Post Numbah 169!

Started: 10:56 PM Saturday, November 26, 2011.

SATM: There’s a strange feeling in my stomach. I dunno why. Other than that, I’m pretty good.

COFTW: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, and playing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on the piano, and thinking up Christmas presents for my friends and family.

SPN: 172.

Hey there

Lately, I’ve been feeling pretty darn good. My mom’s still annoyed with my dad because he always makes silly comments. But whatever, the point is, it seems like they still have a while to go before it’s down to “We’re getting a divorce.” Actually, I’m not really sure if it’s still a possibility. Ah well, who knows what the future holds?

Anyways, again, not the focus of the post. Once again, it seems that I’m always playing catch-up with this site.

Let’s see what’s changed.

I’ve been feeling a lot more social lately. Not in the sense that I can go up to people and just make small talk, but in the sense that I feel more comfortable just being around more people. I’m so used to being in a small compact group of friends, but that’s gradually changed as  I start meeting friends of friends who introduce me to more friends of friends. I just feel that I’ve really expanded in who I talk to on a daily basis. For example, hmm, I shall call him Goldfish. I think I’ve mentioned him as GJ. I never really spoke to him until that Disneyland trip that I went on in eighth grade. We made some good memories, the four of us, me, Goldfish, Pie, and Slash (I seem to have lost track of my nick names, but I shall call her the Blaxican from now on or Afromaster… Afromaster=Blaxican=Slash). Anyways, I’ve just realized that I now talk to Goldfish even though we’ve never had the same classes or knew each other prior to the trip last school year. He’s probably one of my closest guy friends currently. I feel kind of sad that I don’t have a guy friend that I can tell everything to, all my personal problems and stuff, but it’s nice to know that I actually have a guy friend that I converse with every morning and at lunch. Actually, he’s the only guy in our lunch group of about 12 people. He’s told us multiple times that he only hangs out with us because all his guy friends have 2nd lunch, but whatever.

Onto the next subject.

Christmas Concert. December 15. VVHS. Concert Band.

Yep, band is having the ol’ Christmas concert. Aaaaand, I’ll be doing a freaking piano solo. It’s tough. It’s my first time performing. Like EVER. As a pianist. As a soloist. Oh boy.

I’m really, really nervous about it. You know how I said I’ve been playing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as an obsession. Yeah, it’s more like I’ve been practicing it because I need it memorized before December 15. And I have to play it confidently with my back straight avoiding looking at the audience I’ll be in front of. It’s pretty nerve-wracking considering my little experience with performing and the fact that I have major stage fright. I’ve always avoided just playing piano for party guests at my house. Or anything really. My parents once had to force me to play because I kept running away. I’ll admit the last time that happened was when I was like 8, but that’s because I got very persistent about not playing for anyone. Of course I’ll show off a little in front of my friends, but they’re my friends. At the concert I’ll know the band members, but that’s it. Even in front of them I get nervous, especially when Mr. G calls me out in class. *sigh* I don’t know how I’ll handle it, but I hope I do okay.

Well. Yeah.

I’ma switch the topic now.

How’s about English, eh? English is… frustrating. We have portfolio essays at my school, I don’t know how many schools have this, but mine does (FML). And yeah. They suck. Minimum eight paragraphs, about 4 pages minimum. We had to make a rough draft in one night. As a freshmen, it’s a bit overwhelming writing that much along with the rest of the homework all these damn teachers assign. It was rough. I actually woke up at like 4 and wrote 5 pages of stuff and I didn’t even get to 6 paragraphs. I wrote a new page once I got to school. Luckily, due to its surprising length, I got a stamp from Mrs. N. Boy, was I relieved. The next draft was 9 pages with all 8 paragraphs. Mrs. N then wrote notes over the English section (which was first and the longest). And yeah. My third rough draft was 14 pages (13 pages and a sentence at the back). In class, she said she was just going to skim over it since she was fairly confident that I had fixed my mistakes. She sat down and started reading. I began to notice that she was actually reading fairly deeply and I was surprised. I mean, she just said she was going to scan it. The English portion ended up taking up 7 pages, and she said she was interested in my writing and that it was well-detailed. I had been silent hyperventilating each time her pen touched the paper. But in the end, I just needed to fix some things and add more about certain topics. She admitted that it was rather lengthy and that I need to cut out two paragraphs, but it was “excellent.” I can’t even describe the ecstasy I was in. Just to hear that my efforts into making that draft were successful.

She actually ended up embarrassing me about 3 times in class right after that saying, “I just read Maydelle’s essay. It is 14 pages long.” I heard everyone turn in their seats to look at me. Some with dirty looks, some with awe and admiration, and some with overall indifference. “Can you imagine what a teacher will grade you if you have 3 pages and that teacher had just read Maydelle’s essay? Yeah, they’re gonna grade you badly. I’m hoping none of your essays are under 4 pages.” After that she mentioned the importance of having every piece in our portfolios. This is an exact quote, “Even if you have a Maydelle 13-page essay, excellent detail, great imagery, and you’re missing one piece, it’s an automatic zero.” Everyone laughed as I sunk in my chair slightly. Especially Pie. Mrs. N said “Maydelle 13-page essay” about 2 more times. At book club, this past Saturday, Bunneh Buddeh told me that she even mentioned me in her 5th period class. Mrs. N has two freshmen classes, 2nd period and 5th. According to Bunneh Buddeh this is what she said, “I’m not going to say the name, but I have a student in my 2nd period class who has a 13 page essay with excellent detail” etc, etc. And Bunneh Buddeh (at book club) said, “And of course I knew she was talking about you since you told me that you wrote like 13 pages for your essay.)

I’m really glad that she’s like, I guess, proud of having a student who wrote that much, but it’s really embarrassing that she talks about me like that in front of the class, you know? I was just gonna be like, Oh yeah! Personal Victory! in my head, but noooo, she just had to say it in class. Two classes. Yeah.

I’m done for tonight. I’ll try to post more often, well, if I have more “interesting” stories.

_Maydelle_

SATM: Alright.

Ended: 11:33 PM Saturday, November 26, 2011.

Oh yeah, it’s my big bro’s birthday! Heh.

Post Numbah 168!

Started: 9:29 PM Saturday, November 5, 2011

SATM: I’m feeling alright. A lot better since the last post at the least.

COFTW: I’ve gotten back into speed-cubing. New techniques are as frustrating as ever, but it’s so worth it just to show off to friends.

SPN: 171.

Considering the last post’s topic was life at home, I’ve decided to continue it. My mom hasn’t mentioned anything since our little talk, but it seems as if she’s trying to look happier around me. Should I be concerned? Probably. But for now, I’m just not going to do anything. For one thing, it seems like my dad is making more of an effort to clean up around the house more and maybe not do the whole horse racing thing. Actually, when I asked him about horse racing, he just said that it was a way to keep busy when he doesn’t work. I, of course, tried to bring up some alternative activities to do when he gets home such as reading or Sudoku (which I know he’s a big fan of). But I don’t know, he’s not big on reading and I guess he’s lost interest in Sudoku. I suppose that’s one thing we share in common: A love yet loss of interest for Sudoku. Oh well. He said he’s “learning.” I’m not exactly sure what he’s learning, but I hope that it involves him spending less time on horse racing.

Anyways, talking about my dad is not the point of this post. This site is all about me (yes, that was completely conceited and I don’t care). It’s all about my life, the obstacles I face, interesting events involving my friends, marching band, and trying to get through everything my honors teachers are throwing at me.

I can honestly say that I am hating school save for lunchtime, the less than an hour period in which I get to eat, hang out with my friends, mess around with my Rubik’s cube, and practice drumming all at once. School is just… stressful. Yeah, everybody says it, especially honors kids, but hey, it’s true. I’m sure people in college are way more stressed, but once again, this is about my life.

I think I’ll try something a little different considering how there’s no rotational schedule at VVHS. I’ll be going by my classes in the order I go to them and give a rough overview of them.

Period 1: Aerobics, well, I can’t really say much about this class. The only person I really know in there is Pie, but it’s not like we get to talk a lot anyways unless it’s a free day. What to say about Aerobics.. Well, we watch videos at least 3 days out of the week, testing videos at least once a week (final day of doing a video we’ve been doing and getting participation points for effort). Other than that, we run a half mile, REALLY easy, but I’m pretty lazy about it considering, since it’s an all girls class, that we all have to do it under 5:30. I usually average around 5, so I’ll be safe for a while. Pie’s lucky, she’s got some sort of condition with her knee so she doesn’t have to run. But she gets pretty bored walking around the track once more as we all get our times written down. Oh well, at least I get to talk to her in the locker room since we’re usually the first ones dressed. At one point she made a list of almost all the animals she would want in her own personal zoo. It was quite entertaining since she had a reason for having each of them. Anyways, yeah.

Period 2: English 1 Honors. Oh English, how I suck so much in it… To be honest, I’m quite good at the technical parts of it, but forming an essay? Not really my thing. I’d probably make a good grammar check though. The class itself it actually pretty interesting. I definitely get the sense of learning in there and Mrs. N has some pretty interesting stories. It actually reminds me of Ms. L from 7th grade. She can be pretty sarcastic sometimes, blunt, but, for the most part, she really teaches us stuff. She knows that, as honors kids, we often get more pressure put onto us, and that we’re also brighter than some of the other kids at VVHS. She really wants to change our generation and make us more involved the community and become informed of world events. Occasionally she’ll bring up a current event for discussion. All in all though, it’s a heavy workload, and I do feel like crap after I’ve procrastinated. I’m really hoping I can change that this year because I have a terrible work ethic and I’m pretty lazy as it is. Maybe Mrs. N can help me with it.

Period 3: World History Honors. This class… Well, it’s alright. The work, not too heavy, it’s manageable. The projects are quite, hmm, I don’t know how to explain it. They’re very time-oriented and require quick but quality work. The notebook is okay, I hate having to make flippy pages for like every page in there because I write so much though. I often don’t know when too much is too much >.< That’s pretty much all I can say about that.

Period blah: Lunch: It’s the mooost wonderful tiiiime of the day. I’m hoping in your head it sounded somewhat similar to Most Wonderful Time of the Year. No? Alright. Anyways, it’s great to catch up on homework, and it offers so much to relief to finally eat especially when you inadvertently skip breakfast.

Period 4: Geometry. BORING. Honestly, I was hoping it would be a challenge, but it’s not. It’s really easy. The teacher nice, but she’s just not captivating. Her voice is fairly quiet (my brothers explained that she has some sort of issue with public speaking), and she often uses worksheets in a similar manner to elementary school worksheets. It doesn’t bother me too much, they don’t take long and I feel like I’m actually learning, but… I really love math and I just wish there was a challenge sometimes. Maybe it’ll change next semester.

Period 5: Biology. Oh Mr. L, how you torture all your kids with your lab reports and pre-writes and notebooks. Seriously, I love science (chemistry to be specific) but I absolutely HATE BIO! I’ll admit, I find DNA fascinating but the way we learn, it’s not satisfying at all. When I listen to his lectures, for the most part they’re captivating, but then when it comes to taking notes on all of it and trying to keep up with everything he says and draws on the board, it just happens really quickly. His notes are long, and we usually have to copy them from online before his lecture. His due dates are confusing at time even when he puts them on the agenda. Oh well, hopefully I’ll have his class figured out by the end of the semester.

Period 6: Concert Band, drumline is so frustrating. All of them are lazy and unmotivated. I feel like I’m the only one dedicated. They’re always messing around and at one point, Mr. G actually threatened push-ups for anyone who wasn’t ready before me (since I’m usually the first one out even if I’m the last one to start getting ready). I just feel like they’re not serious and get distracted way too easily. Plus, all of them are really… really… black. I had to say it. They admit it even and I just feel awkward being around them when they start talking in that almost wannabe black way. Three of them are actually black, the rest are Mexican. It’s even harder to try and get them on task when I’m only one out of the two freshmen on drumline. Anyways, enough about them. The actual class is pretty fun. Actually, I can’t say much more than that. It’s just fun.

Period 7: Marching Band, whoop whoop. Marching isn’t easy, especially when I’m in the center line. It gets really confusing sometimes, but we’re doing a parade soon and we need to get better quickly. We’ve been making progress but yeah…

Anyways, in the last post I was really focusing on my parents, but there was something very important that occurred.

In September, I noticed that there was a mole on my back that wasn’t always there. I asked my mom about it and it matched the ABCDs of a melanocytic mole. As you can infer, that relates to melanoma, or skin cancer. We went to the doctor on Sep. 23, and my doctor said that it was common for teenage girls to develop new moles and just suggested us to a dermatologist for further study just to make sure. So on Thursday, Nov. 3, I went to a dermatologist. She said pretty much the same thing that my doctor said plus the fact that it was extremely rare for a girl my age to have skin cancer. But, since my mom was concerned, the dermatologist said that they were going to cut out a piece of the mole and send it to be looked at somewhere for melanocytes. They cut it out right then and there, so they numbed up that small section on my back and took out a tiny little chunk. My mom said it was about the size of a finger tip, about half the nail to the tip size. Then the dermatologist sewed me up and put some gauze and a bandage on my back.

Anyways, all in all, I’m not worried. It’s super rare and if I do have it, I’ll get surgery for immediate removal of whatever developed, and that can’t be much if it’s there.

Oh, and if there was one good thing about getting a piece of my cut out, the dermatologist who did it was from England and she had an AWESOME accent

I shall end my post here, if you think you should be concerned about the possibility of me having skin cancer, don’t be, because I’m fairly sure that I don’t have it. It’s not like you really know me anyways Whoever the heck you are!

_Maydelle_

SATM: I need to go clean my wound xD

Ended: 10:21 PM Saturday, November 5, 2011