September progress report

1. I'm ALMOST in the top 10%. I'm ranked 30 out of 288. Yes. That's right. I only have to jump up a few more spots and I'm IN. Once I'm in scholarships moneyz will start rolling in and I'll be set. Also, some colleges do automatic acception if you're in the top 10%.
2. I'm in LOVE with our blogger family group on Facebook. It almost sort of makes up for the fact that I can rarely blog during weekdays anymore.
   
3. I made a 99 on my AP English project and a 100 on my AP Environment project. At the rate I'm going at now I should be able to weasel my way into the top 10%. A lot of AP kids are either failing, or making substandard grades, so I feel pretty confident. Is is wrong that I like that they're not doing as well as me? Does that make me evil? Or a bad person? Pfffttt... Who am I kidding, I really need the scholarship money.
4. Now that it's the weekend I can finally watch TV! I think I average a grand total of 2 hours during the week? However, my weekends have begun disappearing on me because of homework and other school stuff.
5. This has brought me so.much.joy.
6. My friends. Let me introduce you to Lensbaby. It's amazing. It's wonderful. I LOVE MANUALLY CHANGING THE APERTURE. For everyone that could care less about cameras, it's pretty much just a specialty lens that allows you to take pictures with cool focal effects that you usually have to get through Photoshop nowadays. Here are some sample pictures that I took at a football game last night.
   
   
   

Oh. And that's me. Hugging my TV because the new episode of Doctor Who was on.

Anywho. September was nice. October will be hectic. On Monday I have an Art Club meeting after school that will last until 4:30ish that I have to preside over because I'm president, and then a Z-club meeting at 5:30. Then I have to go home, make cupcakes, and get ready for Tuesday which is my school's homecoming carnival, meaning that Tuesday night is completely blown.

I'm really hoping that none of my teachers assign homework because it's probably not going to be done. By anyone. Because the entire school will be in 'homecoming' mode.

So far I've been so swamped with homework that I haven't had time to blog, or catch up on blogs. But that's what weekends are for.

Speedos are awkward

Oh my goodness. Please, for the love of everything decent in the universe--- if you're a guy just don't. Don't ever wear a speedo in the presence of a female. Never ever. Unless you have the body of a Greek god (and let's not try and be delusional fellas. There's a reason why Hollister didn't hire you as a model).

Anyways, I woke up early this Saturday to take pictures at my school's invitational swim meet and I nearly had a heart attack when I discovered that EVERY guy on the swim team sans one donned a Speedo. Not to be rude or mean, but I don't think my eyes will ever be able to recover. Ever.

I did have fun taking pictures though. Out of the bazillion that I took this one is probably one of my favorites that I can post. I didn't want to use any that showed anyone's face, or one that we could potentially use in the yearbook.

I had a HUGE Sigma 100-300mm lens and I used a Canon EOS 60D so I felt a little overwhelmed by the equipment, but after a while I got used to the massive weight of the lens juxtaposed by the lightness of the camera itself. I'm really trying my best to learn more about cameras and whatnot, but I get confused really easily, especially when people start talking about ISOs and f-stops, whatever those are. Pfft, honestly I just mess around until stuff starts to look good.

The only thing I had an issue with was actually capturing pictures of the swimmers, in motion, with a recognizable face. You have no idea how hard that is. In yearbook we have to use pictures that show recognizable facial features, which at times can be very limiting. Ah, well I managed to get some decent pictures and I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to get more seeing as this is only the first swim meet of the season (does swim even have a season?).

Anyways, this was just a little update/quasi public service announcement about speedos.

On another note, class ranks have been sent out and I'm a little frazzled. My parents have yet to check the P.O. Box so I'm a little anxious to see if I've gone up or down. Regardless, I know the rank will be slightly inaccurate because of all the people who have dropped AP at the beginning this year... GAH. I NEED TO KNOW MY RANK. I need to know if I've clawed my way up from the top 15% of my class....

Time to take off the band-aid

While I've had a plethora of things to blog about, I seem to have lacked time to actually write anything out.

I'll get the bad things out of the way first.

1) I no longer have my dog Bear. My dad took him to the animal shelter just a few hours ago because he'd finally lost his patience. We literally could not leave the house because my dog had so much anxiety he would destroy everything. Just last week we left the house for 20 minutes and he had managed to get a bottle of Aspirin off the kitchen counter top and chewed through the bottle and ate all the pills. Luckily he puked them up, but still. He's ruined the mini blinds and door in our main bathroom and has destroyed A LOT of my belongings. Let's just say I had more patience than my dad and the only reason we had him so long was because I refused to let my dad give him away.

2) A friend of mine recently found out that this guy she had been seeing had been arrested. He didn't tell her why at first, but apparently it was because he was in possession of drugs. And he lied to my friend. And she's in a really fragile emotional state. And I really want to punch him in the face because this isn't the first time he's made her cry so hard that she can't even come to school the next day. I'm hoping that once he goes to rehab he'll clean up, but I'm not too optimistic. I just hope my friend will end things with him, despite how strongly she feels towards him. :(

On the bright side, my parents have decided to let me get a kitten. I've always wanted a cat. My grandmother has threatened to stop visiting if we get a cat. (yessssssss!) I'm sure she'll visit regardless.

Also I ate some yummy Vietnamese food with some friends of mine today after school and we made this video for my friend Kenneth who HATES it when people say "NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM".

It was kind of awkward because I felt like my friend Hang was trying to hook me up with this one guy... Eh... I don't know. It was weird, but luckily he left a little early so it wasn't too bad.

I feel like I should post some pictures.

This guy is too big for this tiny car.

Now you guys can prank call this place. They speak really good Engrish.

Yes. I look very attractive mid-stuffing my face. NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Yummy!!

Anyways, I've got AP Gov homework to study!