Saturday, November 22, 2008

So... what did you do this week?

So, just to put it in perspective a little, here's a recap of the last week of my life. The middle of November, you'd think it would be pretty typical. And in a bunch of ways it was. But my life is never quite what most people would call typical.

Sunday- Church. I talk to more kids about what they want to be in the pageant. We have a youth group meeting and mostly talk about fun stuff we want to do rather than service projects. Rev. Biddle is leaving it up to us, though, and maybe once we know each other better we'll do some bigger projects. Home for a billion hours of HW, since I have to meet a history fair deadline the next day (I HATE History Fair. I'm so glad it's over in a week and a half.)

Monday- School. I sit through a normal day. Mr Fecke hands out Sleigh Ride in Band. Sue and I hand in our draft. I'm settling in for the last class of the day, math (ugh). When Mr. Krol announces over the loud speaker that the school has gone into lockdown. There was an article in the paper that said something about the school planning a lock down drill, so I assumed it was just a drill. We had to lock the doors, shut off the lights, pull the shades, and stay away from the window in the door. We sat there in the dark and talked. It was NOT a drill. Some kid dropped some live rounds of ammunition in a classroom and another kid found them. We were stuck in the math room in the dark for 2.5 hours.
In one conversation I had with Sam, Kallie, Noah and some people, I mentioned having been at Glasgow airport, and that for some reason made Kallie think of the Christmas bloody nose, which led to a discussion of my webcam to the fourth grade, the transplant, etc. Sam was new to all this, but someone's response to his not knowing was "Where have you been?" It's funny that like everyone just accepts it as a part of my past. It's been nice to talk to Kallie more this year, as she was really there for all that and a good friend, too. Later in the convo, I mentioned something about my pneumothorax. Sam was incredulous. "What the heck, why do all these wicked intense things happen to you?" he asked. I wish I knew the answer to that.
When we finally left, we couldn't take our backpacks and we were funnelled out of the school in one direction and wanded by the state troopers. We couldn't go to our lockers or take our instruments. They cancelled all HW, but I had a lot of long-term assignments that I was planning on working on but couldn't. It was pretty relaxing, the family went out to dinner and then I chilled and went to bed pretty early.

Tuesday- Normal day of school, for a school recovering from having been on lockdown the previous day. We have a sub in spanish and get to watch a weird movie about a girl who becomes a drug mule. I go to work, get home and have to do quite a bit of hw, don't get to watch House and end up going to bed very late.

Wednesday- I have been looking forward to this day all week because we are having Jazz Combo after not having it for two weeks. This joy is tempered by stress over getting a physics worksheet handed in, and whether my mouse trap car has to go 3 meters for the testing. It doesn't, I get the lab done, we watch the movie again in Spanish. In band, Mr. Fecke hands out order forms for the super-cool band shirts we are going to order. They say BAND in the style of the AC/DC logo. I'm really excited, and Alex really wants one too. I think I might order him one and give it to him for Christmas. The mouse trap car doesn't have to do 3 meters, so I'm in the clear and the testing turns out to be really fun. Unfortunately, a teacher meeting in the band room crushes any hope of having Jazz Combo, but my lesson with Corey is still fun, and I get a lot of homework done in the wait time. I drive myself to Salem for a pageant meeting and Betsey and I iron out the casting decisions. I go home and watch the episode of House I missed (thank God for DVR), and go to bed.

Thursday- School per usual, but we play capture the flag in gym so Peter and I get to talk a little. About guarding interlopers from the otehr team, but still. Am I pathetic? YES. I have the afternoon off, nothing to do, so I relax and get a little ahead on HW. Uncle Ualter comes to visit, and I stay up late talking to him and mom about old family stories and photos. I learn some really cool stuff about Grandpa O'Regan. Like the time a protest he staged was on the CBS evening News and Walter Cronkite talked about him. Ualter said there's a high likelihood that the FBI opened a file on him because he had ties to the IRA. I hope we can get a hold of that some day, because it would be the coolest thing to have. They both said again that I probably would have been his favorite grandchild. It's sad that I never got to talk to him, that he didn't get to see me become who I am, a leader of voting marches and letter-writing campaigns. I go to bed late again, this time for a good reason.

Friday- School again, Fridays are a drag, all my classes, no gym, no band. In study Sally says that Peter went on Tim's facebook and saw the secret group we made. I hope he didn't notice that I'm the creator, I hope he doesn't think it's insulting or creepy. I'm pretty whatever about it, since I've given up on anything really happening there. I go to work, and with Skye, Jeni and no Mr. Connolly, it's really fun. Afterwards, I buy the stuff to make my trench cake. I have a delightful evening watching TV and making a cake that is a model of a WW1 trech, complete with masacred gummi bears, licorice barbed wire, wafer-cookie reinforcements. I had a really good time making it, and I can't wait to share it with my class on Monday.

Saturday- Work with Skye. She handles several customers without needing any help, and one totally by herself while I was in the bathroom. It's so cool to see how she's getting better every day. She leaves at 12, though, and I am swamped with customers and Nicole, Lauren, Brooke, and their parents visit since it is Chris's birthday. I manage to do everything and get out of there at about 1:10. He told me "Great job" on my way out. Weird, but he's been doing more praising since Elaina quit. He's still paying me 50 cents below minimum wage, though. I need to find a way to bring that up without seeming bad. Dad informs me that the boy's soccer team lost 4-2 in the state finals via text. They had a great season, though, and it was so cold I'm glad I didn't go. This afternoon I did really nothing, cleaned my room and organized my stuff, took a shower. It was nice and tomorrow I'm going to have a lot of HW, but it's all good.

So, in a lot of ways, very typical- school, work, HW, TV. But in a lot of other ways- talk about nosebleeds, terrorist attacks, BMTs, FBI files, being on lockdown, working on a Christmas pageant, and making a cake that looks like a trench- wildly abnormal. My life is so bizzare sometimes.