L'shanah tovah!

I really love this time of day (night, if you want to get specific): my homework is (mostly) done, my lunch is made, my backpack is packed, and I'm sitting here on my bed listening to music and drinking tea. That was my third cup of tea of the day. You get bonus points if you recognize the reference in that statement, although if you go to my school it shouldn't really be difficult...

This week was ridiculous. Should I say the positives first or negatives? Hmmm... I tend to like saving the best for last, so I'll go bad to good.

Sucky parts of week two of school:
-The bus issues sucked really badly. I was in such a terrible mood Monday and Tuesday after school, after riding the bus for 3-4 hours each day.
- I didn't do so great on this math quiz that was supposed to be very easy. It was stupid- I completely knew most of it, but I'm not very good at math and I tend to doubt myself with all of my answers, and I did most of the problems incorrectly, even though looking back they were all ridiculous mistakes.
- I haven't got it back yet, but I'm pretty sure I failed a Japanese quiz. We all thought it would be this simple review thing, but I didn't even answer about seven of the twenty or so questions. Once again, I made stupid test-taking mistakes. There were three culture questions: one relating to a kind of mat Japanese sleep on, one about a type of kimono Japanese wear, and a third about some piece of Japanese furniture. The word "tatami" was in my mind for the mat question, but I wasn't sure if that was anything or just a word I made up. I also thought it sounded stupid and I didn't put it down. The only type of kimono I know is a yukata, which is some type of summer kimono. The question didn't ask for a summer kimono, however, so I didn't put it down. After going over the answers after the test, I found out I was right about both of them. STUPID.

Better parts of week two of school:
- While I didn't do well on the Japanese quiz, I did get a B+ on the summer writing assignment, which I revised for the next higher grade. Hopefully that will boost my terrible quiz grade.
- The bus thing got sorted out, but in a weird way. Now, my first bus gets me to my base school 15 minutes earlier, which means that I actually have time to talk to my base school friends before school. My second bus started leaving five minutes early, but is also taking the highway, so we are getting to school twenty minutes early. The huge jump is all a bit weird, but I'd much rather have it this way then continue being late all the time.
- I don't know why, but I was getting weird highs from my friends at school. Seriously, I was in a weird (but good) mood at lunch basically every day this week. Maybe it's the apples...
- There was a lot of AVPM singing in school this week. Gloria and I listened to the entire thing during 8th period on Friday, and Katie and I were rocking out to Granger Danger during lunch (that may have been last week, but whatever).
- I got a bunch of comments on my shirts. My physics teacher thought my picklepack shirt was funny, although I didn't bother explaining to him what it really meant. I wore my HPA shirt another day, where I had a few comments from a few different people. At the end of lunch, some girl walking by slowed down, read my shirt, gave me a thumbs up and said, "nice" and walked away. One of my classmates commented on how I wear funny shirts a lot and not always ones that say "Abercrombie" across the top or something. My friend Gloria, however, obnoxiously said that the HPA logo is stupid, like it looks like a broken heart that was supposed to look cool but wasn't. You know what, Gloria? YOUR MOM.

I feel like I need to have my video camera with me wherever I go lately. There have been some seriously epic moments of the school day that I feel need to be recorded for future amusement. I'm realizing that I don't have as much footage from this year as last, which may prove to be a problem when the time comes to make an end of the year video.
This is a good year so far. I was reading some of my poetry from last year, and I was not in a good place emotionally. It felt as though my entire life was devoted to homework and grades, and as though every time I tried to get a release from everything, I was just pushing myself back. I feel like this year I have found a way to balance everything better. CoW video chats on the weekend help me recapture my sanity. Blocking facebook, twitter, and youtube has allowed me to do things like write or listen to music when I want to relax, rather than constantly refreshing (I just knocked my mug over the side of my bed with my foot. After fishing it out, I had the tea bag in one hand and the mug with a sock in it in the other. I'm not asking questions.) the homepages of these websites for enjoyment. I'm just generally a lot happier with life, and while schoolwork doesn't put me in the greatest mood, I feel like I am accepting the stress better.

THIS IS GETTING REALLY LONG.
Okay. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. Happy new year to all of you Jews out there! I feel like there was a lot I wanted to say that I didn't get the chance to say. Maybe I'll make this a daily thing. We'll see how that goes. Let's see if I can post this at exactly 11:11 :)