Summer Job, Back-To-School and Water Polo

It has been a long time since I last posted a quality entry on this blog-- something that is neither a blurb nor a rant. Tonight is the night, three and a half readers! So get ready to hear just about everything that's new with me.

I'll start kind-of where I left off-- the end of last school year. School let out, and my grades were certainly lower than I would have hoped. Oh well, I'm not worrying about that. I'm focused on this semester now. A week into summer, my job working for my uncle began. I have to say, it was the best thing I did all summer. My job was to lift the kids onto the ponies, get them talkative and smiling for the pictures, and put the cowboy outfit on them. It sounds silly, but it was a lot of fun, and I am extremely glad that I did. I saved and spent a few hundred dollars in paychecks, the savings to go towards my car (hopefully I will have one by the end of this school year) and driver's ed (which I will be starting as soon as water polo season is over-- more on water polo below). My uncle said that if the position is there, I could work for him next summer; it depends on whether or not the preschools and daycares continue to drop in attendance numbers (gee, thanks, economy). It's not all bad, though, as I turn sixteen in a month and a half, and I plan to apply for jobs the day after my birthday... or maybe two days after. I don't imagine I'll get a lot of sleep on my birthday, seeing as it's on a Saturday.

So that's what the large majority of my summer consisted of-- working. I hung out with Cole, Daniel, and Jill quite a bit (separately, most of the time :P). I dropped Puget Sound Polo (just for the summer!) so that I could work more. Because of that, I did not go to the Junior Olympics, which I'm still getting over. The school season started up fairly soon, however, so I wasn't without water polo for too long. This year I'm playing swing (a combination of varsity and junior-varsity) for Wilson, primarily as a wholeset. We are off to a great start this year, winning our pre-season jamboree, and every game so far. At the jamboree (which was only games of two quarters), we beat Lakes 11-0, we beat Puyallup 8-0, we beat Curtis 8-4, and we beat one of the Auburn schools 9ish to 4ish. I'm not sure about the score of the last game, as nothing really mattered after we beat Curtis (our rivals in water polo and the school that took first at state last year). As far as regular games go we are 2-0 having beat Rogers and Emerald Ridge, both decisively. At the Emerald Ridge game I had a couple of varsity assists and in the junior varsity game I had 8 goals and 4 assists (it was a 2-quarters game and we beat them 14-0). Enough with the water polo, though. I imagine reading scores is boring.

The only other thing that is really new is the school year. I'm a sophomore now. Here is a rundown of my schedule: 1st- Honors Biology, 2nd- Honors English, 3rd- Spanish 3, 4th- Honors World Cultures, 5th- Pre-Calculus, 6th- Health 2. As far as I can tell, my schedule is alright. I think that I'll like my Biology class and the teacher, and the same goes for English. Spanish looks like it is going to be my boring class each day. The teacher is not as enthusiastic as Senora Tabares (too lazy to do the enyay~) was, but I think I'll be fine in his class. My World Cultures teacher seems AWESOME, and I also think he'll actually teach. It's a delicate balance, finding a teacher who is cool and actually teaches. I have the same math teacher for Pre-Calc as I did for Algebra 4, so I know what to expect. He is a good teacher and a nice guy but you have to work hard in his class. As far as Health, I expect it to be an easy class, albeit one with a medium workload.

Well, that's all I've got for the moment. A few things I'm planning on doing are posting more often, and posting reviews of music, books, etc. I've got several lined up to do, but we all know how long it takes me to post something up. See you anywhere from later tonight to a month or four from now.

No Entries in Forever, and a Shameless Game Promotion

Well, howdy ho, handful of readers. It has been awhile, and by awhile, I mean a summer.

And don't think I made a post to, you know, tell you about my life, or something meaningful and interesting. I'm here to tell you about two very cool games-- Menulis and Miestas. Their lack of plot, unique art design, and simplistic gameplay and controls made them a couple of the best games I've played this summer. And that's saying something. They are also short.

Menulis

and

Miestas

On another note, I might post something important later. I don't know.

My Party, A Poem

So it turns out that I'm having the party of the all time, and you're all invited. Check it out.

I'm really happy with this one. I think I got the tone that I was trying to convey across to the reader fairly well, considering I am really a novice to writing. Let me know what you think.

Free Money, Star Trek

Something awesome happened to me today. After slaving away at our yard for about three and a half hours total for $25, I was (forcedly) cleaning my room, and, as a result, the massive pile of a combination of junk that I want to keep and general garbage that slowly accumulates underneath my bed. I found my old wallet, which has been missing for several weeks, and, with it, about $50. Now, I know what you are thinking: "Jeez, Dutty, didn't you think to check underneath your bed when you initially lost the wallet?". The answer is, yes, yes I did. Not only did I just check underneath the bed, but I thoroughly checked underneath the bed several times. I have absolutely no idea how I could have missed it. Oh, wait, that's right: it was underneath the massive pile of garbage that I cleaned out.

I also just got back from the new Star Trek movie. It was very good, and matched up very nicely with the Star Trek series. as far as I could tell. Besides, even if it didn't, that could be explained by pointing out that, because of the time travel, it could all be an alternate timeline anyway. I was expecting it to be okay, but was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I used to watch Star Trek all of the time before school on TV Land. I believe I still have some DVDs laying around from my days of watching it a lot. The movie had some very funny moments, as well. I'd recommend watching it if anyone really cares to read this.

It was a pleasure seeing Nimoy portray old-Spock. :)

Updates

Yes, updates. On "5,280 Feet" and "Teacher-Chosen Groups Suck", to be exact. We'll start with the latter.

The Spanish presentation that I was whining about went pretty well, as far as I am concerned. I spoke my lines clearly, with proper enunciation, and I am confident that my script was pretty good. I can't say the same thing for the rest of my group, though. They all mumbled their lines, mispronounced the words, and generally screwed up their grades. I did all of the work, yes, but at least I will get a good grade for it.

Now, onto the mile. Today, we ran the mile again. The goal that I was hoping to meet by June I met a little earlier than expected. Today in PE, I got a 9:54, just under my goal of 10:00. Ridiculously slow, I know, but it still feels good to set a goal and make it. And at least I wasn't the last one to finish.

I can't really think of anything else to post, although I'm sure there is something that I am forgetting.

Tidbits:

With my first paycheck (the week after school gets out), I plan on buying: ice cream (I have a bit of an obsession with Cold Stone, it's just so dang expensive), a nice webcam (I am going to start vlogging, hopefully in the style of Dan Brown), and then put the rest in savings unless if I can come up with something.

We are reading Romeo and Juliet in English. It's okay. I've read enough excerpts of it over the years that I have practically read the whole play.


I still have to see my counselor about a grade last semester that is on my transcript as an A- even though I got an A, and about (re)taking a math course or two this summer, preferably as contract school.

Listen to this.

Teacher-Chosen Groups Suck

Yeah. What the title said. I'm freaking pissed off right now, as my final in my Spanish class, our final is a group project. It's all good, though, right? I'll just choose my intelligent friends to be in my group, right? That's not quite the case.

The teacher, who I normally have no problem with (she's a great teacher, and I have learned a lot in the few months I have taken Spanish) decided that she would assign us to groups. Now, normally this would not be a very big deal to me, but this particular assignment counts not only as a chapter exam, but also as part of our final.

Naturally, I want to do as well as I can on my final. However, if I split up the work evenly in my group, it's just not going to cut it. I don't want a C on something that is 10% of my grade.

So here I am, doing all of the work.

By choice. Meh.

Listen.

Updates on Small Things, and Poetry

Some updates: During the last few weeks, I feel like I have found out who my real friends are, and I am extremely glad. I have rooted out the "weeds", of which there were only a few, and had some conversations which proved to me what I knew in the pit of my stomach-- some people that I want(ed) to be friends with are really just too big of idiots. I'm not making a fiasco out of it or anything, but I am definitely changing things. I still have one conversation to have to tonight before I am done with my weeding process.

Junior Olympics: I might be going to the JOs. My coach will be sending me and email with fundraiser information soon. We'll really have to wait and see.

I wrote another poem (2 days ago), that I am just now getting around to posting up. Please read the author's comments, as I do not want anyone thinking that my home life if that terrible, or that I am seeing a shrink. I embellished quite a bit, as well as the fact that I enjoy writing from a point of view other than my own (that of a patient with similarities to me, in this case).

Today, I had one of the most elevating and humbling experiences in my life. A person, who will remain unnamed, whose opinion and respect I value extremely so, gave me a backhanded compliment like I have never had before. I now know what it feels like to be on top of the world, and to feel like shit at the same time. Next year I'm getting a 4.0, just so I can be congratulated by said person.

Anyway, this entry turned weird. Back to normal happenings.

We ate at El Toro on Cinco de Mayo, and it was extremely good. I am going to heat up my leftover enchilada right after this entry. I'm glad it was good, as we need a Mexican restaurant to go to (our old favorite, El Jimidor, closed), and we've previously had bad experiences at El Toro, but now we might start going again.

I had my student-led conference last night, and it went surprisingly well. My adviser seemed impressed that I had won second place in the science fair and that I had done several sports and clubs. Senior year is the only time that sudent-led conferences count, though.

I'm helping out the girls at their water polo practices in the morning again (I took a short break-- I couldn't get up early enough). They have about a week until state, so I'll try to make every practice until then so that our varsity girls can do well. They are looking to take second or third place, depending on the bracket they are in (If they are against Curtis before the championship game, they'll get third), and how they do against Gig Harbor (their record against them is 1-1). Go Rams!