This is shana's site feed.

Loitering is my new favorite hobby

2006-09-01T15:45:00.000-05:00

so, here i am in madison, and because i am super cool i am sitting in my dorm listening to daft punk. alone. the door is open though, which is key. when we're bored (and even when we're not), mary and i go to the other floors and introduce ourselves to anyone with an open door. people are really inviting and we happened upon some guys watching episodes of british "the office" the other day! but we're also really chatty and have to constantly remind ourselves to leave, because, you know, guitar hero is like way more interesting than we could ever be.

classes actually start on tuesday. i changed my schedule yet again (i know, i'm obsessive), but this time it was for a real reason. the day i was planning to come home for surgeon/orthodontist appts didn't work out for them at all so now i'm in a 9am honors chemistry class. what was i thinking; i'm terrible at chemistry! but now i end at 11am fridays and that's when i'm going home to see my friends who've already received several degrees. they also have trashy magazines in their waiting rooms. those are great.

i can't wait until chem labs start, because then i will have an endless supply of kimwipes. kimwipes are fantastic lint-free single-ply tissues that are always in scientists' lairs. very fun. very handy. because then i will NEVER have smudges on the screen of my laptop. they will be cleared away seconds after they are spotted. such is the magic of the kimwipe.

i've seen quite a few of the nicolet kids, besides the hundred that live in chadbourne with me. nothing exciting, except for when i spotted jake lustig and he totally looked at me but then looked away as if he didn't remember me. granted, i only took comprog with him (and that was junior year) but seriously, we saw each other around. i doubt i look that different. really.

i've also spotted some people with whom i went to like elementary or middle school. i think i caught a few double-takes (this is me being self-centered, actually). one boy standing next to me at a crosswalk was someone i never took to be a "smart kid" who could get into madison and i was "?!"ing all over the place.

i'm pondering making the trek to the lakeshore dorms because i know a lot of people out there. it's just so far.... boy am i glad i live in the middle of campus. all my classes are awfully close to my new home. the construction that sometimes wakes us up at 5:45 in the morning and the sirens of the ambulances that careen past on their way to university hospital are the only moderately annoying parts of my situation - for now at least. in short, madison is cool, dudes.

also, the wind just blew through the screen of the open window and told my door to shut itself.

Do you think it means anything if Usher's "My Way" is seriously stuck in my head?

2006-08-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

well.

it certainly has been a while.

i'm not even going to go look at the last update because the date stamped on it is just going to disappoint me. i can barely remember what i've done since then. now i'm going to chatter a bit and those of you who are reading this on facebook (technology, woo) are going to decide that you actually cannot stand me at all.

i move into chadbourne on wednesday. i actually moved most of my stuff in today (when mary moved in), which makes it seem more "real", i guess. everything that isn't a clothing item, a bag, a watch, or a shoe, is sitting in room 505 a few miles away. it isn't even that much stuff - that's what's odd! like, can i really live with just some clothes and a few granola bars and my computer? it certainly seems that way. we'll see.

i can eat now. it's a very odd sensation, this chewing with the correct molars thing. and biting! wow. fascinating. what's odd now is that i'm always hungry; i can't tell if it's more a "oh i can eat now so let me just eat" thing or if i'm actually more hungry than i ever was while on the liquid diet. i'm assuming it's the former, but assuming is not at all good for one's health. as is what i've been doing for the week and a half, i imagine (binge? binge? no purge in sight? heim taught me well back in freshman health).

i'm doing the "goodbye" thing that it seems i'm obliged to do. i spotted some local color around town (joey kahl at walgreens! he's six feet tall!) and suddenly started going out of my way to meet up with kids i knew in high school that are, well, still in high school. here's a particularly funny exchange.

(shana and joey chat; joey's cousin sees them and comes over to see what all the fuss is about)
joey's cousin: "oh hey do you know joe from school?"
me: "i went to high school with him, but now i go to madison."
cousin: "why?"
joey: "...she graduated?"

well, i thought it was hilarious but i guess you're the one who just wrinkled your nose at my sense of humor.

i wish this were more chatty and informative so i could say "this sucks because it's chatty and informative". i still feel like it is shooting vibes of weirdness at me from my glossy laptop screen but that in itself is weird.

I'd never seen anyone look so blatantly French before

2006-07-27T21:04:00.000-05:00

so today i went to see Phoenix at the rave. they're a french band but they sing in english so they trick americans into thinking they're anything but french. cari skelton (a wonderful person, really, and she lives down the street in what is chip's old house!) got the tickets to this "invite only" show, but it was 18+ so she, sadly, could not attend. i'm glad she thought to give the tickets to me because i had a great time.

the first opener was The Etiquette. i'd never heard of them, but they were loud and fun. their guitarist was so fun to watch. he moved like crazy, like super enthusiastic band members tend to do. during phoenix, he came and danced sort of near where i was. it was wild, just like his jumping/motioning/guitarplaying and it was great. there was a little cleared-out zone around him. i liked it though; it was better than that drunk guy in the white hat that pumped his fist in the air and bobbed his head all weird. true, i bob my head all weird, but it's in a good way. i'm good. i'm cool.

next up was French Kicks. i knew i'd heard of them, i just couldn't remember what their sound was. (turns out i have the song 'following waves', it's on their website.) they were kind of synthy new-wavy hard to describe-y, but i liked whatever it was that they were doing. their lead singer is so tall, though. before they came out i was trying to figure out what the really tall microphone on the stage was for, but afterward i realized that it was just at singing height for the guy. so weird. they also had a random guy (he was the only non-white, but that's not what made him odd) who played EVERY INSTRUMENT. sometimes he played an electric guitar. sometimes an acoustic one. sometimes he hit these fancy drum pad things (his drumsticks moved so fast that i was convinced he wasn't actually hitting the pad). he even played a keyboard, but he didn't sing. he was cool, but crazy random man.

then there was phoenix. they played a lot of stuff from the most recent album (i'm partial to Alphabetical, the second, but perhaps only because i heard it first. my favorite phoenix song is also off Alphabetical: 'everything is everything', and i was glad they played it [granted, it's one of their hits].) because that's what the "tour" was promoting. the "tour" was sponsered by camel cigarettes and the only way to get tickets was email phoenix, catch a camel rep, win contests, or sometimes the venue sold some tickets. that premise was odd. nevertheless, phoenix was great. the best part was that they looked SO french. you just glance at the lead singer and you're like "oh man what a frenchie", and they even ended the show with a "merci beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup". it was amazing. there was this monstrous flag as a backdrop for them and it said nec pluribus impar. roughly translated, it means "no unequal match for many", or (deleting them double negatives) "equal matches for many". either way this makes no sense. louis xiv used it as a motto, apparently. still don't get it. but phoenix: you're great.

Now I am without bandages and parts of my jaw

2006-07-17T17:33:00.000-05:00

let's breeze past the fact that i haven't updated in a decade or two and just enjoy the fact that i am doing so right now.

the surgery went well. i've seen an x-ray of my newly titanium-reinforced skull and damn there is so much metal going on. my braces + the screws + little plates + shrapnel. so much. no, i won't be setting off any metal detectors any time soon (i don't even go to nicolet anymore, friends). and nothing protrudes. i'm a little swollen still, but only in the "lower cheek and below chin" areas.

it doesn't really hurt, unless you touch my cheek or chin or nose (i know, you're thinking "nose?" some of the metal holding me together is in my sinuses. crazy.). there haven't been any real problems really, except for something that could possibly become worrying. i think the front teeth on both jaws have suddenly become oversensitive. my theory is that eating milkshakes and ice cream nonstop has forced the nerves embedded in these teeth to cry. i can't really brush all my teeth or i'd become intimately familiar with sensodyne right about now.

there are rubber bands holding my jaws together on the sides (used to be 3 on each side, but now it's 2). the bands are just so nothing heals crooked, and i can't open my jaw that much yet anyway so they're not preventing anything there i guess.

the liquid diet kind of sucks. i'm supposed to get 1500 calories a day through various soups and juices, and drink a quart of water a day. it's so boring. i'm too used to it already.

but yeah, i look different. you can't really predict what the "final product" is going to look like just because of the swelling in awkward places. it's weirder for me than you guys because i still have "phantom jaw"-type feelings. i mean, for 18 years my lower jaw was longer than the other. chunks of my lower jaw were straight up removed from my body and now my tongue hits the backs of my lower teeth before my upper teeth.

and there's another issue: i don't know where to put my tongue. its "relaxed state" is the old size of my lower jaw, so i have to contract it to make it fit now. it tends to go back to the old size but curve up so the tip is behind my lower teeth but the middle part hits the roof of my mouth. so weird.

i do want to thank everyone who has visited me. keeps me sane. call before if you want to come over. i usually just sit around my house doing nothing. i'm so sick of tv + internet. isn't that weird, coming from me? i know. so weird. oh, i have an ipod now (!) and my macbook is theoretically going to be here soon (...). just so you guys can keep track of everything that happens in my life.

Guidelines for visiting me post-op

2006-07-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

as you all should know by now, i am having jaw surgery on wednesday. i don't know what my updating schedule will be like after the surgery. i'll be at elmbrook memorial for two days (the surgery is 7 hours wednesday morning) watching cable television yet bored. i'm just going to assume/hope that some of you want to visit me after i'm different.

here's what you should do if you are pondering visiting me:

call my phone (if you don't have my number and aren't my facebook friend, ask someone who is)

here's what you could bring along if you visit me:

a movie that i should see (seriously, just bring anything... i'm not al eich and have not memorized the plot of every movie ever)
a book because i like words (it can be aimed at two year olds or eighty year olds - chances are i will probably enjoy it thoroughly either way)
soup or ice cream or a shake of some sort (surprise me, i guess)
gossip (i revel in this, no matter what sort of impression i have left upon you. and if i just lost all respect you had for me, just don't take this option seriously.)
music! i'll listen to anything. any language. any genre. big fan.

this is nowhere near a comprehensive list. leave me comments and messages and write on my facebook wall. i'll probably be online often but who knows. i'm not nervous because i have painkillers on my side. i'm going to be really bored. i did a lot of online shopping this past week with my parents' credit card and they don't know it. let's see what happens. can't believe you people still read this.

I had SOAR on Wednesday. This is my SOAR update.

2006-07-01T10:49:00.000-05:00

SOAR is student orientation, advising, and registration at madison. it's pretty boring, but being asian, i enjoyed the class registration part of it.

placement tests were so boring. in case any of you were wondering, i tested out of comm-a. my 5 on lang also did that for me. i also tested into fifth semester french, which is the cause of some of my concern. i skipped everything past 4pm on day 1 and hung out with band camp kids for hours. i missed them. i miss band camp. i wish i were there instead of bored and here. i got to see so many kids i haven't seen since myso, and i loved partying it up with like eighteen others in mary's room. andrea and i, of course, had conversations about nothing and it was a highlight of the night (as was walking back to my temporary dorm room in the dark).

i'm going to talk about my schedule for the rest of this post, so feel free to ignore it. i just want to document this so in four years when i graduate i'm like "damn, what was i thinking taking calculus; i'm an art history major now!"

i figured that you guys, if anyone, would appreciate seeing my schedule in one of its recent forms. i keep changing it obsessively.

so let's discuss.

calculus: yeah what was i thinking. second semester is just series and shit i don't understand, so really i should be taking that class but theoretically i'll never come across them again. so let's hope i'm not going to die here.

chemistry: you're right, i don't know any chemistry. but i'd rather learn it in one semester instead of two. and the three hour chem lab is insane - who needs that?! it also prevents my joining the orchestra i want to be in. but the discussion is in the basement of my dorm so that shall be nice.

french: yeah i'm probably going to regret this. i'm in it just because i can be, really. it fits perfectly around all my other classes that never want to work with each other. the notes with this class is WRITING INTENSIVE (read: "this will kick your ass and i don't know why any of you are signing up for this").

swedish: this one's just for me (aw cute yeah okay). i've decided that i want a 'certificate in international studies' and i'm specializing in sweden. so i get to use the swedish i want to learn, and a year abroad there is required. go ahead and hate and make fun of me. i don't care.

orchestra: i don't think i'm going to keep this in my schedule because it's so late, unless a spot opens up in the all-university orchestra that starts a few hours before this one. i wanted to take the cool symphony orchestra that grad students are in, but chem lab ruined that for me. i don't like the idea of being done with music at all. it makes me upset. once again, i invite you to make fun of me, but i've spent most of my life with other musicians and even though i will be living with one, it's just not the same. i like playing music. it's why i stayed in myso. dropping this would just make me sad.

okay, done with the sappy post. enjoy yourselves. my surgery is on wednesday. i went to summerfest on the 29 and shall not be attending it/any of the bands i actually wanted to see. if you don't see me online, it's because i'm in ohio. we'll meet again sometime in the future --shana.

Remember back in the day when I had a "topic: discussion" style format?

2006-06-26T12:42:00.000-05:00

Court:

i was nervous, i won't lie. i thought i'd have to go alone because my dad had to talk to fish that night, but i was early enough in the line of court-goers that he could stay. the village prosecutor was surprisingly nice: we chatted about my surgery and he was uncomfortable and he took away all my points. the fine went up but i don't really care about that - my insurance isn't going up more than it is because of the accident! woohoo. i mean i don't pay insurance but if it were my dad would give me all sorts of disappointing looks (which he does already but he'd be doing it more pointedly).

Couch:

so we've been hardcore furniture shopping lately, and it's about time. we've been living here for five years and still all that's in our living room are a couch + television. well we bought couches and tables and lamps (oh my) and now what could be referred to as "old faithful" is up for sale. it's a great couch. i shall miss it. twas quite comfortable.

Cards:

i am super into this card game called fluxx. i can't really explain it, but it's great because you never know when you're going to win - you just do. and in theory you can win in the second play. i can't really explain it, but you should party on over to chadbourne because we will be playing it nonstop next year. mary kicked my ass thoroughly the other night. y'all probably would too. it's great.

Cutie:

i am actually in love with a baby named vincent. he is so cute it's unbelievable. true, i don't even plan to have children in the future (let's be serious: "shana with children" is a hard sight to imagine, as should be "shana the pedophile" because that is not the case here) but he is still SUCH a cutie. so much gushing. and he is so worthy of it all. love him.

I like music, there just isn't any on my computer anymore

2006-06-19T16:10:00.000-05:00

i got a letter from the dmv this morning. i figured it was something about how i have 6 points (court date = wednesday, get pumped) and they just wanted to remind of how dangerously close to getting my license suspended. like that's something easily forgettable. for some reason i see more cops driving around than ever before. i saw about eight around midnight the other day. kind of ridiculous. and i drive the speed limit (it's why i'm late to most places; my drive time estimates are based on the generous 10 over i used to go).

but, no. the dmv wants my insurance information because of the "accident i was involved in recently." oh. that. yeah that sucked.

so my parents were in new york this weekend. no, nothing exciting. i cleaned my room, like, MASSIVELY. a few years ago, my parents told me that i couldn't go out unless i dealt with the stack of papers i'd brought home after the last day of school. i was desperate, so i succumbed to shoving said stacks under my bed. until then, i'd never put anything there. i finally took the stacks out and tossed them into a nice blue Glendale recycling bin. here's what else i found under my bed:

i did a fair amount of vacuuming (i'm obsessed with vacuuming and will probably have the only vacuum cleaner in chadbourne) because otherwise my hardwood floors get slippery. y'all know me - it's probable that i would slip and fall in my own room.

and i finally fixed my computer. actually, the boy fixed the computer; i just did a lot of sitting around + looking pretty + whining about my computer problems. i still sort of am having problems but, look! a taskbar! haven't had one of those in a while.

saturday night, i drove all over wisconsin in search for a marquette party. it was supposedly in cedarburg, but what was worrying was that the directions told us to drive through glendale and river hills and fox point and bayside and mequon and thiensville and grafton and mequon to get to it. my what a house. it was big. and they had lots of expensive cars. and a band. there was a huge banner thing welcoming us to "kinopalusa", which i didn't quite understand but hey, okay. and yes, i did make myself a sandhich just before leaving the house for eating upon my arrival. i was hungry, okay? it was a great sandwich.

interesting things this week: court date, appt with oral surgeon, appt with orthodontist

and yes, i am looking forward to all of the above. just in case you were wondering.

summer is still boring.

Summer bores me

2006-06-14T15:21:00.000-05:00

i've been doing a lot of sitting around lately. basically done with the graduation party circuit. so much damn food.

i'm starting to wish i were obsessed with video games because that would be something to help the time pass. i can hardly beat a level of tetris. mayhap had i loved those consoles i would be skilled with that block dropping game.

i put some graduation pictures up. nothing interesting. but there, for those of you who aren't addicted to facebook as i am. my, am i getting wordy and boring in my old age.

i listen to a lot of music. i watch a lot of network television. watch tv show dvd collections i'm fond of.

i'm really just bored. desperate for any social activity, really.

really.

and if pre-surgery summer is this bad, it's going to be even worse after july 5. tons of indian people are going to be filtering through my house around then to visit me/wisconsin. mostly the latter, i'm sure. i'm not that interesting.

surely you've realized that by now. i should get a hobby. suggestions?

about a week ago i lost my voice. when i went in on friday to get it checked out, my doctor surprised me and told me that i have asthma. i mean, i've always sort of assumed that i had it (diane: the wimpy cough?). i got an inhaler for when a) my lungs burn or b) i can't stop coughing. the first time i used it i could feel the medicine talking to my lungs and commanding them to be normal. it was so great. wow. loved it. my voice is almost back to normal, but it may have reached that already because i can't remember what my voice used to sound like before it got all squeaky and weird.

This one is about my surgery

2006-06-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

so here's what's going down on July 5
my upper jaw will be broken and pulled forward
my lower jaw will be broken and pushed back
i will have titanium screws holding my jaws together so the bones grow correctly
i will be on a completely liquid diet for 6 weeks
it's a 6 hour surgery
i'll be in the hospital for two days
it'll take me a short while to relearn how to make certain sounds
it is going to be intense
and you best believe there will be a fair amount of painkillers involved

On Thursday I made a fool of myself in E-Wing and fell and it was hilarious

2006-06-11T17:22:00.000-05:00

well it seems that high school is over. not really bittersweet at all. very exciting that i when i wake up early it will now be for no reason. a little sad that i won't get to see some of you any more (but that girl boots and i see running up to fwing before fourth hour... will not miss you at all).

graduation was boring. kind of weird. jeanne likes spoke and i glared at her. i suppose i should announce that i did get my exemptions after all. i fought with her and reprinted the letter i sent nicolet and handed it to her and visited her after every class on monday. she kept making excuses about her secretary not having checked things or returning from lunch. finally, 2:20, her secretary revealed that lunch lady Vicky Hanson emphasized enough that the charge was from last year and from some other kid that jeanne likes was forced to give me those fucking pieces of tagboard. i exempted english and gym (because we'd finished the project that was our french exam in class on monday, so i took it). it was really nice to not have to go to school until noon. and watching wet hot american summer as our stats exam was amazing.

it really annoys me that nothing on this page is aligned at the top. i'll probably spend some time fixing that or staring at it and wondering where i should begin.

i always tell myself i'll update every day and then i just don't. i kind of wish i had, at least during the last few days of school. it's not that i'm sentimental, but i like remembering the incidents that made me laugh.

wow, props to facebook for integrating google maps into events.

i went to see joshua bell and the mso on friday. yes, twas a "nerd concert" as someone so kindly put it, but WOW. he was amazing - no, he was incredible, and i never use that word so that really should be a measure of how great his playing was. at intermission mary and i got our programs signed and i took a superquick picture of mary+josh looking like they're bff. it was totally worth missing anything else that happened friday night.

good weekend. ate way too much food, but i'm making up for not being able to eat for the next long while. caitlin priem and i discussed jaw surgeries yesterday (ps: enjoyed her speech, especially because my sister also was unable to say Rs) and the liquid diet is going to suck more than i anticipated it would. we'll see how the recovery phase goes.

i'm going to be doing a lot of nothing this summer, so get pumped.

Nicolet sucks.

2006-06-05T00:29:00.000-05:00

i didn't get my exam exemptions. that's all i can think about right now. and now you know.

In an effort to put dishes in the dishwasher, I opened the microwave

2006-05-29T15:10:00.000-05:00

well. what a weekend i've had. i was going to chat a little about my family's annual ritual of "throwing flowers into that awkward box next to our front door", but many things have happened since early saturday morn. i'm going to ignore almost everything (chadbourne fifth floor next year) and skip to what is on my mind. because that's what i do.

i got a speeding ticket yesterday.

totally my fault, as usual. the ticket said i was going 45 on santa monica's wildly high 25. i was really going faster. and, as usual, i'm not sure why the hell i was driving that fast. i was driving fast enough that the cop (anyone who's taken bike safety in fox point knows her) also gave me a warning for failing to pull over as soon as she started the sirens+flashinglights combo. she thought i was trying to get away from her. i was in a minivan. i had no reason to run away. not so sure she believed me.

anyway, it's a $130 ticket and 6 points on my record. i really don't want those points. they suck. my court date is june 20. my dad has been car shopping all day so i haven't even seen him (he called my phone at 10am and i was like "i'm in the next room....oh")/told him yet. yes i realize that i am 18 and don't need to tell him, but i have to go to court and my insurance is going to go up even more than it already did for the accident. i've been sitting around doing nothing all day because i can tell he's going to upset. i probably won't be driving until i'm done with college.

i'm really not a bad driver. i just sort of always assumed that driving a minivan kept me from getting pulled over when i sped a little. also: cops suck.

Every few days I realize that I never have any idea what the date on the calendar is

2006-05-25T20:14:00.000-05:00

today i watched tennis sectionals. a lot. skipped a couple classes because there was an average of 3.65 people in each class today. and i taught j smith the smart way to leave nicolet: front doors.

anyway, lado had told me about how casey acts when he misses a shot (supposedly, dark clouds form and he starts grunting and basically goes hulk on all our asses), so i kept waiting for it to happen. i suppose it's a measure of how good he and andrew sennett play when i say that it really did take hours of watching before i finally witnessed this. a simple double fault led to the racket going between his knees and his doubling over and there was a fair amount of wild motioning with his fist. but he came back and whoa! ace! i don't really know how the team fared, which i suppose i should look into, but that was some really good tennis, something i just don't have the hand-eye coordination for.

last night i went to the imogen heap concert at the rave. it was really interesting. the opening act was zoe keating, a cellist that loved technology. she looped thirty second phrases of music and then improvised over them. the final product sounded like a cello orchestra and was quite cool. it was really good background music; my sister and i chatted for most of her set. someone behind us commented on how we were the rudest audience ever, but really: it was nice. and i do respect her for playing the cello.

imogen heap loved technology too. before she started, she introduced us to "her band": keyboard, laptop, other such boxes of wires. she did the same looping thing as zoe keating but with vocals so it was like she was singing in an a capella group of imogen heaps. she played all my 'favorite' songs right at the beginning of her set, but then i realized that what i referred to as my 'favorite' songs were really just the songs whose titles i knew. i love it all. she even played a little frou frou (details and breathe), and i think the second encore was a new song because i didn't recognize it at all.

the last song of her set was hide and seek (tritones = eh). what she ended up doing was busting out a keytar. when she hit keys, through the magic of computers there were vocal harmonies to the note she sang according to the keys. twas cool to see even though i can't really stand that song.

apparently the drive-thru donut place is open 10pm-3am five nights a week. who knew?

so tomorrow i'm going to be in madison for a few classes. i made the mistake of telling my dad i had a french packet due tomorrow; as a result, we cannot leave until after fourth hour. we'll see what the hell we end up doing, because i'm not entirely sure.

the random "you big dummy!" that gets stuck in my head is from the MIA song URAQT, the original of which i finally got yesterday. so many remixes. love it.

So many things I completely failed to mention

2006-05-24T16:30:00.000-05:00

for example, the phone experience. there is a phone in the box known as the stats room. it's not like the other teachers' phones; it's an old school "phone that everyone had in their kitchen" kind of phone. one day, we were calmly not working on the problem scheuer had assigned, THE PHONE RANG. it was wild. we didn't know how to react; i mean, we didn't even know it was a real phone! after a few seconds of pondering it, charlie went over and picked up the phone. "You have activated the Emergency-" and he ran away. craziness up in ap stats. you should take that class.

speaking of stats, last friday during the physics great america trip there were maybe six people in class. we sat around chilling and byrne walked in the room. i told her to chill with us, but she claimed that she had real work to do (yearbook work). "that's for losers," i said. "well, shana, you're just a jerk" was the response that elicited. i suppose that's what i get for calling her a bitch.

so there was an orchestra banquet thing on sunday night. while a half-dozen or so of us were wildly amused by the vocal changes that inhaling helium induces, hoffman said, "you know, one time i was at my house and the phone rang and i just happened to have a mouthful of helium at the time." just reread that sentence, won't you? yeah. it's that weird. but great. yeah that's me cackling in the background.

math ponencia today: ann and i kicked ass. i think the powerpoint helped (let's be serious here: when is using the smartboard not cool?). true, i still can't think of anyone that gives a shit about vector cross products, but at least i know how to calculate determinants of matrices again.

and yes, i probably love all joeys. but not so much kangaroos. eh. just not feelin the kanga love. smith and kahl, though: i shall miss you, dearies. creepy enough? i think so.

still a little addicted to facebook.

We do a lot of nothing in school now

2006-05-22T22:44:00.000-05:00

it has been 17 days since the last post and i have no idea what to do with myself. part of me is like "well it's not like any hilarious things happened in the past fortnight" but yet another part is like "are you serious?!"

to remember the highlights, i am consulting my google calendar. i can't live without it. for serious.

bio ap was really, really easy. i can't emphasize how easy it was. this is either a really good sign or the exact opposite. bio sucks now because it is damn boring. but we have to do a final project thing and charlie managed to get us the one project that does not require a 10 page paper to accompany it. that kind of kicked ass.

i saw glen hills' production of Aladdin a few weeks ago. that was great because i luckily went to the thursday show. friday's had huge sound issues and they had to start over, but thursday's was cute and funny. i especially loved when joey kahl's sister calls aladdin tasty. good stuff.

also had my last orchestra concert of the year and last myso concert ever. it's the end of an era. kind of weird. of course now we have to play at graduation which is kind of ridiculous.

i won a math award even though i wasn't even invited. i got one of the top six scores in these wiml-like competitions we do in calc. here are the names among which mine apparently was: allison moore, mickey, yulu, devin, ann. ?!?! is right.

one acts were great. i laughed a lot, and i like laughing so i was really happy with how they turned out. good job, friends of mine who were a part of the one acts. very nicely done.

ah, prom. being a senior and all, this was supposed to be a pivotal moment in my life or something. well. it was interesting, to say the least. it started off great because jake and i stopped at a wendy's drive thru to get what they call a Frosty. they're wondrous. get one. the rest of the night was fun, especially when i spotted juniors changing behind my car and subsequently hit the panic button. they. flipped. out. heart attacks were had. as was much fun.

after sasha's birthday party (she's legal?) beth, jake, beth's friend madeline and i went to potawatomi to play bingo. that was so much fun. we foolishly thought we could use one dauber (the marking device), but the nice folks around us helped us learn the ways of the bingo card. beth even won a round! she got 250$, but would have gotten 500$ if some other guy didn't win at the same time. still cool. we love it. and plan to go again.

so now my mom's in india. she'll be back right before graduation. that seems really far away but soon at the same time. so weird. so conflicted. so high school.

back to updating every day because i know i missed so much exciting nonsense that i know you all would have loved to hear about.

Wisconsin Facebook = worst plan ever

2006-05-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

i knew adding that network would just force me to sit on facebook for hours, and that's exactly what happened. i'm searching and clicking and friending joining groups like there's no tomorrow, and i can't stop! i'm hoping (counting on, really, the fact) that this is a temporary thing. it's because i joined it yesterday. i'm going to stop soon. i promise. of course, i also promised to not join wisconsin facebook until monday so who knows what my promises are even worth anymore.

i'm so addicted that after finishing that paragraph i opened my facebook bookmark in a new tab. if it's not open i feel like i'm missing out on something. if it is open i feel ridiculous. it is indeed a loser-loser situation.

so that stats exam we took today... not the joke i thought it would be. it actually took thinking. come on now, scheuer, you know we love it when omsgua, but you really should not have forced us to think. and are we really going to get these back soon? you're going to be at science fair all next week and i doubt you're going to throw these sheets through the scantron machine for the sub to hand back. oh man, scheuer. you gua.

our calc exam was weird. the multiple choice kicked my ass, and had fun all the while, but the free response wasn't bad at all. okay, so i made up the formula for integrals and polar equations (who knew you multiplied by half? i said it was pi.), and i forgot that the two was an exponent in the back problem, but i should pass. let's pretend i'm going to pass.

ah yes, the english and calc APs. well, calc was a bitch. you should have expected that one. english was just so long. my favorite part (and this is during the exam, but i did enjoy raad flipping out because i'm used to seeing that) was being halfway through the second column of multiple choice answer circles and looking up to see that it was 7:56. seven fifty six. yeah that was retarded. but there was a question asking which word rhymed with the sound a certain animal made, and in the passage it said that the cue-owl said its own name when called. the answer was 'few', but 'toot' was there to trick you and a lot of people said 'scowl', but i've never once heard an owl say 'owl'. the first essay was a poem (blech - i said the hawk = god when we all know that isn't true), the second was characterization (eh - but probably my best essay out of the three), and the third was about use of "the countryside" in books (so bad - instead of 'countryside' i talked about the barn in grapes of wrath). i'm just glad that's over.

let's just see how bio goes.

seconds ago, i realized that LEN's steal my sunshine sampled andrea true connection's more, more, more. this song reminds me of the simpsons parody

damn what a good episode. f-l-a-n-d-r-s, david byrne, jonathan taylor thomas, the maggie pepsi thing at the end; that really was a good episode.

once again, i am going to sleep a full calendar day after the day during which i woke. damn facebook.

i also just added and color-coded far too many "events" to my gmail calendar. time to leave.

Because I'm one of "those people", I'm going to talk about APs for a while now

2006-05-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

the french ap sucked. i'm actually worried that i didn't pass. i failed to display a command of the french language in my essay, which was about "team spirit" but i somehow incorporated the idea of playing in an orchestra and i still can't figure out where i was going with that. in the speaking section, i kept answering the question within four seconds so i ended up just reading the question aloud and hoping they didn't realize what was going on. oh well.

the stats multiple choice was unbelievably easy. just so damn easy. we were retardedly prepped for it, a very nice feeling when i think about my level of readiness re: calculus. i can't really recall any probability questions, which makes me very happy. the free response was a different story: i kept making up math and ideas and formulas, but luckily i fixed my mistakes before artero told us to put our pencils down. i just can't help thinking that my fake chi-squared formula was pretty damn cool.... i got a chi-squared value of 400-point-something. if you laughed at that, you are awesome. i also now know what s is (standard deviation of the residuals - what?), but really i could have just used garrett's "i haven't the foggiest" because really, i hadn't the foggiest.

the calc exam will make me cry. actually, i'll probably open the exam and proceed to laugh out loud. but here's what excites me: all i need is a 3. that's right: a 3 at madison gets me the same amount of credit as a 4 or 5 would. i can get a 3 without knowing anything about convergence and divergence, can't i? i certainly hope so.

so i've decided against going to band camp. i'd love to go, but i don't feel like paying all that money and only to regret missing ANNIE for the rest of my life. so i have a free week before my surgery. i think i can even make it to a few days of summerfest. "!" is right.

speaking of music, i miss it. i haven't come across anything awesome of late and it's kind of upsetting. of course, having APs does mean i get to miss orchestra and i sure as hell love missing orchestra. i mean, last friday tyler and i told mr bushner that i was going to be right back and instead went to A lunch. now that hoffman's back (it's true: they went to the happiest fucking place on earth without me) he's probably going to be cracking down on the attendance, especially considering we have a concert in about two weeks.

I has recently come to my attention that I am grounded even though my mother never explicitly said that I'm grounded

2006-04-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

the difference between AB and BC calc: the C in BC = sequences and series
the calc test i hardcore failed: chapter 11
what was covered in chapter 11: sequences and series

not. good. news.

today is the last day for college-choosing. i'm interested to see what my friend jeanne tong (ps: she is bitchin') decides: brown or penn. honestly, i don't care about the rest of you. actually, i think most of the folks who read this decided on a college quite a while ago so i already know where you're going. i'm sneaky like that.

today is also the last day i can ponder going to band camp. band camp is the last week of june, and my last week of eating real food. after that it's a liquid diet for me! herein lies my quandary: ANNIE is coming to chicago on the first day of band camp. i really, really want to see annie. i love her. but i can't miss a day of band camp. i mean, i did it last year, but i don't know.... i'll probably end up going to band camp, because what am i going to do for a week in milwaukee by myself? nothing. damn. guess i'm going to band camp.

yeah, that's a slight reformat you see. it does upset me the internet explorer doesn't like coloring certain links the way i want them to be colored, but yeah. that's it. this is what i do instead of studying.

at myso last week, one of our conductors FLIPPED OUT and shouted and threw things (music, pencils, insults). he said that if we weren't at today's rehearsal he would eat us alive. i'm worried. so i'm going to myso today and missing out on what should be a wildly exciting calculus pizza party at 4.

think of a bad movie you've seen. your first instinct was probably from the "land before time" series. well, let me share with you the title of a movie that is horrible: Hard Candy. please don't go see it. it's ridiculous. it's almost bad enough to be funny, but not quite. it's just bad. the only thing that made it somewhat worthwhile was that sil's was open an hour past their usual 8pm closing time so we had doughnuts.

this is going to be an interesting week. i've been doing calc all weekend, but i'm soon going to have to switch to statistics or i won't pass that exam either.

Here's what I've offically decided

2006-04-28T19:43:00.000-05:00

retarded stuff that doesn't happen to normal people happens to me. yes i concluded the last entry with that idea, but seriously. i mean it. moral: when you have kids, keep them from becoming me. don't move them halfway across the country. don't move them halfway across the county. don't let them develop a love for good music and food and movies and fun. bad plan.

on a lighter note, i called byrne a bitch to her face the other day. she asked emma why anyone would want me in their prom group and i sort of went "!!!" she saw us in a hallway after first hour and explained that she was sure that anyone would love to have me in their prom group. then i told the story to those around me and ended it with "...and that's because byrne's a bitch." she turned around with shocked countenance and i was just standing there amidst the sounds laughter. you all know that i was joking, but i'm afraid she doesn't.

speaking of byrne, let's talk about my english grade. earlier this month we did a group poetry analysis and a group prose analysis. neither turned out too well: my first group got a 4 and my second group got a 3. that's out of 9, friends. neither of those are good grades. but we read the actual 9 response from the ap and our paper that got a 3 was comprised of the topic sentence of each paragraph from that other kid's wrote. well, i just checked pass (nicolet's answer to obsessive north shore parenting) and apparently i got a 7. on the first. and on the second. that's right: i still have a B in english. go ahead and cry.

here is the car update: it's been totaled. i remembered to take pictures seconds before the tow truck took it three blocks away and i'll put them up so all of you can see what it looked like. it really looked fixable, but when they lifted it up and looked underneath they discovered that so much shit was fucked up that the cost for them to fix it was around the actual value of my car. so insurance decided that they're not going to fix it. all this happened on thursday. i haven't spoken to ron (my insurance agent) or candy (his secretary) since then. but i do know that a new car will cost more than a year at madison shall. also, i will never be able to drive again (i've already moved my license into "the wallet i never use") and i have not driven alone since then.

i talked to my dad this morning. my mom called his "india cell phone" (we usually do this when we go there: prepaid cell phones are cheap as all hell and actually dependable and we don't have to worry about where he is when we call) and apparently told him about the accident after i talked to him. she said he was okay with it because i wasn't hurt. eighteen years of knowing my father make me question this reaction (i'm fairly positive he isn't seeing this in the "hey now i get to get that hybrid highlander!" way), but who knows.

AP schedule for this week:

monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday
french pm	stats pm	calc am	english am

Ah, school: how I love thee

2006-04-24T16:31:00.000-05:00

really dreaded going to school today.

it was a damn boring day. that fire drill third hour was more than welcome, especially scheuer's lead up. i really, really hate having to go to school every day.

i also really, really hate having a car stare at me through the walls of my house because i should be able to drive it but no. it doesn't move. i mean it does move but i need to move it three blocks to the fixin' zone. so it can actually move.

car accidents suck, you guys. just so you know.

anyway, i never mentioned that our episode of jerry springer aired on thursday. it was actually the only day all week i wasn't home at noon and watching springer (i never said i had a life), and twas funny because all three of us who had gone weren't home. we had a nice reunion saturday afternoon and watched it. charlie and i get some quality face time: besides the casual pans of the audience that prompted us to say "oh! that's us laughing in the corner over there!", someone in front of us made a comment at the end and it's like them+charlie+me on the screen for a fair amount of time. luckily, a laughing beth was in the last shot. we were amazed by how much of the episode got cut (there was a pole and the strippers showed off their skills). and i promise an entire entry devoted to 'the day we went to jerry springer' will be up soon. ish.

and we had to write a paper for english over break, which i put off until yesterday. i ended up writing it on the grapes of wrath, which i read about a year and a half ago. it's a pretty shitty paper, so i put in a lot of grammatical errors just to make up for the sheer absence of quality writing on the page. if anything, byrne should laugh. of course, she did give "us" a 4 on the poetry analysis we did in class a few weeks ago.... i feel bad about that one because that was the time i actually just sat there and did nothing all hour and mimi was forced to basically write the paper herself.

so there go my moments of fame. ap's start next week. i'm going to have to do a fair amount of learning this week. what's sad is may 8 is the day senior year really is over for me, and i should be happy go lucky after that (not that i haven't been for the majority of this year - you all know me) but recall the date of my father's return. one and the same. and twelve days later my mother is going to india and then i really won't be allowed to leave the house. or my dad will be upset over the fact that i still don't have a job. probably both. simultaneously. !

Well, that was retarded.

2006-04-22T09:23:00.000-05:00

last night i was in a car accident.

let me give you the phone conversation i had with my mother immediately following said accident: "mom? can you come outside. i was in a car accident."

yes, that's right: i can see what became 'the accident scene' from my bedroom windows. you may recall that a while ago when i did some sketchy maneuvering while making a left turn from the street i live on to green bay. i linked to a map back then, and the 57 on the map is right where an old ass rusted lincoln towncar hit my pretty purple corolla.

the light at that intersection becomes flashing yellow on green bay and flashing red on marne at around 10pm. i stopped completely (because that, my friends, is what you do when you see a flashing red light), saw no cross traffic, and proceeded into my turn. i was so close to finishing the turn (SO CLOSE - i can't emphasize that enough: SO FUCKING CLOSE) when this car just comes at me. it hit the rear left door and wheel. that wheel is dead. axle issues definitely. when i drove it into a parking lot to get it out of the intersection i smelled a lot of burning rubber and could hear metal and it was just sad. i also had to pick up my hubcap from the pedestrian crossing on the other side of the intersection. because it flew.

it wasn't surreal and it didn't happen in slow-motion or anything. i just remember seeing the car then hearing the sound. i can imagine it in my head, but i mean i can also imagine an ocean liner coming down green bay and hitting my car so my imagination doesn't really mean much here. but here's what i can't figure out: the other people say we both braked when we saw one another. why would i do that? why didn't i just gun it?

the good part is that i don't get a ticket. the cop was like a heavy groskreutz (including creepy mustache) named william elbert. he even did the 'groskreutz smile' that's usually reserved for when he knows that you're really screwed/fail. i'm glad i kept from laughing at that because dude would have been so fast with the ticket-writing if i had laughed.

so now we have to get our car towed the two blocks to andrew toyota (which i can almost see from my bedroom window; heiser ford is in the way). insurance is covering everything, and here "everything" translates to over 1000$. my mother is totally not pissed because, well, i'm alive, but i am mad at myself because all that didn't need to happen. i could have kept driving and had a nice night on the town. she promised that she won't tell my dad (he's in india) until he gets back. so i have a social life until may 8, friends.

and my hair has fucking been looking fabulous the whole time which is distracting in the worst way.

added later: chip's mother, upon learning the officer's name, was surprised that i wasn't issued a ticket. apparently officer elbert loves issuing tickets, but he did say that this intersection (deadman's curve, as it were) is a pretty retarded intersection. anyway, now i'm anxious for the insurance approval to come in on monday so that car can get itself down to the auto repair shop. i want it to get fixed because it looks so sad in the garage - not because i want to drive it. already i've noticed that i'm super cautious when in a car and on a road. that probably won't go away for a while. this is sad, because i love driving. i just love it so much. i wasn't listening to music or on the phone or distracted in any way. this doesn't happen to normal people.

Hi to the Spain people!

2006-04-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

i was pleasantly surprised to see that people in spain are checking out the blog. either you're having a lot of fun and you're reading this "to relax", or you're having very little fun and you've nothing better to do.

i bet it's the former.

i won't lie, i'm excited for your return. have fun these next few days.

Why is everyone suddenly going to the zoo? This is a phenomenon I fail to understand, seeing as I am not seven years old.

2006-04-17T17:33:00.000-05:00

so thursday was my first jewish event ever (i moved to the north shore in eighth grade and thereby missed all the bar mitzvahs - not that i would have been invited to any. they were so mean to me there.). i went to a seder, and no i did not need to look it up in order to find out what that is. there was a lot of food and food and other food and there were a lot of people to enjoy said food. i especially enjoyed sarah's younger brother's hebrew because it was just fun(ny) to listen to. special thanks to sarah s and her family for allowing a nice gentile - and actually a pagan at that! - to enjoy the night.

there was also a CRAZY WILD storm with CRAZY HUGE hailstones. that was intense. i did not wish to walk in that weather, and i did not. i'm pretty smart.

here's what i'm actually doing during spring break:

no, it really is blank. a voyage is out of the picture. i also didn't end up going to minnesota. my friday (lord was it hot outside) was surprisingly busy, but by busy i just mean i was with several different people throughout the day and when together we only complained about being bored. saturday = family outing to chicago, during which we ate where we ate after jerry springer.

the rest of my weekend was also insanely boring. except when ruchira and i watched

honey we're killing the kids

the show about the lady with 16 kids

wholesome swimwear

my monday was more than pepped up when i received an exciting phone call from one tyler green. he, gillian, gillian's cousin jess whom i knew on the west side, and i did the following (i'm into the lists today)

dinner at panera - there's a right and a wrong way to put salad plates on the baskets panera people, and y'all don't win that game
stalking folks on the freeway - this is a favorite game of theirs in which you choose someone our age and follow them down the freeway. there was much lane changing going on so i felt right at home. the dude got off at north avenue and we decided that our excuse in case he tried to jump us was "we're going to value village."
we actually went to value village - i deflowered THREE people at once. they had so much fun and wondered why they had never done it before. it was great. i got a red hoodie that says nintendo on it. who cares if i'm not a 'gamer' - i duckhunted. can't say i was good at it, but i did love it.
sil's drive-thru donuts - i don't know if all that is misspelled like that but i feel like it should be. the donuts were cheap, hot, and delicious. can't say that about many other things in this world.
lixx - because it was mostly me deflowering the others, they decided to take me to lixx. that was exciting and delicious.
mean girls - one of my favorite movies ever. i've seen it about eighteen times. still love it.

i hear this song every few months and i want it to be something you hear every few months, too. i can't figure out what about it i like, and no it does not have that certain je ne sais quoi. wayne wonder - no letting go

Spring Break is upon us

2006-04-13T17:27:00.000-05:00

i don't have a particularly exciting break planned. my dad did the thing where he suggested my sister and i go to ny but didn't follow through on the suggestion; i should have expected that, because i found out about going to texas over winter break the day before i left. anyway, tomorrow we're going to chicago "for lunch" (?! my mom claims someone wanted something from devon avenue, so i asked why they couldn't just get it themself. honestly.) and this weekend i'm probably going to minnesota. i can tell that you're jealous.

most of my classes were about half empty today. my gym class was tiny; we played badminton instead of fitness walking outside. we didn't do "scheuer's favorite problem" in stats, which had been many folks' reason for coming to class. at the end of class scheuer just sat in a desk in the back of the room and jj started a game of hangman (solution: p-hat on one line). mme was more chill than she has ever been during these past four years, even during the "code blue" (apparently the art teachers freaked out and thought it was real and amused the art students very much). weidner gave us a fake quiz (what room are we in? how do spell weidner?) worth 12 points just for showing up to class. bio was a "hey let's all stand around rhude's table thing and learn about trees and flowers! yeah!" day. twas funny.

in orchestra we did the "senior awards" thing: he hands out a list of the seniors and everyone puts down a funny award for them to receive. last year grant was voted most likely to become dictator of a small country. there were a lot of names on the list; this is the most seniors we've lost since hoffman started teaching at nicolet (our freshman year, so it's somewhat sentimental because we're his 'first graduating class'). i'm interested to see how this turns out; tyler and i are hoping for "most likely to stand in a corner cackling while judging [person]'s outfit".

i'm pumped to not have to go to school, but not pumped to review for APs. i'm afeared that i know even less than i think i know. at least we're taking the french language exam and not lit like i thought.

enjoy your time off. listen to some good music. read a book for your ap english paper. that's all i've got for today.