A whole lot can change in six days

It's June! So why is it raining, cloudy, and cold?
At times I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against the lethargic northwest weather. It can't be bothered enough to get really hot or really cold so it just kind of clouds over and leaks.
Thanks a lot.

However, in brighter news I just finished my final English research paper which incidentally happens to be the final English paper to the final undergraduate English class I'll ever have to take. Good riddance. I am celebrating this joyous occasion with a momentary break which I'm using to post on my blog. Now all I have left in the quarter is my oral defense of paper, possible psych final, golf paper, and my STUPID HATEFUL SPANISH ORAL FINAL. 7-14 minute presentation on (for me) Bolivian wind instruments as well as Bolivian history and geography all in Spanish and all memorized. My teacher changed my assignment at the last minute which is why I'm presenting on something as boring as Bolivian wind instruments. I was going to talk about Spanish card games (did you know there is a separate Spanish set of playing cards?) and board games but...whatever. I'm done complaining.

This week is a big week for me. Although one stalker commented on my apparently distasteful use of lists, I resent those implications and present another list:

Michelle's Final Week of High School:

Monday -
- English
- Golf
- Research Spanish like Hell
- Spanish class with Final preparations
- Frisbee practice?

Tuesday -
- English
- Research Spanish like Hell
- Debate in which I research like Hell and begin memorizing my expos

Wednesday -
- English Oral Defense of Paper
- Golf (turn in paper)
- Research & Prep Spanish Oral like Hell
- Give Spanish Oral Presentation (like Hell?)
- YFL?

Thursday -
- Turn in English Research Paper
- Debate which includes any final, frantic research and expos memorization
- First Frisbee Game
- Pack for Nationals

Friday -
- Continue packing for Nationals
- Finish up any last minute school assignments that teachers random assign
- Graduation preparation
- Graduation
- No party

Saturday -
- 5am at airport
- 7am LEAVE
- 4:30 arrive in Kansas City
- 7 Jazz Club Reservations!!

The next week will be completely and utterly full of debate. Sunday is registration/service project/site seeing then basically from 6am Monday morning to about 6 or 7pm Thursday night or sometime Friday afternoon if I make finals, non-stop competition. When I'm not competing I'm preparing and when I'm neither competing nor preparing I'm catching a precious few hours of sleep. Although Ali and I have concocted an ambitious plan to watch a classic horror movie each night we're at Nationals so the sleep part might not actually happen.

My schedule for this coming week also fails to mention my necessary trip to the mall to get my ears pierced and get some last minute clothes for graduation and nationals as well as setting up my interview for ElderHouse NW (local Americorps site...fingers crossed)

However, in the midst of the craziness I still find time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, as should you: http://xkcd.com/64/

One more minute...

I, like my co-blogger Erin, deflect to my blog in a vain attempt to stave off or forestall the all but inevitable paper (which happens to be due tomorrow.) However, I, unlike Erin, am writing but a paragraph, a precis note on an article about addiction. Should be simple. But here I am, sitting in my room on what could have been a nice Sunday afternoon staring at my computer avoiding my work.

The only reasonable conclusion I can draw from this recess of lethargy is that Erin is obviously a bad influence on me.

On the bright side, I realized today marks the beginning of week 7 so 4 more weeks until the end of school, I graduate, and Nationals - which I am severely under prepared for.

Also, I recently discovered an interesting button which, when pressed, tabulates all the past visits to a particular website. Visits to my blog on this computer? 52. Visits to facebook on this computer? I'd rather not say. Needless to say, it's better than our family computer which has combined facebook hits for the three of us at over 23000. That's a loooooot of time wasted. If each facebook hit was just one minute (which they never are) that's 23000 minutes or about 383 hours or almost 16 days. Damn.



I'm going to get back to my paper now.

Life on a Planet Named Me

...or something like that. At any rate, here we are, another month older, wiser, richer (not), more heavily entrenched in school etc.

Let's give a quick run-down of my upcoming week, because I'm still having trouble dealing with how busy it is:

Monday:
- English, Golf (skipped - hey, I had to honor senior skip day somehow right? Plus I had a ton of homework)
- Senior Pictures @ EHRC
- Spanish in PM

Tuesday:
- English with 2 papers due
- 1-5pm work on graduation dress down in Seattle
- Debate (skip - no other option)

Wednesday:
- English (midterm part #1), Golf (can't skip)
- Spanish
- YFL (arrive late because of Spanish)

Thursday:
- English (midterm part #2, Annotated Bib due)
- Possible meet to finish graduation dress
- Debate 2-3pm
- Senior Speech Meeting 3-4pm

Friday:
- Psych test
- Senior party @ beach in PM

Saturday:
- Debate funraiser

Sunday:
- Mass
- Debate fundraiser
- Dinner at fancy restaurant down by the water with dad's side of the family to celebrate my birthday

Writing it all out makes it sound like a bit less, but it still sucks. My idyllic week would go something like this:

S-S:
- Get up at 11am (or whenever I wake up)
- Read in bed
- Read during breakfast
- Read outside (and tan :))
- Make vegetable-laden lunch
- Read during lunch
- Do something nice outside, e.g. garden, play frisbee, play tennis, take long walk,
- Have nice dinner
-Read or watch a movie
- Sleep, sweet sleep.

Something like that. I guess I'm just really getting worn down with all this school and crap. Plus I really need to start putting the heat on researching for nationals and fundraising for nationals and I have to get my graduation invitations sent out and figure out what I'm doing in August and decide if I can get a job this summer and do all this stuff. Plus my back still hurts from when it got burned on Saturday.

So...summer plans! I'm in a list sort of mood today I guess!

- NATIONALS (I qualified in Domestic Extemp and am doing Extemp Commentary and Expos as my supplementals)
- Club Rust
- Yosemite with the Bernhofts
- Summer League Mixed Ultimate - I'm a little nervous about playing ultimate with/against adults but I think it will be really fun and needless to say I'm psyched
- MOVE TO CHICAGO!!!!!!! (Or Ohio, but probably Chicago.)

I am SO ready to move out! I can't wait. But first Americorps needs to process my application and finalize details. There are two really awesome programs in Chicago and I hope I get into at least one of them. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to take a year off of school and still graduate on time and I definitely want to make the most of it. I feel like I've been laden down so much with school for the past 12 years and had blinders on to stay focused and alert and academically-minded so now that I'm nearing the metaphorical end of the tunnel suddenly I see all these new, exciting opportunities and I want to live a little. I'm thrilled to get the chance to move out and be independent on my own and just live for a year in a completely new place. I'll come back and go to UW after, but for now that independence is just so tantalizing I can hardly wait. But lest I get ahead of myself, I still need to get accepted to a program, and I still need to finish another 4.5 weeks of college and jump through a bunch of other hurdles. All right - enough about myself! I'd post my movie reviews but I'm too lazy right now. I doubt anyone actually cares about them so it's all good in the end anyway.

Ultimate Frisbee

Northend Thunder @ Spring Reign 2010

Well Spring Reign has come and gone and it was super awesome and super fun. For those of you who don't follow Ultimate - Spring Reign is the largest youth Ultimate tournament in the world. They had a record 90 Elementary through High School teams this year and we played out at this super humongous park in Burlington. We were originally signed up for A division but upon further consideration decided we really wanted to win at least 1 game so got bumped down to B. We ended up going 3-3 and played some really good teams from WA, ID (almost), and Canada. It was a little frustrating for me because within the first 2 points of the first game on the first day I got hit in the face with the frisbee and had to sit the rest of the day due to possible concussion risk. I appreciated their reasoning but at the same time was very frustrated because after about an hour I felt just fine and the bruising and swelling had become much more reasonable and I really wanted to play.
I got to play Sunday, however, and definitely verbally supported the team 0n Saturday. Saturday night we also got to watch an exposition game that Seattle Riot/Sockeye played for our benefit. Seattle Riot is Washington's women's professional ultimate team and Sockeye is WA's men's team. They were hella crazy good and it was awesome watching their enthusiasm, mad hucks, and epic layouts. I also got to stop by Five Ultimate's tent and bought myself an awesome pair of Ultimate shorts (yes, Ultimate does have it's own brand of clothing and distinct style) and also got a cool ultimate charm and bumper sticker. And free pizza! How could I forget.
Sunday we played this one team from Canada and were schedule to play Del Monte from ID but they forfeited so they could make it back to ID before 2am. So we ended up just using the empty field to scrimmage and do some drills and generally chill. And our coach taught me some awesome trick throws that I need to work on but which are super awesome.
Basically I'm super glad I joined the team (even if I do only get to play one season) because it is so diametrically opposite from debate and I think that change of environment was really beneficial. I'd never been on a sports team of any sort before so the teamsmenship (not a word, I know) was really foreign yet so uplifting. In addition I've met some really neat people and learned how to play a wicked awesome sport.
So that's the message of the day, kids! Eat your vegetables, exercise three times a week, and learn how to play Ultimate Frisbee. It's a hell of a game!

Spring!

Well dear readers, March 20th has come and gone, and now we are officially in that most glorious season of life and hope and warm weather - Spring! I always forget just how happy Spring makes me and just how much I enjoy it. I'm not sure if it's all the flowers, or the mild temperatures, or wearing flip-flops, or that it's almost Easter then my birthday, but something about Spring just makes me very, very happy. So today I decided to celebrate and wear a nice colourful outfit: jeans, purple ribbon, green cami, orange polka dot half-length, red chunky necklace (to match my red fingernails), then I put my hair up in this crazy awesome new updo that my hair is FINALLY long enough for and used 4 or 5 different coloured barrettes to pin my bangs back. I feel very colourful and springy.

I am also on Spring Break which adds to my enthusiasm. Grades get posted tonight but I already have a pretty good idea of what my grades are and they're all good so that is another reason for happiness. In addition, I am finally sewing my graduation dress. I am SO excited. I sewed the bottice and straps yesterday and today I'm going to sew the bottice lining and also the skirt. One features I like so much about the fabric I chose (besides it's beautiful colour and design) is the way it lays. It's this gorgeous cherry brocade and it has just such an elegant drape. That is really nice because the dress is shorter so the elegant fabric really helps it dress up. All right. Enough said about my dress.

In other awesome Michellian news - I'm getting my ibook today! And I might be getting an itouch, but we'll see. Point being - best birthday/graduation present ever. I've been telling my parents they're getting me an ibook for said occasions for like six months so we found an awesome sale and are taking advantage of it. Also - because I'm a college student (technically) I get $100 off. Not bad.

Now, though running the risk of boring all you stalwart readers who have made it this far - I'm going to run through my movie reviews from the past...however long it's been.

Sweet Home Alabama (2002) PG-13 Romantic Comedy **/*

Truth be told I forgot I had put this on our Netflix queue so it showed up one day and although I'm sick of romantic comedies I decided to watch it anyway. I loved all the main actors but their characters left a lot to be desired. The entire movie stank of predictability so although it was cute and charming, I saw it coming from a mile away. As far as romantic comedies go, it's definitely not the worst I've seen, but I'd put Carolina and 27 Dresses far above this one. Plot is basically Witherspoon moving to NY to become a fashionista and she gets engaged to mayor's son (Dempsey.) Mayor doesn't approve, Witherspoon is already married (oops.) so she has to go to Alabama to get her husband to divorce her. He won't. She stays to try and persuade him. You can guess the rest.



2012 (2009) PG-13 Drama **

Disclaimer: This movie was not historically accurate. It didn't do the 2012 legend justice and quoted some inaccuracies.
Review: Stupidest thing ever. The movie basically follows this one family (plus or minus a few people over the course of the movie) and their quest to get on the Arks to get to safety because apparently there is a way to survive the end of the world and the US government was smart enough to figure it out. Go figure! The little girl's screaming got old after the first time she did it, the computer graphics left a lot to be desired, and the humor seemed strained and mechanically inserted so that the whole movie wouldn't be dark. Didn't really work. The good parts were (in no particular order): A selfless president, LA getting trashed, the Russian guy. The bad parts were: everything else. And at over 2 hours and thirty minutes trust me there was a lot of "everything else." The movie was too long and too stupid.


A Serious Man (2009) R Black Comedy **/*

This film was not for the faint of heart. I have never seen a comedy so utterly dark and black before and it took me a while to adjust. Actually it took the entire movie. We follow the sad, depressing story of Larry Gopnik, a 1960's Jewish suburban dad for whom everything goes wrong. Literally. His kid smokes pot, his wife is leaving him, one of his students is blackmailing him, his wife's new fiancee is a creep (and kicks Larry out of his own home), Larry's brother is a loser with a large cyst on his back, and Larry's neighbor keeps trying to steal some of Larry's hard. And his lawyer charges him like $250,000 and hour. That's not all though! We follow his journey, all the while all he wants to do is be a good Jew and have his family back. Well, that never happens. There were some pretty funny parts, but you have to have a soot-black sense of humour to enjoy them. Otherwise, don't bother. Trust me, you'll regret watching it.