brokenrecord

I have pictures up here of my trip. I'm not sure if I'm going to do a huge post describing every day, mostly because I don't think I remember everything we did in the earlier part of the week.

I auditioned today for the Wind Ensemble here and the director told me there's definitely a spot for me, he's just not sure if I'm going to play tenor, bass clarinet, or clarinet. I really hope I get to play tenor. But in any case, I'm excited. The idea of being in band again makes this place feel a little more normal, and hopefully through it I can meet new people and such. Before my audition I met this one girl who tried out on bari sax and we talked for a few minutes. She seems really nice, so I hope she made it too.

I'm kind of flipping back and forth between being homesick and being really happy. I think it's worse at night/in the morning for whatever reason. But I'm still really looking forward to classes. I think that'll improve things a lot. Not that it's entirely awful now. It's just not as good as I'd hoped it would be. But it's only been 4 days. If things completely suck in 3 months, then... well I don't know what. But it'll suck.

So today is my last full day at home. We've already sent the birds to the vet's for boarding (it's so quiet around here now!). We're leaving tomorrow around 9 AM (although knowing us, it'll be more like 11). The itinerary:

Tuesday: St. George, Utah
Wednesday: Boulder, Utah
Thursday: Salt Lake City, Utah
Friday: Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Saturday: Cody, Wyoming
Sunday: Spearfish, South Dakota
Monday: Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Tuesday: St. Paul, Minnesota

Not exactly sure about everything we're doing, other than visiting Yosemite and Mount Rushmore. Orientation and move-in starts on the 31st, which is the Friday after we arrive in St. Paul. I'm not sure how much access to the internet I'll have before the 31st, if any, and from the 31st to the 4th is orientation and then the 5th classes start, so yeah. I'm not sure how much I'll be on-line during that time, if at all. At the latest, I should be back by the 8th, but I'll probably be back before then. But anyways, I'm really excited for this trip and college and all that. It should be a lot of fun.

I should probably start packing all my stuff. I'll see you all when I get back!

jkhasf so I'm terrified of needles, as I've mentioned before. I got my TB test in July (even though you can get a chest x-ray for it too, it's more expensive and my mom wouldn't pay for it) and it sucked and hurt and such but whatever, I was done with it. But today I got an e-mail from Health Services saying the reaction (WHICH WAS NOTHING THERE WAS NO REACTION AT ALL THE WHOLE WEEKEND) was read over the 72 hour limit so I have to get it done again. And it's not like it's my fault, the freaking nurse told me when to come in to get it checked, but it was like 86 hours after I got the test so they're refusing to accept it. And it's written into Minnesota state law that it has to be read before the 72 hours so there's absolutely no way getting around this. My doctor is trying to write a letter explaining that they told me to come in and it was absolutely no reaction, it wasn't like it was really close to the size of what would be considered positive, there was nothing. I DON'T FREAKING HAVE TB. GAH. I'm really pissed off at my doctor because they should know when to get it read. Maybe I can convince my mom to pay extra and just get an x-ray, because I really, really don't want to have to get it done again. I already did it once, I shouldn't have to get it done again.

sigh. This has been a bad day.

Ok, so now for stuff not related to Harry Potter. (Ok, mostly.)

I got my Macalester e-mail and found out my first year course. Unfortunately I got my third choice FYC, The History and Evolution of the Earth. It's kind of more my fourth choice just because my fourth was Intro to Psych and only reason I put it fourth was because I wanted the other section of it more that wasn't a FYC. I don't know, the class sounds interesting, and it's a residential course like I wanted, but... it's geology. And the professor is my advisor and I don't really have a great interest in the field. I really, really wanted that film analysis class. sigh. And the history class I put for second would be fine too, because history is actually something I would major in. Oh well. I hope the rest of my schedule is more what I wanted. If I didn't get into that intro to psych class I'm going to be really upset.

On a happier note, I got my Macbook on Thursday! I love it so far. It's been hardest to adjust to the smaller text sizes, but I think I'm ok with it now. And it always sucks to find out that programs I took for granted before only work with Windows and not Mac. I obviously had heard that before, but I didn't realize how many it was really true of. I bought Paintshop Pro for $70ish just 6 months ago, and it doesn't work on Macs! gah. So my choices are to either buy Photoshop for $700 or buy Parallels (and I guess I would have to buy Windows XP as well?) for $80. Yeah, pretty obvious which route I'm going to go. Besides, Parallels will be useful for a lot more than using PSP, so I think it'll be worth it.

The one HP-related thing, I did finish all 6 books by Friday night. It was a good thing I reread the sixth book, because I forgot everything that happened in it, except I guess the stuff that I was spoiled for before I read it, which would be the Snape stuff and all the relationship stuff. But I forgot about Scrimgeour and Slughorn and even the Horcruxes. Seriously. And some stuff like that I would read and be like "Oh, yeah, I remember that," but there was plenty of stuff I would read and wouldn't remember at all. It was kind of cool, like reading it for the first time again.

I saw that the first two episodes of Dexter season 2 have leaked online, and I'm trying to resist. I guess it's easier for me than those who watched it when it aired since I only finished season 1 a few weeks ago. I probably wouldn't be resisting if I had been waiting for months for the new season. But yeah, I think I'll leave it until it airs. And Dexter reminds me of the Emmy nominations, in which I'm slightly happy about some of them (Jenna Fischer! I wasn't expecting her to get nominated, and I'm so happy she did. She really deserves it), but that's mostly overshadowed by the fact that Friday Night Lights and Dexter got no major nominations. I was sure that if they both wouldn't be nominated, at least one would be for something. I mean, I watch House and Heroes (I can't comment on other shows nominated instead like Boston Legal and Grey's Anatomy because I don't watch them), and I enjoy them, but no way are either of them better than FNL or Dexter in just about any respect. Hugh Laurie, maybe, but the show as a whole, not so much. And I love Masi Oka and Hiro to bits, but I don't really feel he deserves his nom. Oh well. It's not like I expected to be thrilled with all the nominations.

Um, what else? I've watched a couple of leaked pilots so far (Reaper, Chuck, and Pushing Daisies), but I think I'll comment on them in a separate post later. Or I'll get lazy and forget. Haven't really been doing much today. It's like I have no idea what to do now that I'm done with Harry Potter. I'll have to figure something else out.

So over the past few days I've been thinking, and I'm not going to send a letter to Vassar about how much I love the school and I would definitely go there if they took me off the waitlist (they encourage you to do that if it's your #1 school and you're on the waitlist because they want to take people off the waitlist who really want to go there over everywhere else) because it's not really true anymore. I'm really in love with Macalester. I've been looking into it a lot and it's just really awesome. And the benefits of Vassar aren't enough to outweigh what I think I would be losing by not going to Macalester. I'm staying on the waitlist because I already checked the box in pen, but I probably won't go if I'm taken off (although it's highly, highly unlikely I'll get off if I just sit and do nothing to tell them how much I love them), and I'm thinking I'm going to take myself off the waitlist by like the end of May. But yeah, anyways. It was kind of a big decision and I was struggling with it for a few days but now I'm really happy and so excited to go to Macalester. :D

These next few weeks are going to be kind of hell-ish for me, so I probably won't be around much. This week I have a combination of rehearsals for the musical (the Wind Ensemble is playing this medley of Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, and Grease before the musical [which isn't actually a musical, it's a musical revue of the musicals the school has put on in the past 10 years]) which are on Monday, Wednesday, and then the shows Thursday-Saturday, and I have a bunch of extra jazz band stuff, including the OC Fair Jazz Festival Friday and playing for the middle school parents' night on Wednesday. Plus I have a ridiculous amount of stuff due in English this week, most of which I haven't started (I need to do 10 lit journals by Friday. ugh). Then in two weeks is APs, so it's probably a good idea to start studying for those. At least for the French one, because if I get at least a 3, I can fulfill the language requirement at Macalester.

Ever since spring break ended, I've really felt like school should be over. I don't feel like doing any work and it just feels like everything should be done. sigh. At least it's two weeks of school, then two weeks of APs, and then after that only like 3 weeks until graduation. But it still seems like it's taking forever.

Rejected from Brown, which, I mean, I love Brown, but it's not like I was expecting to get in. Now I'm just waiting on Amherst, but that'll probably also be a rejection. I think I'm going to go to Macalester. As much as I was excited about getting into Tufts Friday, I just like Macalester more. This wouldn't have been the case like 6 months ago, but this past week I've been researching it a lot and looking at these posts on this forum the admissions officers made for people who have been accepted to ask current students questions, and I just really like it. I love their Humanities, Media, and Cultural studies major, and their psych major also looks pretty good (although part of Tufts that's still drawing me to going there is their psychology major with clinical psychology focus). I don't know, there are a lot of good things about Tufts, but I think Macalester is a much better fit for me. (Plus, it's like $10,000 cheaper.)

I watched the season 3 premiere of Doctor Who. This isn't really at all an episode review and it's not even spoilery for this episode, but there is a small spoiler (that I feel like everyone must have heard by now, but I can't be sure of that) for the end of the season, so under the cut it goes. ( Doctor Who 3.01: Smith and Jones )

And now I have the urge to buy seasons 1 and 2 of Doctor Who on amazon (and they're so much cheaper than they used to be! I saw season 1 in Barnes and Noble when I was in Minneapolis last summer and it was $100, and now they're both $65ish!) and I'm trying to resist because I don't really need to blow the remaining $100 on my gift certificate to amazon.com, and anyways, I blew a lot of money off my visabuxx card on gas and Paintshop Pro (because I freaking lost the CD! and then had to get a new computer) and whatever else, but I really have the urge to get them because I want to see them again. Also, I want Torchwood to be on again. I don't really know why. I just got the urge to watch it when watching Doctor Who.

Anyways, I also finally watched the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica (I generally record them because I hate watching TV on Sunday night, and I hate watching shows at 10 PM even more, so BSG's timeslot is pretty much the worst thing ever) and I don't feel like talking extensively about them, but the end of the finale totally blew my mind (even though I was kind of predicting something like that pretty much all through those two episodes). And for the past... well since it came back in January, I've been kind of meh about BSG but those episodes (especially the finale!) have made me all ridiculously excited about it again, and now it's not coming back until next January? Why must you torture me?!

One week until spring break! How did that happen? I was expecting it to not be for another week or so! But ah, so excited. Band trip to San Fran! Many days where I can sit around and watch movies and maybe finally watch seasons 5-7 of The West Wing, because yeah, I haven't touched those DVDs since February. This week is going to be a bitch, but it'll be awesome when it's finally over.

Waitlisted at Haverford. Better than I thought, honestly. I expected to get rejected because I didn't show much interest in the school, it was near the bottom of my list, and it's pretty selective. I don't think it's as well-known but it had about a 24-26% acceptance rate last year which is smaller than Vassar and Tufts. It just kind of makes me nervous because now I definitely don't think I have any chance at Brown or Amherst, and I'm really worried about Vassar, which is my first choice. sigh. I'll be fine with everything as long as I get into Vassar, but I'm really afraid I'm going to be rejected. On the plus side, along with the letter from Haverford, I got a letter from Macalester offering me a scholarship which I didn't expect since it wasn't a safety school, so I at least have that to be happy about.

Today there was an "anti-apathy" protest at lunch. Yes, it was as stupid as it sounds. It was going to be anti-war but then they changed it to being anti-apathy about the war and it was all just very poorly done. I mean, I'm against the war and against being ignorant about the war, but I just felt it was all pointless. What were they hoping to achieve? The people who care... well, they care, and the people who don't aren't going to start caring because like 30 students are gathered at the crossroads during lunch. I mean, for example, I was walking behind two kids and heard this conversation:

Girl: Are you going to the anti-war protest?
Boy: Fuck no!
Girl: What, you're for the war?
Boy: No, I just don't care.

That amused me a lot. But yeah, it was just kind of pointless.

I thought I'd have a lot to do tonight because of missing two days, but it turns out I don't have much at all. Pretty good.