So that snowstorm we were supposed to have, where they estimated 15 freaking inches of snow plus 3 inches of ice, yeah, we got 3 inches. The blizzard went north of St. Louis so we didn't for real get anything. That was rather disappointing.

The good news, I got three snow days because of it. Not sure why, because one would have been sufficient and now I don't get out til June 7th. So I guess that's both good news and bad news. One of my friends was joking that we'd be out of school for one day and then we'd have to go back again, haha. Normally, it wouldn't be too much of a deal, besides being annoying, but I'm leaving for my trip to France and Italy June 9th, so if we get two more snow days... what do I do? I'm praying for no more snow days!

With my abundant amount of time that I had to procrastinate homework, I've created a 101 in 1001 days. For those of you not familiar with this, it's basically just a list of 101 things that you would like to do in 1001 days. I was inspired by Juniper, and I thought it would be a good way to get the things I want to do done. Besides, there's something I love about crossing things off of lists.

I'm not quite finished with my list yet, I only have 87 things, so I'm still working on it, but I've got a good head start! I was looking at a couple other people's lists for ideas to put on my own, and I ran across this site PostCrossing. It's a really neat site, I think. You send post cards to people all over the world, and in return, you get postcards as well. Some people might think it's lame, but I think it would be really cool just to get a postcard from someone in Russia, or Germany, or Taiwan, or some place on the other side of the world from you. Am I the only one that thinks this is cool?

Needless to say I signed up and I'm itching to get sending some postcards. I need to go out and buy some first, though. Hehe, that's kinda necessary to send one. xD I think I might make a book or something of all the post cards I've received... dunno, I'll have to wait til I get some. ^^

If you'd like to suggest some things to my list, I'd be glad to hear them!

As my Junior (11th) year is almost coming to a close (well, sort of...), we have all received sheets to sign up for next year's classes. After this semester, I will have all of the required classes I need to graduate (i.e. personal finance, gym, health, etc.) out of the way so I have a lot of free room in my schedule. I think I have it pretty much narrowed down to what I want to take. It's going to be challenging, and I might just dig myself a hole and die, but I'm going to give my senior year my all:

(Classes with '1818' in them are college credit courses. Slots with / indicate it is a semester long class. Class before / is semester 1 class, after is semester 2.)

1. Writing Workshop 1818 / Brit Lit 1818
2. AP Bio
3. AP World History
4. Foreign Policy 1818
   
5. French IV
6. AP Calculus
7. Contemporary Fiction / OPEN
   

Needless to say, I'm going to have a very rigorous and tough schedule. I still have to find another semester long class I want to take, but other than Contemporary Fiction, all of my classes are all honors classes.

I tried to load my schedule with as many honors classes as possible (that I had at least a remote interest in) so I can make the Top Ten of my class. I know, that probably isn't the wisest decision; countless number of people told me to not take a class just because it was honors, but making the top ten is really important to me. I'm not even exactly sure why, to be honest. I guess I want to prove not only to others, but also to myself that I can do it. I will definitely be proud of myself.

Normally, making Top Ten is difficult, but not nearly impossible. At my school, we offer a variety of different engineering classes. My freshman year, they started to offer them, so they required us to take Introduction to Engineering Design (IED), so my class is kind of the class that the overachievers take engineering classes. They are all considered honors, so are weighted as 5.0 instead of standard 4.0. I, on the other hand, hated IED and had no desire to continue onto the other engineering classes. In this way, my rank fell because I was not taking another honors class every year like the others. I'm trying to make up for it this year.

I'm also looking forward to a lot of these classes I've signed up for. It's just an added bonus that annoying underclassmen will not be in them and won't annoy me. Hurray! I just really hope that I can get into all of them and that they don't conflict with each other.

A lot of my friends have already narrowed down where they want to go to college. As I don't really have much idea about what I want to do, besides continuing French, I decided I better scoot my booty and at least look at a couple of colleges online. So the past couple of days, I have been doing some research and I think I've decided that there's a possibility I'll major in French. I'm not sure if I can really see myself being a translator or a teacher, or the other various jobs, but French is always something I've loved and I thought I at least should try it.

I also would absolutely love to study abroad. I think it would be an incredible experience and I would meet tons of new people and learn so much. I love traveling and I think it would be so cool to really experience what it's like to live in another culture.

This narrowed down the colleges I was looking at considerably, as quite a few don't offer French or study abroad programs. I've found two colleges so far that I really like, and I talked to my mother about them and she liked my choices. They're in-state, which will eliminate some unwanted expenses, and they're also within three hours driving distance.

As a bit of a side note: I remember saying how worried I was about my ACT test, but I don't remember if I ever said what I got on it. I received a 26, which is a respectable score. Of course I would've liked it to be higher, but I plan on taking it again in April and hopefully I can boost it up a couple points!

The whole looking for colleges that I want to attend really has got me excited for college. I'm looking forward to getting out of high school and getting on with my life, as well as getting out of the same old routine and city. I know I'll miss a lot of things, but sometimes I just can't wait to get out of here!

Since the last time I blogged, a lot has happened and a lot hasn't, and yet I feel like there are so many things I need to say, so I have a feeling this is just going to be one mumble-jumble, hodge-podgey kind of blog. So bear with me!

School started back up and I found out my semester grades.... I GOT A FREAKING 93% ON MY PHYSICS FINAL. I almost peed my pants when I saw that! I am so happy! And to put more icing on the cake (is that a phrase or did I make that up?), She hadn't entered a few test grades yet before the final, so when she did it boosted my grade to a 95% overall. :D

AP English could've gone better for everyone in the class, as in I was one of the five people that actually passed the final... She gave us an opportunity to boost our final grade though, so I boosted my 72% final to an 88%, with an overall 94% in the class.

In other words, I got straight A's, which I'm very pleased with.

Getting back into the groove of things has been a bit harder. After sitting around all break and doing pretty much nothing besides munch on cookies, work? Whaaaat's that? I've been really slacking in this new semester and I think I've just been overall in this really weird mood. Like I've been so moody. One minute I'm all happy-go-lucky, then I'm sad, then I'm angry. It's the most bizarre thing.

Last Friday, we didn't have school because teacher's had a work day, so I was rather looking forward to it. It turned out to be such a horrible, horrible day. I wanted to go to Wal-Mart, as I had ordered a book (Peter and the Starcathers, yes, I am a nerd and a 5-year-old at the same time) so my mother offered to take me, as we hadn't gone to get my actual license yet--I had taken my driver's test, but had not gotten the official little plastic card that legally let's me drive. We decided that we would drop by the License Bureau as well and get it.

So we set out on what I thought would be a quick, one hour tops trip. My mom says she needs to stop in to Schnucks. Sure. She needs to go to the Post Office. Okay. She needs to go to Walgreens and get her Passport picture taken as she was renewing it. Alright. Oh, do you mind if I go to Deirbergs and pick up that pie Ryan bought us? My mother managed to drag me around for about two hours before we even hit the Wal-Mart parking lot. I go in, get my book, wait another half-hour for her.

We finally get to the License Bureau and we sit down in line. My mom starts pulling the stuff we needed out of her purse minus one thing: my social security card. I groan and explain for what feels like the millionth time that I needed my birth certificate, social security card, proof of address, permit, and driving test paper.

The day never ended. We drove back home, back up to the place, got my license, la di dah. By then I was in such a sour mood. I managed to throw away almost all of my day just being drug around by my mom.

And then to add on top of it, Andrew managed to be a douche-bag and just casually told me he was at another girl's house with a few other people. Uhm, what??

Needless to say, I was royally pissed and my day was ruined. I would've rather gone to school. But I think I'll explain our fight later; I would like you're guys opinion on it eventually.

I think I'll end my Friday rant for now.

In order with keeping up with my New Year's Resolutions/goals, I have been reading more and working out more. I'm taking Basic Weight Training this semester to fullfill the PE credit I still need and I'm actually really enjoying it. There are a few girls from my tennis team in there so it's been really fun.

I've also been getting up earlier in the mornings and doing some old workout videos that my mom had. I'm really trying to shed some pounds, just to feel better about myself. I think I already am, just feeling healthier. I'm on a kind-of-diet as I'm not really limiting the foods I eat, I'm just trying to eliminate extra snacking and to not eat like an elephant like I tend to do.

I had another snow day today, so I worked out a little bit longer today than I normally would've and tried to do some exercise we would've done in Basic Weight Training, just to keep up with it.

Becky is going to come down in a bit and we're going to have a Harry Potter movie marathon. :D

Anywho, I'll end this novel-long blog post. :P

I managed to survive my physics final! I didn't crash and burn, but I did take my time and worked rather slowly. There were a few questions that just completely stumped me, but I gave them a shot. I honestly can't tell you how I think I did. It's one of those things where I either got a lot of it right, or a lot of it wrong. I don't know which, but I'm hoping for the latter!

So I am no officially on break and finished with all my finals! After school yesterday, I went over to Andrew's so we could exchange our Christmas presents since he would be busy on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Being the butt he is, he wrapped each part of my present individually, then wrapped it as one big package, then wrapped it in packing tape. I think it took me like 15 minutes to actually get it open. The entire time he was laughing his head off. I should've taken a picture. He got me the first four Harry Potter movies, and then a pack of Sour Patch Kids to eat with each movie. It was really cute, because my favorite candy is Sour Patch Kids. :)

I got him the Underworld Trilogy, which he says are his favorite movies. I also got him a bunch of Chocolate Oranges, because he is like obsessed with those and you can only get them here in the US around Christmas time. Then I just baked him a TON of cookies. He thought it was funny that I mainly got him food, which I thought was funny too. I wasn't evil with his present, which he thought I would be so he was joyous I wasn't, but oh you just wait til next year! *cackles*

I am thoroughly enjoying my break so far. I slept til around eleven today and then went to the movies with Andrew and his mom and saw Tron. It was really good. I hadn't seen the first one, but you didn't really need to, which I was glad about.

Now I'm just sittin' here, munchin' on cookies. Christmas in two days! I hope you all are having a wonderful break!

....and it is the worst/hardest/stupidest/wasteofmytime class I've ever taken. I want to take my pencil and stab myself in the eye. Except I'm not holding my pencil. In fact, I'm not studying at all at the moment. I'm procrastinating by writing this blog post.

I'm going to fail.

It is currently 1:38 AM. I have to get up in 4 hours and 52 minutes. I have two more finals tomorrow (well, technically today) and they're going to be my hardest. One of them is Physics (ahhhhljkhlhfkgd), and one is AP English. You can't really study much for English, sooo I'm studying for Physics. Well... sorta.

I must be some sick, masochistic person for taking Physics again next semester; it's going to turn out just like this semester: I'm going to work my butt off and be borderline A, then I'm going to get a B on my final and a B in the class. Which is no bueno. Say goodbye to top ten. And my 4.0 GPA. Wooohooo.

I absolutely hate the subject, but I really enjoy the people in my class. I have like 20 friends in there (yeah, it's pretty ridiculous) that I have no other classes with (including Andrew), so if I drop it, I don't get to see those 20something friends. I like them. I want to see them. Plus I'd have to find another science class to take that isn't two semesters long and I'd have to get my schedule all changed and I'd, in the end, be pretty unhappy with however my schedule got changed. It's a lose/lose situation.

Now I'm just rambling. And complaining a lot.

Note to all of you: unless you are a freak genius and are in love with math and science, never take physics. Then again, I hate math and science. Either way, don't say I didn't warn you! (Watch, you're going to take it and think it's the easiest subject and I'll feel all stupid. Man.)

Either this all nighter is going to result in me doing really well on the final or I'm going to crash and burn and fall asleep and fail. I'm hoping for the former. I'll update you guys when I find out? Hopefully soon? Ahhhh!

My family and I traveled to my aunt's, who lives about an hour and a half away, yesterday for my mom's side of the family Christmas. Because she has such a large family and there's tons of cousins and aunts and uncles and whatnot, we don't just buy gifts for everyone. We all just buy a $5 gift and we put the gifts in a pile and play a game called Rob Your Neighbor. (I'm not really sure if that's the "official" name of the game, but it's just what we call it. :P)

It's pretty simple. Everyone draws a number and that's the order that you go in. So, number one goes and picks a gift out of the middle and unwraps it. Then, number two can either still the gift or can pick one out of the pile, and it just goes around like that. It's actually really funny because people get so competitive over these cheap $5 gifts. xD Nothing spreads holiday cheer like stealing presents does!

I ended up with a $5 gift card to Dairy Queen (mmmmmmm, so good!) which I was perfectly content with. I stole it from my grandpa, haha. I'm still his favortie. ;)

Then we all ate entirely too much good food and kind of sat around and talked for a couple hours. I always feel so awkward when it comes to that part because no one is for real my age. I'm 16, and the closest two people to me are 21 and 23. So while my older cousins talk about college and everything, I'm kind sitting there, twiddling my thumbs, thinking about how I can't wait to get out of high school. Or, wishing someone would ask how I'm doing in school. I really like to see my family and stuff, I just always feel so awkward as I don't have anyone to talk to. Does this happen to anyone else?

Schoolwise, I'm almost done with this semester! I have all my finals this week; three tomorrow, two on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday. Thankfully, Tuesday and Wednesday are half days, though I sometimes wish they would just shove Tuesday and Wednesday together so I could get on with my break! I'm really not too worried about any of them except for my physics final. This year my school implemented this new dumb grading system where finals are only worth 5% of your grade. Uh, what? Does anyoneone else agree how dumb that in itself sounds? Finals are supposed to show what you know but nope, not anymore.

On the upside, I can get a 0% on five out of seven of my classes and still pass with an A. On the downside though, in Physics, I have to get 110% on my final to get an A, so I'm pretty worried. Our teacher told us that there would be extra credit on there, but that means I have to completely ace it, which is pretty unrealistic since I really struggled with that class. :/ I was aiming for straight A's this semester, but I guess I can handle one B...

Anywho, I hear most of you are out on break! Woot! For those of you who are, I hope you're all enjoying it and for those who aren't, good luck on finals and whatnot!

For a whole semester, I have been considered a junior, an upperclassmen at my high school, but really, I haven't felt like it too much. I mean, people before me have always talked about how great it is to be a junior and senior, not having to deal with freshman, etc, etc. Until recently, I hadn't felt like that.

This year I've been taking a lot more challenging classes, so only juniors and seniors are allowed to take them, which I recently realized, is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I hadn't realized how much I enjoyed not having freshman in my classes.

I'm currently taking a class, Personal Finance, that everyone is required to take to graduate. It is such a pain in the butt. The teacher is terrible, the other students are terrible. It's just terrible terrible terrible. I mean, some of the people in there can't do the simple math. (Ex: Bob works 5 hours a week. He make $7.25 an hour. How much does he make in a week?) I just don't understand how you can't figure out how to solve that! I realized lately that most of the students in there are freshman. They're just so frustrating.

Now don't get me wrong, not all of the freshman are terrible. There were quite a few freshman girls on the tennis team this year that I really liked and became friends with. So, I think it's just safe to say that most of the freshman are just... freshman.

Anyways, I think I'm rambling and losing the point I was trying to originally make. I really like not having class with freshman. And I'm finally feeling like an upperclassmen.

Another reason I've been feeling my upperclassmen-ness is I got my class ring! (YAY! :D)

I'm not sure if all schools do this, but we had a ring ceremony and they made it into a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the ceremony because I was sick. Either way, I'm really happy with it! The green stone (I don't even remember the name of it, gees-a-lou!) isn't my birth stone, I just picked it because I thought it was pretty. :)

On one side of my ring, I had the tennis symbol, as I have played on the girl's tennis team the last two years and I plan on again next year. Plus, it's something I really love to do, and when I look back on my high school years, I'll remember tennis and all the memories I had on the team. <3 I also had my name on this side.

On this side I had the music symbol, as music has always been a big part of my life. I've taken piano lessons for the last five years and my freshman and sophomore year, I was in choir (though I'm currently not now, which is a long rant for some other post). When I was little, I was part of the musicals at my church and performed in the different children choirs. I'm still participating in the youth choir.

Lastly, I had my name engraved on the inside of the ring in all fancy lookin' letters. :)

I was really nervous if it would fit; I didn't want to have to give it back so they could resize it and then have to wait for it again. Luckily, it fit perfectly! The only thing I'm a little peeved about is that on the side of the ring, (you can't see it in any pictures) there is the black streak and it won't come off. I tried to rub it off, but to no avail. Andrew said it might need to be shined or something. I'm not really sure. I'm going to have to call the company and see what they say. I mean, I spent a good deal of money on this ring, so they should do their part right?

Anywho, on to sitely stuff. If you hadn't noticed, I added a visitor page! Whaatttt! I know, right? It's not really much because I'm like, graphic-ly challenged, but I added some recipes like I said I would, and I've added a book review.

School is almost out for break! Woot! I've got finals all next week to take, so this current week just seems to be dragging. I just was to take them and be done for the semester. Besides, I've been needing a break. Just some time to myself, or to spend with family and friends.

Good luck to everyone else with their finals/exams!

This weekend, I was completely and utterly swamped by homework. On Saturday, I spent a total of seven hours on homework, and on Sunday, I spent five. Never in my life have I had so much homework to do.

Most of it was for my AP English class. We're currently reading the Scarlet Letter and we are required to write post-its. So, I had gotten behind on my reading and post-it-ing, which I'll admit was my fault, so I had to go back over the last 8 chapters or so and do that. Then I had pre-calculus and physics, and then social studies, and it just went on and on.

Sunday, I worked some more on my physics and then had some friends from AP English come over so we could work on our project in there. And that took forever and a day. They didn't leave 'til late, around 10ish, and by then all I wanted to do was sleep.

Sooo, I didn't work on my nano hardly at all, so I've got a bit of catching up to do tonight. Thankfully, I don't have hardly any homework.

As a side note: I hate bugs. And when they fly and attack the light in my room I tend to run to get my dad to come kill it. What I hate is when it's not there anymore, which means, it is somewhere else in my room, lurking, and waiting to pounce on me when I least expect it. Curse you bug, curse you.