2010

I messed up my painting. I'm really upset about it. And the family watched the worst movie ever tonight. Is it really 2010?
I want to go dancing. oh well.
Tomorrow my mom and I are going to try the Leek purge devised by Mireille Guiliano. My last ditch effort to try and get that whole weight situation under control after the holidays, in order to save my chances of making lightweight in time.

Cheers to the end of a terrible no good very bad year.

Goals for the year:

make lightweight
paint more
laugh more
write more
read more
get better grades
find a college I like/get recruited
get into college and survive the first two quarters of senior year
make CRASH-B

16th bday

Family in Georgetown after dinner at the Sequoia

Today was amazing...
and I am actually lying down and going to write a real post on why it was so good.
first off, this morning sucked. plain and simple.
I hate school, lord help me if I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, it is what it is.
So woke up normal time to my parents singing happy birthday which was nice, but then I didn't want to get up so there was a little bit of drama over me actually rising.
However it turned into a beautiful day.
I got to have dinner with my family by the river and ran into one of my friends Prom group which was funny.

And about 5 months later I don't remember a thing....I do remember that one person out of the some twenty who had promised to make me a cake did and it was a very pleasant surprise!

The rain cometh soon! They are forecasting one crazy storm...

So, I guess I have not been quite as regular in this posting thing as I should be so I figured I would post three or four pictures to make up for my recent lack of photosharing....
I have no real caption for this one.

Today is Tuesday... and what a Tuesday it was!
With English skit performances, chemistry labs, and phone repairs, it was not a bad day.
MY PHONE FINALLY WORKS AGAIN!!!!!
In chemistry our class has effectively been taught three units in the past eight days, today we started a lab. Tomorrow I have to make up a couple quizzes I missed. Thursday I have to make up a math test I missed. Friday I have to deal with in class discussion on Brave New World, which as it so happens I actually read! But finished forever ago...and am at a loss trying to remember all the nitty gritty little details.


But, this all does not take away from the fact that I survived performing in 19th century grab, hoop skirt and all, a play that I had all of 14 hours to memorize before being video taped by an unsympathetic classmate. Knowing my English teacher, I probably did not receive the best grade, I'm thinking C maybe B, only because my group got so turned around saying our lines. Oh well.

Today is special though, because my mom went to the trainer and nutritionist today... personally the woman did not tell my mother anything she didn't already know. She just said it all using bigger and fancier words. So now my family is on another health kick. I have to eat 9 to 10 vegetables and fruit a day for a week, before the introduction of sugar creeps its way back into my life.

I feel bad though, I splurged in a moment of weakness and bought ice cream at lunch today, horrible I know, but it totally ruined my little good streak of exercising after the end of the crew season. Speaking of which, I am so sore, it is unbelievable.

This is a picture of an activity my class did in AP world trying to figure what event was most influential in our history...

Today was interesting, I finally turned in my English essay on the relationship between the Lee/Custis family and the slaves at Arlington House. Oh research papers....
I am not a fan...

DAY 1

The Richmond Marathon is months away and training has commenced.
Today I pulled out a bunch of my summer clothes and decided I would wear a long black sheath dress with T-strap wedge heels. It was nice to be able to just pull into a little dress and enjoy the fresh air.

Barefoot freedom

Small rocks submerged at Mercer Lake New Jersey. I took this picture while watching boats race at Nationals.

The rain is crashing down in one glorious sheath. It smells so good. I am out on the porch and the May rain is misting in through the screen. It comes and goes in degrees of intensity, but it is so wonderful.

Thunder booms and cracks adding to a symphony of rain drops and swirling water on the street below.

My heels are black from the shoes I wore yesterday. They are these cheap little ballet flats that I adore. But whenever I get them wet the soles of the shoes rub against my feet and leave a black residue that you have to scrub to get off.

A picture of my little yellow umbrella that I took with a disposable film camera, thought it was fitting for the circumstances.

Moving into today though, I walked home barefoot in the rain. It was lovely. I had been wearing rubber flip-flops that were giving me blisters that hurt like the Dickens. I abandon any hope for the salvation of my feet and put the water logged plastic footwear in my bag.
It was a lovely end to a hectic day.
This morning I awoke at 7:30ish. This unheard of. I do not wake up early...nine, I consider early. I don't really function like a normal human being until 10... at least. But today I woke up early for no reason what so ever and realized some six minutes after waking up that I had a total of five hours before I had to be at school.
This was a wonderful revelation. That was soon dissipated.
My parents decided it would be nice if I tagged along with them again (YES!) to the doctors office (...oh...)
It was nice though, I accompanied my mother to her check up in Georgetown and sat in the car while she and my father unloaded boxes full of shirts and hats carrying her companies insignia, once we got to her office on K street. After dropping mom off, I drove (*gasp*) my father and I all the way to Best Buy. At this point I was grinding my teeth with growing anxiety concerned about getting to school and finishing an English essay. But! It all worked out. I was able to purchase a spiffy new power cord for my computer to replace the one I lost (yes I loose everything) and made it to school with ten minutes to spare! I dare anyone to try and beat the time I made getting from Bailey's Cross Roads all the way back to Arlington.
School was pretty much uneventful, except I missed my AP World Presentation because I was printing my AP World Presentation and the computer in the library hated me. So the rest of my group winged it and apparently did very well explaining to our teacher that we would be doing a documentary on George Washington...in outer space?
Strange things happen in that class.
The rest of the day went by smoothly and I learned that my essay is actually due tomorrow! instead of today...

You never know whats coming for you

This is my "hmm, that sure is nice" face

This quote is from the popular film Benjamin Button. It was a very beautiful movie in my opinion and although I really could not connect with any of the characters in much of any sense at all, I do have quite a few stories that could go along with that quote about not knowing whats going to happen.

Like today for example:

SOL week has granted me a strange and wonderful opportunity! I do not have to be at school until noon all week.

With this said, I slept in until about nine today, awoke wonderfully refreshed and ready to conquer the day. Given that today was the day that the President was said to be announcing his choice for the vacant Supreme Justice position, my parents schedule was a toss up and race around the block type of situation. My mother works for a non-profit organization where the competition is everyone and anyone who might get there press release out faster than her organization might be able to. She tends to be pretty good at what she does:

Washington Post

Associated Press

AUL!

What a fun day rushing about in downtown DC!


And! It was the last day of crew!!! I can hear the Hallelujah chorus...
All in all I learned a lot this season, I dropped about 20 seconds off my 2k time (!) and can sit happy and proud on a 7:39.2 time! Yes this year had its ups and downs, but it was probably one of the bests I've ever had.
For our last day at the boathouse we put away boats and through our coxswains in the water and took pictures. That was about it. I bought my friends ice cream and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I was not elected to be our class representative but I figure you can't have everything. Next year I will be the vice president of our class, hopefully make it onto first eight again, and be taking a good number of art classes.

Trust v. lust

I thought this picture of a lily that I took a few days ago was fitting, its all wrapped up trying to hide from the rest of the world just like me. its really sad. Hiding its wonderful colors from the rest of the world, I set in B&W just for the irony.

The other night my neighbor threw a very successful party...

I did not attend.

*sigh*

As I have already explained I can not join in such festivities as those that took place next door the other night, should I wish to remain in my parents good graces.

It was the most terrible feeling in the world sitting out all day on the porch, hoping for something unexpected to happen out of the blue. Meanwhile I read my English book (*gasp* God forbid I actually finish a reading assignment on time this year!) Brave New World. Troubling. That is the word I would use to describe writings such as Aldous Huxley's. The "brave" soulless clones of a futuristic London went about there preordained work and encountered the fascinating discovery of a savage born of a civilized woman (the embarrassment!), all the while my mind wandered and battled to concentrate on those depressing words of genius concerning the future of mankind.

The title of this post goes out to that night when my parents decided we should have movie night. We watched Bedtime Stories. Very cute. Very family oriented. Anyways afterword John and I ran next door, it killed me, it really did to see all my friends having a ball and not being allowed to go inside. John and I stayed out on the porch for all of three minutes while we asked our neighbor how it was going. Distracted. That would be the one word analysis for that interaction. Sad and disappointing if you want to go a little deeper.

I don't particularly like thinking about why I even went over there in the first place when I knew I would only leave even more disappointed than before. But I know why.

This was all Saturday. Sunday was a blur. I can not remember a thing. No crew for one thing (!) we didn't go to church either? Odd. I finished Brave New World. A friend of mine really wanted to hang out, she is a bad influence so I didn't go off with her. Monday was one long chore. Memorial Day. I sorted shoes. Very ironic to have to sort worn out shoes covered in mud on a day we are supposed to set aside for remembrance of those who trecked far and wide to protect freedom. It wasn't that bad, really. It felt like a waste of an afternoon, but it made my mother happy and it seems as if that is the only reassurance other than grades that I have to validate any work I find myself doing.

Rowing. my day of under currents

This is me. Courtesy of my little sister. This is my "are you kidding me?" face. Today day was one of those days where I wore this face perpetually...

I row. It's a race.
And today I let myself think I was done with it.

Today was the first day of the Scholastic National Regatta. My boat raced in the heats and got fourth so we had to race in the repecharge race instead of moving on straight to semi-finals. We came in fifth at reps when we needed to make third.
The problem with this race was that our lane (lane six), the steak (I doubt that is the correct way to spell that) boat (the mini floating dock that has a person on it to hold the boat in place before the race/helps keep boats in alignment before the race) had sort of deflated and they didn't want to put a person on it for fear that the whole contraption would sink or otherwise fall to pieces endangering the person in charge of being the steak-boat holder.
The problem with this scenario is that you need a stake (I think that way is more correct...not positive) boat for the start when the race isn't going off a floating start or a head race start. So to fix the problem the officials pushed my boat into lane 7....instead of a stake boat there was this little tin can of a boat tied down, that they put the stake-boat holder in...to hold our boat for the start.
To further complicate this whole transaction the wind and current decided to change up on us and push in every which way except for that in the direction of the make shift stake-boat. Eventually after a good few minutes of trial and error our coxswain managed to back us into the lane and get alignment for the start. The officials called a count down start. Generally they just go "ATTENTION....GO" no, today they had to go: "ATTENTION...ALL HANDS ARE DOWN...WE WILL DO A COUNTDOWN START NO HANDS WILL BE ACKNOWLEDGED...5......4..........3.............2.....................1...................................GO"
They literally called this the second we got allignment. Usually they wait and drag out the drama of it all for a good minute before calling the start after all the boats get in position, apparently we wasted their patience and they called the start immediatly while we are still recovering from the nervous energy and anxiouty caused by the dumb move of pushing our boat into lane 7.
Our start was a mess with the adrenaline and our nerves flying everywhere. One girl missed water and the rest of us just tried to follow stroke. We roewed as if the devils own were after us.
We where on it. We rowed so together it was fantastic. The most intoxicating race. One that you love to watch because it is such a fight and you never know who's going to make a move and win. Six tenths of a second. The time difference between us and making it to semi's.

So that was the race that I ended my season with. Or so I thought.
Our team is upset, tired, exhausted, you think of an adjective we feel it in our bones.
We went out to diner at Ruby Tuesday's, fun stuff seeing as since we don't have to row tomorrow we can eat anything we want...then we get some *good* news: we are in the semi-finals.


...


So my season isn't done? Oh.
Does that mean I can't eat my New Orleans Seafood plater?
Wait? I had planned on a nice evening consiting of Ben and Jerry's and a couch...does this mean thats going to be called off???

I had my shrimp, my ice cream, my headache...all I am waiting for now is the nervous breakdown.
This year has shot my system. I can bearly lift my arms I am so tired and sore. I am begining to genuinly hate some people. I have lost the motivation to push onward.
This season was one week, just one week, too long.

Tomorrow we will race yet again and I really at this point don't know what to think. It's as if everything is going wrong and I can't fix any of it.