Pages

Friday, November 27, 2015

Thursday November 26, 2015 {Thanksgiving!}

1. Got up and didn't do much for a while. I convinced Isabelle to help me decide what to wear, and we spent quite a while trying to figure that out. Probably much longer than necessary, considering how those things usually go. :P

2. We went to my grandmother's house for our usual festivities. It was very small and quiet this year because none of my cousins were there. One was in Scotland and the other two were in Palm Springs, so none managed to make it.
Look at this awesome shirt my grandma gave me!

3. After dinner (which was very good) and desert (which was also very good), we headed out pretty early and Isabelle and I went to our stepmom's sister's house, where there was more desert, which was also quite good. :P

4. We eventually made it home, watched some tv, read Ulysses, and went to bed surprisingly early.

Wednesday November 26, 2015

1. First day of Thanksgiving break! Slept in a bit, though not that much since I woke up when mom left for work.

2. Over the course of the day, I did some writing, some math homework, and got a short workout in.

3. I chatted with various friends a lot, and considered starting Steven Universe, just cause I've heard so many good things about it, but I ended up not. Maybe over Christmas break I'll have time for that.

4. Mom and Isabelle went out for a while to feed some friend's cats, and I made fried rice for dinner and tried to get some more writing in.

5. They baked pies after they got home while I just sort of puttered around and did whatever. We watched lost, read Ulysses, and went to bed.

I feel like I did a lot more stuff than this on Wednesday, but for the life of me, I can't think of what it was.

Tuesday November 25, 2015 {The Tree The Never Fell}

1. Took a math test. I really do not know how I did on it. I know I didn't outright fail it, but I also don't have a lot of confidence in how well I did.

2. In Philosophy, we watched this movie about the Shroud of Turin, which was interesting.

3. Went to work at the writing center, where it was not at all busy. I helped a few people, did an online response, and hung out a lot. We spent a lot of time watching this tree slowly be uprooted by the wind. It was quite windy and there was this tree that every time a big gust came by pulled up it's roots a little. When I left, it was still standing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not standing on Monday.

4. My dad and Isabelle picked me up and we went to my dad's house. I did some writing for NaNoWriMo, watched the new episode of Gravity Falls (there's only one more left! :( ) and ate dinner.

5. Came home, watched Lost, read Ulysses, wrote a little more, went to bed.

Monday November 24, 2015 {German Christmas Songs}

1. Math was review for the test on Tuesday. Ugh.

2. Philosophy was philosophical.

3. Went to German, where Ben (our teacher) told us about German Christmas traditions and we sang German Christmas songs, which was actually quite fun. And he gave us no homework for the holiday, which makes him my favorite teacher at the moment. :P

4. Hung out with people for a while. On Mondays, I tend to stay in one spot for several hours while people rotate in and out around me, and today was no exception.

5. Lydia and I went to the co-op, and then she drove me to dance.

6. I hung out at Chocolate Necessities for a while, ate gelato (chocolate, chai tea, and peanut butter), and then went to dance.

7. Came home, ate dinner, went to bed.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Fri 11/20 and Sat 11/21 {Published!}

Friday, November 20, 2015

- Got up early, took bus to school, went to math. In class practice with the applications of linear equations. I am a little worried about this test. I mostly understand systems of linear equations, but I'm less confident about the matrices, and those are thing I tend to make lots of small mistakes on.
Look how cold and dark it was when I got to school on Friday!

-Went to Philosophy.

-German. Adjective endings. This is the first time this really seems hard. This next test is going to be challenging.

-Hung out for a little while avoiding the cold. Went to catch a bus early since I didn't have anything to do, and ended up running into a friend while waiting for the bus, and walked off with him to try to help him get something done, and then walked to the bus station with him.

-I had a really interesting conversation with a friend about feminism, sexism, and the problems that arise when you are a running start student, or when you are a 17 year old girl traveling alone around town.

-Volunteered at the library, was picked up by Gloria, who graciously took me to the bank where I had to deposit a pay check and deal with some issue regarding my account.

-Seriously, that was a weirdly adult thing to do. I went to the bank by myself  and had a full conversation with the teller about the weather and the new online banking system the bank has recently adopted (which sucks, we agreed), and other depressingly adult small talk. Weird stuff.

-I came home, worked on NaNoWriMo for a bit (i'm pretty behind, but I still have hope), had dinner, watched Lost, went to bed.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

-Got up, did a little homework and started reorganizing my closet (not a project I have time for right now) while trying to get my room ready for mom to paint it.

-Went to my dad's house and went out to lunch at D'Anna's (a great Italian restaurant) with my grandparents, my dad, and my step mom for my grandmother's birthday. We also went to Pure Bliss for desert.

-Came home, did some homework,

-Went shopping, got a new winter coat, which I desperately needed.

-Did more homework, plus some NaNo writing.

-I discovered that an essay I submitted to the college literary journal has now been published online! You should all go read it!

-Ate dinner, watched Lost, read Ulysses, went to bed.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

11/14 and 11/15 {COMMON APP DONE!!!}

This is out of order but better late than never.
Saturday, 11/14

-Spent most of the morning and early afternoon working on college applications. Stressful stuff.

-At about 3pm, Lydia and her friend who was town for the weekend picked me up and we went to Fairhaven. We went to the cafe in Village Books and hung out there for a while.

-We walked down to Marine Park as it was getting dark, which was wet, cold, dark, and still super pretty.



-We went to Fat Pie Pizza for dinner, and took a selfie, as we do every time we go there. I have a whole collection of Fat Pie selfies now.

-We most certainly did not purchase fudge at paper dreams. We went back to Lydia's house to hang out. We watched almost all of Over the Garden Wall, which is freaking awesome. Some other friends showed up and we hung out for a couple of hours before they drove me home.

Sunday 11/1

-Continued to work on college apps, and got really stressed out but eventually submitted applications (via the common app) to Seattle U, University of Portland, Gonzaga, and PLU. Western still needs to be done, hopefully by next weekend.

-I went to Western to hang out with a friend who goes there. We don't spend a lot of time together, but recently have been talking and becoming better friends. I actually had a great time, and we talked a lot about all sorts of things including, but not limited to boys, and friends, and past shared experiences.

-Came home, did math homework, wrote for NaNoWriMo.

-Ate dinner, watched Lost, went to bed.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

11/16 and 11/17 {Being Grumpy}

Yesterday started out well. I got my most recent math test back and was quite happy with the grade I ended up with. Philosophy class was understandably depressing as we discussed the Paris attacks. It was an engaging class, and it definitely made me think about the details of those attacks in a way I hadn't before.
Random selfie. Aren't we just the cutest? 

German was canceled (yay!) so I went to Westside to get pizza with a friend of mine and one of his classmates. After we got back from that, I ended up hanging out for most of the afternoon, doing homework for a while and just hanging out most of the time.

At 4:30, I had a doctor's appointment (ugh), which was fine until the end when I unexpectedly had to get three shots. I don't do well with needles or shots or really any medical stuff at all, so that wasn't a fun surprise. I also almost blacked out when I stood up to leave and they made me stay for a while and gave me apple juice.

Today's just been weird. Philosophy was strange. We had a Christian Scientist man come to talk to us about his religion, which was fine but a little frustrating at moments. The writing center was busy when I first started, but has gotten much quieter (as per the usual).

NaNoWriMo is going okayish, but I've gotten behind while dealing with college applications and such. My plan was to write a bunch at the Writing Center during quiet moment, but my left arm, which got three shots in it yesterday, is really sore and kind of painful. It's actually making it really hard to type cause tensing my arm hurts.

Admittedly, that's just an excuse, but it's a semi-legit excuse. :P

I've been in the same building for the last five hours, but I've been looking out the windows and it looks terrible out there. Windy, rainy, and super dark. I'm not a fan of this kind of weather.

That wasn't the most upbeat update I've done in a while. I'll try to complain less next time. :P

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Wednesday November 11, 2015 {Parkday!}

-Since it was Veteran's Day, there was no school. I got up late(ish) and worked on college apps for most of the morning.

-The guy who has been fixing our downstairs wall came back and finished up what was left to be done.

-I got to go to park day for the first time since September! It was super weird, and the feelings that I had while there are making me want to write a much longer blog post. Maybe this weekend?

-I'm definitely glad I got to go and see some friends I rarely see. I may have gotten talked into babysitting again, which may or may not be a good thing. :P

-Came home, ate dinner, worked on Philosophy take home quiz that is due Friday.

-Researched Portland State University as an additional school to apply to (it has definitely been added to my "needs more research" list. I'll probably apply since it's easy to do, and then research more and try to visit after that)

-Freaked out a little about school, dating, money, the future, and everything else.

-Watched Lost, read Heart of Darkness, went to bed.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

11/9 and 11/10 {So cold!}

November 9th

-Math class was test review.

- Talked to CP for a while re: 3D printing, which was nice. We don't see each other much anymore.

-Philosophy, watched a movie about Tibetan monks.

-German, learned how to tell time, which was surprisingly challenging.

-Hung out with various friend for various times. I stayed in one place and they came and went around me.

-Headed to dance, sat in Chocolate Necessities and listened to the new Hello Internet. Gelato flavors: chocolate, mint chip, vanilla.

-Went to dance, had a good class.

-Panda Express to pick up dinner, then home and bed.

November 10th

-It was 31 degrees when I was waiting for the bus at 7:30. So cold!

-Math test. I finished second, so who knows what happened.

-Philosophy. More of the same.

-Writing Center. I worked from 11:30-4 today, an hour more than usual cause I was covering for a co-worker who couldn't be there. It was mostly quiet, I did do my first online response, which was interesting and kind of scary.

-Hung out with Jake for a while as he was nice enough to keep me company near the end of my shift.

-Went to my dad's house for dinner.

-Came home, watched Lost, went to sleep.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Daily Outlines 11/6 and 11/7

Like Spencer, I'm having trouble at the moment with even outlines, so I'm going to go even more minimalist and do just greatest hits, leaving out anything not too important. Hopefully that'll help me get around to blogging a little more often. I do like having these daily records.

November 6th

-In math was in class group problem sets involving using logs. No one finished, and I went to the math center with another guy from my group to finish. I ended up helping him with the stuff I'd already done and left as confused as I arrived. I have since continued to try to figure it out, but I don't even have any idea where I went wrong, much less what I might do to fix it. I think I'll go to my instructor's office hours on Monday.

-Philosophy was kind of boring. Still didn't grade our quizzes from last week.

- German, talked about noun cases. They have Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative, all of which mean just what I would expect. My teacher made me kind of infuriated when he used the sentence "The man threw the football to the kid" as an example of an indirect object. I know why he did, I totally get it, but still. That is an object of the preposition. Not an indirect object. Luckily I contained my frustration and didn't say anything, but I was thinking of Heidi the whole time (she is known in our Latin classes for getting annoyed at the textbook for making that very error).

-I hung out and ate lunch then when to the library to volunteer. Got a ride home with Gloria.

-Wrote, ate dinner, watched Lost.

November 7th

-Got up, did some math homework (I have gotten kind of behind and I need to get caught up before the next test).

-Went to the YARC meeting, another small group today. Got two books, one of which I'm pretty excited about.

-Went to my grandmother's house for lunch, because my aunt was in town and it was recently Isabelle's birthday.

-While we were there, I interviewed my grandmother for my Philosophy class, which was very interesting.

-Went home, did a little more homework, wrote, watched Doctor Who and Lost.

General Updates - NaNoWriMo Week One

It's now one week into NaNoWriMo, and I'M NOT BEHIND YET! I was just looking at my stats from previous years, and I have a higher wordcount now than I've ever had on Day 8. I'm feeling pretty good about this, because now even if I get behind later, I probably won't get as behind as I have in the past.

Right now, I'm in this strange state of drained energy. I'm not totally sure why. I've slept in both of the last two days and haven't done much strenuous stuff this weekend, but I still feel really low energy.

This week, I took a German test, wrote a lot, got frustrated over my math homework, went to dance, volunteered at the library, and hung out with my friends a lot, though not necessarily in that order.

I went to my stepbrothers end of season soccer party and ended up being a bit of a wallflower. Ten year old boys are kind of loud. I sat on my phone most of the time.

Writing at school one early morning before math. 

Sunday, November 1, 2015

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has officially begun!

I waffled a lot about whether I was going to participate this year, but I have decided to go for it. I have an idea that I really love, and I think that with some careful planning, I can make this happen. I hope. I must admit that I am going directly against the advice of my two best friends by doing this, so if I crash and burn spectacularly, they'll get to say "I told you so."

As of right now, I have 2375 words. I didn't have too much homework to do today, so I got up and immediately started writing. One of the things I'm going to have to do this year is try to write a lot more than 1667 (the daily average you have to hit) on weekends and other days I have free time, because I know for sure there will be days where I can't hit 1667.

Right now, I have a lot of momentum, which is awesome. I know what I'm going to write tomorrow (which is definitely a good thing), and I'm hoping the momentum I have right now will carry me through the next few days.

I have enough of a plan this year that I sort of know where I'm going, which is helpful. I'm usually a pretty hardcore pantser, but this year I think having some structure and plan will help on those days that I have no energy but still desperately need to write.