sigh, another year. eeks. so what DID i accomplish this year..? well...

Jan/1- omygush, stacy started a new journal.. that's mostly, if not entirely, in code (and believe me, it is a pain to read); /3- temps acquired, now a potential hazard to human societyrace (same diff); /13- lost roach's orlando bloom sticker (mucho sorries); /21-23: oh dear, curse those exams (i still remember that 350 multi-guess one for eng-sem. and that huge page of multiple guess for history. whoa, ap euro.. that was ages ago w/dear old prendy);
Feb/14-16: wr'04- many memories.. & daddy prodding the youth to go to bed (fairly unsuccessful);
Mar/6- 1st in senior div. in piano comp down in.. Tennessee w/those ppl with the faint southern accent;
Apr/10- oh dear, pink shirt, pink mole, squirrel w/orange shirt (both stuffed animals, mind you), various other things along w/the awesomeness of sharing a special day w/ older-by-3-mins (or younger by 57 mins, take your pick) amy; /24- into the woods, it's time to go, i hate to leave, i have to though...; //- attack of the cicadas- well not really;
May/7- rather unpleasant encounter w/an AP test; /16- baptism along w/maryann, lillian, teresa, serena, billy, teddy, stacyd, & amy; /26: getting the first A on an english paper since beginning of soph year (ok i lied, i did get an A on some inclass essays but not on big big essays); /31- church leadership training at mason;
Jun/3- not exempted from algII exam b/c of a B+++ (etc.) so hrm, first B on a math exam..; /5: first encounters with the SATs (II mind you); /14-18: VBS, which i only went to on the first day..; /14: summer school, 8 hours a day. history in the morning (w/lots of card games, including egptian ratscrew & euchre; AND the invention of yet another code, this time w/kat), gym in the afternoon (oh look, more card games); /19- 'lost' watch (but i did find it about .. 5 months later in dad's car); /30- summer gym ends, w00t;
Jul/2-5: sr'04- oh dear the memories.. key-pulling, not getting all the confusing code that the others devised, beginning of 'look for one stacy & you'll probably find the other as well', instant noodles w/serena+kat at 2 am. then kat on the lower bunk & serena+me on the upper (fairly scary when you're on the outside); /23- summer history done, rather eventful (or not) trip to chicago & arrivial at 12am; /23-31: awesome awesome mission trip w/grace + peace fellowship; /31- happy 19th to brother, return from chicago mission trip;
Aug/1-8: family excursion to canada (toronto area) & niagara falls (at least the third time i'd say); /17-19: incars, three days in a row, learned some history in the process (promptly forgotten); /23: O.O oh no, junior year begins- time for all those ap classes.. haha, not really. but record of 3 sciences and 2 maths, no history, no spanish ='(; also, the discovery of a truly dislike-able teacher;
Sept/ shocking, i can't think of anything.. well, big chunk of leadership training over, and a D on a stats test.. *shrug*;
Oct//unfortunate annie and i must go back to mason for 5 weeks; /9- oh dear, SAT II writing try#1; /13- PSATs in the gregory center..;
Nov/6: Writing try #2; /hm- brother doesn't return for thanksgiving break...;
Dec/4- SATs (sigh, seeing a trend?), AND license acquired- now that's a true hazard to society; /14: psat results (see 12/14. actually don't, you'd be disappointed); /17- best manifestation of procrastination thus far (and not proud of it. story will remain untold =P); /21- carolers at the door turn out to be ruch, kim, amber, chris, dara, & abhijeet..; /22- unpleasant (though not unwelcomed) encounter with the snow/ice storm. visit & pick up brother, long time no see CMU/pittsburgh.. not since 8/03; /25- see below;

so time-wise: much more time spent on hw (much much more during school & a bit less in the wee hours of the morning); much more time spent on standardized test-practicing (esp during breaks); less time for social outings (although i did manage to watch two movies this year instead of the usual one/zippo); surprisingly, less time spent on AIM (the chatting part, since i'm away 99.999% of the time now); and time for devotions fluctuated. sometimes good, sometimes not so good =\.
skill-wise (if it may be called so): learned chinese knotting (although promptly forgot it as soon as sophmore year ended), taught self how to fold origami rose (um, faint recollections but with some trial and error, can still remember), taught knitting by ruchi (but def. won't have time to knit..), what else? procrastination i suppose, has gotten worse

oh dear, superbly long entry. and to end on a somewhat melancholy tone, it is not totally unlikely that i might not be here after the school year ends. daddy leaves the 14th of jan for china, then off to Newcastle in UK for a while. maybe by lots of persuasion and crossed fingers, i might be able to stay here. =\

anyway, happy new years.

first off, merry happy christmas to you all. =)

unfortunately, kat has broken our tradition of seeing a movie on christmas (more specifically, a LotR movie-- but nevermind, there aren't any more, are there?) so anyway, to uphold what could remain of the tradition, alice j and i decided to go watch 'phantom of the opera', except yeah.. we ended up watching 'a series of unfortunate events'. (looong story so.. er, we'll skip that part =P). quite an interesting movie it was.

i think it's time for a change. at least it only made it to 6 months minus 5 days this time.

unplowed/slushy highways = 30-40 mph traffic = 6 hours of being stuck in the car as opposed to the usual 4-ish hours. at least my brother's finally back. =P

mmm, so ruchi tried to teach me knitting during kumon. i must say (although it did sorta work), i have no patience for things that don't work out nicely.

there is a prime number out there, which can be the sum of 3 consecutive primes as well as the sum of 7 consecutive primes. comfortably nestled between 2 harshad numbers, it can also be a feasible psat score. and so it is.

my warmest congrat(ulation)s to all the semi-finalists and commended students. =) obviously, you're all disgustingly good at studying for and taking standardized tests. (jk of course, but mr. murray certainly has rubbed off on me a bit).

guess who got their license yesterday. =D

oy, why must hemingway insist on using bad grammar?

come thanksgiving break, i will update/change this layout (hopefully). i seem to tire of cheery layouts quite easily. and i suppose the next one will hafta be firefox friendly since i've temporarily abandoned IE.

ah, and on weds, i found out i might've gotten a 4.3 instead of a 4.1 for my first qtr gpa but mrs. smith seems to have "misplaced" (.. o.O x 100) the crucible essay that was quite painstakingly done at 4 am. consequently, stacy = very annoyed at english for the momentschool in general.

oh oh! and guess what i found while combing through our basement bookshelves! lotsa lotsa kiddy videos including the awesome 'tom and jerry,' 'dr. seuss on the loose,' 'aladdin' (definitely did not know we even had that), some snoopy thingies (dun remember watching any of those) and then the chinese stuff: castle in the sky, some other funky film w/scary green bugs whose eyes turn from red to blue ('tis a pity that i can't read the titles.. =P), and... totoro! =D so now i know where i actually saw that freaky always-grinning-manically catbus. ah, the memories. and then there's clifford the big red dog, and the lion king in chinese, both unopened. i need to go watch them sometime.

mmm, so that was the result of my futile (though not totally unrewarding) search for 'a farewell to arms.'

whoa, that was kinda long. but then again, the list does take up half of the entry..

sweetness. freewebs supports firefox now. that totally rocks my socks. =D

aherm. bunching three quite accomplished procrastinators = (procrastination + trouble) x 3. especially since kat isn't waking up...

whoa. it's scary how excited my dad gets while doing stuff for statistics. but then again, he is a statistician..

[edit} omgush, and seeing alice j all veggietale-d (esp w/"his cheeseburger") just totally made my day. =P

you know, you never really see the insane side of some people until you see them at kumon. so not kidding. but overall, today was a very interesting kumon day.

holy crap. our internet service died. like totally. =\ so now stacy is very unhappy b/c she can only do her stuff on daddy's laptop with the painstakingly slow & unreliable dialup. to top that off, life in general has not been very friendly to stacy for the last few weeks, especially with that silly stats grade and the awesome sleeping schedule.

*dusts off english seminar binder* sweetness. i found all the funky mnemonics! =)

omg, and bio is excellent at putting you to sleep. especially when you don't get the whole cellular respiration thing. bad part is, there's a test tomorrow. o.O

and so my nice streak of being-in-bed-before-12:30 is ruined by this lovely english essay. and yet, i'm having mass fun listening to a mix of klove, classic fm, AND veggie tales right now. =P

[edit] omgush, i just love the pictures my dad takes sometimes.. =P, particularly the sunset one (the original pic i tweaked for my other layout). heh yeah, so i just found that link while going through some stuff. [/edit]

sigh. lesson learned: don't let kat borrow your goggles during 6th bell if you need them 1st bell the next day b/c chances are... you're not gonna get them back on the same day. =P

backstory: so we had a lab today in bio and since my dear friend (having misplaced her goggles since chem last year) didn't have a pair, i offered to give her mine after i'd finished (or rather, she asked for them and i consented). so i do the lab 4th bell, give them to kat 5th bell, she uses them 6th bell, and i'll hopefully get them back after 7th bell yes? unfortunately that doesn't happen.
  ms. "i am win!" shows up at the lockers after school and then promptly exclaims (thankfully quite dismayed), "omg, i've left them in the room! on the lab table! but i don't have time to get them. ahh! etc. etc." (doing most of the typical kat-spazzing stuff that you can think of). at the same time i'm thinking, well, i should be able to just run to the room and get them, right? so i trot along back to the science wing. and find that the freaken door is LOCKED. teacher not in the science office (but my 9th grade bio teacher was there. eeks). mmm yeah, now i think i'm gonna be in big trouble *#8212; chem lab w/o goggles = not good. but thankfully, i meet kat and megan in the locker area and megan kindly offers to bring hers tomorrow morning so =D. problem partially solved. at least for now.

oh, and happier note.. happy bday to melissa! =)

whee. i've got gmail. yay. =)

on a more not-so-yayish scale, my nose seems to be running away from me with this blasted cold.

you know, i love the fact that i got to miss stats (and some of that silly caffeine experiment) for some harvard/college seminar thing . but right before i left, my teacher practically just chucked the hw at me, said "here ya go. remember it counts toward your quiz" and then adiós, good bye & good luck. so in other words, i have no idea what i'm suppose to be doing.

sigh, i love being back at compton for sundays. it's just so... comforting to be surrounded by youth/ english-speaking people. =)

oh, i'm really starting to regret that i quit spanish. =/ reading marisol's blog from today made me realize just how much i actually learned during those four long years. =P

thank goodness tomorrow's friday or i'd literally flop over and die from tiredness. okay so maybe it's not that bad but still, school = no fun.

eeks. i've been given ~90 pages of txtbk reading to do for the sciences. good thing there's a fair amount of visual stuff once in a while.

and a side note: i'll hopefully be able to retain some of my spanish by being a spanish/english translator for mr. "so, what's so-and-so?" norman. =P

so supposedly due to the budget cut, class sizes in general would become bigger. that certainly turned out to be wrong when there were only 11 people (9 girls & 2 boys) in my english class. talk about big classes, yeah right.

other than that, school was.. the usual.
chem: yay, my next door neighbor AND my next-next door neighbor are both in my class =P (and speaking of chem, my old teacher actually remembered me. weird)
orch: seventy-eight people. that's insane, especially since 50 are violin. O.o i sense a slight problem here. and so.many.asians! =X it's scary (although it is to be expected, it's still quite shocking to see 10 asians, then turn around to see some more)
pre-calc: dude, all she seems to do is talk about her kids, like seriously
bio: oh dear, lots of txtbk reading. and i've got some freakishly smart seniors in my class like shriya and arthur.
stats: personally, i don't think my teacher knows what she's teaching.
english: oh, what's better than to start your quarter with a nice F on an inclass essay hm? ugh
physics: now here's a fairly big class- 25 ppl. and i've got the hilarious andrea lee, nicole smile, krystal kruse, etc. etc. group. they definitely crack me up.
overall: junior yr = a soon-to-be-dead stacy. =P and the classes are so mixed. 'tis such a weird feeling to have an academic class where there's ppl from 3 different grades.

[edit] my dad just called at 1:48 am - asking where my mom put my brother's lotion or something like that (brother + dad left for carnegie this (um.. actually yesterday) morning). so now i've been waiting.. 2 hours to get back to the computer to finish stuff (shh..) yeah. and i kinda need to find a recharger for my cellphone.. it makes a very nice alarm although the batteries die really fast now. =P

sigh, and school makes me feel old since it's starting in.. *counts* roughly 28 hours? (and hw status = incomplete...) ugh and i'm now classified as an upperclassman (cough gasp what?). actually looking back- being an underclassman wasn't that bad. 9th grade, for example, was quite memorable. i remember orchestra sitting by whoa.. Anna Wu, Lauren B-can't-spell-her-name, and that Ky person. oh oh, and fighting for the violin stand w/my brother b/c of a playing test. =P but perhaps the best memories were running out to the car in the morning, defrosting everything, then listening to non-classic music (w00t!), and getting to school late. sigh. those were the fun days.

but now junior year's supposed to be the hardest. and yeah.. my classes definitely reflect that fact. i'm quite ready to die, see? *pulls out death certificate* no actually, i'm sort of just.. dreading the future with what it might bring. like more responsibilities. =X quite frankly, i dislike them a lot, especially with stuff like becoming a leader, being a good role model (cough). i'd love to be a little kid again with no worries. running around the house and destroying things (not totally though). dude, i don't even remember doing any hw when i was back in columbus. but now life's like... hw, hw, piano, more hw, maybe some more piano, maybe some violin and SAT practices here and there. my life has literally been depleted of the childhood joys. but then again, growing up means accepting responsibilities, no more fooling around - or at least not as much. that's such a depressing thought.. =\

ok, i'm geting a bit tired. off to finish lesson plan.[/edit]

wouldn't you think it a little weird if Gaim just suddenly decides to rename your 'school' group as 'orphans' when you update your buddy list?

the things i do for a friend, no make that plural: friends.. now includes getting up at insane hours to do my hw and prod someone else to do theirs as well. blech.

oh and in-cars. my driving instructor absolutely loves talking about.. historical stuff i guess. so i'm driving around and he sits there rattling off random facts and expecting me to listen to him as well as concentrate on driving. surprisingly i've actually retained some of those trivial facts =P --

1. camp dennison = a place where they trained more than 65,000 civil war soldiers w/i 2 years.
2. springfield pike was the first paved highway for cars to connect the towns together.
3. wyoming was founded in 1855(?) and since it was a railroad town, the roads are all messed up since houses were built b/f roads.
4. lockland is named for all the locks on the erie canal that used to be in that area.
5. some street in cincy is supposedly in the guiness book of world records for having the most bridal shops per square ft. (or something to that effect)
6. etc. etc. etc. i'm tired of listing more.

and those night bugs are really loud and annoying.

about my brother and i: "my dad thought you two were going out. *cracks up*" o.O oh dear.

wow. 'tis so weird sitting in front of the comp after having been deprived of one for 2 weeks (laptops don't count). not to mention practicing my instruments after avoiding them (not intentionally of course =P) for the longest time in.. er... a very long time. point is, i'm finally home from my little adventures of 2004.

sigh. so i'm in toronto right now and i must say it's quite boring compared to chicago. my few sources of entertainment include summer reading books (which i finally got) and lots of cds. and i still need to prepare for my sunday school lesson. eeks.

chinaricans are cool. =)

and happy 19th to my brother. double =)

omgush, one more day of bloody history (&"today is gonna be the day we're gonna beat you guys at euchre"'s). then i'll be DONE with summer school and history for the next whole year. =D what a happy thought. but after that comes summer reading which i've not started. actually i've not even chosen or bought the books yet but i'm getting there. just very slowly. =)

oh, and on a separate note, chicago team leaves tomorrow.

[edit] borrowed from the stacy who came up w/lame reasons as to why i should do this...
THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME:
01 | my pile of summer reading
02 | life in general
03 | stacy duh =D jk

THREE THINGS I LOVE:
01 | God
02 | family&friends
03 | being confusing

THREE THINGS I HATE:
01 | surveys like this
02 | ppl pushing me to do surveys like this (we'll say that ppl are things too)
03 | perfectionists =P

THREE THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND:
01 | why ppl like these surveys
02 | why american history is so... boring
03 | why life has to be so .. not fun at times

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK:
01 | "celebration shakers!" =P
02 | a "smile God loves you" squishy thing
03 | computer (obviously)

THREE THINGS I'M DOING RIGHT NOW:
01 | filling out this survey
02 | htmling
03 | typing

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE:
01 | get closer to God
02 | live?
03 | ...

THREE THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE:
01| ppl being happy
02| smiles
03| silly/amusing things

THREE THINGS I WANT TO GET:
01 | an A on the history final tomorrow
02 | someone to do my hw
03 | gus to bring to chicago

THREE THINGS I CAN'T DO:
01 | be that perfect child
02 | be motivated/excited for school
03 | many things...

THREE THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO: (as of now)
01 | yesterday
02 | being done w/history tomorrow
03 | finishing this survey...

THREE THINGS THAT I'M CURRENTLY WEARING:
01 | t-shirt
02 | shorts
03 | socks (or was)

THREE BEVERAGES I DRINK REGULARLY:
01 | water
02 | juice
03 | milk (except that i don't regularly drink that much anyway)

THREE SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH:
01 | no idea
02 | because stacy
03 | does not watch tv

THREE THINGS THAT I BELIEVE IN:
01 | God
02 | Bible
03 | true friends
[/edit]

look look! stacy updated and changed her nice gloomy layout (of 7 months and 2 days old) into an overly girlish/cheerful layout! =D actually, i'm not that fond of comic sans but *shrug* ruchi says it deserves some cuter font. credits go to.. well, go look at About if you really want to know.

sigh, i'm done with summer gym but what's really strange is that i actually miss that class. heheh 'twas great. 5/14 people were chinese. =D and for some reason, euchre is particularly popular now. even with freshmen (usually you don't see many underclassmen playing that - at least in sycamore). oh and while we're on the subject of card games, a bunch of girls (including me) who were playing (what else?) euchre/egptian ratscrew were late to history class after break and the teacher gave us a very evil glare.

omgush, and teaching the kindergarten kids at mason is, to say the least, interesting. they like to sit on you and fold paper airplans and throw them around the room. oh but they are very fond of honey bunches of oats and honeycombs. heheh. and so far my discipline method has been just threatening to make them do this or that.

and as of 6/19, i've been watch-less. =(

you know, skipping school for vbs isn't bad at all. =D 'twas a nice break from my hitherto very monotonous summer of: 8 1/2 hrs of summer school, 2 of piano, 1 of violin a day (and a bedtime of 11:30 everyday ... ?!). and coupled with kumon, lessons, (supposedly) SAT practs and the uberly awesome (not) driver's ed.. that makes my life a very boring one indeed. er, and i'm suppose to start volunteering at bethesda sometime.

*pokes website* this layout IS a bit old, isn't it? any suggestions?

dude, the feeling you get when you walk into a classroom and find out you still have to take the exam (AND you haven't studied at all)... not pleasant at all. all because of that silly little ~0.1 and the evilness of math teachers.

oh wow. happy belated half-year bday to my layout... talk about old.

i fink mr. prendy's gone a bit wacky. you would think that we'd do nothing after the ap exam (which holds true for classtime where we've been watching movies like finding nemo), but a total of five 1000 word essays seems just a bit too much to be nothing.

boo, and it's starting to thunder again.

congrats to all who got baptised today. =)

um? let's just say that isn't the first time he's broken a piano string.

today stacy actually finished all her hw before 7! w00t! =D but then she started studying for the ap test on friday. and found out how very very screwed she was.

i just realized today how much (or little--take your pick) chinese i can actually understand. apart from going to a very dull and typical math contest in the morning and staying home at night, a good portion of my day - at least 6 hours - was spent listening to a speaker talking in 98% chinese (he did say several words in english like blended worship, cadences, blah blah, etc.). mmm, but the worship training seminar thing was very good. the only kinda not-so-good thing was that i couldn't understand some bits every now and then. oh, and that the fact that the seminar was quite long (but i didn't fall asleep, which is good =) ). lunch was interesting too. since the weather was so very pleasant, the people from our yg (all... 8 of us- 3 girls & 5 boys) and aunty jean decided to go sit outside. we ended up sitting at a picnic table under the shade of some trees (there was even a bridge a little way off). it would have been an absolutely perfect setting except for one little problem--the trees kept dropping all these white flower-ish stuff everywhere, including our plates. so we sat there. and ate. and occasionally, some white stuff would come floating down into our food. such a lovely scene eh? =P

woohoo, that was my little blurb for the day. time to go study euro (i seriously think i'll still fail the ap exam though =/ ). eh, and if you wish to have a slightly more... detailed? account, you can go find it on annie's blog. (of course, you'll hafta go fish for it, but honestly it's not that hard if you know where to look. =) ).

my procrastination-ness has now reached a new level where i'm starting a big assignment 1-2 hours before it's due. =X

heheh. i was talking to my dad this morning about the cicadas and somehow we got onto the topic of playing with bugs. for instance, he used to go around with a long stick with glue on the end and catch cicadas. then he'd bring them into class and get in trouble for all the noise they made. And then he also went around tying strings on the legs of japanese beetles & swinging them around. miraculously the string actually stayed on unless the legs broke. ('tis a gross thought--and to think we were discussing this over breakfast). Blah blah blah. Then there were the birds where my dad and his friends used to catch them by making some sort of contraption. It was something like a big metallic bowl (upside down) on top of a twig w/a really long piece of string attached to it. then when the birds came, they would pull the string and the bowl would go Bonk and trap the bird. but of course, he'd always let the animals go, birds and bugs alike.. just after he'd had some fun with them. there was also something about dropping chickens down the chimney to clean them but i don't remember much from that one. sigh, my dad was a michievous little kid.

off to bed & congrats to all the ppl who are getting baptised tomorrow/today. =)

=P i keep getting into trouble with my parents b/c of going to bed after 1. janice and norman should be pleased to hear that.

ugh, and you know what's really depressing? my pink mole's gone. =( mummy's taken it and hidden it somewhere. i suppose it's cuz a study's not the place to keep stuffed animals.

guess who's my lab partner for chem 4th qtr! =D

omgush, and kumon today was.. really weird. i found some reading packets that had "mini-books" or something. and they were all ripoffs (practically) from original fairytales. for instance, the first packet i came across had "The Magic Muffin: by a loaf of bread" -Gingerbread Man and "The Rabbit and the Turtle" - Tortoise and the Hare. Oh oh! and the second packet i found was.. "The Glass Slipper" with Cinderella and her evil twin sisters... Stella and Yella! (honestly what kind of a name is Yella?). so ruchi, kim, delayne, and i just sat around and read the packets. hehe, and then i found some mini play-like stories. mm, my favorite was one called "The Boy and the Lion" or something. maybe i should borrow the packet and copy it cuz it really is too funny to miss. =D

sigh. stacy has to go to bed at 12 cuz she got in trouble when mummy found her still up at 1:30 am. =/

really, my spring break was going quite well until my mother mentioned all those lovely standardized tests. so now i'm stuck w/a bunch of SAT practice books. but hey, let's look on the bright side. stacy now knows that (according to the princeton review) the universe is "fundamentally lazy" and disinclined to endothermic reactions.

apparently, janice has devised an uberly awesome plan to try and get kat, mei, ruchi, and i to go to bed earlier. so far, it doesn't seem to be working out too well. =)

hrm.. that was one interesting way to spend *coughwaste* a whole day. i'd rather have spent the whole day sleeping/napping/wasting time in general but nooo, my parents insisted that i needed to go out there and do something fun. sigh, so we went hiking. for quite a long time. and then we went to stacy duh's house and bummed around.

and some (commonsensical) advice: don't go hiking the day after it rains. the ground just might be a bit waterlogged and muddy, resulting in lovely mud-ified pant legs and shoes.

oh oh! and stacy's gonna go to bed before 12:15 today! =D

wow, next piano concert i'm gonna drag some of you along. =) my piano teacher's one awesome person.

happy bday to my (first -- kat would be the second) truly late-night hw buddy, ruchi. =D sigh those were such good times.

guess who really really dislikes parabolas and graphing in general?

o.O stacy's going to bed before 12:30! that rarely ever happens.

hehe. chem was interesting today. mr. ignatz got bored of taking notes so he talked about his life story. and then jonathan h. fell asleep so andrea lee got the brilliant idea of duct taping him to the table using some 'caution' tape she had in her bookbag. 'twas weird yet amusing.

what you learn from going to some far off piano event:

1. Tennessee is really annoying to spell (good thing there's copy n' paste =D )
2. Tennessee people have a faint trace of that awesome southern accent.
3. Apparently, they like to say "yes m'am" and "no m'am."
4. The speed limit is around 70 mph but most people drive 80-85.
5. There's lots of crazy piano people who practice 4-5 hours a day "or 6-7 when i have time." (get this, a 5 or 6 year old is already practicing around 2-3 hours a day. and she fights with her sister for the piano... "oh yeah, and we've got 3 pianos in the same room--and one of them's a grand grand piano." o.O talk about crazy.)
6. As much as i know, lots of those crazy ppl are homeschooled in order to have more time to practice.
7. Other than that, they're all very nice and sociable.

and on a sidenote, don't go to this competition unless you're willing to waste a whooole entire day practicing/playing piano.

yeah, so we got home around 3:30 am. 'twas a fun day. *cough* but heh, it was worth it i guess. =D

*ahem* this is what happens when stacy starts her english essay at 11, then takes a nap from 1-2ish.

so it starts out fine: "Since the beginning of the human race, politics has played an important role in maintaining order in society..." (around 12ish)

and then it gets a bit silly/stupid: "In this, it is evident that the people in charge of France are no longer the king and his officials (since most of them are guillotined anyway...)" (3ish o'clock)

and then, to total nonsense:"In combining the two together, the reader can see the results as a massive chaotic jumble that is all too familiar in today?s world." (5ish - at this point, i didn't really care about what i wrote. so long as it looked kinda like a conclusion. =D )

heh, my writing sucks when i'm tired (obviously). but whatever. i'm very glad that this is only the rough draft. otherwise i'd be in deep doodoo.

and on a sidenote: i finished da vinci code and all i can say is.. it's one really weird book. like really really weird.

time to update! (yes at 3 in the morning). strangely i'm quite awake after a quick 30-minute nap. and what's weird is that i actually woke up on my own accord, without an alarm clock. talk about luck. =P

life after retreat is quite blah-y, quite contrary to kat who seems to be bouncing off the walls. but w/e. i suppose it's the transition back to school.

and stacy d and i were speculating about our church youth. how it seems so united over who everyone seems to like. especially the girls. but no names. =) b/c i'm a good little girl (cough) and do not 'leak' secrets like my lovely hw buddy over here.

anyway, since i'm not even halfway through with my english outline (and i've still got that lovely bunch of 2 - almost 3 - wks of history hw, i'd better go. heh.

[Edit] and ruchi just told me that we have those questions due for history tomorrow...?! mmm lovely. anyway, so goes my life. full of not-so-cool surprises. =P

kat really owes me some of her life as i've practically been doing her spanish hw for her (or at least a good chunk of it).

about winter retreat... it was awesome (as everyone else has been saying), but i still haven't the motivation to write a 10-paged paper on how great it was.

and i have yet to start my sunshine mail stuff. :D oh well.

ah, and happy bday to mr. stacy-equals-slacker norman. =)

woohoo. stacy's sick of this layout. at least it lasted for almost 3 months.

but i doubt i have time to make another so *shrug.* meanwhile WR pics! i've decided to become lazy and make yahoo do most of the work for uploading and such. heh.

and my lovely spiel about wr will probably come later. (if it ever does, that is)

just a little too amusing to miss. (although church people have probably already seen it by now) --> clickie! 'tis what happens when some boys get bored.

oh dear. WR stuff has definitely been eating up my time.

w00t. some random history txtbk quotes!

"Industrial growth also promoted rapid urbanization, with its own awesome problems, as will be shown in Chapter 24."
"Like some students today, he [the cottage worker] might 'pull an all-nighter' on Thursday or Friday in order to get his work in [by Saturday]."

heheh. british people are funny. lookee

yay. a 2 hr delay! that makes me feel slightly better. but omg, i finally found an accompanist so now i won't be butchered by mr. smar. (i probably will still be hated forever by him though...) ohhh, but i feel absolutely beyond sorry for alice who has to deal with :this: and especially :this:. hopefully i'll be able to cut that whole pg 9 out and spare alice the horror of so many running 16th notes & such. *big sigh* thankies a billion to alice *hugs* you're such an awesome friend.

off i go.

guess who got an a on the euro exam! :D :D :D but so far i hafta take the chem and english. oh and lovely careers. i sit in the very corner for that, right by the door and trashcan. what fun.

yay for snowdays! but no yays for violin and piano. i wish for them to die. (you're probably wondering why i'm still doing both... so am i) sigh. life is very blah-y.

talk about insane. 350 questions in.. ~100 minutes. just a bit too much for my brain which functions quite slowly at times. but now there's definitely some truth in mrs. allen's statement as she passed the tests out: "if you didn't hate me before, you'll hate me now." yes indeed. i do hate her for making me sit there and bubble in the answers to 230 vocab words and who knows how many sentence completions and analogies.
math before that was pretty good (let's hope my exam doesn't contradict me). i finished with 15 minutes to spare and spent 10 more minutes "checking" over my answers.
ooh, now we come to chem. which i probably failed.

yesterday was just as wonderful. with a lovely, most ramble-y essay and 150 "multiple guesses" (as prendy says). mmm, i definitely had to guess quite a bit at the end cuz... who knew you needed to know ... dates!? (ok, so it's history, but nimeskern didn't make us learn dates last year.) so there were ~20-30 date questions and i probably knew... ohhhh 5-10? orch was not much better, w/that "timed note-reading test." my ledger-line reading sucks and i've always relied on the piano to find my way up there. and the multi-choice part. who cares about mr. britten's death and what war was occurring at that time? when are you ever gonna need to know that info?
"oh excuse me, sir. did you know that benjamin britten, the awesome composer of simple symphony, died in so-and-so war? i think he was blasted to smithereens when someone couldn't stand his love for alliteration."

honestly, what kind of practice test question is this?

Prior to the revolution, the church in France owned about:

A. 105571700f the land
B. 205336540f the land
C. 304105130f the land
D. 504722750f the land

aww. this is quite cute. hehe, shows you how easily i get off task. especially with studying. =( and you know what's not very cool? i just realized that i know next to nothing about everything we've learned in euro so far. like the hundred years' war and the thirty years' war. oh oh! but i do know that the thirty year's war started because of the defenestration of prague where some protestants chucked ferdinand's officials out the window (and it was even given a name, how awesome). 'tis a pity they didn't die though.

sweetness. guess what kat got me (for christmas)!

hehehe. i took a 2 hr nap today. 'twas great. :D

oops i indirectly caused ruchi to lose her beloved orlando bloom sticker today. maybe next year i'll give her a saftey pin for christmas or something. after all, pins stick/attach/whatever to clothes much better than plain old tape.

other than that, i really dislike life right now. and i know next to nothing about fissioning and fusioning atoms cuz i most definitely fell asleep when we took notes.

guess who finally got an a on a history test! =P

uh oh time for stacy. i just realized that the calendar project's due in two days. =X

oh wow. i think my first week of break was much more productive than the second one. which reminds me... i really don't remember when the revisions for the separate peace essay are due. let's just hope it isn't tomorrow cuz i haven't even looked through my lovely paper. and i'm not looking forward to fixing it either. 'tis such a piece of.. well.. crap. except where my brother helped me. but whatever... time to go find all my school stuff. =\

oh lookeee. i am now a potential hazard to the human race since i finally have my temps. and i started driving today. i guess it wasn't that bad.. unless you count forgetting to brake when turning a curve? but whatever; as long as i don't drive into someone's yard or into someone else it's all cool. :D oh but i really suck at estimation. and it shows when i do turns, especially right ones.. or was it left?

oh oh oh! and i learned how to do chinese knots too! *squee* and they're kinda pretty but so incredibly frustrating to do . especially ones with a billion twists, turns, crossover/under, etc. etc. or maybe it's just me.. i am quite simple minded. but omg, 'tis a nightmare. i really wonder how those chinese people came up with all those ultra spiffy-looking knots.

Ancient Records (2003)