Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Princess

I'm in school right now. I finished the day's task and decided to write a strory. Here it is:
Once upon a time there was a princess who was locked in the highest tower of the tallest castle perched on the summit of the largest hill in the entire kingdom of Koul-wa. She stared at her pretty self all day long in her lovely little room entirely covered with the shiniest mirrors cleaned daily by cheerful bearded dwarves. These were the same little dwarves that brought her her midday meal of milk and bread. One jug of milk, one loaf of bread, every day exactly at noon. The princess had a closet full of dresses, all sorts of dresses, all kinds of colors. Chiffon and lace and silk sprung out from the inside if ever the fair maiden opened the gilded doors. The princess changed her fancy dress often, several times a day, in fact, since she had nothing else at all to do. Now she wore a sleek purple gown of the softest velvet as she sat daintily on her windowsill gazing out at the majestic kingdom spread out in a dazzling display below her. She sighed, for she wished she could escape from her rather dull room. She sighed, for all the other princesses she knew had been rescued by valiant, handsome young knights, clad in armor shinier than the mirrors surrounding her and riding horses that bucked and galloped in a most breathtaking way. Then she stood once again and twirled half-heartedly. The skirt of her dress was narrow, so there weren’t any flowing layers of fabrics to admire. With this, she slid out of the dress and pulled a puffy, fluffy, twirly, swirly dress with the very color and consistency of fairy floss. The complexity of the dress’s design made it difficult for the poor princess to locate the arm-holes. With a bit of searching, though, she was able to slide her arms into the puffy sleeves. She turned to one of the many mirrors surrounding her and straightened and smoothed the front, tugging at the skirts and adjusting the lacy hem. Now she twirled once again and was pleased to see how the skirts floated up and all about her. She laughed softly and swayed about, engaging in a little dance there in her bedroom. She felt like a cherry blossom drifting slowly towards the ground on a sunny spring day. But as she danced, the heartsick princess had a most unpleasant thought, an unfortunately impossible desire. If only I had a partner, the princess thought dreamily, if only I had a partner. And with this, she collapsed gently upon the silken sheets draping her bed, and stretched out facing the creamy-white ceiling.
The princess remained alone forever.
http://dclips.fundraw.com/400dir/excl_zeusbox_aprbatch_04.gif

Friday, January 23, 2009

Street Hockey

It's here.
Street hockey.
Yikes.
I have already described the sheer hostility of this warlike sport in a previous entry. It brings out the inner bellicosity of everybody forced to play it by tyrannical P.E. teachers. I could imagine the horror of playing it outside, but Mother Nature decided to give us a shower these past few days. I was blessing the rain, dancing in it, trying to kiss the raindrops. I thought this meant we got to sit around inside the gym or a locker room and learn the rules. No sticks to wham into my face, no problem. As honored Mr. Grinch would say: Wrong-o.
The rain meant we had to play inside the sweaty, smelly boy's locker room. I was suddenly longing for the rain to cease as soon as I realized this, gaping at the cart full of plastic sticks and obnoxiously orange pucks. At least outside we would have a bunch of open space to run around, and away from the notoriously volatile location of the puck. Inside, we were all crammed next to each other as we lined up for the day's athletic practice drill. Our mission was to knock over a short orange cone with a puck from about a yard or so away.
It was impossible. Balls were flying every which way, propelled by the force of overexcited yet unskilled wannabe athletes. Sticks clanged on the ground, and pucks whammed into the walls with an impact that sounded like a billion bombs going off at once. I managed to arrange my stick it such a way that it could hit the ball and send it flying in the general direction of the cone, but I only knocked it over, I think, four times during the entire period. Gah.
And the running! We have to run around the perimeter of the locker rows for either nine or seven minutes each day. It's difficult to fit ourselves into the narrow columns, which are only about two and a half person-lengths wide. As for speed, I would probably be in the middle of the pack... under normal circumstances. But I hate the sensation of people wiggling sideways past you and then slowing down when they are in front of you, forcing you to slow your pace too. And of course, there's always those people who are determined to lap everybody else sixty times or so, shoving people aside and charging forward with the rest of us being scattered left and right.
I dropped to the back. (Ish.)
Luckily I had Amanda by my side to keep the unpleasantness of the situation off my mind. We tried playing I Spy, but that didn't work out too good. And my incredible Shove-Away plan was foiled by the lappers. Two of them stampeded past, racing each other. I heard them tearing down the locker row and managed to side-step and dodge them in time, but then something rammed into me when I returned to my original position. Another lapper. At least he had the manners to apologize before barreling after the others. The run wasn't tiring, we were stuck behind some slower folk and the space was too narrow to zip around them, but the constant fear of more lappers and therefore more pain made me paranoid and distressed. It was a long nine minutes.
I play softball, a civilized sport. The players are nice and spaced out. Nobody crashes into each other, for the most part. I also run around in lovely little circles on a track, or scurry along on a little trail. No sticks or pucks or balls that might kill somebody.
I really miss volleyball.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Dutiful

I didn't feel like blogging tonight. But it is my duty to record all the little events in my life, I guess.
Anyways, today my groupies came over to mi casa to "do" our "project." None of them remembered to bring their notes (typical) but LUCKILY, I THOUGHT TO RESEARCH FOR EVERYBODY, IN CASE THAT HAPPENED. We mucked around for half an hour, then shot the "genocide" scene, and mucked around for another hour or two. We had more than our fair share of bloopers in the few fractions of time that we were actually filming our exciting definitions movie. I can't believe how inefficient we were in the five-hour stretch it took us to complete the movie. It turned out less-than-great, but hopefully we get extra points for creativity. Or not. Maybe. Yes. No. Not.
Augh. Keep 'em crossed, folks!
Also: I don't know if I've mentioned Project Citizen to my dearheart beloved page-viewers yet. Wait, I just opened a new page and checked my blog, and the verdict is: No. So yeah, guess it's about time you heard about all this. Bottom line is, we're being forced to be good citizens. We have to set up a recycling program in a school or plant daisies in a park or something. We have to interview our local state representatives or city legislators or something.
Okay, gotta go. 30 Rock's on. :)

Friday, January 16, 2009

Today

Today was:
  • The last day of finals. Whew! I got an A on my math final, which was a very pleasant surprise. Now my parents won't die of the humiliation of having to raise an mathematical failure.
  • The last day of volleyball in P.E., which was an unpleasant non-surprise. We are moving on to field hockey, a sweaty, fast-paced game with aggressive, ruthless people shoving you aside and stepping on the bright-white toes of your brand-new shoes, and third-degree wackos waving lethal hockey sticks all over the place and accidentally whomping us less ambitious folk in the face.
  • The announcement of a new project for language arts: we have to define some terms that will pop up as we read The Diary Of Anne Frank. Then we have to make it into a game show, Keynote, slideshow, movie, etc. My little groupies and I chose to make it into a movie. We were planning to get together on Sunday and I was supposed to call everyone, but I misplaced the paper with all their numbers, so I'm in a bit of doo-doo now.
  • The free Bronco Night. Our reward for being so darn smart. Hah. Anyway, I'm going to spy again tonight. I even put together a really cool all-black spy outfit this time, and I'm gonna get closer this time! Yeah!
Eso es todos you tengo dice, aussi voy a hacer mi tarea.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ugg Thief On The Loose

There are freakin' lunatics among us, and we don't even know it.
It all started with Sydney ambling down the locker rows, asking if anybody had seen a pair of black Ugg boots. I didn't think much of it... she always seems to be advocating one thing or another. It was only when the light flipped rapidly on and off, the signal for all us girlies to scream "FREEZE!" at the top of our lungs, and then obey each other. Mrs. Murtha was lounging at the top of the locker room stairs and surveying us amusedly. She bellowed out, "Has anybody seen a pair of black shoes? They were stolen from in front of the mat room."
Somebody puts in, "Uggs!" It's Michelle. Later I'll learn that it is her whose shoes are missing. Mrs. Murtha nods and continues. "She removed them so as to protect the mat room floor, along with the rest of her classmates, however only hers got stolen. Hmmmm. The stealing had to be done this period, right? Hmmmmm." Is she blaming us?
Her eyes turn to slits and the corners of her mouth turn up in an evil manner. She pretends to be addressing the scary kid-wrangler who was called in from the office, but her next sentence is meant for us. "Do you think we should make them open their lockers? Maybe their backpacks, too?" A rousing cry of anger and annoyance rises. Mrs. Murtha instructs us to do so, and reluctantly, unwillingly, we obey. She and the childbeater take their time strolling through the rows, looking in each and every locker, poking their noses into each and every backpack.
(Thought: couldn't somebody just NOT OPEN their locker if they'd stolen the shoes? And go stand by somebody else's? It was all a big hubbub and I was nowhere near my own locker.)
The late bell rings. We shout in anger and despair. After a while, though, everybody realizes hey, guys, we're missing class! The excitement of the situation seeps through. After every locker and backpack has been checked, we're sent to class. R-dog somehow already knows the whole story and cuts me short when I try to explain. Huh.
The weird thing is, last year Ally's Uggs got stolen. Dat strange or what?

Watch out, folks. There's an Ugg thief on the loose.