a sentence)
1/4 of the problems-- logical reasoning (you know, those questions that make your brain ache, like: bill is 5'6''. jack is shorter than bill. jack is sitting to the left of amy. amy is sitting to the right of bill. jane is the shortest. the tallest person is sitting 2 from the right. who is the tallest person?)
1/2 of the problems-- reading comprehension (you read 5 passages and answer a few questions about each)
math section
1/4 of the problems-- quantitative comparisons (compare two number values)
3/4 of the problems-- math problems (just your average algebra problems)
the essay
on the magnet application packet, it says you will get 30 minutes to write the essay. but, we actually got unlimited time. hmm...
according to the test prep booklet (link at the bottom of the page) on the 2003 test the essay prompt was: Mark Twain, American author and humorist, once wrote, “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing circumstances.” Is school work or play for you? Why? Use examples from your academic life to support your position in a coherent, meaningful, brief essay.
today, the essay prompt was: "The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority." -Ken Blanchard. Do you agree or disagree with Blanchard's statement?
so there are some example of essay prompts to be prepared for.
on a final note
don't be nervous. it really isn't that hard of a test. the only hard part is the time limit. make sure that you pace yourself. remember to consider the time you need to read the reading passages! also, like you've probably heard, if you don't know the answer to a question, skip it, and move on the questions you DO know the answer to. the test prep booklet says that they don't take off points for wrong answers. that means that if you don't know the right answer, just guess.
if you need any extra info, here is the magnet test prep booklet: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/high/HSTestPrepBooklet.pdf
school pictures. they are really stressful! well at least for me. what if you mess up the picture that goes into the yearbook that everyone will look back on for eternity?? i guess that's a bit melodramatic, but it's true that i do get really anxious before school pictures. today, they gave me my picture. let me just say, i think these braces are messing up my face. they even ruined my new passport picture. anyway, i thought that i would put all of my pictures of the past onto this post, so i can remember them long after i've lost all the copies.
before preschool: i was 2 and a half. i guess this was sort of a daycare stage. hey look! i still had some chub back then. :)
preschool: here i am, in preschool. check it out, my two front teeth fell out. by the way, my hair is pulled back... it was longer than that!
kindergarten: are you starting to wonder what that tree i keep leaning against is? well, for these 3 pictures, i went to greenwood, and they took pictures with trees. it looks so, nature like...
1st grade: this was my first year at bannockburn elementary. i even remember picking out my outfit for this picture. that sweater i am wearing actually says "101 dalmations" on the back. plus, do you see me proudly wearing my girl scouts necklace? :)
2rd grade: wow, my dress and the background matched perfectly (in both 1st grade AND 2nd grade). hmm... i can't remember whether or not i planned that...
3rd grade: i don't know why i decided to go with the background. just wanted to mention, in case you thought i went to some pond to get my school picture taken.
4th grade: if you noticed, i am wearing the same sweater as in 3rd grade. if you didn't notice, i guess i'm stupid for pointing it out. it was a good school picture sweater, though! does it look like i'm laughing in the picture? that is the year that the photographer tried to make me laugh... and i am the easiest person in the world to make laugh. in this picture, i'm just trying my hardest to stop laughing.
5th grade: ermm, i'm not a huge fan of this picture. let me just say, those photographers need to tell us they are going to take the picture... before they take the picture!
6th grade: in this picture, you can tell i was stressing out. i was so tight that the muscles on my neck are sticking out!
8th grade: don't ask where the 7th grade picture went, because i truly don't know. anyway, i'm thinking that all my experience with school pictures helped. notice how i was ready to smile. that's because, as soon as i went to sit on the stool, i put on my smile. after about 30 seconds, the camera man told me to relax since he was setting the camera up the whole time. :-/
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!
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.
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 am now officially an eighth grader! i get the honor of sitting in the very back of the bus (even though i don't see why that's so special)... we're the kings of the school! since we switch off days having periods 1, 2, 4, 6 (even days) and periods 1, 3, 5, 7 (odd days), i only met half of my teachers today. science with ms. bazizl, history with mr. wesley, spanish with senora sloan, and honors geometry with mrs. xourias. it all started off easy... no homework, no classwork, just the regular "get to know each other games," and going over the rules which was so very boring.
what i found strange was that in US history, with mr. wesley, we have to do a daily warm up... on grammar. yes grammar. it looked familiar from english class last year, but i mean, come on. it's history! then i heard that he grades 10% of our writing by grammar.
then came honors geometry. right when we got there, it was like, pull out the journals!!! and mrs. xourias just starts talking super fast, i am just sitting there scribbling like crazy; arm cramp!!
friday was the first time i touched my backpack since the last day of school. why? because school starts tomorrow. you see, i love school (except for the learning part). so, that's a problem. but i'm excited to be with my friends again. at my middle school, you only have classes with people on your team (there are 3 teams per grade). so on friday, i texted, emailed, imed, and called my friends to find out what team they were on... and surprisingly the majority of my friends are on my team! i'm just not so thrilled about the tests and homework. you'll be hearing from me tomorrow, about the first day of school!
click to enlarge!
i can relate to sally. i'm not the "going-to-school type" either.
wow. my last blog was on november 16, 2008. its been a while! i guess i am just feeling particularly inspired to blog today. the last day of school was on june 16th! "what time is it? summer time!" that's what we always say at my cousins' house. usually, what happens is, someone asks what time it is, and someone randomly says, "summer time!" but i guess now, it is actually true.
THE SHORT: january-february: all-county orchestra (i am going to write a separate blog about the whole process of it). mr herman and the pack of elephants in our orchestra. i think he needs some more encouraging analogies. april: trip to niagara falls during spring break. my sister loved the jacuzzi in the hotel room. may: east coast dance competition (ECDC). my sister managed to stay awake the whole time this time. june: trip to new york with my family to do a dance performance (world of dance, but really they just mean the hip hop world of dance), last day of school (yippee!), end of the year party after school on the last day
THE LONG:
niagara falls: over spring break, pull out the passports... my family took a road trip to canada! the hotel we chose was a really cool one, since it had a view of the falls. were were already really excited to stay there, but we were even more excited... when they told us our hotel room was getting updated for free!! it was suite! jacuzzi (with jets), the view, tv, it can't get any better than that. at night, the falls would change colors, it was like a giant nightlight! maple sugar candy is good, eh?
ECDC: in may, culture shock dc hosted the east coast dance competition 2009 at the warner theater. people come from all over to dance or compete at ecdc. this was mini shock dc's second year dancing at ecdc. this year we dressed up as dolls which came to life and of course, danced. i was cast as olive oyl. before that i'd never heard of olive oyl. talk about generation gap. olive oyl is from the cartoon popeye! the sailor man! we spent forever trying to find the right red sweater. right shape, right shade, right size. my mom sewed a white fringe onto the collar so that i looked exactly like olive oyl. she wants me to use the costume for halloween this year. not going to happen. no one would get it. other dolls included dora the explorer, diego, GI joe, GI jane, raggedy ann, cabbage patch dolls, my scene dolls, barbies and popeye.
new york: on june 13 and 14 we went to the big apple. mom calls it going back to my beginning. it was a music filled weekend. we stayed at the buckingham hotel in midtown, where, according to my dad, is where the queen of england stays when she's in town. ha ha. we walked to the world of dance at the roseland ballroom... and i performed with my dance group, mini shock DC! we learned all new dances for this performance... live! from new york! here is the youtube video of our number: . we opened for the beat freaks, boogie bots, ring masters, and iconic! they are all from mtv's americas best dance crew. yay! to add to our musical trip, we saw the musical "in the heights" (from a great height... since our seats were pretty high up).
last day of school: before the last day of school, middle school life is very traumatizing. exams. i was really freaked out by my first day of exams, where i had my two (most stressful) high school exams: my algebra exam, and my spanish exam. it turns out that they were both super easy, and that i was worrying for nothing. good thing i didn't study too much. :) at my school, the last day of school has no purpose at all. i always wonder why there is an extra day at the end of each school year where we do nothing. very boring. after the dismissal bell rang, it was so loud!! everywhere, people were screaming things like "freedom" or just randomly screaming. i think my hearing was slightly damaged. and emptying out the entire contents of my locker? into my backpack?? not easy to do. after school, i went to an end of the school party that two of my friends were having. they live across from each other, so it was pretty convenient. i went on the bus home with them, which was more like a circus than a bus. it was amazing how lenient the bus driver was about the "rules"... people were climbing over seats, doing flips, putting their legs out of the windows, running down the aisles... but i just stayed sitting in my seat, looking around me awkwardly. honestly, i've never been one to break the rules. at the party, we had water fights with water balloons and water guns. we ran around having a blast....... for about 2 minutes. that was when we realized we ran out of balloons. there were 10 water balloons. after that, we put a watermelon on the ground, and smashed it open with a baseball bat!! i had always wanted to do that; it is even more fun than it looks on TV. then we ate the pieces of watermelon. i decided to be bold and take one of the most ginormous pieces. i had to bury my face into it in order to get every single piece. by the time i was finished, my face was covered in watermelon, and i was walking around very very slowly.
p.e. highlight of 2008: we were playing flag football in p.e. for the first time they told me i was runningback. i was sort of freaked out because i barely even knew what runningback was. i knew i should've spent more time watching football with my grandpa. i was running to the other side of the field with no one blocking me cuz no one expected me to do anything. nathan threw the ball to me and luckily i caught it. i was running and everyone kept pulling at my flags. i kept looking back cuz i thought someone had pulled it already, but no they were still there. i kept running and i passed the little white line! i was kind of confused. did i just do that? yes! i did! i made a touchdown!
who's got spirit? i've got spirit, how bout u? not that many people had spirit at our school spirit week. on monday, it was crazy hair day. but of course a lot of people didn't do it cuz they forgot. i didn't forget. after i took my shower i braided all my hair and then slept on it. i woke up early to take out the braids and it was so frizzy. i put it in a sloppy ponytail on the side of my head. when i got to school my friend natalie thought i was having a bad hair day. while sticking my hair up in front of my locker mirror, i told her that i would never leave the house looking like that.
fortunately i didn't have to participate in tuesday's spirit day, mismatch day. that would have been a true test of school spirit. instead of being at school, i was at a pbs kids video shoot. i felt a little bad because i haven't watched pbs kids too much since we got cable. but i used to love watching arthur and dragon tales. my mom liked zoom. an email said that they were going to use some moves from captain huggy. since i haven't been updated on the latest pbs kids shows i didn't really know who captain huggy was. i used the awesome power of you tube to uncover his identity. apparently he's a monkey who acts out a word (like for example, sad or happy) then dances his monkey dance.
to be in this video, i had to audition the week before. in the audition, we didn't exactly do the hardest things. first they asked us to run from each side of the room to see how we followed directions. of course, i was a pro at that. after that they asked us to act like a monkey then a robot. then they asked us to freestyle dance to elevator sounding music. then they gave us 8 counts of a simple dance. the whole audition lasted around 5 minutes.
at the end of the week, i found out that i got picked to be in the video. only 11 out of 110 kids were chosen. i knew about half of the kids that got picked for the video since they were in my dance group, minishock. it was really fun to be there with people i knew. before the shoot, we were given choreography. but the real challenge to the routine was to try to dance looking enthusiastic. this was basically the only challenge because the dance didn't ever require you to move your arms while you were moving your feet. we were supposed to bring our own clothes for them to pick out an outfit for us to wear. we weren't supposed to wear anything with logos or anything green, white or orange. this was hard because almost all the clothes in my closet are green or have the abercrombie logo, a moose, on it. the studio background was green so that they could manipulate the background separately. maybe you'll see us dancing in front of the eiffel tower or maybe the zoo while we're dancing the monkey dance. it was really cool to see all the different cameras and how they videotaped other videos and commercials.
i have PE every other day, right now we are playing softball. we are going to be playing it longer than the other sports. things i like about softball: while you're waiting to bat, you can stand behind the fence where no gnats can fly around your face and annoy you. i like how you can be an outfielder and talk to the other outfielders (until someone tells you to spread out). things i hate about softball: the gross sweaty softball gloves. i hate when you accidentally pick up a lefty glove and there aren't any others left. one time some girls were talking in the locker room and this is what happened... we had to run a lap around the field and then two more laps during PE class. i was so pooped out. we have to do 10 push ups on the concrete (where there are ants and sharp rocks) or on the grass (where it is very wet and dirt-ish). for sit-ups, we can either do them on the concrete (where it really hurts your back) or on the grass (where you're back and hair get all gross). i have a lot of homework due tomorrow, which is mostly math homework. i have problems from my textbook and a lot of plotting scatter plots. i wish we could use excel, that would make life so much easier.
