nan and dan

It's almost a palindrome!

But these people are no mathematical term. "Nan and Dan," as they call themselves, are our relatives in Grenada, Mississippi. A few times a year, they send us fresh fruit from Harry and David in a cool box, and it's always totally amazing. Usually it's apples or pears (I love those pears passionately...so juicy). This time, though, it's oranges. Lately, I've been going through a clementine phase, and I'm very picky about whether it's a clementine or a tangerine, because tangerines aren't as sweet. But these oranges are just as sweet as clementines!

YAY NAN AND DAN, THE BEST TONGUE TWISTER OF THEM ALL!

nightmares

It is very possible that I am going to burst into madness right about...now.

This is like some horrible Arthur rerun.

My bat mitzvah and the bat mitzvah of my friend from my old school are on the exact same day, at the exact same times. And of course, our lists of people to invite are nothing if not identical.

Ohhh I really don't feel good now.

make-up work

ARGHHH!

Sorry for the desperate, inhuman cry, but I have so much make-up work to do before resurfacing at school tomorrow...

And apparently, there are a million things I've missed. There's a French quiz today, French test tomorrow, Algebra midterm today, English test today, and possibly some sort of Science assessment on Friday. We drop Science tomorrow for Shakespeare, too, which means I am not going to have Science class all week until Friday, as I left right before Science on Monday because that was when I started to get sick. I looked at the online resource, and it looks like my class has started a DNA and genetics unit, which is going to take more than a little work to catch up on, especially as there appears to be some in-class project going on--with partners.

More than anything else, I hate partner and group work. It KILLS me to have to work with other people because I'm so neurotic that I have to have power and control over every itty-bitty little thing, and when I don't, I freak. No one understands this.

Wow, what a week to be absent.

Respond please...

try this one out for suckiness

You may think your life sucks. But oh, my friend, you haven't even begun to know the meaning of the word "suck" until you've heard the story of my day.

I started off the day with a finger-sized sesame seed bar for breakfast, and an hour or so later, I was sitting through a French class the likes of which no one has ever seen. The mispronunciation was profound. I found myself wincing at my classmates the whole time...and the funniest/worst parts of it are that they are the ones everyone thinks are so great, and the teacher refused to call on me. Then came recess, at which point my entire torso began to hurt. My ribs, sides, back, head, back of neck, and especially stomach. The stomach is pretty much the worst.

All throughout English, social studies, music, and lunch, I was completely consumed by the dagger-like dynamic of the whole thing. Finally, at lunch recess, I couldn't take it anymore and went to the nurse, who only amplified it by practically crushing my arms, taking my blood pressure more than four times. At last my mom came to take me home. I'm missing help homeroom and science...not such a loss, really, but I was going to get a couple of grades back in science, so that's sort of annoying.

But when we got home, we were locked out because my little sister (who walks around the corner to her public school) had the key. So I had to wait in the freezing cold, overtaken by pain, for twenty minutes, waiting for my mom to retrieve the key from my sister. My sister was probably in class and deeply embarrassed by this, which happened also with my dad earlier this week. Twice in the past few days, she's had a parent come sheepishly into her classroom, asking for the house key.

Still it doesn't let up, after a hearty dose of Tylenol and Tums, upon whom I have, until now, completely relied on to cure me of any pain I may be experiencing.

AHH

this is my second post called NYC but I figure you won't mind

Quick summary:

Yesterday, I went on a triple-decker train (see far left). Also, I passed a rather scary store exclusively for dog couture, which I think is called Harness Dog but cannot find anywhere online. But the main plan for the day was meeting my grandparents at the Carnegie Deli for lunch. We call the girl in the beige "cousin Hannah" and the man on the right "cousin Howie." It was very cold, so I got a new hat. We stopped at AE for impulsive shopping for things we don't need, too (not pictured). I'll tell more later, when I get back from swimming at the JCC, some exercise I am in need of.

Until next time, net browsers.

this is so not cool anymore

OK. Can someone please tell me what's going on with this whole cold thing? I mean, I know I should be grateful that in this age of global warming we can still have threatening temperatures. But it is too cold for comfort. My friend Katy may think she is able to go without a coat, but I tried the same thing in 4th grade and got serious pneumonia for my stupidity. Trust me, looking cool is definitely not worth partial lung collapse or the amount of fever dreams I went through.

My friend Alexa, at lunch, she's wearing this skirt that she says her mom hemmed too dramatically, which is fine--everyone does it--but she hasn't got a coat. She's got leg warmers and a scarf. I mean, that's just asking for trouble.

My family, I love them and I ADORE my room, but you know, WHY IS IT SO FREAKIN COLD UP HERE?

Well, I know my issues with the weather. Whaddaya think of the sudden cold front?

PIANO

I need to practice...need to practice...ok I'm getting sick and tired of saying stuff that I don't do so now I'm going to get off the computer so I can practice and thus be ready when the entire middle school sees me perform on March 3rd.

BYE NOW.

the not-so-pure beauty of lady macbeth

Coming up on the right, ladies and gentlebugs, you will see the Lady Macbeth "poster" that I had to complete this weekend for English. Take a good long look. Contemplate. Consider. And don't forget the snack stand is just below-deck.

It's fabulous, you say? It's simply unbelievable, can that be what I hear? Well, I just hate to disagree with any of God's children, so I'm going to have to modestly accept your overflow of compliments.

I mean, come ON, you gotta say this is COOL.

If you've been here before, you might recognize the left eye. (If you haven't, welcome, and please browse the archives for something you might enjoy.) Yeah, that's the one I drew last month. But I got the right eye by using the Microsoft Paint program, with which one can flip an image horizontally. So actually, what you're seeing is one left eye, even though it might look like two different eyes, a right and a left.

Tell me what you think.

updates on my life in case you care--and if you don't, well, I kind of have to wonder what you're doing on this blog

Hey everyone--

Just adding some little tidbits here because my laptop has suddenly developed an inability to connect to the internet, so I'm on my mom's laptop and may not be able to post normally for a good long while.

And now, a couple new inside-ish jokes, because I can't add to my AIM account like I normally can because of my laptop's wireless being down:

-THEY LOVED IT???
-going up with a necklace, that's brave
-me, you, and Mrs. Stark! this will be such fun
-don't worry, I'll try to restore the bizarre nerd version of me while I'm gone

Later!
--the (web) hostess with the...mostess

shower

This is a slightly weird question but I'm curious...

Does everyone take showers as long as mine? I usually take about 25 minutes. If I could spend longer, I would, but at the 25-minute mark the hot water runs out. I've heard a couple friends say they take 40- or 50-minutes showers, and I envy them deeply for their water heaters' capacity.

Or are you one of those annoyingly good people who only showers for 5 minutes?

blam blam BLAMMERZ

I just found out that the South Mountain Reservation is going to be closed for about 2 weeks on account of people hunting deer there during those couple of days. As my sister and I would say, this means bad stuff. Besides the obvious risk of deer getting shot and Dick Cheney mangling another one of his friend's faces (oh what an unfortunate shame it would be if that moron got anywhere near my town...but it would bring publicity here!), there will probably be some deer skittering wildly across the road in a futile effort to get away from the guns.

I mean, I'm not going to treat these days like no-driving days and stay locked up, cowering in my house. But there's never been game hunting in the Reservation before in the 8 years my family has lived here, so I'm left a little stunned, yeah.

lateness

Basically, I hate lateness.

I don't mean to say I'm exempt from this. Often, I'm late for school, Hebrew tutoring, and other stuff, to use an overused word. But I'm never happy about people and/or things being late.

Also, I'm a competitive and pretty overanxious (hemhemfrenchcough) person, so when teachers take an eternity and a half to grade a paper or test, I get furious. I mean, I'd never fume at my teacher or ask them for a grade that I know they don't have. And I don't usually get mad at instructors when they have a genuinely good reason for taking an excessively long time to hand something back. But now I am.

It's taken a really really REALLY long time for my teacher to give me grades on three separate projects. This teacher--I won't specify--has the best reasons possible not to have these assignments graded yet for me. However, many other students, a lot even in my class, have gotten these back already.

I don't mean to single out people. This scenario has played out in just about all of my classes.

Blame it on genetics: my dad can't stand it either.

love and impatience
--me

artist's block

I'm having a hard time drawing lately. Nothing good is coming along to be drawn--no extraordinarily beautiful people, no awesome birds because they all went extinct along with the dinosaurs, and no funky trees because I live in suburban New Jersey in the middle of a miserably mild winter (which is very depressing because not only does it show how bad global warming is, but we don't have any cool trees for all our stupid hot weather).

Does anyone have an idea?

With all sincerity,
me, myself and I (and a whole bunch of my split personalities...JUST KIDDING)

politix

So I was having a pretty intellectually stimulating conversation today at lunch about the presidential democratic candidacy. My friends and I were talking about why we hate Hillary and want Obama to run. We came up with the fact that Hillary is just cruising along and gaining popularity solely because if she ran she'd be the first woman president; no one is actually paying attention to her bad values. Contrary to her, Obama is young and smart, and he has well-structured plans for out country.

I mean, as long as Bush finally gets out of office, I'm almost completely satisfied. But it would definitely be nice not to have a rerun of the past horrible eight years just because we had some other moron--though none is equivalent to Bush--running our country (Hillary is who comes to mind). I'm rooting for Obama. Who's your pick?

french teachers & their index card fetish

There is something about my French teachers--who, unlike this picture I created with a little clipart and a lot of creativity and software, have been female thus far--and index cards. There is some unhealthy love going on. Allow me to explain.

When I was a little teenybopper (I LOVE THAT WORD), 3 or 4 years old, I took French lessons in a small apartment building not meant to be a school but somehow made into one. There were about six other kids there in my class. The thing about this middle-aged woman who taught us was that she made us use index cards to learn all our vocabulary. This did not really leave any impression on me, as I was not yet into real school at the time. Then I was forced by my elementary school to take Spanish for six years; there was no other option at my public school.

Then last year, I had a French teacher from a francophone country somewhere in Africa. She had a literally massive mouth, but I guess it helped her to form the words, because she was so fluent that ironically, none of us could understand her. But like the preschool lady, she, too, insisted that we make art projects and flashcards, always flashcards, on index cards. I didn't understand why, but I complied.

But then, of course, I came to my second new school. Here, Madame is over the top with studying from index cards and having us do art-ish stuff on them. LUNACY!

JCC & the ball game

We joined the JCC again today after a several-year hiatus. I wouldn't necessarily say it feels good to be back, but it certainly is nice to have a pool to use. I still smell like chlorine.

On an unconnected note, tonight I watched "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" with Esther Williams, Frank Sinatra, and Gene Kelly, a 1949 cornfest that somehow leaves the viewer satisfied.

Just wanted to post...nite!

bac 2 skool

<--not me


I'm actually--*gasp*--really really excited to go back to school. I think this is because after going to camp for a month this past summer, my siblings became completely devoid of their manners and boundaries, so they now have totally disgusting sense of humor. This, I believe, is why I feel a real need to get away from them and into a place with much more regulation and scheduled classes where people have to be quiet, or aren't allowed to make vulgar jokes, anyway.

I'm ready to see my friends, many of whom I haven't seen for two weeks and some of whom I haven't seen for one week, and the grades I got on my science and social studies projects. Also, I know this is early, but while I'm talking about school (which I won't do very often on my blog after this), I've decided to do softball with my school as a sport this spring.

12 HOURS LEFT OF VACA!

my little bro's b-day

My little brother is turning 8 in four days. I'm so excited! He and his girlfriend (yes, I know it sounds wrong, but he is deep in the throes of being a ladies' man, believe me) are going into New York City today to the huge Toys-R-Us in Times Square. With my mom, they are going to shop like the maniacal second-graders they are and ride the weirdly giant Ferris wheel pictured here, which features compartment-thingies, or whatever they're actually called, with different cartoon characters molded on. Some examples are the Cabbage Patch Kids--which terrify me enormously--the Monopoly guy, and Mr. Potato Head, captured in this photo with some other starchy lumps of plastic who are probably supposed to be his mistresses. (The womanizer!)

Then my little brother's girlfriend will be dropped off, hopefully in one piece, back at her nice suburban house, and we will have the dinner of his choice at home. I'm going to try to be nicer to him this year because I've been irrationally mad at him for everything he does lately. I don't know, maybe it's all the holiday crap I've been gorging on; unfortunately, I'm an unstoppable eater.

And this might seem a little drastic, but I thrive upon comments, so...when is your birthday? Got any siblings? Ever been to the Toys-R-Us in Times Square?

me, the hott bookworm

Here is a list of the books I have read so far over winter break -- which, for us lucky stiffs at private school, is two weeks long (ching ching). Enjoy, and try looking at these; each red title is a link.

1. Night by Elie Wiesel (for about the hundredth time; I adore this man with all my heart, once I saw him speak and it was amazing)
2. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (I knew nothing about the comedian's life before this, it's almost amazing, but it is a celebrity's memoir, so...)
3. Heavy Words Lightly Thrown by Chris Roberts (positively hilarious, my grandpa gave it to me and I highly recommend it)
4. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (a beautiful comic, now a major award-winning motion picture, reminiscent of the astonishing Maus by Art Spiegelman)
5. Grendel by John Gardner (a postmodern companion to Beowulf...kind of difficult to get through and pretty whiney, but a witty read all the same)

Right now, I'm reading An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. I'm determined to make my English teacher accept me as his best student if it takes more reading than I healthily should be doing. 6 books over break is my goal.

new year's

You're reading my blog! And for being such a good person, you deserve some cheery holiday wishes. So happy 2008!

Well, there's my energy burst for the day. Two exclamation points. What more do you want from me, really?

I got my ears pierced today, but the back of my left earring has already managed to fall off--entirely the fault of the rather chubby woman who did the piercing. But I've got a pencil eraser holding its place until tomorrow, when I can get a new one, so I'm not worried.

I bought my bat mitzvah dresses, too. That's right, dresses, plural. According to my mother, who has unpierced ears and is thus rendered completely unhelpful when it comes to those kinds of things, I have to have three different dresses for three different occasions: my Friday night service, my actual bat mitzvah on Saturday--WOOT WOOT--and the breakfast we're hosting on Sunday for my family. So yeah, little as I like wearing fancy clothing, I now have three new formal dresses, and so do my mom and sister. The abominable amount we spent is none of your business.

But I guess it'll be worth it when I'm standing there in front of everyone, and despite everybody else's efforts to look nice, I'm the coolest one there. Yay.