11th Year

It feels like just yesterday I was writing my back to school post ans today I write my end of school review. It's odd how time flies when you look back, but in the moment it can inch by. That is exactly how this year felt for me. In the moment it felt long and slow, with not much excitement, but looking back it flew by faster than I could have imagined. This year felt very different from 9th and 10th for there was a real sense that we were older. I suppose being the second oldest class comes with several things: bigger assignments, college work, and of course a bit more respect.

The year as a whole was pretty good, although I can't say it was the most eventful year. Our classes were good, but there were only a few real standout courses. There were many classes, like Dante's Inferno, which were simply not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the botany and cell biology blocks, as well as bookbinding, atomic theory, and music history. Our trip to Catalina was full of good things and bad. Looking back I had a great time, but then again, there were many things that kept the trip from being anywhere near perfect. But the truth is, I think trips like that are what we'll remember as a class. The things that were awful, will be the things that make us smile.

The King Stag was another experience, that at the time, wasn't what really what I was looking for. More than anything it taught me lessons about acting that you can only learn first hand. Like, for example, not to get to attached to a certain way of playing a part, fate often has other plans for you. This became brutally apparent when I lost my voice the day of the show and had to have someone dub my lines until I could speak in a fairly normal, albeit rather low, voice.

I loved being with My, Liz, and Ventana this year. It's been lovely having picnics on the grass and laughing. It was nice to spend more time with Armand as well, for although he can be super annoying, we'll always have a good time together. I became good friends with Oscar this year. We sat next to eachother in German class and we had to many laughs to count. I'll miss not having German next year, hopefully I can continue to speak the language, because I really love it! It was also fun getting to make our heads in Clay class, I made Twiggy.

One thing that I think was really amazing about this year, was that fact that our class has bonded so much over this past year. Make no mistake, we still get in a ton of arguments, but when we agree on something, we stick to it. Spirit Week is the perfect example of this. We did so much better than before, and I'm so proud of what we accomplished as a whole. We did lots of really fun things, like go bowling as a class. As scary as it is to think, we're the senior class now and I really believe that we're ready. This year was almost a transition and "training" year for us. And though I'm terrified at the thought that I'll be getting a rose next year at the rose cerimony, I can't help but be excited at the same time. I doubt I'll ever feel totally ready, but this is the next best thing.

When Spetember rolls around I'm glad I wont be alone up on that stage, but instead I'll be surrounded by 20 others feeling the same way as I do. Until that day comes I'll enjoy summer and the memories I have from this past year. Everything after that will be about the future.

Spitit Week 2010

This past week was Spirit Week at school. Now if you've read my blog for a while you'll know that the past two years Spirit Week has not been a thing of joy. This year, I am happy to say, it was. Well, for the most part anyways. As a whole our class decided that this year, we were just going to have fun and not stress about having the most creative ideas and winning. Which it turns out was a great idea. We've had so much fun this year and I wasn't nearly as stressed as last year. And on top of all that, we did better this year than any other!

Monday:
The week always begins with sports. There's obstacle course, basketball "shoot off" and tug o war. The trouble is we're never any good at any of these mainly because we're the smallest (in both number and height/strength wise) class in the high school.

Tuesday:
Probably my favorite day of the week. teacher Impersonations! I decided to impersonate Janet Vrudney, our class sponsor as well as the golf and hand bells teacher. Our skit was teacher slumber party. It went really well. It turned out better than I could have hoped and at the end of the day I was positive we were going to win. But alas, it was not to be. The three judges decided twelfth grade was 1st place. Everyone in the high school was outraged. Not just our class, all the teacher and most of the students. All in all it felt as though we were cheated out of our rightful win.

Wednesday:
Costumes is also a fun event! This year we decided to be really straightforward (since last year we hand made a giant deck of cards and we lost). We ended up being Disney Princesses and their Princes, although I wasn't really a princess so maybe we should have called it Disney couples. I was Wendy from Peter Pan. Everyone looked really great, a lot of the people seemed perfectly cast as their princess. We ended up getting second place which is the best we've ever done in that event!


Thursday:
Thursday's event is usually fun to watch, but it can be stressful as well. It's Quiz Bowl, which is rather like our version on Jeopardy. There are two rounds and then a final bonus question. We won the first round soaring 1000 points over everyone else. Unfortunately the categories in the second round we not our strongest. We ended up in third place, which isn't great, but it was still fun to watch!

Friday:
The grand finale! The biggest most complicated event of them all, Lip Sync. This means as a class you make cut together songs to form a story, or a theme. Ours was TV shows. So for each show we had a song. I have to admit, when I first heard the idea, I wasn't convinced, but it turned out amazing! Everyone was hysterical and we really came together as a class. I think part of what made it so great was that we all worked on our numbers and had little dances and really planned everything out. It also helps if you are part of a TV show that you really love, it somehow feels more important for it to be perfect. We came in a very close second. Which, again, is a best for us!


In all it was a great week and although we had a bit of drama (meaning me getting into arguments with the teacher impersonations judges) it was still really fun. So many people came up to me telling me how great our impersonation, costume and lip sync was. I think that's one of the most important things. I mean its great to win, but if everyone enjoys watching it, you've done your job. If we keep getting better at this rate, you'll be first in everything next year!

I may have more pictures which I'll add into the post as I get them!

Spirit Week 09

Well Spirit Week has come and gone. I must say it was rather stressful and I would much rather go without it. May I just think it is so much work and energy for something that really isn't all that fun.

Monday was the first day and the events were, obstacle course and tug-o-war. Obstacle course can be fun to watch but it can also be rather tedious. I thought we did pretty well, especially Alison who flew threw the course. Unfortunately, we came in forth place. Since we had more people then were needed to participate in tug-o-war I got to watch from the sidelines, which suited me better. It wasn't much of a fight. Basically they shouted pull and our class was pulled forward by the twelfth grade into a big heap. I must admit although it was sad, I laughed very heartily. We also lost to the ninth grade putting us in, you guessed it, forth place.

Tuesday was the day I was most looking forward to. Teacher Impersonations. This is one of the events I actually look forward to in Spirit Week. I love participating in it and I also love watching the skits of the other classes. This year I decided to impersonate the physics/math teacher Dr. Craddock. He is quite a character. He looks as a goat would look as a person with a wonderful British accent and does many strange gesture when he talks. Wyatt impersonated Quatro, our history teacher, and was amazing! I had to keep myself from laughing while doing the skit. Phillip impersonated my favorite teacher, Dana, who is the art/eurhythmy teacher. He did a pretty good job and I think he captured some of the odd faces Dana makes while drawing. Alison impersonated our English teacher Ms. Meyer. She was really good because she did her swaying movements really well. She also captured some of her bubbly personality. The last person in our skit was Joey W who impersonated our biology /geology /physiology /anatomy /botany teacher Mrs. Lovell. He didn't really want to do the skit at first but in the end he did a great job imitating her tone of voice. In the skit he had Mrs. Lovell fall asleep and after we were done Mrs. Lovell came up to him and said "you know, I actually do fall asleep in class sometimes." It was really funny. We got second place in teacher impersonations, but we were very close to getting first.

Wednesday was javelin toss, football toss, balloon launch and costumes. We came in forth on javelin toss and tied for third in football and balloon toss. For costumes our class was a game of war, the card game. We made giant card costumes out of cardboard and played an actual game of war with each other. The ninth grade class was "Famous pairs" the eleventh grade was a circus and the twelfth grade was movie posters. I personally thought the twelfth grade was the best, they pulled off the posters quite well. In the end eleventh grade got first place, twelfth second, ninth third and we got forth place.

Thursday was jump rope and Quiz Bowl. We could have gone rather well in jump rope, but some of the guys in our class are well, lets just say not gifted at jumping rope. Thus we got forth place. In quiz bowl we did very well and were actually in the lead for a while. The ninth grade did extremely well and came in second to the twelfth. We were set in third place but we pretty much cheated out of it by an unfair distribution of points to the eleventh grade.

On Friday was the biggest event of all. Lip Sync. I was rather nervous for this event because not only did we fail miserably last year, but I had to do a dance that I was less then confident about. Our theme was "Nursery Rhymes" and once I watched one of the run-throws of it, I started to feel that we might not do that badly. I played Hansel along side Brenan who played Gretel. We actually did very well. We tied for third with the ninth grade who did "High school stereo-types."The eleventh grade, who got second place, had the theme "the Six Types of Love" which had its moments but overall was just okay. The twelfth did amazing. They were "the Process of Making a Smoothie" from growing the plants all the way to it being drunk by a giant mouth. It was so good and they deserved first place.

In all Spirit Week had some fun moments but was overall very stressful and overly competitive. I'm glad I have a whole year before I have to do it again.

Knitting Publicity

Some months ago my grandmother Martha and I opened up an Etsy shop to sell our knitted and crocheted goods. We, along with mom, were recently approached to do a mothers day article about all three of us. It was published today for all eyes to see and I am extremely excited! It is such an honor and I feel it is the beginning of good things to come. You can read the article here.

In other news I have also been featured as a model on the shop of the lovely Xenotees. That is also quite exciting. Take a look here.

Right now I am on Spring Break and enjoying my freedom as well as finding myself rather bored. We begin school on Monday and are launched straight into Spirit Week. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I am excited to perform our teacher impersonations skit. I hope to do a post about Spirit Week by the end of next weekend.

I hope you all are well.

The End and the Beginning

Well, the year is coming to a close. It is an end as well as a beginning. A time to start afresh, and let things go. Looking back on 2008, I realized that I grew a lot this year. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. This year we performed the play "The Mouse that Roared." That really felt like the beginning of things to come in high school. It was a challenge and also extremely fun. I learned to golf in one of my favorite classes of the semester. I survived Spirit Week without many scratches and even earned myself a bow from the teacher I impersonated. My acting grew at Theatricum this year. My scene and monologue were big challenges and I am so proud of how hard I worked and that I was able to pull through. I got a great part in Taming of the Shrew and had a wonderful time. I learned a lot about acting, Shakespeare and what helps me with a scene. Being in a repratory Theatricum play has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. It was one of the highlights of my summer I really hope I can be a part of it again next year! I took some great photos this year. I'm not a master or anything, but it's nice to improve. I audtioned for Pippin and sung in front of people on my own. That has been a big fear for a while. Even though I didn't get the part I wanted I made my new part really fun and I'm so happy with what happened. I've taken chances with the role and wasn't afraid to look odd in front of everyone. The Native American trip will always linger in my mind for 2008. It was an amazing experience and I am so lucky to have been there. I will never forget the memories I have from there, the beautiful canyon, the friends I made and the laughs I had. I fulfilled another childhood dream by performing in the Halloween skits. I played in the winter concert loudly and didn't mess up more then twice. In all I think this past year really helped me begin to conquer some of my fears and well as accomplish some of my dreams. I had a wonderful time and I made so many good memories. I remember 2007 as a rather strange year, but I know I'll remember 2008 as one where I had hard times as well as fun ones. Goodbye 2008, hello 2009. What do you have in store for me I wonder. What goals will I accomplish and fears will I conquer? Happy old year and happy new year.
May 2009 bring joy and good fortune.