Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I was born on October 11, and YOU were born on October 11!

I wasn't actually born on October 11. As previously discussed, I was born on October 9. But in the movie The Parent Trap starring Lindsay Lohan as twins separated at birth, Hallie and Annie, they were born on October 11. I just needed a creative title.

Speaking of dates with significance, my history teacher told us about this historian who took his family on vacations by traveling the path that Lewis and Clark took across the West while reading Merriwether Lewis's journals on the corresponding dates in which they were written. That sentence exemplifies proper grammar.... Anyway, although I suppress my amazement in my history class due to the fact that I am usually about to fall asleep, I am genuinely really impressed by this historian's family vacation. When I was younger I loved reading these books from a series called Dear, America. These books were all historical fiction diaries from the point of view of girls in various periods of America's past, and I always wanted to read them on the corresponding dates in which they were written. However, since they were library books, I didn't want to keep checking them out over and over again. Also, sometimes the character would go a while without writing, and I would get impatient and want to keep reading. So even though in theory I would have liked to read along with the writing, if you will, logistically it wasn't going to work out.

Another interesting thing about history is that things happened more slowly. For example, the farther back we go in history our dates get less specific, which can be attributed to a lack of accurate information, but it can also be attributed to the fact that information didn't travel fast in that time. People didn't find out about current events (that would later become historical events) until well after they happened, and nowadays we can communicate so quickly people know when things happen in real time.

I shall now go off on a tangent. Actually, I'm going off on a sine divided by cosine. I may have learned identities today in pre-calculus. My math teacher may have laughed maniacally before he told us what we were learning today.

Anyway, I love sweater weather. I really, really, really love it, and my birthday weekend was perfect because of it, and last week it rained which was very nice. But tomorrow it is going to be 100 degrees. And people wonder why I hate California weather. Yeah, all two and a half of our seasons are nice (season one: really hot, season two: that amazing weather where you can decide whether or not you feel like putting a cardigan on over your tank top, and the half season: chilly on California standards), but they are so unpredictable and sporadic. Thus is the state of the world these days.

I really want to live somewhere with four seasons. Leaves ample for jumping into (while wearing sweaters) in the fall, a perfect blanket of powdery white snow in the winter, a plethora of fresh flowers with the occasional fall of rain in the spring, and a dry, hot, perfect for swimming summer. Is that too much to ask?

You know what is especially perfect about my perfect weather systems? Each one of them has a different place for me to read a book. In the fall I can read on my porch or indoors in a big comfy chairs, in the winter there is nothing better than curling up with a down comforter and hot chocolate, in the spring I can read on the window seat while I wait for the rain to stop, and in the summer I can read underneath the perfect shady tree.

Three of those four locations don't exist in my house. I don't have a porch, a window seat, or a large shady tree. I do have a down comforter, but I don't have winter. Sometimes I pretend I do, though. I just miss reading. I love reading. Books books books books books.

Happy birthday to Emily Davison (look her up on Wikipedia if you don't know who she is), Eleanor Roosevelt, Jerome Robbins, Daryl Hall, Joan Cusack, Jane Krakowski, Emily Deschanel, and Michelle Trachtenberg.

Just go back and read that sentence again. I think it's necessary to your existence.

I want to go on a trip and read a book.

Monday, October 10, 2011

How to be Sixteen

Now that I have completed my first official day of being sixteen, I think it would be appropriate to compile a list of things I did today (well, technically yesterday). So, here are my suggestions of some things to do when you are sixteen, loosely based on things I have done in the time since I have stopped being fifteen:
  • Watch Breakfast at Tiffany's
  • Sleep
  • Eat chocolate chip pancakes
  • Watch the Travel Channel compulsively
  • Bathe
  • Cry. Only once though.
  • Be visited by Elizabeth
  • Go to the mall
  • At the mall, buy clothing, Toms, and a chocolate croissant
  • Wait while Mom buys a coffee maker
  • Clean room
  • Well, start cleaning room....
  • Spend time with my Friendship Circle buddy
  • Go to one of those cool Japanese restaurants where they cook the food on the table
  • Have cake
  • Receive wonderfully sweet and well thought out gifts from friends and family members
  • Obsessively respond to birthday greeting wall posts on Facebook
  • Watch random episodes of iCarly
  • Avoid homework at all costs
  • Write in a blog
So, if you're sixteen and can't think of anything to do, I hope that the list I compiled has some worthwhile suggestions. It made for a pretty decent birthday, if I do say so myself.

Happy birthday on October 9 to Joseph Friedman, John Lennon, Sharon Osborne, Tony Shalhoub, Steven Burns, and Sean Lennon, and on October 10 to Helen Hayes, Jodi Benson, and Mario Lopez.

Last week I had a dream that junior year was over. You can imagine my disappointment when I woke up..

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I'm Cheating on Drama Club

So you know how I'm the treasurer of drama club? Oh, you didn't? I could have sworn I told you... I'm 99% sure I did. Well, I am. I love drama club with all my heart and I've been putting so much into it. But, like over 11% of married relationships, my monogamous relationship with drama club doesn't fulfill all of my needs, and I recently decided to look elsewhere. English Honors Society.

Allow me to explain. One of the traits that I possess that most of the other drama club members do not is that I'm a complete and total nerd. Don't get me wrong, I love theatre and I'm a total drama geek, but I've became an English nerd no less than a year after I fell in love with musicals. To quote Thomas Jefferson, one of the nerdiest of all our English nerd presidents, "I could not live without books." In English on Friday we had to do a quick write on what life would be like if we couldn't read, and I determined that I would be an unhappy person. So much of my joy in life comes from reading and writing and I couldn't imagine not having experienced Hogwarts, Narnia, Frell, or any of the other places books have transported me, whether they be real or not. Books have taught me about myself and about other people and have quite literally changed my life.

As a member of EHS I hope to share that joy with like-minded others and also with the students I will tutor through the program. I signed up to tutor for kids in my sophomore English teacher's class (because I miss my sophomore English teacher, A LOT) and I am beyond excited. I really feel passionately that being able to read and write well can open so many doors for people, and if I can help people who aren't strong in those areas then that would make me very happy.

Another reason I was motivated to join EHS is because I didn't know it existed. Our school's Math Honors Society is HUGE and has many, many tutors who have helped me study for many, many math tests. I didn't know there was an English Honors Society, and obviously I didn't know that they tutored. I ran for office in the club because I think it's important that people know our school has a resource where they can be tutored in English for free and by a peer. I interviewed for the position of historian (and I'm not 100% sure what that means...) and I got it! Tomorrow morning I'm going in to talk to the co-presidents about it and I'm really excited.

As busy as my life is, most of the things that are making it busy are really exciting. For example, today I went driving again! And for the first time since my horrendous first lesson, I drove over 40 miles per hour. And I didn't kill anyone or hit any other cars!

OH MY GOSH I JUST THOUGHT OF A BRILLIANT ANALOGY. SORRY THE CAR TALK IS OVER NOW.

There are three organizations that I'm really passionate about. Those are drama club, English Honors Society, and the Friendship Circle (which, in case I don't talk about it enough, is an organization where I volunteer with special needs kids and teens). I've assumed leadership positions in all of those organizations (well, I applied for one at Friendship Circle, and I haven't heard back yet, but knowing my track record with FC... well, we'll see) and I think I can pinpoint how each of them affect me.

English Honors Society feeds my brain. It allows me to use my own intelligence to help others and to challenge myself to work harder and live up to the expectations set by being an officer of the club. Drama club is for my heart. Theatre is what I love more than almost anything and being able to perform and create opportunities for others to perform, tech, or support theatre arts makes me beyond happy. The friendship circle elevates my soul. By putting others before myself and truly throwing myself into the mitzvah, I am a part of something bigger than myself.

The pure cheese and corn of that last paragraph is making me smile. I really love what I do. As stressed out as I am, at least I have these things that make me happy and at the same time allow me to become a better person.

Happy birthday to Mahatma Gandhi, Groucho Marx, Donna Karan, Annie Liebovitz, Sting, Kelly Ripa, and Camilla Belle.

Speaking of birthdays, a week from today is my sweet sixteen. Is it weird that all I really want from that day is a new pair of Toms? The ones I got for my birthday last year got ruined after wearing them to Walt Disney World for a week.