December/January

January 29, 1998

Hi! Today was a Friday which usually equals a good day, but I was sick. :( In fact, I've been sick for the past couple of days which I hate. We got report cards today, and my grades SUCK. I got an 89 in chemistry! I just about flipped out. Plus, I got an 89 in math because I got a 73 on the final. This would have probably hurt my feelings a little more if the class average hadn't been a 65... Anyways, other than that things weren't too bad. I got the usual high B in English, and A's in Spanish and history. I wish I could just take 6 history classes everyday. That sounds pretty stupid, but nothing else particularly interests me. Maybe that's bad. I don't know. Just a thought. :)

So, other than my illness nothing else has happened this week. I thought our quiz bowl match was on Friday, but it somehow ended up on Thursday, so I missed it. (I didn't go to school Wednesday morning or Thursday.) That made me kind of mad. We lost by the way. We only had play practice 2 days this week so I didn't miss much in that respect. Wednesday we sang and ran through the "The Lusty Month of May" dance like twice and went home. I went to church later and that was it. Thursday I slept until about one and lazed around. Around 4 million people must have called for me that night, so I talked on the phone forever.I got up this morning quite early and went to quiz bowl practice. It was pointless though, I dropped to 4th this week. *yuck* Today was pretty tolerable. We read poetry in English, I took a make-up test in algebra, and for the first time in 3 years Mrs. Deutsch let us stop working before the bell rang! :) We talked her into letting us sing "Ayer" again. Amy told me that I was so loud today that she could pick out my voice from next door. I was pleased. :) We took notes in history, and Bob also gave notes. At one point I asked him if I go get a drink of water. He in return asked me if I was coming back. I said yes, therefore he said no I couldn't go. Oh, how that man loves me. :) He was all spiffed today in a new shirt, and Laura passed around this note talking about how sexy he looked. It was pretty funny- a little disgusting too. :) I came home sixth period, but I went back for prom committee. We decided on the theme "Stairway to Heaven." We have a lot of really cool ideas, so I was happy with everything. It's hard to believe that prom is only 3 months away. I have so much to do...

Tonight was fun. I went to see She's All That with Carrie, Jodie, Becky, and Whitney. We got in there and saw half of the town. We talked to some people and got kind of rowdy. :) Carrie always screams out random names when we go to the movies so she started that, and they always show these dumb screen- saver- type things before the movie starts. They say things like, "Applaud if you're jiggy wit it." Well, you can imagine we went nuts. :) After the movie was over, we drove around for a few minutes and went to Rick Sturgill's house. There was supposed to be a party there, but they stopped letting people in around 10:00. I thought that was gay, but it's not my house. So, I came home around 11:00 and now I'm talking to about 47839 people on ICQ. I'll talk to you all later. :)

January 25, 1999

Hey! Two days in a row. Wow. :) Today was a pretty average if not a little better than average Monday. I have a new self-imposed bedtime of 11:00. I'm hoping this will help my well-being. :) So, I woke up rested this morning and went to school. First period was nice because we read Chicken Soup For the Teenage Soul books today. We just respond to the stories and we get points for it. In other exciting English-related news, I got the highest grade in the class on the final with a 98. That was enough to put me in a good mood all day. :) In algebra 2, Mrs. Handley wasn't there so we did worksheets or something. I basically sat there and talked to Ryan, Shawn, and Abby. Spanish was about the funnest class of the day. We sang all period. Yes, sang. :) There's this song called "Ayer" (meaning yesterday) and we had to translate the words and sing. You know me (or maybe you don't) but anyways I'm loud. I usually enjoy being loud, well in that class anyways. So I sang this song at the top of my lungs and hit all kinds of high notes that weren't there. My class was amused, my teacher wasn't. :) Anyways, Mr. Greenstein lectured, and that class FLEW by today for some reason. Bob is sick and trying to figure grades which is just not a good combination. He yelled, but then later on he was nice to me which was cool. I also found 10 points that he owed me on tests. I realize that good ol' Bob would never try to purposely rip me off or anything, but I still thought it was pretty shady. Oh well. After school I had prom committee and play practice. I went to both, and amazingly, I was out of school at about 3:40. I decided to go to quiz bowl practice for 5 minutes. Christy and T.J. both bummed a ride home *j/k* and on the way there T.J. and I sort of got in a fight. Anyways, I don't really fell like typing the whole story so I'll just say that we are broken up and very good friends which, as far as I'm concerned, is where we should be. We talked on the phone forever tonight, and I'm very happy. I think I can safely assume he is too. :) So, after all that I went for a cappuccino and a drive with Abby as I often do. We had fun, I came home, and now I'm doing this while talking to Eric. We're approaching my bedtime though, so I'm going to have to leave you all. Good night. :)

January 24, 1999

Hi! It's Sunday and I just got home from church. It wasn't really much of a lesson this morning. We basically talked about this power team thing that is going to happen at the end of March. A lot of the people at my church are participating in it including myself. Anyways, this has pretty decent weekend. I'm extremely glad that finals are over. I think they all turned out OK. I got an 84 on my chemistry final, but the highest grade in the class was an 85. I suggested to Bob that he scale those grades, but he just looked at me funny. Ugh. The history final was kind of hard I thought. I ended up with a 93 and a 95 in the class. I got a 100 on the Spanish final, and I would have been disappointed with anything but that. Spanish is retarded. :) I have no clue about my algebra or English grades, but I think they were good. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Friday night T.J. was at the Toughman contest and Jodie/Carrie/Whitney/Rachael went to see Varsity Blues which I saw last weekend. So, I went out with Abby and Lesley. We went down to the cruise line :) for a little while, but I eventually got so tired that I had to go home. I'd been up studying for finals all week, and I didn't exactly get much sleep. I arose the next morning around 5:30 to go to a quiz bowl tournament 2 hours and 15 minutes away. T.J., Christy, Rachel, Tyler, Kuehne, Seth, Todd, Tom, and I went. It was a pretty fun day. I was on the varsity team, and we lost twice and won once. Strangely, we won and lost in the same order as the J.V. team so we all left around noon. Since we didn't have to be home until 5:00, Mrs. Near took us to a mall. We ate and played trivia at Damon's which is always exciting. Mrs. Near won, but I don't think they gave her a t-shirt. :) After eating we walked around the mall. I was with T.J. and he purchased the Britney Spears C.D. I made fun of him. :) There is a song on it called "Email My Heart," and I'm convinced that any C.D. that has a song title such as that has to suck. Rachel and I especially liked that part where Britney states that all she can do is "check the screen." Gee. :) The rest of the trip was mainly uneventful. I came home, took a shower, and went to the basketball game. We won which unfortunately means that I have to take T.J. out to dinner. :) After the game, Annie D. had a party so just about everyone went there. It was fun, but her dad came home and kicked everybody out at 10:30. It took about 700 people to various places then I went to bed. Well, I'm going to go because my mom has dinner just about ready. See ya later! :)

January 21, 1999

Hey! OK, I know I suck. I haven't updated forever! I hope that my two whole readers don't hate me too much. :) I haven't been doing anything important lately. This is finals week so that pretty much sucks bad. We've been having lots of snow days lately which is nice. We also had two quiz bowl matches this week, and we lost them both. *Alisa rolls her eyes* I mean, we played St. Joe. Hello! There's like 6 people that go to that school and the smartest guy on their team suffers from Tourret's Syndrome! We also lost to Chesapeake the next day by 15 points, so obviously we could have won. I was kind of upset because we were in first place, but I think I'll get over it. :) We have a tournament this Saturday which looks to be fun. I have to get up at 5:00, though. Actually, I don't think it matters what time I get up, I still won't be on time. In fact, T.J. made a little bet with me about my lateness. He doesn't think that I can be at his house at 7:10 tomorrow morning to pick him up. He's also bet me that we're going to win the St. Joe ballgame. Poor, T.J., I warned him about losing two bets in one weekend. I'm going to get two movies and a dinner. :) :)

So, anyways, we had this track meeting today, and I have to start running. It's so hard with play practice and quiz bowl and I think I'm going to begin tutoring soon, too. I love being busy, but things always start to pile up around February for some reason. Well, I think I'm going to have to go study now. Ugh. I'll write soon. I promise! :)

January 5, 1999

Hey, hey! Today was a pretty average day. Our school is extremely cold with the exception of Mrs. Deutsch's room so that kind of sucks. Classes were normal, and we had play practice after school. We started "The Lusty Month of May" dance, but that's about it. I got home around 5 after taking the usual crowd home, and I ate dinner. Later I watched Jeopardy, took a bath, talked on the phone, and now I'm about to go in my room and do some of the mucho homework that I haven't started on yet. See ya!

January 3, 1999

Hey! I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and day. My New Year's Eve was pretty fun. It started around 6:00 when I picked T.J. up so that we could go shopping for food and movies for his party which began at 7:30. We got like 17 bags of chips, rented Flatliners, and went back to his house. Everyone showed up soon after that. (Everyone being Kyra, Chad, Travis, Adam, and Anke) Yes, it was a very interesting group. :) We sat around, watched some of the MTV countdown, ate, and watched the movie. At midnight, me, T.J., and Kyra all ran outside banging on pots and pans. It was funny. :) I left around 12:45. On my way home I was driving very slow because it was icy and Travis and I decided to honk the horn on every block that we drove on. When I passed Eric's house, he ran out on the porch, and we chatted for a few minutes. :) After dropping Travis by his house, I went home and to sleep.

I awoke the next morning around 12:30 feeling refreshed. :) I went shopping in the afternoon with my mom, and that evening I went to a lock-in at T.J.'s church. It was fun for awhile. We started out with some pizza and a good lesson and then moved on to some hide and go seek in the dark. T.J., Eric, and I stuck this huge piece of styrofoam out in the middle of the hallway, but no one could see it because of the darkness. We were walking down the stairs we we heard this huge crashing noise. It turns out that Chad ran right into it and broke it into two pieces. I laughed SO hard. :) After our memorable game, Eric found a piano and began playing songs. See, Eric is a musical genius. :) Seriously, though, he has this talent where he can play like virtually any song that you can name off. So we all stood around and sand various songs. T.J. jumped in for a show-stopping performance of Billy Joel's "Piano Man." :) Later on Eric's sister, Jessica, and I sang "Tearin' Up My Heart" a capella. :) The evening pretty much went down hill from there. Many people began laying down including myself even though I wasn't tired. There just wasn't anything to do. I sat in this tiny cold room for quite some time talking to Eric and Holly, but other than that I basically laid on a couch which is so not fun. I really wish I would have stayed up and done SOMETHING. I probably would have had more fun, but it's too late now so maybe next time.

It snowed all that evening, and it was horribly cold outside when I got up to leave. I drove T.J. home and then I came home and went straight to bed. I had to wake up to go to my cousin Julie's wedding at 1:00. It was OK. The wedding was too long in my opinion because it was a Catholic one, but I dealt with it. The reception was a blast. There were some many people there. I mainly hung around Anne, Jennifer, and Beth, but Bobby, T.J., and Becky were there too. We ate, talked, and danced and I had a much better time than I thought I was going to.

December 27, 1998

Hi! I hope everyone's had a wonderful Christmas. I know mine's been great. I start thinking a lot around this time of year normally. I'm in no way rich, but you know, we have enough actually a lot, and it's just awful to think that not everyone is enjoying this holiday as much as I am. We give to the City Mission. We always help out on the giving trees around town and things like that, but it's really sad to realize that no matter what you do you can't help everyone. I suppose you should just do what yu can and leave it at that, but it's hard for me to accept that sometimes.

Anyways, as I meantioned awhile back, I did have a great Christmas. I mostly got new clothes, but I also received a new stereo. That was especially nice because my other one broke like last summer. It just stopped playing C.D.'s which I thought was pretty strange. I got a few new C.D.'s, but I'm still on my Michael W. Smith rampage. In fact I listen to his new C.D. (Live the Life) 24/7. It's totally awesome. I recommend that everyone go buy it. Moving on... it's also been very nice spending more time with family members that I don't see very often. We have quite a few traditions that run every year and include everyone. I have these 3rd cousins that are 89 and 91, and even though they live in town, I hardly ever see them. Iona and Virginia are two of the sweetest ladies ever. They are sisters who never married, but they've always lived together. The go to the local First Baptist church, but they refuse to go out after dark. I've talked to them so much over the past few days, and I've promised to visit often.

Along with the visiting, there is also a ton of baking that goes on here every Christmas. Not by me, though. I'm like the worst cook ever. :) But my mother is one of the best. This year she made like 27 cheese balls or something, and I'm munching on one now. Yummy. :) There were also assorted cakes, cookies, and dips. We all pig out.

The time off school has continued to be a beatiful aspect of this Christmas season. Not seeing certain teachers on a daily basis has helped my well-being. It's given me a lot of time to spend with my friends also. Last night I went to the mall with Becky and Christy which is sort of an odd trio, but it worked out fine. I returned a shirt and bought a new one at American Eagle which worked out fine with me. We progressed to the pretzel place where we all bought stuff and took it to Proffit's. The mall was getting ready to close, but we just had a seat in the lingerie department and ate our pretzels. :) When we funally decided to leave this annoyed-looking women appeared to open the doors for us. It was amusing. :) After all the mall excitement, we went back to Becky's and she called T.J. to harrass him because he's ill, or was. I talked to him earlier and he said he was feeling better which is good. Well, I think I'm going to go to bed now. I was going to talk to Eric, but he never came online... Oh well. Good night!

December 24, 1998

Hey! I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written, but I've been having major problems with my computer. I think I've fixed it, though. Anyways, merry Christmas to everyone!!! I'm very excited even though I know almost everything I'm getting. Somehow I just ended up picking it out or trying it on or something, but that's OK. :) This past week has been a lot of fun for me... no school and all. :) Last Friday we had parties all day at school so it was fun. That evening we had a home basketball game, so Anke, Becky, Amy and I went to that. Our team isn't spectacular this year. I believe our record is 1-5 right now, but I think we're improving. :) I've been to the mall about 5,000 times this week for lots of last minute Christmas shopping. I finally finished everything, and today's been spent delivering gifts. I was also broke until this morning when I went to work. See, I work at my parent's convenience store where I make hot dogs, clean counters, sell lottery tickets, etc. It's fun. :) :) Well, today I sold a lottery ticket to this old man wearing a "WW2 Veteran" hat, and he won a hundred dollars. Being in the Christmas spirit and all he gave me five bucks. I love this time of year. :)

I just got back from Abby's house where I gave her some Bath and Body Works lip gloss. I mean we usually only spend a few bucks on each other, but Abby got me a shirt, 2 candles, and a picture frame. I mean, she's my best friend, but she didn't have to do that. I'm gonna have to go buy more stuff now because I feel so cheap. :) I also made a trip to Amy's where I exchanged gifts with her and Amanda. T.J. and I bought each other C.D.'s. We weren't going to get each other anything, but he earned enough money to pick up the *N Sync Holiday C.D. for me. :) :) Well, I'm going to go, because I have to run to Eric's to take him his Christmas gift...even if he didn't get me anything...*j/k* :) :) Love ya!!

December 12, 1998

Hey! It's Saturday night and I just arrived home from my oh-so delightful evening. :) Becky's birthday was yesterday, and she had a party last night. It was fun. Anyways, we made plans to get together tonight. She had to baby-sit so I was just going to meet her there. So, T.J. calls and wants to do something around 6:00, and we went to the mall and then we met Becky. We hung out for a little while and watched part of Armageddon, but the kids' parents got home about 10:15 so we left. T.J. and I followed Becky to her house to hang out with Drooby (my future husband-Becky's 14 year old brother. :) ) and with Jeff (T.J.'s brother) When we arrived we were told that they had gone to a party at Blue's house, so we crashed it. :) T.J. ran right up and gave his brother a big hug, and I hung out with Drooby. :) :) After that excitement was over, we drove through the cruise line a couple of times, and now I'm here. All in all, a pretty awesome evening. :)

Now I'm sure you want to hear about some of the other nice things going on here, so I'll start with the play cast. Friday morning I got up extra early to write an English paragraph, go to quiz bowl practice, and of course to find out who made the play. That's always an exciting thing to do. Like with me, this was my third year, I don't sing very well, so I knew my name would pop up on the chorus list as it always does which is fine with me. But it's always fun to see who got the big roles. I promise I'm never making another prediction again because I only got two right this time. :) Sara Beth is Guenivere, and Erin is Morgan Le Fey. I think everyone pretty much figured those. As for the rest of the parts, I was so wrong. Rachel got Nimue who is an enchantress that lures Merlin in to do something. :) That was the only other girl lead, and a lot of people really thought Becky was going to get it because she had a lead last year and everything, but you never really know what Mr. Handley is going to do. I'm really happy for Rachel, though. On the guy's side, King Arthur went to Tyler, and I won't lie and say I wasn't surprised. I thought T.J. had a shot at it, but I wasn't really positive that he would get it. He, by the way, came out with Mordred. Another surprise in my eyes was Tom. I figured he would get a part, but not Lancelot. Shows how much I know. :) Blake got Merlin, and Todd was given Pellinore which will be hilarious I might add. :) I'll admit I was a little skeptical to some of the casting at first, but I now realize that everyone fits their role, and this is going to be a wonderful play.

Well, I think I'm going to go to bed now. I had to get up and take the ACT this morning (ugh) and I'm pretty tired. I'm not used to getting out of bed at 7:00 on Saturday mornings. :) Good night!

December 9, 1998

Hi! Today was very strange in that many different things were going on at school. The day started off normal enough. We had math club at 7:30, and I was five minutes late. :) Then I had to pass these things out with Ryan for Mr. Morgan. He always recruits the two of us to do his science club junk for him. After some last-minute cramming in homeroom, I proceeded to go to English and take one of the hardest tests we've had this year. This is when everything got weird. About half way throught the class we heard all of these people screaming out in the hallway. Mrs. Lux got sort of mad because regardless of these girls' problems, we still had to write an essay, do 4 short answers, 10 completion, and 25 multiple choice in 50 minutes. I found out later that four sophomore girls won front row seats and backstage passes to the Aerosmith concert this weekend. I'm going to be there, but it's not going to be anywhere near the front row. :)

After I finished my test, I went to algebra and we started the lesson. About 10 minutes into the class period, Amanda was called out and accused of stealing a copy of out English test. She denied it, and I'm positive that she didn't do it. That's when our principal began calling each member of my English class to his office one by one. We all said that we couldn't imagine anyone in that class stealing anything, because that's the truth. There are only 15 people in it, and all of them are good kids. I feel really bad for Amanda because she might get a zero now. We all racked our brains for the rest of the day, but no one seems to know what happened to that test.

On a lighter note... Today was popcorn chicken day. Rachael and I get so excited. Every Wednesday we scream Popcorn Pollo! at the top of our lungs in Spanish. Then our teacher politely tells us to calm ourselves. :) Fourth period today Mr. Greenstein was in an excellent mood. I normally have around two pages of notes for each full period of lecturing, but today I only had a half of one page because he kept telling stories. There was one about some team called the Millionares somewhere that had our entire class rolling. Awesome. :) Chemistry was dumb as usual. Mr. Morgan lost ALL of our grades from the first four weeks of the grading period so he made out our progress reports according to "how he remembered our grades." No wonder I have a 90... Sixth period I came home, and then I went back for play try-outs. We read today for lead roles, so many people didn't come. I think the only reason I did is because I'm a better reader than singer. :) After dropping some people off, I returned home and ate dinner. T.J. called to talk about what else? :) Then I went to Abby's for awhile, and now I'm doing this. I think I'm going to go to bed. I can't believe I wrote an entry this long. Wow. :)

December 7, 1998

Hey! Today was the first day of play try-outs. I was so excited all day! It took everything I had to wait until 2:37 for that dumb bell. :) I went home sixth period and made some peppermint tea (good for your voice :) ) and then I went back to school to try-out. It was sort of strange because last year we did Grease and there were TONS of people that wanted to be in it, but this year it's calmed down a lot. There's only a few of us from my class trying out- mainly Abby, Becky, Carrie, Todd, and myself. Overall, I think that everything went really well today. I had to wait until almost 4:30 before we even sang. I was the first girl to sing "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood." It's a very good song... probably my favorite in the entire play. I don't think I did horrible, but there's certainly room for improvement. :) Becky and Abby both did a lovely job as did Rachel and Kim. :) There were also some suprisingly great freshman. I'm very anxious to see who gets what parts and to actually start practice. The cast list will be posted Friday morning, and I think we're all going nuts. T.J.'s called tonight more times than I can count asking me how I thought he did. There are only so many times that I can say, "T.J., you did great, and you're going to be King Arthur." :) No matter what happens, I can tell this is going to be a very fun musical.

I'm also highly anticipating seeing Aerosmith this weekend. I didn't think I was going to get to go, but Eric amazingly found me a ticket, (I love you!!! :) ) and I can't wait! I'm absolutely dreading taking the ACT on Saturady morning, so the concert will be a nice relief. And after this week, we have only 5 days of school until Christmas break! That will definitely be a much needed respite. Well, I'm going to leave you all now, because I have 2 more pages of Walden to read before I go to bed. Buenas noches. :)