I'm still on a natural high from shopping today. I bought some dresses for summer. Even though I still bought a sweater and a pair of pants, in my defense, the weather has been unusually cold for spring. It was snowing Thursday and today. We had Friday off for an in-service/clerical day. Hmm... what a coincidence! A day off that coincides with a religious holiday (Good Friday)? On our public school calendar? What an effort to eliminate religious holidays. This makes me laugh, especially when they made a point of getting rid of all the Jewish holidays this year. However, next year we'll have those holidays back and spring break will coincide with Easter. Can't they make up their minds? I'm not complaining though.

So, what has happened since I updated on last Thursday? Well, on Friday, there was the oh-so-special trip to the capital of our oh-so-great country. My parents told me that we were leaving a 7:30 AM. That's just like MURDER. When I woke up, it was 9-ish something, so my parents were lying. That's a good thing though... I would've collapsed somewhere in that oh-so-vast city if I had to get up that early on a non-school day. There was a 3-hour car ride to Washington D.C. followed by wandering the streets of said city. The tourist-y parts of the oh-so-famous city (yes, I realize that I qualify as a tourist) were overrun by people taking pictures of the oh-so-lovely cherry blossom trees for the oh-so-amazing Cherry Blossom Festival.

We visited some family friends who lived a small ranch house (their plot of land could fit in my front yard... maybe even my backyard which is smaller than the front) with only a ground floor and a basement. Even though that house was really small, it cost a whole darn lot. $250,000 more than my house is worth, to be exact, and my house is located in a rich county with a good school district, has two floors plus a basement, and big front and back yards. They must live in a really good school district or it could just be the close proximity to the oh-so-wondrous city of W- D.C. Have you ever noticed how flat that city is? It has no skyscrapers and the tallest thing is the Washington Monument.

On Saturday, we went to the National Zoo (I've been there too many times) and wandered around gawking at the animals... at least my family did. I made them miserable with my "die nature" comments and bad mood. Honestly, I don't care about the zoo. I appreciate it and all, but I don't want to stare at flamingos all day; though, the pandas were cute (duh, who doesn't like non-bears that eat bamboo all day?). Guess who we saw there? My neighbors. Apparently, they were also visiting friends and decided to drive 3 hours to gawk at birds. Once we'd sufficiently seen all the lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), we drove 3 hours back home from that stupid excuse of a vacation where I promptly started freaking out about the amount of school work I had to cram in. I ended not doing most of it (procrastination!) and I went to sleep.

Sunday, I stayed up late and did my Honors Biology extra credit (I need it). We all went back to school on Monday (no! Spring Break! Come back!) and were promptly loaded with homework once more. Tuesday night, I had CC rehearsal and stayed up until 2 A.M. just trying to finish my fact list for English. We had to have 20-30 facts but I ended up typing a whole lot more so I had to cut them down. We weren't allowed to use complete sentences so my facts made no sense. Since our oral report is based on only those facts, my report will suck. Ugh! I am so screwed... even more than usual.

Wednesday morning, I got a pleasant surprise. I had applied to the Peer Mentoring program and I got in! Over 220 applied but only 40% got in - the most EVER, thank goodness for me; however, I do wonder why some people got in and others didn't. I know perfectly qualified people that didn't get in, but others, who don't seem like the type that they'd accept, got in. Everyone wrote a pack of lies for their application questions, so I suppose it depended on whose lies were written better. Anyway, the acceptance brightened my day so much... I needed it since that day was the monster day; not only was I bleary from staying up 'til 2 because my facts were due, I also had an English vocab/grammar combo-test, a math quiz, a violin test, and a French test.

Okay, long rant here (don't worry, not longer than the Kumon rant - see the post): ENGLISH. What a beautiful language... HOLY F****** S***, M***** F****** - AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!1!!oneone!111!!exclamation point!!11!!!one!1!!! Gosh, it's still not out of my system and it's been, like, 4 days. Not only do we have that effing oral report and all the strings attached to it, but we had vocabulary and grammar. IN A COMBINED TEST (wtf?). So, it's Wednesday right? Facts are due. Test today. AND GUESS WHO DECIDES NOT TO SHOW? Hmm? Give up? OUR TEACHER. What a total lack of respect. We do the work and try not to resent her too much for it and what does she do? She doesn't come to school the day she needs to collect our work and answer questions about the test that a substitute can't answer. RESPECT GOES BOTH WAYS.

She had a whole class that came in with their hard work in hand and she didn't collect it. In fact, she told the substitute NOT to collect it. Hello? We want it off our hands. It's burning a whole into our bags. We want our work appreciated! Notice, I haven't even gotten to talking about the test yet and I'm so worked up. Here, she has a whole class of Honors English students who are all hard workers, not stupid (for the most part), and who care about their grades... what more could a teacher ask for? A grading robot? WTF??!!?? Doesn't she care?

As for the test itself, the vocab word choices were ambiguous and the grammar was harder than what we went over in class (this, from me, the self-proclaimed grammar wiz to a certain extent). She even made a mistake in the tensing of a sentence. What bothers me is that she didn't even bother to tell us where she was when she came back. If she did, I'd feel better about her but until then, nope, sorry, done. We haven't touched Oedipus in a while and there's a test coming up. ON QUOTES. F *** English. Even more than French... don't worry, I'll get there.

Math quiz. I got a B. That means my marking period average is a B. That means my end of the year average will be a B. That means my TRANSCPRIPT will show up as a B! NOOOOOO!  Honors Geometry blows... and I still have to take the final. When I mentor those poor incoming freshmen, I'll say, "remember kiddies, don't sign up for honors classes."  Those sad little overachievers will be devastated. Just like me. My grades have never been so bad. Haha, B for Bad. How lame. Speaking of bad, I'll get a B in Orchestra too. *smashes violin to smithereens*

Oh glorious lovely language of French! We had our first test from Mr. Student Teacher with the oh-so-*cough*good accent. Aside from the usual test, he added a sheet where we had to read his mind and write sentences that he likes according to his format. He walked around the room talking, while we were trying to take a test! He probably thought he was being helpful. Ugh, at one point he was standing over my shoulder just staring at my paper. It is so freaky and uncomfortable when people do that. At another point he paced around the room trying to "clarify" something and HE WOULDN'T SHUT UP! S'il vous plait! When I asked him a question, he pointed to another spot on my paper and told me that he "didn't like that answer" and to find a "better word." He never got around to answering my original question. At least I think I did well on that thing. I suppose he's not that bad but he has a long way to go. He'd better have that stuff graded by Monday.

One last thing... due to my inconsolable sobbing last time at Kumon, my parents are letting me quit. Are you wondering why I didn't end that sentence in an exclamation point? This is why: my parents are merely exchanging one torture method for another. F*** THE D*** S***** WORLD [OF MATH]. The new method they're looking into is called "Math Plus." I know right? That sounds so much better.  I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow. Kill me.

Note the outstanding amount of sarcasm in this post. Do my blog entries depress you? Should I type about the happier aspects of my life instead? Because if I do, the posts won't be as long... then again, that would be a good thing. Please leave some love in the form of a comment.

Oh, dear. It sounds that you have had rather the week that I have. Except worse. Congratulations on finally losing Kumon, but my condolences on the new "math plus" program. As to the happiness of the posts... They make ME feel better. I always feel depressed and I love it when I see others suffering as I do. :) Anyway, I would like to wish you congratulations as well for the entrance in to the peer mentoring program. I am SO jealous. Remember to stop by!
Oscuro Anjo