An Update On A Number of Things

Hello there!

I haven't really done a legitimate blog post in a while.  I've mostly been doing Friday memes and announcing useless things instead of writing reviews or lists or useful updates.  This post is going to be more useless updates, but at least it's not a Friday meme.

At last, my lack of sleep and too much... stuff to do has caught up with me.  I have caught my first cold of the season.  A few days ago, my throat was just sore and there was a burning sensation about it.  That was okay-- nothing I needed to worry about really.  Well then, that sore throat turned into a cough and congestion.  Then there was mucus.  A LOT of mucus.  The kind of mucus that just likes to sit in your head and back up your nasal passages.  It's disgusting.  And I'm totally blowing the situation out of proportion.  I'm not that sick, I'm just even more tired than usual which makes everything kind of suck.

We need happier updates.  Happy is good.  Tomorrow marks the two week count down (or whatever you want to call it) to my passage into adulthood-- my eighteenth birthday.  I have no idea if I'm doing anything or not.  I've never really been one for large birthday parties or anything like that.  I've jokingly asked the boyfriend if I could have a diece-y-ocho or a dix-huit (eighteen in Spanish and French) like Latinas have Quincineras (the passage into womanhood on their fifteenth birthdays).

I have been reading a bunch, just at a snail's pace.  This month will be extra busy and I'll have three relatively big reviews for you: "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, "As I Lay Dying" by William Falkner, and "Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel.  These three books are my priorities right now because they're actually for classes of mine.

Honestly, I can't wait until I have a normal high school level English class again.  I love my Intro to Lit class very much, but I can't wait until I have a teacher that will give us two or three weeks to start and finish a book.  Next semester will be so much easier after this.

My senior slide has gotten worse and worse.  I just really want to get out of high school.  It's not that I've had a bad experience or anything, in fact, it was just the opposite.  Middle school was just horrible, mostly because everyone is a little ball of puberty on steroids, but it seems to mellow out a little as we adjust to our bodies and minds in high school.  That's reason number one why I want to teach anything but middle school kids after college.  But yeah, "worse and worse" to me is forgetting an assignment or three, but to someone else that might mean flunking a class.  I haven't reached that point and I don't plan to.  My minimum goal for any class I set out to do is to earn a C.  Of course, I shoot for those A's-- they're just beautiful.

I've been preparing for my France and Washington D.C. trips as well.  I've obtained several small consistent jobs and they're proving to help tremendously.  I've become a dog walker, babysitter, and house-looker-after(er).  Heck, I might even get to be a chicken-sitter when my neighbors go off for the holidays (they have chickens in their backyard.  Sometimes they fly over the fence).

I've been hearing from colleges!  So far, I've been accepted to three of my four schools that I applied to.  I've even heard from both of my first choices!  I just need to hear from one more before I need to make plans to visit and then work on making my final decision and then indicating my decision to that school.  I was especially pleased that I was accepted to the college that I had to write an essay for-- so thank you for getting me into college!

Biology has become less of a pain.  It hasn't gotten much easier, but the teacher seems to be listening to us and trying very hard to help make things a little easier, which I appreciate.  It's not her that's bothering me now.  It's another girl that is just adamant about hating that class because of what happened first quarter.  It's still not my favorite class, but it's not the worst class any more.  I've even used information that I've learned from that class in conversations with my friends because it came up and I actually knew what I was talking about.  It was kind of exciting!

Some of you may have been wondering about the LONTEM Project.  It's kind of come to a stand-still.  There are months where I have the footage and other months where I didn't do anything at all because I either a) lost interest in the activity, b) just plain ran out of time, or c) forgot.  Come winter break, when I'm simultaneously celebrating the holidays and catching up on whatever work I have to do, the LONTEM Project will definitely be one of them!  I want to get my gardening video and soap-making video out there the soonest because they're the closest to being done.

I will cut this video short (or at least before it gets any longer) and I will mosey on to bed.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of my updates in my life and for this blog!  Enjoy the rest of your week!

--Jude