So, it's been almost two weeks since I've finished school,
and quite a while since I last blogged here.
I got a 34 on my ACT
(just baaaaarely missed getting a 35).
The Saturday after i finished my last exam
(all of which I aced :D),
I flew in to Newark, New Jersey,
and took about an hour bus ride to
the United States Military Academy.

West Point lies on the west bank of the Hudson River,
at the very point where the British ships were stopped en route to New York City.
It's absolutely gorgeous.

(I took the pictures (except the first) with my cell phone, so they aren't the best)

Upon arriving, they gave us a tooooon of stuff.
I got two polos for cl.ass, two t-shirts for PT,
One sweatshirt, one of those string-scrunch bag thingamajigs,
and one 32 oz water bottle.
All of which were UnderArmour.

Although the buildings are gorgeous,
the one thing that sucks about them
is that they have absolutely no cell phone reception.
(because of something like four-foot thick granite walls)
And we barely had any free time.

Anyway, I absolutely loved it.
I loved the camaraderie between the cadre.
The PT sucked, since I'm so out of shape right now,
but I kinda liked it, too, if that makes any sense.

I went to three cl.asses for about five or six hours each
(one per day)
Some of the lectures were extremely boring
(Like sabermetrics -- eugh)
But I also got to shoot a potato gun,
ride on a hoverboard, and be a defense attorney.

(all of my cell pictures are from the central area, btw)

On the last day, we did our military training.
(I hoped that my roomie had her pictures up on facebook
'cause we've got some pretty impressive ones on her camera,
but they aren't there yet...)
We went through different obstacles,
such as one where you have to crawl under barbed wire,
and another dubbed the "Tough Nut"
(I think I have bruises on my pelvic bone from that one
-- thank God I'm not a guy)
We also went through leadership scenario things,
where we had to traverse "minefields" and "electric fences" and such.
I had my first MRE - sloppy joe filling.
It was.... alright.
It would have been better had I been allowed to use the heater that came with it.
But apparently you can make bombs out of MRE heaters,
And they didn't want anyone to burn themselves.
So no hot food for us.

We then learned bayonetting, and ran through an obstacle course to practice it.
The Cadet Sergeant who taught us bayonetting would sound off
"What makes the green grass grow?"
And we had to yell,
"Blood! Blood! Bright red blood!"
A little morbid... :S

Speaking of sounding off, we had a lot of songs we sang while in formation to keep in step.
My favorite is this one,
which exemplifies the joshing attitude between different branches of the military:

Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Air Force
In the Air Force!
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Air Force
In the Air Force!
'Cause they teach 'em how to fly,
Then they crash and burn and die,
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Air Force
In the Air Force!

(chorus)
Sing glorious victorious, hey!
One keg of beer for the four of us
Sing glory be to God
That there are no more of us
'Cause one of us could drink it on our own
Damn near
Pass the beer
to the rear
of the company, hey!

Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Navy
In the Navy!
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Navy
In the Navy!
'Cause they're always off on boats,
Doing God knows what to goats,
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Navy
In the Navy!

(chorus)

Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Peace Corps
In the Peace Corps!
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Peace Corps
In the Peace Corps!
'Cause they're off in foreign lands,
Smokin' dope and holdin' hands,
Oh, there are no Airborne Rangers in the Peace Corps
In the Peace Corps!

So, I'm finished with testing.
The ACT wasn't too bad.
I thought it was easier than the one I took in October.
Plus I've heard the curving will be better,
'cause all the stupid people are forced to take the test. :P
So I'm hoping for a 34...maybe even a 35? :D

The PSAE
(Prairie State Achievement Exam -
a test given to all juniors in Illinois the day after the ACT)
was a joke, though.
Sooooo easy.
Especially the math.
It was all basic math.
I could've done just as well on it in 6th grade. :roll:

What sucked, though,
is I got sick the day of the ACT. :(
I can't breathe at all right now;
my nose is so plugged up.

The school year is soooooo close to being over.
I just got my own traditional Calc t-shirt.

Of the 2600 students in my school and the hundreds of c.lasses,
there is only one honors calculus course.
It's the highest level math course my school offers.
Filled with the top 20 math students in the entire school.
And I'm the only junior in it.

It's incredibly nerdy. :roll:
Still, I can't believe how many people ask me what number it's supposed to be.
We're number 239875! Whooo!

I also went tanning for the first time in my life today.
I'd always sworn I'd never do it,
just 'cause I hate all the flat, fake girls at school
who seem to care about nothing more than their appearances.
And I don't want to turn into that.
But, I also got a job working at an outdoor pool this summer.
And I don't want to turn into a giant tomato after the first day.
So I'm gonna try to build up a tan.
Especially since this one place has a special bed
for pale people like myself.
Hopefully, in the process,
they don't rip away your identity
and turn you into walking, talking, teenage Barbie.

So my dad's getting retired this summer.
And he's been applying for jobs as a civilian contractor working for the military.
Last Thursday he had a job interview over the phone
for a position in Colorado Springs as an intelligence/planner person.
Just Tuesday he got the job.
He starts work in September, I think.
I love Colorado. :D

Today in school, out of the blue, I realized that BB is due this month. :o :o :o
I decided to log on and catch up a bit, and I realized I miss everyone around here.
So I'm gonna try to log on more often, and not just once every four months or so.

______________________________________________________

Lately, I've been really busy with school and work.
I'm working around fifteen or twenty hours a week, plus all of my school courses.
(Damn forbidden html error :x)
I've also missed seven school days due to Robotics competitions
(we ended up winning Kansas City, out of 58 other teams,
placing second in St. Louis out of 30 other teams
(and only because our alliance partners' robots broke down in the elimination match),
and getting to about top 20, roughly, in the international championships).
I actually spent half of last week in Atlanta, Georgia for those championships.
There were around 800-900 teams there,
with teams from 22 different countries,
all competing in the Georgia Dome.
We actually ended up losing to the team that won the entire championship,
so we weren't disappointed.
Plus, we're like the only team there that doesn't have a corporate sponsor,
so we're actually pretty darn amazing, considering. :P
Apparently, though, someone from IBM talked to us about a possible sponsorship.
Also, this guy was talking about sending one of the teams they sponsor
to Israel for their regional competition. :o
Sooooo, IFFFFF this is true, I could end up going to Israel next year. :o :o

________________________________________

I'm just about finished with my junior year of high school,
and I'm getting sooooo much stuff from colleges.
I swear, I get around six letters a day.
Many of them are from schools I've never heard of,
but I have gotten some from colleges
like Purdue, Duke, University of Pennsylvania,
Colombia, SLU, Caltech, and other big state colleges.
The one I reaaaaaaally want to go to, however,
is West Point.
(free tuition!!!)
I'm going to be going to a summer camp there
for a week right after school gets out. I can't wait. :D

_____________________________________

Tomorrow I have to take the ACT with my school,
and Thursday I have a second day of testing for the PSAE.
How fun.
At least I get to sleep in an hour later and still go home early.

___________________________________________

Let's see.... I think that's pretty much it,
or at least all I can think of at the moment.
I was always bad with ending these things.
I'm off to work out.
Anything new around here?

Merry Christmas, everyone!
Hope everyone's holidays have been wonderful, spending time with family and all that.

So the past couple weeks were hella busy for me. Exams suck.
Some things were good, some were bad.
I got a C+ on my exam for calculus, even though I studied a few hours for it.
But I turned around and was the only one to get an A in my history c.lass and got a 98 in physics.
I'm just glad it's over for another week.

My mom ended up working half of last night. usually she works from 6pm-6am in an ER in St. Louis, but last night she just worked 12-6. So, she got home around 7, woke us up, and we had our traditional cinnamon rolls and opened presents. But, of course, my family can't go an hour without someone getting ticked off. This time, my brother invited the neighbors over for Christmas dinner (since it's just father and daughter), but the house wasn't clean, so my mom went into her pissy cleaning frenzy. Then the belt on our expensive vacuum cleaner came off, and everything just erupted. Oh, the holidays.

My dad, the day before, had gone hunting with my younger brother and brought home two geese and five ducks, then breasted them in the kitchen because the garage was too cold. So when my mom was cleaning, he acts like she's accusing him and goes off, saying, "Yeah, I know, there are feathers everywhere, isn't there?" Completely unprovoked. :|

Finally we get calmed down and get around to opening presents. My brother and I start distributing them, and I pick up this big box in a corner, one of those long slender ones that's obviously a gun. And since we lost the nametags, no one's name was written on it, so I turned to ask whose it was. Mine. My mom bursts out laughing at my expression, and expresses her regret that she didn't catch "the funkiest look" on camera. I'm thinking, "Why the **** did I get a gun?" :?

They tell me to open this present first, and my dad transparently tries to get me to believe it's something else. "Bet you have no idea what this is, do you?" When I unwrapped it and the box clearly said it was a shotgun, he goes, "Now, you know I camouflage things, right?" (He puts presents into old, used boxes). Well, definitely didn't camouflage this one. Oh, boy, a shotgun. Just what I wanted.

So I went throught the whole acting surprised (which I was, but not in the way he hoped) and excited about my gift, which took enough....but then I had to pose with the gun. And smile in a picture.

The rest of my present-opening went much the same way. I got a Coach wallet, which is really nice, but it's a bit too small--it only has eight card-holding slots, which isn't enough when I carried my first aid/bloodborne/oxygen/cpr/lifeguard cards, library card, checking card, military ID, driver's licence, YMCA-membership card, blockbuster card, and the card with my hair appointments. It's kind of stuffed already, and I don't even have any money in it. :P

Brad got me a silver pocket-sized mirror with a big "K" on it, and some designer keychain with black leather and silver accents, both pretty. But then he goes and says, "Yeah, you can get that to match your purse." You mean the purse I haven't opened yet, dear brother?

So then I got a coach purse, also a really nice present.... except I don't like it. :(
I have a fake Coach purse that I got in Czech that I love, but it isn't a good quality, so it was really thoughtful of my mom. But it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small. Yes, with all those a's. It's about as long and as tall as my hand, and about an inch or two thick. So right now, it can fit my wallet, my lip balm, my phone, my car keys, and the mirror, and it just closes. I'm really disappointed about this one because it was so nice of my mom, and I feel guilty that I don't like it, and disappointed that it just won't work for me. Then my mom says afterwards, when I said the wallet was really small, that she got a small wallet because it had to fit in the purse. :|
I don't even have room to put some tampons in my purse, for heaven's sake.

Proof my mom doesn't know me: she bought me Twilight. First of all, she bought me the book over the summer, right after we got back from my grandparents'. Second of all, I hated it. Just because there are a million raving fangirls, does not mean I'm going to like the object of their raving. And I've told her I don't like it, which is why I didn't see the movie, which I also told her.

Then my dad got me the Apple AirPort Express, which is just a WiFi thingamajig. A few months ago, I told him about it, and said it would be useful, because then we could wirelessly connect to the printer from the laptop, and they wouldn't have to get on the desktop to print things. So he decides to get me this for Christmas. Thanks, Dad, I love it. Just like I loved that graphing calculator I got for my thirteenth birthday when I told you I needed one for school. At least I'll use it, though.

Buuut....I did get one thing I absolutely loooooooooovee....a MacBook! I'm ecstatic. Although, it's a pain in the ass transferring all my songs onto it. For some reason, my music won't transfer, because I'm "not authorized" to play those songs, and it tells me to authorize it, yet when I do, it says this computer is already authorized. :? Any ideas, anyone?

I realize it sounds like I've been complaining this whole time. It makes me sound shallow and greedy. But it's not really that. I strongly believe that people should give presents to make someone happy. It should be something with a lot of thought put into it, 'cause that's what the holidays are all about, which is one of the reasons I hate gift certificates. It's like it's saying that you didn't want to really think about what that person would like, so just let them pick for themselves. Pain in the ass following that when it comes around to shopping, though. :P
I got my dad the new Call of Duty game (his favorite PS2 game, other than GTA), my brother two track packs for RockBand (which he was obsessing over, and I knew he was already getting), and my mom a cashmere robe. I guess that's why I feel bad about the Coach purse but can be completely sarcastic abou the WiFi thingamajig.

Aaaaanywayyy, tomorrow we're leaving for my grandparents'. I'm really looking forward to bringing my Mac with me and getting some of my uncle's music. Unlike my parents, his music taste doesn't suck. :P

So, what is everyone else doing for the holidays, and what was your favorite gift? (either given or received...received for me is, as surprising as it may be, my MacBook, and given is the cashmere robe -- I'm damn proud of that. :P)

Not really.

And now this stupid site ate my blog because I typed cla-effin-ss. :x

Maybe I'll write about what's been going on in my life if people actually care about me. :(
-emo-

:|

:(

-kidding-

Although someone asked me if I was going goth because of my new hair color.
Even though it's close to my natural color, just a little darker. =/
Yearbook me
Last Friday me
Saturday

Ryan (MarWash) claims to be on strike because of me, yeah right, I'm not that important, he's just using me as an excuse but here's a new blog, so HA!

Okay, I'm so not his b!tch.
Just.... been too lazy lately to think up a new blog.
I've been working, today I'm also teaching a private lesson for the first time ($15/hr, babeh!).
And, today, I'll finally be able to finish my CPR (Professional Rescuer) training, get certified, and be able to start working as a lifeguard.
Fiiiiiiiiiinaaaaaalllyy. That stupid thing was rescheduled so many times, it isn't even funny. It ended up being rescheduled for a day I couldn't make it. :x

I've also been going to the gym pretty often, I've been running over three miles in 35 minutes.... so I warm-up, build up to speed ('cause I get bored unless I'm constantly fiddling with the settings on the treadmill) and then run about a 7.5 minute mile, then do my cooldown.

I mentioned this offhand to one of my friends, who happens to be on track, and she said I actually run harder than some people who run long-distance on the team.... so I'm thinking about doing track next year, too, doing only one sport this year made me feel a bit left-out. I never really thought about doing track before, since I don't really like to run, but what the hell.

So yeah, that's basically it.

Oh, and I'm donating blood next week.
If they let me, which they'd better. :x
Thought the school nurse says they'll probably turn me down because of a chronic auto-immune disorder, even though my blood's perfectly fine.

39 days as a sophomore.

(Probably the most boring blog ever.)

Three more guard c lasses left.

I have my backboard test today

(For getting people with spinal injuries out of the pool)

Hopefully I won't break anyone's back trying to do it,

I've actually never done it before