Friday, July 9, 2010

wish in one hand

blehhh. so at the end of our fiscal year, we have a staff appreciation day. usually it's a really low-key morning with breakfast and mimosas, then we play board games if we want (last year it was at the circa centre and we had a playstation !), then we have a really good catered bbq for lunch, and then we get "surprise" dismissed early at 12 or 1. i'm totally cool with this format ! i feel appreciated ! however.

camp


this year some people on the committee opted to make it a field day type thing so now instead of actually relaxing after a stressful end of the fiscal year, there is a rigid schedule of "fun" including tug-o-war and something called like pass the grape, which sounds like a weird sex thing. i will not be playing pass the grape with my coworkers. i do not need to have elementary school activities assigned to me to have fun. i'm not 8, or from south philly.

i had both of my classes last night. history class was kind of a bummer because i have a lot of academic insecurity and i feel like everyone is so far ahead of me- not in knowledge of the subject, but as far as having the tools and language to discuss it. and i shouldn't compare myself to them, because they're mostly very young and have been going to school for 17 years straight at this point. i also got something wrong in one of my essay questions and i'm wayyyy too embarrassed about it. the added bonus of posting our homework online for everyone to see instead of just handing it in is a bummer, though i understand why it's useful !

ugh


german class is fine, but it's weird that the class is being taught in german by the third lesson? like i took german for years but i can't imagine how the people who have never taken it are doing. like, he just keeps saying things loud in german instead of saying it once in english? i mean, it's working, but it's weird.

after class, i did some homework (including writing a german essay and making notes for a history project) and then did the argent dailies with paul. i'm sort of bummed that everyone (including me !) quit wow, but i decided to do those dailies every day to get the three mounts i don't have.

hippogryph


then i had a rousing conversation about merkins and celebrity nudes with mouse (not arousing, rousing), and a little about possible poisoning at jamestown. i tried to talk a little bit about stuff i'm learning to help me remember it, because mouse is the only person on earth who wouldn't be bored by it ! did you guys know that the colonists named "virginia" after their virgin queen and because it was "virgin land", but the name the indians had for it, which i totally forgot (tsenecomaka?), means "densely populated land"?

what else? something less grumpy. there was a thread on my all ladies feminist messageboard about books we read when we were kids, and i ended up picking up used copies of all the books i hadn't read. because i was a nerdy, library-frequenting child, that was only five books. i got:

the ghost next door
the ghost next door by wylly folk st. john

wonder
wonder by rachel vail

silver eyes
the girl with the silver eyes by willo davis roberts

stranger with my face
stranger with my face by lois duncan

daphne's book
daphne's book by mary downing hahn


the majority of those are supernatural thrillers, and i'm really surprised i hadn't read them- especially that i've never heard of wylly folk st. john. honestly i'm surprised i haven't read the other ones either because i also liked books about girls doing stuff (any stuff). haha. have you guys read any of those?

i guess i'm going to get ready to go- the work party starts at 10, and the closing ceremony (aka we get to go home?) is at 1, so i'm going to go home and work on my history homework and maybe eat a big sandwich? then mouse and i are going to the phillies game and tomorrow we're possibly tubing if it isn't raining???

weekend to-do list
- clean ! there's so much grossness that is my fault that i'm oblivious to !
- DROP MY LAUNDRY OFF (this is important, all my cool clothes are dirty)
- finish my history homework (hopefully i'll do that this afternoon)
- do my reading for history next week
- post the german essay i wrote on our class site
- do the other german assignments i have (which is just using this interactive website)
- go grocery shopping

all of that is a pretty tall order but i want to try to be responsible !!!! wish me luck.

11 comments:

  1. I've read and enjoyed 'Wonder.'

    Also, this, which is like the Zagat's of YA fiction and includes many an ode to Lois Duncan: http://www.amazon.com/Shelf-Discovery-Classics-Stopped-Reading/dp/0061756350.

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  2. Hi, I'm the ghost next door. I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood with this quiche....oh by the way...THAT QUICHE BURNT DOWN FIVE YEARS AGOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOoooooo

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  3. i got so excited by my memories of reading 'the girl with the silver eyes' that i stopped reading in order to make this comment!!! i was such a desperate dork that i remember insisting that my eyes were grey. hahahahaha. my parents were also dorks so i vividly remember reading books like the chrysalids, but i dont remember there being any girls in it. i was really obsessed with post-apocalyptic nuclear war scenarios involving children! the only one i can remember with awesome girls is the obernewtyn books, but i havent read them since the early 90's and they might be terrible.

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  4. MIKE hashahshdahsdlhajskhdakjshdkjashjda

    i am now super psyched to read 'the girl with the silver eyes' because so many people have been like OH MY GODDDDD when i mentioned it !!! hahah

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  5. oh snap, i loved Lois Duncan books...that one is about the witchy cousin from the Ozarks right?!

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  6. i'm not sure, i haven't gotten them yet ! i love lois duncan's like... nonsensical lazy horror. i recently re-read the weird one about the crazy witchy girl school !

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  7. WAIT TIL HELEN COMES! fuck, what's the witchy girl school one. Down A Dark Hall? I loved that one. that's the one where they all get possessed by the spirits of geniuses, right?

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  8. down a dark hall !! the professor was forcing them to become possessed by geniuses. no idea how the book ends, even though i just re-read it like 5 months ago.

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  9. I can't even think about books, I'm too stuck on "i do not need to have elementary school activities assigned to me to have fun. i'm not 8, or from south philly." Now that's funny!!!

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  10. I was really excited to see Stranger With My Face. I read it so many times when I was a kid.

    I haven't heard of any of these others!

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  11. I read girl with the silver eyes but don't remember!
    I read every book and they all blend into one.
    what was the one where this girl put on some glasses and saw flashes of the past that turned out to be her grandmother? on some island.. she finds a diary in the water but it's somehow intact.
    books I remember well:
    - "Which way to the nearest wilderness?"
    - "I, Trissy"
    - "Don't Hurt Laurie!"
    - the "Fifth Grade Stars" series
    - "buffalo brenda"
    - "the people in pineapple place"

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