veni, vidi, vici

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Julius Caesar was never one to
Take things humbly,
Was he?

snowy patio

I took this a while back,
During a 2-hour delay of school.
I emptied my memory card today.
There were a couple good ones on there,
I need to post some more pictures soon.

I must say,

I've had a pretty decent vacation.

It's got to that point,

You know, when you don't remember

School well, just been so out of it.

I filled my days with doing random

Little things

And it's just been nice.

Monday I went to the dentist,

And I didn't like it.

I normally don't mind it much,

Almost enjoy it

But I didn't this time.

The hygienist lady told me I need

To floss more

And brush my tongue

And something about my wisdom teeth,

That I should get an x-ray,

But that they can't do anything about them.

I didn't understand.

She didn't fill up the tooth-scraping silence

With senseless babble,

And I started to miss it

Because all I could think about was

How much I hate dentistry,

How I never want to be a dentist,

How pointless teeth are.

At least the chatter keeps you

From thinking such pessimistic thoughts.

But yeah, the foamy orange fluoride

Was the highlight

Not much else matters.

I went to the library.

I've been reading and I love it.

I finished The Secret Life of Bees,

It was sweet, basically,

Made you want to watch bees,

Made them likable.

I read What I Was by Meg Rosoff,

Not bad, I was disappointed when

I found out that it was about a boy's

Boarding school and the other main

Character was Finn,

Shuddering at the thought of another

A Separate Peace.

But they weren't alike at all.

This book was odd, the plot was strange,

I couldn't figure out the narrator's feelings

Toward Finn,

Whether he wanted love or friendship,

And the ending complicated the whole book.

It wasn't bad though,

Somebody else better read it to help me

Understand.

I'm about a quarter of the way through

The Memory Keeper's Daughter,

And I'm enjoying it.

I have tons of others to devour too,

Just thinking about them makes me smile.

I went to see the Globetrotters with

My family.

My sister's basketball team was

Going to play a game on the court

Before it started.

It was nice, I laughed.

Oh, remember Stormie and Star?

That horrible paint picture I drew?

I saw them at the eye doctor?

I blogged it months ago?

I SAW THEM THERE.

Yep,

They were there, in their wheelchairs

With their names on them.

They looked happy, I made me

Glad to see them doing well.

I went out to breakfast with

My sister's team the next day too,

IHOP.

I saw Ms. Brown with her friend Sue,

I went over to say hi,

They love IHOP.

I hadn't gone in a long time,

It was aiight.

I had a satisfactory time,

Only okay.

We went to this hardware store after

And the shopkeeper was lovely,

In a cornflower blue sweater

A scarf around his neck.

He was just nice,

A good guy.

My mom bought a vacuum belt,

We left.

I went with my dad

And I got contacts.

I didn't really want them,

I like my glasses,

But he really wanted to get me them,

Just to give me something I could use.

Which makes sense, because he knows how

I abosolutely hate buying stuff I won't use.

I had to go to another eye doctor to get them,

Everyone there was nice,

The older lady in the bright pink scrubs

Who gave me the low down

And fitted me,

The doctor in the red sweater and pants

Pulled high,

And the Trish, friendly woman

Who watched me struggle

With popping those little lenses in my eyes,

Blinking and fumbling.

I was surprised at how they were,

The strange feeling of seeing without glasses

For the first time.

I was unaccustomed to the way I looked,

Nonbespectacled.

Just different, not sure if I like it,

They're okay, throughout the day,

Just getting them on and off is tough.

I got really frustrated trying tonight,

So new and unfamiliar.

I think I'll get the hang of it eventually,

I need time to learn.

We went to the museum today,

I took pictures of dinosaurs and

Fishies and

All sorts of taxidermy.

We only got to the science one,

The rest closed,

So we went to the library

For the second time this week

And I got a CD and went home.

I've been enjoying myself,

Everything's good.

I'm tired,

Gonna take a shower and read some.

Still have most of my homework left,

I'll tackle it over the weekend.

(:

my outburst in english class

It was last Thursday,
I'd just gotten out of listening
To these veterans talk about their
War experiences in the library and
During that whole thing, I was
Listening so hard;
I believe that was the cause of my
Outburst, how hard I payed
Attention.
I heard their stories and they were
Fresh in my mind
As I took my seat at the back of Ms. Harty's
Room, with all of the desks facing towards the
Middle
And I felt in the center of the room,
Tom Cardone and I,
And something came over me.
I wanted to talk.
I wanted to say something and stop
Disagreeing with the opinions of other people
To myself, in my head.
I just wanted to say something.
I couldn't sit in the back of the class and
Digest all this depressing literature
Ms. Harty makes us read
Without vocalizing it any longer.
So as Mia and the rest of her group
Discussed how the parents were left out
Of A Separate Peace,
One of those questions Ms. Harty sits around
And concocts during her spare time
To confuse us all,
All these profound ideas flooded my brain.
And I wanted to voice them.
I rambled on and stuttered about how absent
They were from their children's lives and how
They couldn't begin to understand their personal
Conflicts and the fight between Gene and Finny
And why would anyone want to send their kid to
A boarding school if he'd turn into someone
You don't even know anymore
And all of this other intense symbolism
I kept coming up with.
And my hand kept shooting in the air
And Mia kept calling on me
And I was giggling in shock
Of all this surging intelligence
And I just kept going on about all this
Genius/nonsense and I kept talking
And Ms. Harty had this strange look on her face
And I couldn't even listen to what anyone else
Was saying, just what I kept blurting out,
Sometimes just weird parts of sentences that
I couldn't string together and finally
Class was over and Ms. Harty told me,
"Good job today."
And I felt exhausted from all that talking
In Latin and by Math
I was just cold because of the horrible
Draft coming from Sister Louise's open window
To my left
And the unpleasant sound of wind whistling through
The trees by the football field.

It was the strangest thing,
All this knowledge, fleeting but there at the time,
I felt for 50 minutes I could have understood
Anything anyone asked of me ever.
I don't think I will ever participate like that again,
I know Ms. Harty probably dreams about me
Doing this all over again,
Questioning all her deep set opinions on
The same dreary books she's been
Teaching for decades,
But I'm not sure that I have it in me.

Who knows though, maybe that feeling will
Revisit me sometime.

I've been surprising myself a lot lately.

CUPID

I am pretty tired.
I had to wake up at
Quarter of 9 for drumline.
And I drummed from 9:30 to 3:30.
But I had fun, Mr. Cragen is cool.
He is pretty neat,
He writes all of our drum pieces himself,
Composes them,
And he's sick at everything percussion related.
Plus, he puts up with my odd habits.
The way I drum is weird.
I get all this
Pent up energy after a while
And I start leaping and
Piroetting
And sometimes I feel the need to take
My shoes off
And other times I leave my scarf on indoors.
Also I play out of turn and don't stop until I get
Yelled at and won't accept when he tries to
Simplify the part. I just have to understand it,
Get it right, and play it well.
That isn't how I approach most things,
Just percussion, which is also strange.
Today he showed me this paradiddle
Variation to some part in Maleguena
And I could stop playing it at all.
And Emily kept trying to pry my
Sticks out of my hands to make me stop.

So anyway, he's good, I didn't mind the longness.
I got home, my mom and dad got me Boggle for
Valentine's Day and I beat Emily and Patrick
41-17-8.
I ate steak and mac and cheese
And went back to the school
And mandatorily volunteered for that concert
They were putting on.
I bought Beich! chocolate from Tom Campbell
For his trip to North Carolina
And then the music parents yelled at him
To stop selling candy to people
And we went and put it in his car
And reparked it 'cause Rauley said
It was in a fire lane.
But yeah,
I didn't do much, socialized and did odd jobs
And watched some people I didn't know
Cover Beatles.

Now I'm home
And I'm gonna read Secret Life of Bees,
Hopefully finish it if I don't fall asleep.
I kept forgetting today is a holiday,
Didn't wear any obnoxious red and pink or
Anything.
Happy Valentine's Day though, I hope you've
Had a super day :)

xoxoxoxox

I had/am having a really good birthday today.

I am, it's true.
I woke up this morning
And ate strange Fiber One Poptarts.
When we went to Costco Sunday,
My mom was checking out the amount of
Fiber in them
And then Mrs. Perrin came over to us,
And gave me a hug, and my sister too,
But Emily couldn't really understand
How she knew her.
She talked to us for a while,
Said her daughter Grace only comes
There to "graze,"
(only on samples, I hope..)
And she left.
We went into Circuit City,
Which is going out of business, don't you know,
And I bought 30% off CDs.
I got into one of those moods
When I saw this scruffy puppy
Running around in the middle
Of some busy street
Without anyone chasing after him,
Just skittering around in between traffic.
I yelled at my dad to pull over and help him,
My mom said someone else would.
I just wanted to lend a hand, I felt just too
Warm and fortunate.
So that dampened me a bit.

BUT THAT WAS SUNDAY.
Heh, got off on a tangent.
So I ate fake toaster pastries,
And took a really long time getting ready,
And then hopped in the Rabbit (pun intended)
And went to school.
In the car, Fergie came on the radio
And my dad said she had a beautiful voice.
I giggled, she does.
I went to my locker,
And went to the third floor science wing.
I never have before, it was an adventure.
It's awesome up there, beautiful.
So quiet, deserted
With all these old science projects on
The wall from 2003.
No one is there, the varnish still makes the floors gleam.
There's this one window at the end
That looks out into the woods next to the school
And you can see a broken green plastic sled
On the hill where kids sled on.
Man, it was awesome, just awesome.
I recommend going up there sometime.

But anyway, today was just great.
Normal really,
Just recieving more cards than usual,
And books,
And posters,
And brownies,
And $o.60,
And multiple chalkboards wishing me happy birthday
(hehehe, elise <3).
I don't feel any older,
I don't think I'm supposed to yet.
I celebrated my birthday at 1:17 in Ms. Harty's room,
Telling Martha, but she didn't get it.
Might not have heard me or something,
But I celebrated to myself anyway.
My mom gave me this card on
Green paper
That had the same green on the envelope.
I asked her if she made it, she said she got it from
When the office at school
Was giving out free cards the nuns donated.
She had said it was religious before,
Yeah, I get it now.

So,
It's been a great birthday,
Made me feel all fuzzy and loved,
I think I'm going out for dinner later.
I've been thinking, Chili's?
I haven't been there in a while, we used
To go all the time over the summer.
I told Kyle during religion class,
He said that'd be a good pick.

Kay, well I'll conclude.
tu in piscinam habitavit
et vehementer stertiebas.
"You lived in a fishpond and
were snoring loudly,"

I can write really splendid
Latin sentences
When I take the vocabulary
From the back of my book.

I feel like I haven't blogged in a while.
Eveytime I blog I feel like I haven't
Blogged in a while.

Whatever.

Last night I fell asleep
At nine o'clock.
It was so early for me.
I didn't plan to,
Didn't brush my teeth or anything.
I was reading
The Secret Life of Bees,
and Patrick came in
To tell me about the animals that came
To his Cub Scout meeting,
A macaw, a box turtle, a snake that looked
Like it had a second head on its tail, a spider monkey,
I remember him saying them all.
And I was just half sitting/half lying down in my bed,
My book was in front of me and my eyes were closed,
And I told him that was awesome, shut the light off when you leave
And I slept.

I woke up today wishing I'd brushed my teeth.

But anyway,
This was the second time this week I fell asleep
Trying to read.
I wasn't tired at the time,
I just slept.
That's what I get for reading for fun.
But this just never happens,
I suppose this week was just weird.

My birthday is next week.
I keep forgetting.
I was really excited for a while,
But lately I forget.
It's not like I want anything,
I just want it to be my birthday.
Just to say it's my birthday.
That's basically it.

I think I have to go to Carol's today,
Work on some more Girl Scouts.
*bahh*
I need to research Myron of Eleutherae,
And make a pie chart,
And translate Latin,
And study Biology.
Possibly even do history extra credit.

Just 'cause.