brokenrecord

So I'm doing Secret Santa with my friends from home again this year, and I was really looking forward to it until I realized today I have absolutely no idea what to ask for. So now I'm stressing about this. Ok, not seriously stressing, but I just don't know what I want! It's like, there are loads of things I kind of want, but nothing that I really, really want. I could always ask for books because there are always books I want, but I have so many books as it is that I haven't read and I know I'll get more from my parents for Christmas that it feels stupid asking for a book. There are DVD sets I could ask for, but our limit is $30-40 and I think most of the DVD sets I want would be more than that. I do want more winter clothing, but I don't really want to ask for clothing because my size varies so much that I wouldn't know what size to ask for because it really depends on the specific article of clothing. I could ask for gift cards, but that's kind of boring, and I'm sure I'll get some from my parents again anyways, and in any case, I still have gift cards left over from last Christmas/my birthday. There are a few specific movies I could ask for, I guess, but I don't tend to rewatch movies, so that feels kind of pointless. Seriously, I feel so bad for whoever got me, because I am totally useless this year.

I'm thinking I'm just going to ask for a scarf. It's what I asked for the previous two years, and I like scarves. But I don't really NEED more scarves like I did last year or the year before that. I don't know. I'm so useless. I might just give them a lot of options and then they can get me whatever.

Also in a present-related theme, my dad's birthday is today and I don't know what to get him. I mean, I don't have anything for him right now because obviously he's in CA and I'm here, and since I'm just going to be home on Wednesday, it wouldn't really make sense for me to send him anything. For awhile I've been giving my parents mix-CDs of songs I think they'd like (and they've given the same to me, usually, and to each other. It's kind of a dorky tradition between us). But I feel like I've given him almost everything I have that I think he'd like. I don't know what else I would give him. And I feel like I should start getting my parents real presents and stop being cheap. But then I feel weird about that because I didn't give my mom a real present for her birthday (which was in July), and then that would mean I'd have to give them both real presents for Christmas and so that's just one more gift I have to come up with, and yeah, I'm clearly a terribly daughter, but apparently I really suck at gift-giving. Maybe I'll buy him a hat from school. He loves going to the campus store and buying stuff and he's obviously barely here so he doesn't have much stuff. Or course, I don't know what stuff he does have already. ugh this is too hard.

Anyways, I didn't get as much schoolwork stuff done as I planned yesterday, unfortunately. My Research in Psych homework took forever for some reason. It was kind of ridiculous. I don't have much the next few days, but I have so much stuff the week after Thanksgiving, so I really should be getting stuff done. Of course, I say this, but I've already watched last night's True Blood (ugh I don't want to have to wait until the summer for the next season! That's so far!) and right after I post this, I'm going to watch last night's Dexter (although I might do math/German during it! So, you know, I'll be somewhat productive!). sigh.

I can't believe I'm going to be home in just two days. I can't wait. I'm so excited for Thanksgiving. I've been craving turkey and mashed potatoes, too. And, you know, seeing my family and my birds and all that will be fun too.

I made jazz band! 1st tenor, too, since Andrew's doing bari sax. I kind of feel bad for Daniel, though, because I kept telling him he was better than he thought and the other Daniel (who did make it) probably wasn't as good as he thought he was, and then he ended up not making it. =/ He didn't seem too upset about it, though.

After school was fun. Got lunch with Emma, Galaxy, Richard, Elizabeth who was back from USC, Mike Tseng who was back from Purdue, Justin, Andrew, and a few people I'm forgetting, and then Emma, Galaxy, Richard, Elizabeth, and Tseng all came to my house for a little while before I had to leave for my interview.

The interview with the Tufts alum went all right. I don't think it'll get me in, but it's not going to keep me out, either. There are a few questions I wish I had answered differently (and somehow I started talking way too much about how I liked Berkeley. I think it was because she asked me what schools I was applying to and I named some and she said they were all similar except Berkeley and LA, and I started going on about how I visited Berkeley and really loved it, and then I was like "...wtf this is a Tufts interview why am I talking so much about Berkeley?!" and stopped, but uh. Yeah.) but overall it went well. She had a cat that was really cute.

I think I stopped caring about getting into Tufts, though. It's one of the most difficult I'm applying to (probably on after Stanford, Brown, and Amherst) and the more I look at it, the less I like it. I really loved it when I visited it, but there are other schools I like more now, and I don't like how it has a more rigid core curriculum (6 semesters of languages? Kind of crazy) and I prefer no core curriculum at all, so... yeah. I think I'm also trying to detach myself from it because I don't think I'll get in, so I don't want to be too disappointed when I'm rejected. But even besides that, when I was trying to figure out the reasons I want to go there in preparation for the interview, everything I could think of held true of other schools I was applying to, and they had other things that set them over the edge. So... yeah. I don't think I'll be too devastated if I don't make it.

I'll probably forget to say it tomorrow, so happy Thanksgiving!

Early day today because of Thanksgiving break. Awesome. In addition to it being Thanksgiving, it's also my dad's 56th birthday tomorrow, so following my mom's suggestion, I'm making my dad a CD of songs I like. I know he likes a lot of songs I listen to, but I keep second-guessing myself over which ones he'd like, so it's becoming a lot more difficult than I imagined. blah. ( The playlist as of now. )

So, anyways, you know that Euro test I took last Friday that I said I failed because I knew 5 out of 80 for sure? I got a 62% on it. Yeah. Told you I failed. sigh. I really need to start studying for that class (though if you get a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, then he changes both semesters' grades to A's, so I guess it's not that big of a deal if I get a B). I actually did start studying, because we had a quiz on Tuesday, and I studied for hours, and then we ran out of time so I studied a bunch last night for it and we didn't have time for it today, either. blah.

The essay Monday in English also happened to be terrible. But I finished An Instance of the Fingerpost (the book my essay was on), and it was so freaking good. Difficult to write about, but so good. It doesn't start out that great, but once you get to the end everything's tied together so well, and it's just so awesome. I'm totally going to start rereading it this weekend.