Only a Few More Days...

...and then I will be freeeee!!! Two finals down, four to go. Luckily, I only have one exam (biology) tomorrow in the afternoon. I finished my history final this afternoon with a whole HOUR to spare, which I took as a very bad sign. I went back and double - no, triple-checked my answers. What's weird about me and tests is that I'm always so nervous going in, when I know that I've got it all under control! It's one of my main pet peeves about myself.

Random note: some very weird things happened in my head during my exams. I had the weirdest, least predictable songs playing in the depths of my brain. For math, it was Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" (do NOT ask me why, because I have no earthly idea). And then during history, "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from The Lion King was playing in my head.

Summer...Summer...Summer!

5 days until summer! I must, in the words of Dory, just keep swimming, just keep swimming (or at least in my case, studying). I'm just SO bored and all of my friends from other schools (except one who's at public) are already on vacation! My friend Kat called me last night asking if I wanted to hang out today, and I was like, sure, but I have to study for finals and she was like wow, you're still in school?! And I was like yeah. 

My mom's in the process of arranging a family vacation to New Mexico again (woohoo!!!!) this summer. I'm so freaking excited! Our cabin at the ski lodge last time wasn't exactly 5-star...the appliances (a range and a fireplace) only worked part of the time. The oven didn't even work, so when my mom wanted to make biscuits (which had exploded out of their cans due to the change in altitude) my brother had to cook them in an aluminum pan over the stove, resulting in like 20 charred-but-raw-on-the-inside biscuit-like pucks and one relatively edible one. Oh well. It was fun anyway. We're going to take a different route this time, though. 

Will five days actually pass by quickly? At the rate they're going right now, I doubt it. Oh, and completely unrelated: I hope y'all like the changes I made to the template and fonts and whatnot. I was bored last night, so I changed it up. 

I GOT A JOB!

As you will remember from a previous post, I was contemplating getting a summer job this year. Well, yesterday, I did! I had been thinking of at least applying to a local coffee shop which I adore. But then I realized I don't speak coffee, nor do I know how to brew it. 


Anyhow, after school yesterday my mom had to swing by her office building and while she was there, I milled about its gift shop looking for teacher gifts. I realized that I really liked it there, and I casually mentioned to my mom how I thought it would be a good fit for me. The next thing I knew, I was shaking the head of employment's hand and thanking her! I'm starting in about three weeks! I'm only working weekends, which is good. This doesn't even feel real. I've never had a job before!


Yesterday was my older brother's 19th birthday, just throwing that out there. He's also applying for a job, but not at the same place where my mom and I work. 


:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D 

Paranoia

So I have this weird fear that whenever I'm listening to music with headphones, especially on my laptop, people can hear it just as loudly as I can. Any time that I want to listen to something, I have to take both ear buds out while my music plays just to make sure no one can hear my music.

I think the reasoning behind this is that one time in study hall, I accidentally plugged my headphones into the wrong jack. See, my computer has two audio ports: one for headphones and one for a microphone. Not knowing this, since my computer was relatively new to me, I plugged my headphones into the microphone jack and clicked Play. Next thing I knew, WRR 101.1 starts blasting all through my study hall and my teacher is telling me to turn it off. Now I can't listen to music without checking, so as to ensure my lack of embarrassment.

Finals

I swear these finals are going to kill me. I hope they won't, but my chances of surviving are highly unlikely.

Today's technically my last day of school, at least of classes. Tomorrow's Dead Day (and my brother’s 19^th birthday), Monday is Memorial Day (a.k.a. an extra study day, thank God), and then Tuesday-Friday are exam days. I'm usually not very stressed about tests, even finals because in reality they're just tests, because I test very well. It's just, there's so much I need to review; my history study guide alone is 23 pages long! I used over an entire deck of index cards just for the Greece unit vocabulary and I still need to make cards for at least 5 more sections, probably more.

In Chinese today we had to perform a skit which we had memorized in groups, except the members of my group minus me needed to use their scripts. I said my lines pretty well without my script, though I did have a few stumbles. I was so nervous beforehand! I was trembling all throughout the skit (I am terrified of speaking in front of a group), but I think we did pretty well overall. That skit was worth HALF of our exam grade so I wanted everything to be perfect. 

Next Tuesday I have a math final and a history final. I'm not really that worried about math; I took this class last year but didn't make it in to the advanced class this year. But history wasn't one of my strongest subjects this year. On Wednesday I have a biology final, then on Thursday I've got theology and Chinese. And on Friday I have just my English final (which consists of multiple choice AND an in-class essay), and then I'm free for the entire summer!!!! Here's hoping I don't die from the stress, though.

If you're stressing out about finals, like me, good luck my friend! :)

Chiletas Piñas - My New Addiction

Okay, so today in my theology class we finished our presentations about different kinds of prayers. Two of the girls in my class chose Las Posadas. It's a Mexican novena celebrating the nativity story from December 16 to Christmas Eve; the literal translation means The Houses because it's the story of Mary and Joseph trying to find a place to stay so Jesus can be born. According to tradition, at the end of the whole "journey" of los peregrinos (the holy family: Mary, Joseph, and the soon-to-be-born baby Jesus) there is a party with lots of food. The teens and kids usually get what's called a bolo, which is a basket or bag of candy, and some pastries too. So what these girls did is make bolos for all of us. One of the candies in our bolos were these lollipops called Chiletas Piñas, which are these pineapple-flavored lollipops with chili powder sprinkled throughout! They were SO good; sweet, salty, and spicy, but not too spicy to like, blow your mouth every direction. Nope, just hot enough to make you come back for more. I was so disappointed when I finished my last one. I need to go buy more!

Morbid Elizabethan English Monologues and Sushi Can Change a Girl's Perspective!

So, after school started my day got better, honestly. I had time to calm down and just focus on something else other than all the stress. 


In English class, we had just finished Macbeth and after we turned in our essays, my teacher told us we were going to write a monologue in the perspective of a bad character (I'm not naming because you might read Macbeth when you're older and I am not one to spoil) who kills herself and then we get act it out next time. So, my friends Osi, Julia, Kate, and I all wrote a pretty morbid one. Julia came up with the idea for the theme, Kate is surprisingly awesome with generating morbid and very Shakespearean expressions, Osi is phenomenal at acting, and well...I'm a good typer/editor. Part of the monologue goes like this: "Thou evil, cursed crimson, rid thyself from me!" 


And then on the way home from school, I was really craving Asian food. So we went by Kroger and I got a box of California rolls (consequently, I learned that when people say wasabi is hot, they aren't kidding!) and ate every last one.


Yay! This is my sesquicentennial (except not really, since a sesquicentennial is every 150 years so technically I'm misusing the word but I wanted to use the word sesquicentennial when referring to any unit of 150) post!

Senior Prank Day

Unbeknownst to the rest of us until recently, today is Senior Prank Day at my school. Which means they can pretty much make the underclassmen - especially the freshmen - do whatever the heck they want us to do. I have a face full of yellow, blue, and green face paint, and already I've done five jumping jacks and had to dance in a very embarrassing way ......just to get inside the school building. On any other day, I wouldn't mind this; it may have even been fun for me if today didn't already suck. Let me backpedal a little bit so you don't think I'm a fun-hating good-for-nothing.

So this morning my mom wakes me up at 6, when I have my alarm set for 6:45. She says she has to leave early for work, so I'd best get moving if I want her to take me to school. I wanted to sleep for that precious extra 45 minutes, and so my brother had to take me to carpool. Along the way, I realized I hadn't eaten breakfast and that I'd left my rubber bands at home. When we got to the carpool meeting place, nobody was there besides me...my carpool people never figure out that when you have to leave by 8:15, you'd better be there BEFORE 8-FRICKIN'-15. This has always happened, from the beginning of the school year, and it's really pissing me off. And then, once we actually got to school, the seniors ambushed us (well, not really, but you know what I mean) and the first paragraph happened. After that, I had to go water the garden for my school's Permaculture club (I'd volunteered to do it today). It's really freaking warm outside...did I mention I live in Texas? I had many struggles with the watering hose and with trying not to get stung by our not-so-friendly neighborhood hornet, which I'm pretty sure did sting me. Hopefully I'm not allergic. While watering, I just happened to check my phone's time, which read 9:27. Class starts on Mondays at 9:30 here.

So yeah. I'm dirty and sweaty and tired and hungry and I keep unintentionally touching my face in the exact spots where I got painted. And I don't particularly like Mondays in general. Sorry to be a Negative Nelly, guys, but I think I deserve a day to gripe.

Pandora

I got the Pandora app on my iPod this morning and I absolutely love it! I've got 3 stations set so far: One Direction, Queen, and The Beatles, but I'm adding more as I think of them. If anyone's wondering, now I've got Lecrae (it's Christian rap), The Band Perry, and *Nsync. And Robert Schumann. I like my variety.


The other day, I went through my middle school presentations and writing assignments and such. First off, I found a PowerPoint I made for French class in 7th grade and to my dismay, I didn't understand about half of it. And then I found my Social Studies writing assignments, and I laughed because every paragraph was only 5 sentences. If I wrote a paper like those at my current school, I would be failing every class (except string ensemble and study hall). 


Happy Sunday! I have finals in 9 days, and I need to study. Technically I started studying last night, but I only partially finished one section of Historical Geography vocabulary terms. I say partially because the Quizlet set I made for that section didn't have all of the terms I needed. So now I need to study for algebra, biology, theology, Chinese, and English except she didn't give us a review guide so I don't really remember what I need to study for that. I'll ask her tomorrow. Which reminds me that I have a Macbeth essay due tomorrow, and that my conclusion could use a couple more sentences. 

Summer Job?

I'm thinking of maybe applying for a summer job this year for some extra money, though not many places hire 15-year-old girls without any experience whatsoever. But still.

My mom says it's a little too late to be applying this year, since most kids are on break soon. Anyway, I want to have fun this summer (and see my boyfriend more often), and work would probably just get in the way.

What are your plans for this summer? Share them in the comments! Later on in the summer, I might make a post about fun things to do outside of the house (if you're a pale, antisocial Internet junkie like me). Sound good?

I have less than two weeks until break now! (13 days is technically less than two weeks :P)

Google+ and Caffeine!

So I joined Google's new social networking site, Google Plus,  today. It's pretty cool, but it would help if I actually had some friends on there. Hint-hint, nudge-nudge.

And I got an email from this website I go on every day because of their awesome posts, www.dearblankpleaseblank.com. It said one of my submitted posts was approved, and it's on the front page! I'm really excited because I've submitted a lot and this one got posted and aaaaaah and yeah. Isn't that sad, though? I get excited because of the Internet. It's the one that starts with "Dear republican dad who told me 'only democrats join the Peace Corps,'", if you want to go find it.

I'm kind of hyped up on some iced coffee and a cup of Earl Grey this morning......so maybe that contributes to my excitement. Whatever.

Ciao!

Teavana!

As you can see from my previous post today, I was not a happy camper. However, my friend introduced me to the beauty that is teavana.com. I'm a HUGE tea fan and I've always wanted to make loose leaf tea, so this was the perfect website for me. She showed me this strawberry misaki blooming tea - once the dried tea steeps, it actually blooms into a carnation-type flower! It's so pretty! Go to the website, type "strawberry misaki blooming tea" in the search bar, and you'll see what I mean.

Teavana doesn't just have tea, it also has tea brewers, strainers, and my very favorite kind of sugar - rock sugar. It's not granules like regular table sugar, but it looks like little amber-tinged pebbles!

And another happy finding!!! THEY HAVE A LOCATION KIND OF NEAR MY SCHOOL! From the sound of it, their stores are like half tea bar (samples aplenty), half tea emporium. It's heaven on earth in a nutshell for tea fanatics!

I need this week to be over

Anyone else agree? Because, for me, this week kind of sucks. I just want stupid finals to be over and go home and do nothing without feeling bad for it. Actually, I don't feel bad about being lazy now, but I should. And I'm not feeling too great right now so that's also a bad thing because it just puts me in a terrible mood and I'm no fun to be around when I'm cranky like this. So yeah.

11:01 AM on June 1st I will be free of my misery.



16 days and a few more hours...

Rainbow Popsicle Day and Bye Bye, Seniors

HAPPY RAINBOW POPSICLE DAY! Yes, it actually is a holiday. So go out and buy yourself a delicious rainbow Popsicle to celebrate! I never would have known such thing existed, if it weren't for a senior in my orchestra ensemble named Audrey.

Audrey is awesomely cool. She's so funny, organized (and no, I'm not being forced to say that) and has every single wacky holiday committed to memory since her freshman year. She's one of my very favorite seniors aside from Kate, Becca, Lydia, Carolyn, and Hannah, and I hope she has fun in college but still remembers the socially awkward freshman pianist who always tried to be like her in punctuality and maturity (me). I guess I'm just really sad now because it's the seniors' last day of classes and I'm honestly going to miss them. I know most of my senior friends through the fine arts department and they're some of the coolest people I've ever met.

If you, dearest reader, are one of the seniors I have met (and you somehow found out about my blog), I bid you farewell and have an awesome time in college! P.S. Come back to visit soon. Please? :)

Have an awesome Friday!

-Mer....wait a second, you guys probably know who I am by now. 

Lemons

Okay, first off I promise I'm not trying to shirk my blogging duties. It's just that A) I've been super busy with last-month-of-school stuff, B) my only living grandparent (my grandma) broke her hip on Sunday, and C) I haven't had much inspiration lately.

Secondly, it seems like I'm doing some sort of food trend with these posts. Not intentional at all.

Moving on to my story now. Imagine me as a small child, about 3 or 4 years old. I was in this dance class for little girls, right? And for one of my performances, my mom thought it would be a wonderful idea to lighten my already golden blonde hair even more. So, we went to my hairdresser, and she suggested squeezing lemon juice in my hair (apparently, citric acid does wonders). Ms. Becky (my hairdresser) forgot to mention one thing, which y'all will read very soon.

So my mom and I get home, she sits me down and puts my head in the sink, fanning my hair out so she could apply the juice rather evenly. Instead of juicing a lemon and moving the juice to a squirt bottle or something, my mom has this great idea to just directly squeeze the lemon halves onto my hair. This wouldn't have been a problem, had I not long, thick, VERY curly, fine hair (which I still do). Joke's on her, though; she was combing lemon seeds out of my hair for three days straight.

Since my hair's gotten darker over the years (currently it's kind of a dirty blonde), I've found a better way to lighten my hair now. It still uses the lemon juice method, but I re-used an empty It's A Ten bottle to hold about 2 Tbsp of lemon juice and around half a cup of water. All I have to do is shake, spray, dry, and go! And a plus side of re-using a leave-in conditioner bottle: it had a tiny bit of conditioner left in the very bottom that I couldn't rinse out, so my hair isn't being too damaged by the aforementioned acid. 

I can't guarantee that I'll be posting more often, but I do promise you this: once summer officially begins for me, you can expect to hear a BUNCH more from me.

XOXO and DFTBA,

Meridith

P.S. I'm so glad I make people (namely my blogger bestie Jovi) laugh. Honestly, I'm not this funny in "real life." But maybe writing's just how I get my true emotions out. 

Omelettes

Yes, those fantastic French egg things. I'm about to tell you how one made me think I was a baby chicken murderer.

So one time I was making an omelette. The recipe I was using said to bring the eggs up to room temperature before cooking by either leaving them out overnight or, if you didn't have time for that, submerging them in a bowl of hot water for a few minutes. I didn't have a lot of time, so I went with the second route. After I put the eggs in the bowl of water, I heard little peeping noises coming from that direction. I started freaking out, pretty much. I thought the eggs were hatching and that as soon as the baby chickens came out of their shells they would meet a watery death! (Perhaps I should mention that these eggs were from a friend's chicken farm, and I was pretty young. I thought maybe some eggs had been accidentally fertilized without the farmer's knowledge.) So, I ran to the bowl, snatched up the eggs, and cracked one into another bowl, fully intent on saving at least one baby chicken's life. I was surprised - and so relieved - when no baby chicken came out.

I don't think I've ever made another omelette since then. They're pretty tricky devils, anyway.