6.4.02
Well, I waited a week before updating. A lot of stuff has happened, notably the end of school and, as such, the end of my career as a french-loathing student. Mrs. Fairlamb stopped me after Baccalaureate tonight and told me I passed…and that was it. I don’t think I exactly passed with flying colors…in fact, I think my colors barely staggered across the finish line. But I passed.
Last week, I spent several hours of my life in Barnes & Nobles. I walked into one on six different occasions, and probably spent over a hundred bucks in books. I don’t know where I came up with that much money, but the point is that it’s gone now.
The first time I went was last Tuesday after school. Then I went on Thursday with Stephen. Friday I went with Amy and Jeff after work. Sunday I went to meet with Kara, and then back to the one I’d been to with Stephen to pick up the C.S. Lewis books I’d seen there. And the sixth…wait. There was a sixth, honest. I forget when. Anyway, I have a ton of new books, and a new friend.
Friday night I was supposed to do the 3-11 shift, but it didn’t really work out that way. I was working on my English project from after my Physics exam (which sucked) until 2:30. At this point, I realized I’d lost my keys and realized then that I’d left them in the ignition when I’d gone to roll my windows down after the exam. Shit. Not only was my battery dead, but the car didn’t even turn over. I got to work around 4:30, but it was all good, because I got really far on my English project.
I swear, that project was from hell. It’s a video on why people like to watch war movies, and aside from being really cool, it’s an insane amount of work. Fun, but time-consuming.
So I get to work, do my work-thing (it was a slow day), and around eight a really hot guy shows up. Yay. He asks if any number of people were there (none of whom were), and finally asked to see Amy, who was belaying. Turns out he’s a councilor at Passages, named Jeff, and yeah, he’s hot. I know it sounds rather shallow of me to be saying that, but that was my initial impression. Beyond that, though, he was funny, and we hit it off really well. We clumb together for a bit, and then I had to go clean up a birthday party. I finished that, and Amy and I decided to go to Barnes & Noble, provided Dave would let me out early. He did, and we talked Jeff into coming with us. So the three of us hung out at the bookstore until eleven, when they closed. I discovered that aside from being cute, Jeff is an intelligent, semi-well-read guy. We went back to Peak and Amy left while the Jeff and I climbed until midnight, and I parted by giving him my phone number and telling him to call me when I could borrow his new copy of Catch-22. It had nothing [little] to do with the book.
He called on Saturday, but I was in trouble so I couldn’t climb. Bah. And why was I in trouble? Well, I had the SAT IIs that morning, which blew. They were French, I wasn’t prepared, and I didn’t care. I was supposed to work 4-11, and my mother decided that I wasn’t able to do that, because I was still sick (which I wasn’t), and I needed to study (which I didn’t.) The long and the short of it was that I ended up on the phone with Pete having to tell him that if he made me come in, my parents would make me quit. I was near tears, and humiliated. Pete wanted to chat with me next chance I had, and I had never been so mad at my parents. One wouldn’t think that I’d be punished for wanting to go to work, but apparently responsibility to the people who don’t treat me like I’m a kid (the only people, I might add) comes after facades of studying to parents who only care about GPAs.
So Tuesday I went to talk to Pete. He basically said that they can’t control my parents, my parents won’t let me control myself, and I’m going to have to quit at the end of the summer because they don’t feel like dealing with my mother during the school year.
Please, tell me I’m not the only one who finds that awful and ironic and silly.
But whatever. Pete and Jay, two of my favorite people, were really nice about the whole deal, and the long and short of it was that I was a failed experiment. Eh, I’ve heard worse.
But anyway. Monday was the English exam, which was fun. What wasn’t fun is that from ten to four, I was in the Journalism room trying to get my project done. And by the time I was finished, I was so hungry I was ready to chew my own arm off. (The cafeteria wouldn’t serve me because I’m not a teacher. Bah.) I spent entirely too much time hunting down the director of technology to help me figure out why it looked like crap. Ah, well, I got it done, and he’s burning it onto a DVD for me. Nifty.
The French exam sucked. What’s surprising about that? But it’s over. I took an enormous deep breath after I finished and proceeded to spike my notebook into a trash can. Ahhh. Freedom.
There was a pool party at Morgan’s that afternoon, which was awesome, since it was Tuesday. Noah and Andrew submitted to the titty twisting without much of a struggle, and then Cush reminded them that if I got them, they could get me. Ow. That game ended rather abruptly, and we started the noodle wars instead. And WOW did I get sunburnt. But I also got tan. This doesn’t happen much, doesn’t stick around long, and makes the slight burn on my shoulders worth it. Afterwards, Noah and Simon and Andrew and I went out for coffee, and I came home and cleaned my room. In my travels across my papers, I discovered a stack of conversations from when Michael and I talked on a daily basis. I realized how much I missed him, and sat down to write him a card telling him so. Sent it yesterday.
Wednesday (that’s yesterday) I got up around tenish and went senior shopping with Carter and Becca and Megan and SEG. We went to lunch, went to grad practice (boring as sin. I’m not looking forward to the ceremony tomorrow…) and then I sacked out on the couch to watch Analyze This until practice.
The first swimming practice of the season, yay. It was light and fun and I enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to kicking ass this season; half of my times are already Varsity, some are Senior Varsity. Yay.
Afterwards, it was off to Peak for some CPR training. Something about giving chest compressions to those torsos with plastic heads was just…odd. Especially since, for some reason, the head of my dummy kept flopping around and I ended up having to kneel on it to keep it from distracting me. I still passed, though. And then I climbed with Amy and Robert and Elissa and Jeff, and the middle two agreed to climb today while the outer two were at Passages.
So we did. I got up this morning, went to – you guessed it – Barnes & Noble to get teacher gifts, and then picked up Elissa for some climbing. From there, I went to Baccalaureate, then came home, expecting Jeff to have called. Why? Well, he said he would. He’d wanted to see ‘Sum of All Fears’ after training last night, and I’d wanted to climb. So I said call me tonight, and we’d go. Shockingly enough, he didn’t call. What did I expect? Unexpectedly, I was really disappointed, and went upstairs to read my book about Zodiac. I mean, I don’t know why I expected him to make good on a tentative plan, but I suppose I thought…I dunno…I just had been looking forward to it all day, and then it didn’t happen. Which is frustrating. However, since I don’t wallow in self-pity for long, I’d gotten really into my book by the time the phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
It was Michael. Michael who I’d not talked to in a year or so. I was shocked that a) he’d gotten my card that fast b) didn’t really hate me like I thought he had, and c) he wanted to get together. So we did. It was like no time at all had passed. The usual banter, the usual casual conversations, me spread out on his bed and him in his computer chair, just hanging out. I missed him so much; I don’t think I can make you, the reader, understand how much I did. How great it was to hear his voice again. Yay.
So I came home tonight feeling worlds better and deciding to screw Jeff; I’ll see him around and we’ll get together, or we won’t. In the meantime, I have my amazing friends like Danny and Stephen and Noah and, now, Michael to keep me company. I made plans with Stephen for tomorrow night, which are pretty much set (unless one of us dies or he comes up with something better to do…) so I can look forward to that without being scared of being let down. But at least I have my cool serial-killer book to read if I get dumped on again.
I got the CD from the Pops Concert tonight. I’d never heard us perform before; it sounds totally different being inside the group than it does being outside. It will probably be an accessory of mine for the next few days until I get sick of listening to my voice sticking out and the little mistakes we made. In the meantime, though, it’s an awesome CD.
Tomorrow: Graduation, lunch with my
boys, nap, practice, Stephen. Busy
day. I love summer.