Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Okay, this is going to be the last journal entry....here, that is. *grand fanfare* The new site will be open either this weekend or next week. Really. And there was great rejoicing. Anyway.

Where have I been all weekend? Well, working on the site and at my Mommy's house. You see, she went to Maryland for my grandfather's surgery for his cancer. He's in intensive care now, and he's not doing very well. Lol, she called and said he was "very grumpy". He's grumpy all the time, but I can only imagine how he'd be after an operation. Anyway, they expect that he will be fine and we shall see.

As my final entry here, I have to tell one more story, of course. I was in 2D class today, working on a project called "World of Chaos." We had to create a "world" on our paper that was abstracted and confusing and used the techniques of motion and movement. But...it had to be a recognizable place, even if it was abstracted. I'm working on the world of Harry Potter. Chris, the teacher said, and I quote "It's really looking really good." Yes. Ahem. English is not his subject. But that's not the story. I was trying to get my stuff out of my bookbag, and I discovered that my bag of charcoal had broken and there was crushed charcoal covering everything. I didn't really care, I just stuck my hand in and pulled out what I wanted. Then I figured that I didn't want charcoal all over me, so I needed to wash my hands. Our classroom is attached to the printmaking room, which is attached to two offices, with big windows separating them. Chris's office is one of the two. So here I go, towards the sink in the printmaking room, holding my hand up so that I don't get charcoal on my clothes. Apparently I was holding it in a way that made it look like I was injured. Chris practically runs out of his office and over to me and is like "What did you do! Are you okay!?" I showed him my hand and very seriously said "I had an accident." He thought it was very funny. I thought it was nice that he was checking on me. The end.

I was just thinking and I remember this one time, we were at my grandparents house for Christmas. We went to Christmas Eve Mass, and their church is half the size of mine, with twice as many people. That's cities for you. ;) About halfway during the service, I got sudden claustrophobia or something, and I was dizzy and I was going to throw up, so I got up from the seat and ran outside. (It was very obvious, too, because we were all kneeling at the time, lol.) I didn't stop to think that it was snowing outside. So I was standing there, trying to feel better so I could go back in, and my grandfather came outside, with my coat. And he stayed out there for the rest of the service with me, even though he hates missing church. And then he complained the whole way home about various things like people, snow, and traffic. And poked me at the dinner table while we were trying to eat. He's mean like that. ;)



Tuesday, October 22, 2002

I skipped one class today and hung out at Julie's house for a few hours. And no, don't fuss at me, I've never skipped class, ever. It's not like I missed anything. I talked to Amanda and all we did was draw. Oh, and most people failed their midterms and we're going to have quizzes every week to make up for it. But I must say, that test was a lot harder than it should have been. We'll see when I get my grade on Thursday. Julie and I talked a lot, which is good because we haven't seen each other since um...July? But our relationship is weird. I walked in and it was like we've seen each other every day, nothing ever changes. I know, I'm very, very lucky. She and her sister (who teaches at VSU) are moving to a condo in town soon, very close to the university. Too bad they don't need another roommate ;) I told her I'd help them decorate. All three of us have a thing for decorating, but our styles are all completely different. There will be issues, I'm sure.

Then I went to my art educator's meeting and my crafts class. We washed and cut our gourds. What else, what else. Oh, my Mommy is leaving for Maryland tomorrow. I think I had the days wrong in a previous entry. But this is the exciting news: My Mommy is taking me to....DISNEY WORLD! December 6-8 For Mickey's Christmas Party. We've been before, we used to go to Disney all the time. But I haven't been in two whole years. Anyway, this is like special, reserved passes where they only let a limited number of people in the park from 11 pm until 3 am or something like that. All I know is that there are no lines, and there is no hot sunshine. Last time we went, it even rained. So we rode Splash Mountain four times in a row. It was absolutely wonderful. Then there's a day of shopping at Downtown Disney, and then I come home and take finals. We're even staying in a Disney hotel...the All Star Sports Resort. I will probably talk about this a lot, but you can ignore my excitement. Or just tell me to shut up. Sunday, October 20, 2002

This is how it's going: The new site is very, very close to being finished. I have to upload all of the pages of all of the stories, but since they're pretty much all the same, it won't be so bad. Then I have to format the art section to make it look right, make a Links page, and do a few little things in the Tri-Leader half. I don't have to work until Thursday, so there is a good chance I can have a grand opening next weekend. But don't count on that.

The thing that I'm most proud of is the Library. All of our stories are there, in order, and they make so much sense together it's weird. Very, very few were intended to go together, but somehow, it just works.

So today I was supposed to write a research paper. It's not due until the fourth, though. So I just got all of my sources together and I technically have everything done, including the bibliography. There is just no paper to go with it. However, the paper is not allowed to be more than 2 pages, and all I have to do is discuss some art. And I was supposed to do some sketches for my 2D class, but since I have tomorrow afternoon off, what else do I have to do?

Today, after pretending to write my paper, I played the Sims Vacation. My guy set the stove on fire on the first day and burned down the house. Sigh. I gave up and moved on to the Nintendo 64, which I stole from my brother. It's not like he'll miss it. I played Zelda: Majora's Mask. I got as far as the Snow Temple thing before I died. Then I didn't want to play anymore. At some point, I'm going to use this AV cable and hook up the SuperNintendo. I had one for it, but the sound didn't work. Then I can play Earthbound some more. And Illusion of Gaia, maybe.

Tomorrow is Julie's birthday, so Happy Birthday! You never emailed me back, so I'm gonna call you and ask when I can come give you a present. Oh, and one more thing? Can I just say that I'm glad to be back? I had a wonderful time last night in the chat.



Thursday, October 17, 2002

I believe that I owe however many readers there are an apology. I haven't been around very much lately, and that's entirely my own fault. So here I am.

And it's not that I've been really busy, either. School is dragging along rather well. I've decided what classes to take next semester and my advisor, poor confused woman that she is, approved of them. And thank goodness, only one studio class. I did that on purpose, really.

There's this big inauguration thing tomorrow in the Fine Arts building for the university's new president. Dr. Zacarri used to be an art teacher himself, so we're really hoping that means we'll get good funding in the fine arts department. Don't die from shock now, but Mr. Edwards gave me an A on a really big project, which is almost unheard of in his class. He said to keep it because he might want to put it up for the ceremony. *crosses fingers* I measured, and it's six feet tall. It's a drawing in graphite, charcoal, and oil pastel....of a can opener. I would never choose to draw that, but Mr. Edwards handed it to me and told me to. I'm proud of it, but I'm sick of looking at it and working on it.

Tonight was an adventure in crafts class. We had to drive to Morven. Yes, Morven. It doesn't have a dot on a map, but hey, it's bigger than Clyattville. They even have a flashing yellow light at their intersection. And what were we doing there? We went the gourd farm! We're getting gourds for projects in class. I think I'm making a cute little container with some beads around it. I think. So anyway, there we were. Highway 94. We got lost. At least me and two other people did. See, the thing is, everyone drove separately so that we could all leave when we needed to. Anyway, we all managed to find our teacher at a pecan farm and pulled over on the side of the road. And waited. Everyone did get there, and we proceeded in a 9-car convoy down several dirt roads. We arrived at the gourd farm around sunset. (night classes) This was at the top of a "hill", or at least at a slightly higher elevation than the land around it. Around the farm were cotton fields. The cotton is almost ready to be picked and it looked like we were surrounded by fields of snow. And it was bonfire weather, too. Absolutely wonderful. Then, here comes the owner, in his little golf cart. We look at gourds, pick the ones we want, pay for them, and go home. It was a "gourd" time! *hysterical laughter* Ahem, cough, yes.



Wednesday, October 9, 2002

Don't give up on me! I'm still here! Just really, really busy. Besides, I've been annoyed lately and haven't been in any sort of mood to get online. So there. :-P

Things that have happened: School, homework, some more homework, work, school, more homework, etc...Oh, and my brother Matt is now 18 and my stepbrother is 14. Guess who got the party that lasted all weekend, and guess who only got a card? My brother got a card from my dad and stepmom and that was it. My Mommy and me and Marc gave him presents and went out to dinner and all that. My stepbrother got the new video games and the camp out with his friends all weekend. Yes, very fair. Sigh. I never did get a real count of how many teenage boys were in the field, but my rearview mirror did mysteriously fall off of my car, and my radio stations got changed all around. Suspicious. Then the boy down the street that I used to babysit was also having a camp-out thing. The two groups had a football match in the field. It was sort of like a gang war. There were many injuries.

My grandpa is having surgery for his cancer in two weeks and my Mommy is going to Maryland for that. I think I'll be babysitting Marc, who is 13, and doesn't really need a babysitter, but he'd get in trouble if he didn't have one. ;)

They have new Harry Potter stuff at Walmart. I have the little miniature castle and all of the attachments, but now there's a little Quidditch field! I was very excited, but I'm a poor art student and couldn't get it. I did, however, get the brand-new Snape action figure. He looks the same as the first one, but he has a cauldron. A snake flies out of it when you move his wand. And there was much rejoicing.

I was invited to go to the movies with Meghan and Amanda! Yay! We planned to go see the Banger Sisters. Oh wait, no, they cancelled at the last minute. So I complained to Jeff about it. And wonderful guy that he is, he offered to take me. But wait, he didn't have money. So we planned to go last night. I went to pick him up after class, and hang on, he can't go. He forgot that he had to do a project. I drove all the way to town for nothing. So he got down on the floor in the middle of the hallway and begged me to forgive him. And plus, he promised to take me to see Tuck Everlasting this weekend. Which is really what I wanted to see anyway. We'll see if it works out or not.



Monday, September 30, 2002

It's not that long if you skip the last half or so about my most recent strange dream.

So. Where have I been? I couldn't really tell you before last Thursday, I seem to have forgotten. We started making baskets out of these reed things on Thursday, and they smell terrible, because you have to soak them in water. It gave me a headache and I felt really sick, but I thought it was just the project. Apparently not. I vaguely seem to remember throwing up from Thursday night until Saturday morning. But no worries! I am all better, because Phenergan is some good stuff!

Anyway, I did not go to class on Friday, and I expected to be behind on my projects today. Luckily, I am not. The first thing that greeted me in the hallway, was seeing my first photography project in the display case! I was very excited. And somehow, I'm way ahead of people in that class. Our next project is to make photograms with various transparent and/or semi-transparent objects. I'm definitely taking my Harry Potter collector stones-things. In drawing, we're learning to draw things really big. My current project is about twice the size of my bedroom door, and it is one of those old-fashioned, manual, can openers ;) Mr. Edwards assigned our objects, I definitely did not choose it. I worked on it in class, then I left. But...out in the hallway, Mr. Edwards stopped me and said "Your drawing is looking good, what do you think?" I almost dropped it on the floor from shock. I wanted to say "Mr. Edwards? Are you feeling okay? Did I give you my virus?" Because he never, ever says things like that. Ever.

Work was fine. Until...I had to draw blood from one five-year-old girl, but there was no way she was letting me near her. So I just poked her finger with one of those things (which to me, is worse than the other. I *hated* that part when I had to get it done). The poking part was fine, but then she jerked away. I still had a grip on her, so I got yanked into the table. She started screaming. I could NOT get her to unbend her finger to A. Let me go and B. Get the blood sample. Her mom couldn't hold her down. I thought I was going to break her finger, so I called another nurse in there, and Robin tried to hold her still, but it wasn't working, and she called Monica to help. Blood is going everywhere, I can't let go because I'll never get close enough to touch her finger ever again if I do, she's kicking Robin and Monica, she's screaming, and this is just the finger part. She had to get shots, too. There was much excitement. After that, it was time to go home.

In other news, I watched the ABC movie "Prince William" Sunday night. Let me just say this, which is exactly what I was thinking while watching it: "What the hell?" Not a traditional thing for me to think, I know, but what was that? I admit, it would be an okay movie....if it was fictional! But people! That's someone's life, and you don't even know if it was really like that! I wanted to kick them. And he didn't really look like Prince William. The guy playing Prince Charles did a decent job, though.

Um...what else? Oh, I had a creepy dream last night. It was scary at the time, and I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, but nightmares are like that. They seem a whole lot different in the morning. Especially when I point out how stupid mine was. Might as well brace yourselves for Lord of the Rings characters, because what else do I dream about? I've accepted this fact. Okay, so it started out in the dining room at my Daddy's house. It has a bar-type-thing separating it from the kitchen. I was with an army. The good side, because Aragorn was leading it. There were elves and men and such, but I didn't see any hobbits around. No Elijah Wood, very disappointing. King Theoden was there, too. All of us, and I mean, all of us, were hiding on one side of the bar. But wait...the other army was approaching from the kitchen! Orcs, and Ringwraiths, led by the (laugh at this one) "Evil King Theoden".

There we all were, trapped in the dining room, no way out. Aragorn had to decide whether to jump out and over the bar and attack them, or wait for them to jump over to our side or whatever. So here comes Galadriel, because of course she's there, too. She shows Aragorn a vision of what would happen if he attacked. I saw his vision, and basically everyone, including me, would die painful deaths. He decides not to do this. I haven't figured out what the evil army was doing while all this was happening. They were in slow motion in the kitchen, or having a snack, or something. So Aragorn has to come up with something else. Here comes Arwen, she says 'Look up!' We look up, expecting battle axes, but Aragorn sees a hole in the wood under the bar. He reaches in, pulls out a bracelet, the evil side jumps over the bar, he suddenly has super-human powers, and kills most of them. Then he says something like "You're really my father! I hate you!" and kicks Good King Theoden, causing "Evil King Theoden" to die. And this is when it really gets strange.

If you've ever seen the movie Robin Hood, Men in Tights, you know the female costumes that the men dress up in when they go to the archery tournament. Well. All the elves decide that since most of the army is defeated, they're going to get out and go live in the woods. So they disguise themselves in costumes similar to the Robin Hood ones and sneak past. I'm still hiding under the bar. Aragorn and Lurtz (who is supposed to be dead, he died in the first movie, I know) decide to have a little battle to the death outside. Sort of like a "Let's take this outside so we don't mess up the tiles" sort of thing. Aragorn even holds the door open for Lurtz. I'm still staring, Good King Theoden is still unconscious next to me on the floor. I get up and go to my old bedroom in that house. Someone is in there, hiding from the Orc in the living room. If he goes out in the hallway, the Orc can see him and shoot him. The Ring of Power is on the floor in the room. I pick it up and look out in the hall. This Orc, in the dream, is terrifing to me. He looks like an ostrich. Ostrich (ostriches?) are not scary. Yes. The other, unidentified "guy" in the room peers out around me. The Orc sees, we duck inside the door, an arrow flies by. I make a run for the bathroom and slam the door. The Orc starts pounding on the door, I think I'm going to die, and I wake up. I think I need mental help or something. ;)



Saturday, September 21, 2002

We got a new kitten! He's very cute because he hasn't grown into his ears and his feet yet. His name is Bandit (not my choice) and he lives at my Mommy's house. My cats hate him, but they'll get over it because he spends weekends with me. They got used to the dog, they can deal with a kitten. Right now he's got his head stuck under my desk, he thinks he's hiding. The rest of him is sticking out.

My second roll of film came out right when I developed it! Yay! Mr. Edwards pointed out my series composition to the class because he liked it. But remember, just because he likes it doesn't mean I'll get a good grade. And the Art History test was easy. If I didn't get an A, the lowest I can get is an 88 because I absolutely knew all of the answers to the rest of them.

As a final note, yes, I do have a domain name now. I'm currently moving all of the stuff from this site. It's progressing, but it's slow. Just think of how many pages each of the Sagas has. Even with my ftp finally working, it takes time. And I know you want to know what it is. If you subject yourself to an interview, you can find out. ;)



Thursday, September 19, 2002

I have an art history test tomorrow! Have I studied? Nope! Am I going to? Nope! She gave us sample questions. I could have never been to class and still answered those questions correctly. Oh, and the arts perspectives class had an assignment displayed downstairs. They had to develop a new name for a cereal and create a cereal box for their product. The best one made me laugh in the middle of the hallway. People stared, but that's okay, because I thought it was a wonderful idea. If you get this, you'll understand. If you don't get it, then just nevermind. ;) "Bravo Charms! Man, they're yummy!"

Ahem, yes. So where was I last night? Did I finally get a life and do something besides get online? Of course not. I spent the night at my Mommy's house so that I could get up early on one of my rare sleeping-in days and take my brother to the orthodontist. I was not amused.

We actually had a good time in 2D design class today. No, the assignment was tedious and pointless as usual, but we were all hyper or something. At least the back half of the room. It wasn't that we talked about anything important really, we just had a good time. As of right now, I don't have much homework this weekend, and I get paid for my whole 10 hours tomorrow. That means I can probably actually get the new site and work on it. Technically, it's all ready, it just has to be put together. If you want to volunteer something like a story or some art (for unrevealed reasons mwhahaha!) feel free to do so. And if you are fairly knowledgeable about the Tri-Leaders and want to participate in a special interview, you can ask me about that, too.



Sunday, September 15, 2002

Yay! Sunday school has finally become fun. The kids know my name, and my personality, and I know theirs. It's very exciting when everything finally seems to work. Oh, and the parent who's been in my room every time? She talked to me today about how her daughter has diabetes and she asked me what I knew about it. So of course, I went into my whole "My entire family is in the medical field, I work at a pediatrician's office, I'm fully trained in every kind of first aid and CPR, this is what you do for diabetic people, etc..." speech. And she said "Really? Then it seems like you'd have it all under control. Here's her stuff in case of emergency, I'll be back to pick her up." *dances* No more parent! Not that I minded entirely, but now I can act stupid and I can make mistakes. It's like I have to be perfect with parents there. Noah told me today that I was silly.

And what else...oh, Clayton refused to do anything, but I left him alone and he eventually picked up a crayon and started coloring. Thomas is going to deplete my construction paper supply. He comes up with all of these ideas to make "stuff." That's what it is, just "stuff," but he's happy. I taught Thomas's older brother last year, and that whole family is great. The director, Susan, had lost my papers that I wanted copied, so she was freaking out and apologizing. I told her it was okay, the kindergarten class had the same supplies, I could borrow theirs to make copies. After class, she came by to apologize again and told me I was "wonderful." She ordered a new program which we will start in October. It's very cute and I'm happy with it.

I didn't write in here that the teacher whose classroom I use on Sundays wrote me a not-very-nice letter about how I got her books out of order, her toys not in the right spot, paper towels in the bathroom, that kind of thing. I was told not to touch any of her things. She was especially angry that I had messed with the air conditioner, which I did not touch. Susan did that. I showed it to Susan, and she wrote a letter back during the week that, from what I hear, wasn't very nice either. ;) But no note today! This teacher is new at the school and didn't know that Sunday School uses the classrooms. But if she's that obsessive about her books being in order, she has problems. How does her kindergarden class keep them in order during the week?

Oh! About the tropical storm. It rained here, the wind blew, the sky looked dangerous.....for about five minutes. *kicks weather man* The TV was flashing messages like "Flood warning" and there was no rain outside. I don't know what they were talking about. When it did get windy, the flag outside (attached to the house) looked like it was about to snap off, so I went out there in the rain and unscrewed the pole to take it down. It was very exciting. And then it stopped. *kicks weather man again*



Friday, September 13, 2002

Fairly long today...

I was wandering around campus on Thursday and I ran into David! He hugged me, I was happy. Actually, I wasn't wandering aimlessly (Not all who wander are lost...) I was heading for the registrar's office. I had to get a verification of enrollment thing. So anyway, David was on his way home, and I told him I'd drop by after I went to the registrar. He said okay and gave me directions, it was the second house on the right, and it was blue. And I swear, I went down that street, and there was no blue house. So I went home.

Today I saw SamIAm. I ate lunch with Sam way back in 10th grade. He sat at our table. And Julie I think called him Sam I Am, and he responded to it. I don't know if she started it or if someone else did, but everyone seemed to call him that. He even signed my yearbook as SamIAm. One word. ;) I didn't talk to him, he was on the other side of the street, but I saw him, and that counts. That makes a total of three people I've seen so far this year that I know.

Okay, I developed more pictures. And now that I know how, I'm tired of that class. He better teach us new techniques or something. Mr. Edwards gave us eggs to draw in class for a value study. During class, he came over and looked at mine, I looked up at him and smiled, and he said "What? I'm only doing my job! I have to look!" He told us to take them home and practice some more. Yes, I carried an egg around. It was hard-boiled, thank goodness. Dr. Davis taught us about Hatshepsut today. Nothing new, really. Except that she kept emphasizing the fact that she was *not* a cross-dresser. It was very hard not to laugh. Seriously, every slide. "This is another statue of Hatshepsut in the costume of the king, although she was not a cross-dresser." And I have another great story about that class today. We had more fun than we've ever had in art history.

There is one guy in our class, Matt, who has a pacemaker. He was in the sculpture studio last week and it went off, and they took him to the hospital and all that. He was back today. Okay. This other guy who sits two seats behind me today had a cell phone. But he turned it on 'vibrate' so that it wouldn't ring in class. Then he put in the seat in front of him. The plastic seat. Well, of course, it starts vibrating and rattling around in the seat. He reached over to grab it and couldn't reach it. Meanwhile, Dr. Davis is freaking out. "Matt! Is that your pacemaker! Do you need to go? Are you okay?!" We're all laughing hysterically because the guy is still trying to grab the phone, which is making lots of noise. He finally gets it turned off, we're still laughing, and she's saying "You're sure it's not the pacemaker?" Since it was almost the end of class, she realized that she had no control left over the class and let us go. We were all putting away our stuff and one girl says "Hey Matt! Next time, take out your pacemaker before class, it's disruptive!" He laughed and said "But I was so excited about art history!" Definite sarcasm. It was a great class.

Downstairs, I went to read the Art Student League message center board. It had a new paper. A sheet for people to suggest activities for the ASL. Some suggestions were: socials, pizza parties, fundraising for pizzas and M&M's, community service because we're senstive like that, and group therapy. Yay for art people! Anyway, I met my Mommy and she bought me photo paper and lunch. Then we went back to her house, started a new puzzle, and that's it!

If you didn't know, there's a Tropical Storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Hannah, I think. Anyway, it's heading towards where I live. Or at least the rain bands are. I haven't seen the news lately, but we're supposed to have flooding, strong winds, possible tornados, that kind of thing all day tomorrow. You wouldn't think that South Georgia gets many hurricanes/tropical storms. But we get them from both sides. If it comes in from the Atlantic, we mostly get just rain, but from the Gulf of Mexico, we're not that far. It gets bad sometimes. But we've battened down the hatches! Unless that lawn chair decides to crash through my window. I'm not expecting it to be too terrible at all, but if I'm not online tomorrow, it's because I have no power or there's a lot of lightning or something. Hey, it'll be a good time to do some homework! Where did I put that egg?



Wednesday, September 11, 2002

It seems like I should do something patriotic today. Well, I did listen to the radio station in town that played patriotic-type music all day with no commercials, but I don't know. Because you see, to me, it's not real. Even last year, it wasn't real. That never even happened. Maybe my brain will process it one day, but not yet. I mean, logically, of course I know, but nope, nothing happened. Just another day. The city of Valdosta had a ceremony at 8:30 this morning, but I didn't hear about it until 7:30 this morning, and I'm fairly sure not very many people knew about it. I heard in class that something was going on tonight on campus, but I never figured out what that was. But yes, just another day.

And in my "just a day, just an ordinary day" ;) I went to class, fixed that angel picture, got rare praise from Mr. Edwards for my drawing (which still doesn't mean I'll get a good grade), listened to another lecture about ancient Egyptian architecture, dropped off some books at the library, got an enrollment verification form at the Registar's, went the dentist, built a puzzle with my mom, and came home. That's all. Oh, and I now have a completely finished design for the new site. I'll be moving as soon as I work enough days to save up some money.

Um, what else? I called Ann last night! She wasn't expecting me to call, and I made her guess who I was. I thought it was great fun. We talked about much stuff. Sort of. Not important stuff, just stuff. Oh, and we made macrame bracelets out of hemp last night. It looks very complicated, but it's very easy. We enjoyed it. Tomorrow is stick weaving, whatever that is. Must be weaving with sticks. ;)

I sort of think I should do something patriotic now, so I'll type the lyrics to one of the songs I heard on the radio today.

I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
And gave that right to me
And I'll gladly stand up next to you
And defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt, I love this land
God bless the USA

Yes, God bless America.



Monday, September 9, 2002

I've discovered that Mr. Park is a perfectionist. I made five prints of my angel statue picture today. Every one he looked at had something wrong with it. "Change the light here, more time in the developer, the focus isn't exactly right, etc, etc..." I was not amused. That paper is expensive. And they all looked just fine to me. Oh, and my camera was set to print the date in the corner of each picture. I didn't even know it had that feature, so I didn't know to turn it off. He's not very happy with it, but he said I didn't have to re-shoot a whole extra roll of film. I'm going to make some extra copies (if I don't run out of paper) so that I can play around with the toner and try to get the date off of it. But let's not tell him that, he'd have to help me and I'd never get done. Oh! WAIT! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I just realized this, right now. Why can't I enlarge it just a little more? The date will be cut off of the paper! Brilliant! *dances* That will work! And there was much rejoicing.

Mr. Edwards made us draw a still life of white objects with a white background and a white sheet. Can we say "yay"? The class certainly didn't. Sigh. He walked around and told everyone what they were doing wrong, but he never said anything to me. Not that I asked. And I'm not sure if that's good or bad. He didn't say anything about the first project and I still got a C. But, I'll just wait until the critique on Wednesday. I think that if Art History gets any more boring, we're all going to fall over and die. We talked about pyramids for an hour. No wait, not all of the famous ones in Egypt. Just *one* pyramid. Khafra's pyramid. An entire hour. And I didn't learn a thing that I didn't already know.

I got to go back to work today! I was so excited. They even got me lunch! And said that they missed me and was glad I was back. Like I was sick or on a trip or something. It's not like I didn't work because I was unable to. I didn't because I was told not to. I was actually glad to be back. We had a good time. And you can laugh at me if you want to for this one: Two boys were leaving after they got shots. I was going the opposite direction, pushing the blood pressure machine thing. They asked me what it was, so I stopped and told them. Then their dad told them to hurry up. I told them bye, waved, turned around to push my thing and make an impressive exit, and tripped over it. I caught myself before I fell down, but I didn't say a word, I just kept going. They didn't laugh behind me, which means they probably weren't looking. This is a good thing. I laughed at myself. I thought it was something John, Lord of Darkness (dum dum duummm!!) woiuld do. Which reminds me, John and I are past our non-writing period right now, and the whole musical is progressing nicely. Except for one tiny part, all of Act One is completed, and a lot of Act Two is done. Oh wait, better make that two tiny parts in Act One, I found a plot hole yesterday. *goes off to fix it*



Sunday, September 8, 2002

My brother has apparently chosen me to be his sponsor for Confirmation. This is supposedly an honor to be chosen, because Confirmation is a big thing at our church. He just said "Oh, Margie, you're my sponsor." and I said "I am? Okay?" We had to participate in the Enrollment Ceremony thing today where all of the candidates and their sponsors stand in front of the church. The candidates are all 8th graders, that's when you are confirmed. The priest asks the candidates if they're sure they want to join the church, they say yes, he asks the sponsors if they are going to help, they say yes, he asks the other church members if they will welcome the new people into the church, they say yes. So anyway, Father John said, "Okay, kids. The answer to your question is yes." He made it a joke. After he asked and they said yes the first time, he said "Are you sure?" Everyone laughed.

Then we went to visit my Mommy at the hospital. There was a new nurse at the desk, so she was suprised when I just walked in without saying anything to the receptionist. She stopped me and asked me who I was. I said "Um...my mom works here, I'm going in her office." (She shares an office with people because they do phone triage.) She kind of follwed me in to make sure I belonged there, and when she saw that I did, she left. Then my brother came in and did the same thing. We thought it was funny.

Mary from the office called me and said that they want me to come to work this week. But not Friday. I told them I would. I need a paycheck. I get to decide what picture I want to actually enlarge for my project tomorrow. I think I'm going to use the one I did of my stepmother's angel statue in the yard. It turned out well, and I might give it to her for a Christmas present. In fact, I think I will. One present down, a lot more to go!



Thursday, September 5, 2002

I am alive! Really! Let's see. I didn't write anything for a week because I really didn't have anything to write. I had to stay at my mom's for most of Labor Day weekend, so I didn't get to talk to Ann. (Hey, Ann, if you read this at school, I'm going to email you! I promise! John and I finished all of Act 1! I think...)

Um...well...I developed my first roll of film. Mr. Park said we all did a good job. Being in the film loading room, in complete darkness, with people trying to pass around the bottle opener and the scissors was great fun. You had to reach out and feel around for people. We had a good time. I made a Native American ribbon pouch, complete with beaded fringe in my crafts class! I'll have to scan it or something. It's very pretty.

My Mommy was out shopping and she found the 2001 Hallmark Harry Potter Christmas ornaments on sale. One was Snape! He's watching Harry make a potion. If you stick a light in the bottom of the ornament, the cauldron lights up. However, Snape looks just wrong. Wrong, I tell you. The other one is the Mirror of Erised, and it looks surprisingly good. They were made by different sculptors, obviously.

And really, that's all I have to say. Oh, except that I don't have to work until about November. How am I supposed to buy Christmas presents? Oh wait, that's right. I'm making my own this year. If you're reading this, you haven't been asked the hypothetical cult question yet, you think we're pretty good friends, and you are interested, please ask me about it. Unless you are Martin, in which case it doesn't matter if you ask or not, and I will explain that to you. ;)