Looks are deceiving

You see that pretty tree there to the left? Yeah, that's a Bradford Pear tree. At my school we have two of them planted in the lower courtyard, and they look very pretty, but I wish my school would just get rid of them.

Why?

Because they smell. And not in a nice way.

Have you ever been to a fish market? Or perhaps had a batch of uncooked shrimp go bad in your fridge? Because that's what this tree smells like as soon as it blooms in the spring: rotting shrimp.

Other people online described it more colorfully, but yeah...

As we were taking club pictures today the stench being emitted from these Asian ornamental trees was quite unpleasant, and led to many angry conversations about the idiocy of these plants, that have been referred to as invasive towards native plant species. UGH. Smelly trees FTL.

My teachers will hate me tomorrow

....because I'm going to be gone most of the period for club pictures.

After looking at the schedule I realized that I'm going to be in 9 (!) club pictures for the yearbook. First through fourth period happens to be when most of the pictures are scheduled and it just so happens that I have pictures in each period :/

Yeah. I don't know how this is going to go down. Normally this wouldn't matter, but since tomorrow is a half day all of my classes are cut in half.

And then I have a speech competition Saturday, which I'm under prepared for, but that's ok. I'll get through it. I'm so used to public speaking it oozes from my pores.

From inside my sketchbook

As promised from the last post, some snapshots from my sketchbook. I was originally going to scan them, but I got lazy. In fact, the only reason that I can type this right now is because I had a half day of school due to standardized testing. I'm currently ignoring the giant MOUNTAIN of homework that I have to do in order to blog... I really need to straighten out my priorities.

1) A preliminary rough sketch of a roots and influence assignment in my art class. 2) A little doodle my friend Caity drew in my book. 3) A Where's Waldo card I snagged from a small child that got it in a happy meal or something.

4) Some notes and reminders, and a tortoise falling into a koi pond. 5) Piggy Man is pretty self explanatory. 6) A quick sketch of my grandma's Irish wolfhound Sugar.

7) A little thing inspired by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. 8) A recent question that had crossed my mind while reading the March issue of TIME magazine. 9) A Teddy Roosevelt quote that I really enjoyed.

I omitted the more mundane pages that had physics notes and random cat people on them because I was, well, lazy. Anyways, yeah. Back to homework.