Painting Gary's Door

One good advice for life: NEVER prank-call Justin.

So, Friday night, I was at Gary's house. Why? THE EVENT OF THE MONTH: Justin painted his door. That plan was made a couple weeks ago, and within the last week, Justin had been working on a design in Precalc. It is a big whale that is getting molested by an octopus. Epic, really. Hanging out at Gary's was a lot of fun, like always. Of course, Justin was there, and besides him, Autumn, Eric, and Matt came over. Plus Gary's sisters were around. Claudia made a wristband for me. And other people. I know you're jealous.
The guys had to help clean the pool first for a while (Autumn and I didn't have to, so we stayed inside and ate tacos and twizzlers, and then we went outside to watch them work :P). Then, Justin started painting. They got pizza a little later. Watching Justin paint is hilarious, because of the random comments he throws out into the room ("You know what would be cool? If one of us died, and then we could spread really cool rumors about how that person died in school...").
Later that night, Justin got a prank call. Lesson for life: NEVER PRANK CALL JUSTIN. He's gonna turn it around against you ^^ it was so funny. He probably scared whoever called him. But then they talked for quite a long while, and then one of the person's friends talked to us girls on Autumn's phone (I talked to them in German, which was pretty funny. Eric says it sounds scary when I swear in German.).
I can't really describe these nights I guess because if you haven't been there, you can't even nearly imagine how awesome it is.

Yesterday, I had my YFU re-entry meeting. It was pretty pointless. I didn't like talking about going back, and I don't think any of us did. And most of the time, we didn't really "work", but simply talked about random stuff. I don't need to spend a day with YFU people to do that. Oh well. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though. And I guess they have to try and prepare us for going back. Though I don't think that's even possible. I'm so not gonna be prepared.

I don't even know HOW to prepare...

I Love Senior Skip Day!

I'm tired. But that's nothing new.

So, the closing night went even better than the opening night of our play. I wasn't nervous this time :) but unfortunately, it was all kind of sad, too. Before we went on stage, we met backstage and held hands in a huge circle, and then everybody dedicated the play to someone or something, and then we jumped one time. It was a very moving moment. When it was my turn, and I dedicated the play to the cast because they belong to the people who made my exchange year the best year of my life, and everybody went "Ohhh", I was really close to start crying. How can play be over! It was so much fun :(
I guess the fact that it was our last time on stage together motivated us to make it an amazing performance. I can't even describe it. It was just - even better than the first night.
After the show, we went to the lobby again to talk to the audience, and I met Gary, Kyle, Heather, Kenny and Amy. Gary gave me flowers.
A little later, we had to go change and get all our stuff together and out of the building. It was sad to see them take down the stage stuff :(
Then, we went to the cast party. Courtney and I got a ride with Katie who also gave Keith a ride. The cast party was at Ean's house. It was fun. We ate, danced ridiculously, watched an old play on tape... we basically just had a lot of fun. Katie drove us home around midnight, she wanted to make sure she didn't miss her driving curfew.

On Sunday, Courtney and I overslept, so we didn't go to church with the rest of the family. We went grocery shopping with Mom, and later that day, after dinner, Gary picked me up to go to Autumn's house, where I spent the night - Monday was Senior Skip Day. Senior Skip Day is, in my opinion, a great invention. Basically, the Seniors choose a day that they're all going to skip on. Of course, not EVERYBODY really does it, but the vast majority does. Although at that time I was still a Junior (I'll explain that later), I decided that I have the right to do Senior Skip Day, too, since it is somewhat my last year in American high school, too.
So, Gary, Justin, Eric, Ashlynn, Garrett, Alex, Kyle, Zack, and I hung out at Autumn's house Sunday night. After a while of being outside in Autumn's front yard with basketball and breakdancing, somebody (Alex?) decided it was time for an "adventure". So all of us except for Justin and Garrett, who thought the idea was ridiculous (aren't all our ideas ridiculous?? What did they expect?), took off to walk to Seven Eleven. It was a rather long walk, but it was fine, and it was nice and warm out. When we got there, everybody except for me got Slurpees, and Gary bought me a variety of Pop Tarts (because he thought it's not right that I had never eaten a Pop Tart before) and Trail Mix (which I'm addicted to). After messing around at Seven Eleven for a while, we called Ross and told him to meet us at McDonald's, so we walked on to McDonald's. We basically did an entire tour that night.
So we met Ross and he walked back to Autumn's house with us where we watched Fight Club. Eric, Ashlynn, Justin, Garrett, Kyle, Gary, and me spent the night. Monday "morning", meaning around 10.30, Jodie and Roo came over. They went to school for first our to take an AP Chemistry AP practise test. I was supposed to do that too, but I retook it today. They were hungry, so they made us all get up and get ready. While Eric and Ashlynn went to Ashlynn's house to take showers, I took a shower at Autumn's house after she was done with hers. Gary wasn't there anymore, he left early in the morning to take his sisters and Courtney to school. When he came back, and Eric and Ashlynn came back, we took off to go to the Pancake House for breakfast. Almost all of us ordered crepes. It was soooo good. I had crepes with fresh strawberries :)
After breakfast, we went back to Autumn's house, Roo, Jodie and Garrett left, and after hanging out in her sunny front yard again for a while, Gary took me home.
I got my chores and my homework done, and for dinner, I went to Paco's with Gary, Kyle, Justin, and Autumn. It was such an amazing day. I LOVE Senior Skip Day! :)
Tuesday was rather unexciting. On Wednesday after school, Courtney and I were home alone (Dad was at work, Mom was subbing and the little ones were still in school) and suddenly, it knocked on the front door and Autumn and Gary were standing outside. They were bored, and so was I, so they came in for a while (Autumn examined the office, and then we watched TV with Courtney and talked), and a little later, we went to Ashlynn's house for another hour. They dropped me off at home around dinner time after that.
Today, I found out that obviously, Ms Glynn (our associate principal who is actually from Germany!) switched me from Junior class into Senior class. The whole thing started when Finja asked the school whether she could walk for graduation. They told her she could, and then offered me to do that too, and now that I said yes, they must have made me a Senior. So now, I'll get out of school early (on May 16th) which is partially awesome because it gives me more time to hang out with Autumn and the guys, and partially a little sad because I'm not really gonna see my non-Senior friends anymore (most of the people I hang out with are Seniors). I still like it though.
The weather is getting so nice already. From being cold and snowy, it almost suddenly jumped to being summer-like. I can wear shorts and shirts all the time, and it gets almost hot outside. I really like that because, I have to admit, the winter really got on my nerves by now. On the other hand, I don't want it to be summer. Summer means going back.

And I am NOT ready. :(

What an Amazing Week

"Featherbowling is throwing feathers at pins." (Eric)

Okay, this was one of my best weeks ever.
So, on Saturday was Doug's birthday, so we had cake after dinner and he got some presents (a really cool card, German chocolate and a coupon for "A Day in Peace and Quiet" from Courtney and me). Later, Gary, Eric and Ashlynn came to pick me up for Autumn's birthday party. We stopped at right aid to get some specific kind of candy for Justin and pop, and Gary also spontaneously bought a miniature universal remote that he can bring into Mr Dakmak's class and drive him crazy by constantly switching the channels (Mr Dakmak already took Gary's other universal remote). Then we went to Autumn's house.
Besides us four, there were Justin, Garrett, of course Autumn, Liz, Ross, Alex, Zack, Dan, Matt and his girlfriend Courtney, Joe, .... I probably forgot someone. It was such a fun night. I talked to Ashlynn a lot, which was awesome because I never really got to talk to her much before and she's such a nice person :)
The next day, Gary drove Alex, Ross, Matt and me home around noon.
When I came home, Sheila welcomed me with the most amazing surprise - I got my ACT scores, and I got a 33! That is so much better than I thought they would be, and Sheila, Doug, my teachers and my class mates all tell me that with such a good score, I can definitely get a full scholarship at a college! You have no idea how happy I am :))) I MIGHT GET TO COME BACK!! I already signed up to take the SAT as well, so that I can hopefully improve my chances even more. I can't wait to hear from the colleges that got my ACT score!
After I had taken a shower and done my chores, Sheila, Grandma Tina and I went prom dress shopping :) First, we went to JC Penneys where I tried on a lot of dresses and finally narrowed it down to two dresses that I really liked. One was black and white, strapless and really puffy. The other one was light green, very shiny and silky, and the back looked amazing because it was tied so cool.
We went on to DEB at the mall where I tried on even more dresses, and finally, I found the one :) It is dark blue, almost black and shimmering blue, strapless, puffy, and just soooooo pretty... I love it so much.
Monday through Wednesday, I had play rehearsal until late everyday and never got home before 6 pm. We had dress rehearsals now, and Wednesday we had our first hair and make-up rehearsal and even a little audience consisting of about 4 teachers. I can't believe I managed how to do those fast changes in between the first couple scenes. But I actually made it, with Katie's help.
On Thursday, I relaxed and got some rest, and last night was opening night. I was excited all day, but when we finally got to JAPAC at 6 to get ready, I was really nervous. The nervosity increased until the curtain opened - but from then on, it just went so well and I had sooo much fun on stage.
When the play was over, we headed to the lobby to receive the audience that was coming out of the hall. Autumn, Eric and Ashlynn were there to watch me, and a lot of band kids and my mom, Grandma Tina and Michaela. Mary wanted me to sign her shirt :) and Eric, Ashlynn and Autumn asked me whether I wanted to come with them and go to a movie. Sheila was fine with that, so after a while, I changed and we left JAPAC to go to Taco Bell. There, we got some food and met Justin, Kyle, and two of Kyle's friends whom I don't know. After we were done eating, we went to the theatre to watch "The Forbidden Kingdom". It was a pretty good movie. I got home around 1 am.
Overall, I had an amazing night. Tonight is our closing show... I'll be so sad when it's over. Afterwards, we'll have our cast party at Ean's house. That's gonna be fun :)

Alright, I'm done with this little update on my life.
And, just for the record - I don't wanna go back. I'm definitely not ready.

Friday, Finally.

This was an exhausting week.

Today, when I got to school, I went to my locker first as usually, then I went to room 107 as usually to drop off my AP Chem stuff, and then I wanted to go to the cafeteria to get some caffeine (so either diet coke or diet Dr. Pepper). But on the way there I found Kyle sitting in the hallway and he had brought me a mug of coffee :) So I had my caffeine. It was probably the best coffee that I have had in a while... it actually kept me awake all day!
So, my day started pretty awesome. It went on with an easy US History test, a really cool Precalc hour (the stuff was easy, exponential functions... so I was done early and got to talk to Randy and Roo for a while)., and an easy vocab quiz in Composition.
After school, we had play rehearsal at JAPAC again. It was alright today, and we're always having a lot of fun. A couple days ago, we started working on the dance at the end of the play... It's a pretty simple dance, most of the time, we're just a line of girls in front of a line of boys and do different moves, but in the end there's one part where the girls have to fall back and the guys behind them catch them and push them back up. My "partner" is Grant, and I know I can trust him because he's a good friend of Gary's, but still... I don't like just falling back and having people catch me ^^ So I struggled with that for a little while. But he's always caught me. So I guess I need to relax a little. Awww.
Next week we'll have dress rehearsals. That's pretty scary because I'm gonna have some reaaaally quick changes - and the fastest of all is from a long dress into black shirt and overall in only seconds. Not sure how that's gonna work out yet.
Tonight, I'm babysitting the little ones. Sheila and Doug are out for dinner with friends, and Courtney is babysitting at one of those friends' houses. Of course there had to be tornado warnings on the night that I'm home alone with the kids, and around 8.30, the sirenes went of, the sky turned green for the second time since I've come here, and lightning and thunders started. So we went down in the basement - it took a while to get down there because Jake wouldn't leave the cats upstairs despite my attempts to persuade him that they'll know when to get into the basement, so it took us about 10 minutes to find the cats and catch them - and watched the Weather Channel to wait for the thunderstorms to pass. It didn't become a tornado, and they cancelled the warning shortly before 9.
Tomorrow night is Autumn's birthday party. It's a sleepover. I'm excited. It's gonna be sooo much fun.

And then dress-shopping on Sunday! :)

Life Goes On

Once again, I'm very tired.

So, our one week of break was pretty cool. I mean, Courtney and I both had a lot of make-up work to do from the days that we missed in school while we were in Florida, but there was still enough time for some relaxing, and Pilates. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything else going on - Heather didn't have her car because it needed new license plates, so I didn't go out with her, Kyle and Amy, and Gary went to Ohio from Wednesday to Friday with Justin and Autumn and family members. But on Friday night, we went to Autumn's house - to watch the Degrassi movie - and so I got to see Gary, Autumn, Eric, Alex and Justin. It was pretty awesome. It always is. Autumn showed me her dress for prom - it is soooo beautiful. I like it a lot. Autumn says she's gonna marry it because she loves it so much.
Another thing that happened over break - I am definitely going to prom now :) Kyle will be my date (in a friendship kinda way) and I am reaaaaally excited now because I get to buy a pretty DRESS :) We're going dress shopping on Sunday, Sheila, Courtney, Grandma Tina and I. Grandma needs a dress for a wedding, I need one for prom.
This week has been pretty crazy so far. We've had play rehearsals every day until at least 4, so we get home late, do our homework and chores, eat dinner, finish our homework, and then we basically go to bed. Luckily, I got most of my homework done in school today, which is why I'm able to write in my blog again finally.
Today's Autumn's birthday. I got her a card and 2 pounds of Twizzlers (she loves them) and had Gary give it to her during lunch because I never see her during the day. According to him, she liked them. Her birthday party's going to be on Saturday, sleep-over... And the chances are really good that I will be able to go.
Another pretty awesome thing that happened today is that Mr Curtis got me coffee :) I come into 3rd hour today, totally tired, and as I sit down in my seat right in front of his desk, I can smell that he just got fresh coffee. So I say "That is really mean Mr Curtis... I'm very tired and I really really want a coffee right now... and I can smell yours." and he says "Yes I actually just got new coffee." Typical-Mr-Curtis-grin. Then he asks "Cream and sugar?" "No, black." "That must be a European thing. Isn't it? I heard they all drink their coffee black over there." "Umm... I don't know." "I know the Italians do..." well, and that's how our little coffee conversation pretty much came to an end.Then, 1.5 hours later, I'm sitting in B-lunch and at the end of B-lunch, Mr Curtis walks into the cafeteria, comes up to our table, sets a cup of coffee down in front of me and walks away with his Mr-Curtis-grin. You have no idea how happy I was.
So now, I officially love him. Veeery much.
In a week from tomorrow will be the opening night of our play. Scary. Rehearsals are a lot of fun though. They're at JAPAC now, the entire time. And I got some of my costumes now.

Silence is golden. Duct tape is silver.
(An amazing statement that I read on Adam's shirt today.)