Women Power

So before I begin I would just like to focus your attention on the fact that I didn't use an exclamation point in my title this time! I noticed that I do that often but will now reserve it for only the really exciting post =]

Today in itself was extremely hectic just like the rest of this week has been. I had two very long test (I used up all the class time which is an hour and a half and I actually went over that time in the Government one, curse my slow hand-writing!) in Algebra and Government and was just feeling absolutely drained. I didn't go to fourth block, Chemistry, because I had an assembly today. This wasn't an assembly for just anybody though it was through invitation only and my Government teacher, Mr. Kecar, got us passes in. Apparently the White House called Edison High School and told the administrators that they would be sending some very special guest in honor of Women Rights Month (or something like that). So I left class at 1 (school ends at 2:15 by the way) and went to the library where they were holding the assembly.

Madeleine, Annmarie (both close friends of mine) and I ended waiting an HOUR AND A HALF for these "guest speakers". I remember thinking, "who do these people think they are? I'm missing precious class time and had to sacrifice my EWC picture for this". Well these guest speakers weren't just anybody, they were major SOMEBODY'S. It was a panel of very powerful, influential women. In attendence were: Ambassador Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (that extremely huge non-profit breast cancer research organization) and former ambassador to Hungary, Louise Erdrich, a Pulitzer Price winning author, Michelle Kwan, a world renowned figure skater and member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Also in the panel was Ledisi, a Grammy nominated recording artist and Sherrie Westin, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer for Sesame Workshop (the company behind Sesame Street!). 

Nancy Brinker, right, talking about perserverance. Michelle Kwan is at her left.

They talked a little about themselves and then gave some very motivational speeches. Nancy Brinker's speech was very emotional since she talked about her sister Susan Komen and how she developed breast cancer and made her sister Nancy promise her to put an end to cancer. She didn't break down or anything since I'm sure she has said the story before but she sure knew how to make us emotional! I liked how she said that she persevered even though everyone kept on talling her that her organization would fail. But look at her now! Her organization has donated over 2 billion US dollars for breast cancer research. Sherrie Weston was also a very good speaker and had sage advice on always pursuing something you are passionate about. I remember that Michelle Kwan was pretty funny and cracked several jokes. After they gave little bios on themselves and talked, we students got to ask questions but no one asked anything particularly amazing. 

I could feel the aurora of power and confidence these women felt and I enjoyed that. They knew their niche in the world and worked hard to get there and I think Michelle Obama (even though she didn't appear herself which was a bummer) did a very good job in picking them out for this Mentoring program (that was why they came btw). All the ladies on the panel worked their butts off and now have an immense amount of success and I think that is a great inspiration for me. Even though it had some downsides I am very glad I went to this assembly and got to hear these women speak.

From left to right: Sherrie Westin, Ledisi, Louise Erdrich, Michelle Kwan, Nancy Brinker

UYL,

Andre

 

Tutoring!

So there have been many things that I have been meaning to blog about but have not been able to find the time because it is the last week of the quarter and my teachers have all decided to cram in as many test and other grades as possible! I have been having the most fascinating mood swings and they are so damn interesting because I never knew I could go from bright and peppy to hateful and full of angst in less than two minutes! Typical teenage behavior we all learned about in Sex Ed but I've never really experienced it and its just cool when I step back for a second and think to myself "wow so this is what it is like to be normal!" Well that is not the point of today's blog although it would be a good topic to explore at some other time.

So today I went through my day as normal (and with all the new highs and lows!) and got to third block, Advanced Composition (aka EWC tutoring time) and was really not in the mood to tutor after I went to lunch (especially since this person hadn't signed up for me until after I went to lunch so it caught me off guard.) However, I couldn't just tell one of the senior tutors "no I don't feel like it" for obvious reasons. So I went and got prepared and my tutee came in with absolutely nothing done. She said that she had a draft somewhere but didn't bring it with her. "Great, not only is she not prepared but I'm not sure what to work on her with", I thought. I noticed on her cover sheet though that she had circled "transitions" as one of the things she wanted to work on. I asked her, "what do you want to know about transitions" and she basically said anything and everything.

At first I thought it would be just a quick review of what transitions were but then it turned into a 20 minute discussion! We talked about the purpose of transitions, examples of transitions (my favorite was transitioning from a paragraph about her favorite color, blue, to the cookie monster and NO we didn't say that they were both blue!), transition words, transitions that she could use in her draft (wherever it was) and how people use transitions all the time even when they speak. I drew like 4 different diagrams for her and I really wish we had taken a picture of the sheets of paper we used! I even used math to try and get the point across! I used the transitive property of equality (if a = b and b = c then a = c) where a = example from text, b = theme/what both examples have in common and c = example from text. So if she uses a quote to support her theme in paragraph A and another quote to support her theme in paragraph C then what (besides the theme) do paragraphs A and C have in common that links them through transition B? If you aren't following I'm sure its because it was more of a visual diagram explanation that just sounds weird written out.

The point is that I really enjoyed the conference because we essentially just talked about writing and what makes good writing (good transitions make excellent papers!) Typically the tutee comes in with a draft and we read it out loud and then we just edit what they have and I make suggestions for what they could do (whether they execute these suggestions is a complete mystery to me). I realize that it is sessions like these, where we can discuss actual writing and create random examples, is why I like tutoring so much. I legitimately laughed out loud several times and it was just great to see my tutee's face light up with understanding. It felt great to tutor something so basic yet it is a topic that you can delve deep into. I wish all freshmen came in with such great questions!

UYL
Andre

P.S.
Visit the EWC's blog at edisonwritingcenter.blogspot.com for writing by os tutors or funny posts!

Glee!

WARNING: Be sure you know your Glee characters before reading!

Without a doubt my favorite T.V. show is Glee from Fox. It is the only T.V show that I actually sit down and watch in front of a T.V. everything else I watch is on Hulu or Netflix. It's the one time a week I specifically schedule for relaxation. I don't care if I have a pile of homework waiting, nothing comes between me and Glee time.

The reason that I like Glee so much is because of the music basically paired with the situation they are in. I don't know, there's just something about them having a music soundtrack to their life that amuses me. Sure some songs they seriously butcher (Thong Song anyone? And let's not forget the more recent Animals...) but then for every terrible song they have there's five other great ones so I let them have their bad moments. My top 10 songs (in no particular order) are: Smile (Charlie Chaplin cover), Don't Rain On My Parade, Like A Virgin, One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home, Defying Gravity, , Don't Stop Believing, I'm A Slave 4 U, River Deep - Mountain High, Don't You Want Me and Do You Want To Touch. On top of the Glee Cast having amazing songs there is also the Warblers that give Glee an extra boost with their a capella songs. I seriously don't know how the writers of Glee will cut them out because they will be sorely missed. (They will be cut out and Kurt will return to New Directions I can assure you...which reminds me, where is Karofsky?)

Plot-wise I think Glee is a hot mess. I feel like the writers and producers are Glee are so fickle and indecisive. I mean, sure teenagers are can be fickle when it comes to love but to have all the main characters hook up with all the other cast members is too much. And they're all dating within the Glee Club! It's just ridiculous to me how one week Finn like Rachel , then he's back to Quinn who use to go out with Sam who then went out with Santana who's basically dated every guy (except for Kurt of course) and then it turns out she loves Brittany (who did go out with Kurt) who now dates Artie but only after he broke up with Tina. See what I mean? You can't even play 6 degrees of separation with these people--it's too easy! And let's not even get into Mr. Schuester and his disaster of a life. I honestly can't say for every bad subplot there's two other good ones because there really isn't. That doesn't stop me from going back for more every week though! I especially love how they put a funny twist on problems such as teenage sex and alcohol. And they have the most hilarious lines all the time!

Well to conclude I have compiled a list of all the important cast members with my favorites at the top descending into my least favorite (the last one though should be labeled "DISLIKE INTENSELY!"). I could write a whole entire blog post on each of these characters (with the exception of Tina and Mike) and who knows maybe one day I will.

Favorite to Least Favorite Glee Characters

Sue Sylvester
Santana Lopez
Rachel Berry
Kurt Hummel
Ms. Pillsberry
Brittany S. Pierce
Blaine Anderson
Mercedes Jones
Noah "Puck"erman
Quinn Fabray
Finn Hudson
Sam Evans
Tina Cohen-Chang
Mike Chang
Artie Abrams
William Shuester

UYL
Andre

Congratulations!

Whoever just went on my blog around 4PM on 3.24.11 congratulations you were the 100th visitor!

This WOULD Happen To Me

So yesterday I went to work all happy and excited to be going. Yesterday was ice cream delivery day but (luckily) I arrived basically at the end where my boss and my shift supervisor, Jill, were just organizing things in the back room. So I helped with that and then Bob, my boss, left and told Jill to just let me go early if business is slow. Seeing as it was a Wednesday the day was pretty slow. So Jill told me to just practice my scooping (YES there is a method to it) and I started with the more mainstream flavors like Vanilla and Chocolate when I noticed that the ice cream wasn't as hard as it is normally. So I called Julie over and she ended up calling Bob and very long story short Bob told us to clean the ice cream freezer.

Apparently the last time someone actually cleaned the ice cream fridge was about A YEAR ago and of course it broke down on my second day on the job! We had to take out all the ice cream and take them to the storage fridge, scrape off the ice from the side (which was very difficult!) and then wash the inside (Jill actually climbed in which was hilarious) and wash some other stuff. My hands were destroyed and sore by the end of it all. They were also all wrinkled from washing stuff. If only I hadn't said anything about the soft ice cream.... the point of the story is that work is hard, so always tip people if you have the chance! =]

UYL
Andre

Working!

So I'm dying to go to sleep here but I just thought I would update you guys on my first day of work ever! I almost didn't even go because apparently I wasn't on the schedule mailing list. Luckily my shift supervisor, Julie, called me at home and told me I was 10 minutes late already! I rushed over and got trained in the arts of ice cream scooping, milkshake making and smoothie blending. I also learned how to use the cash register and now have to memorize the 35+ flavors of ice cream that we serve. I seriously hope I don't forget anything from today because Julie was going pretty darn fast.

Mondays are kind of slow days so Julie got a lot of training in and she let me actually serve some costumers and ring them up while she observed, but then again it's not a job that requires much brain power. I'm really happy because I'm making money at a pretty easy (potentially repetitive) job. To be honest I have no idea what I'm going to be paid but I got three dollars in tips today!

Some people say that you start hating your job after you work there a few months but I don't think I will. Plus it's called a job not a hobby, I'm being paid for a reason!

UYL
Andre

Crashing With Some Engineers Pt. 2

The next morning Evan, my two other Juntos Podemos buddies (that's what this weekend trip was called) and I woke up at 7 AM which was waaay to early but I woke up really quickly. We went to an on campus classroom where we had bagels while listening to a presentation of a UVA alumni. After that we went to the admissions building and this admissions officer started talking about the procedure in general and we got to ask questions about what we should do to get an edge in the admissions process. Then the fun part came and we went on a campus tour!

The Lawn

I'm at the far left, third row in white

The first part that we visited was "the Lawn" which is just a big grass quadrangle in the oldest part of the University (UVA was founded in 1819 btw!). On the sides are student rooms for fourth year students and the tour guide said that it was very competitive to get one of those rooms and only students who have really given back to the UVA community get them. We also took a group picture at the Rotunda and went to see the amphitheater that had hosted a concert the night before (I met the band players at the house party the night before. They were from Manhattan).We also saw the Whipering Wall which is a perfect half circle and when you whisper at one side of it you can hear the whisper loud and clear at the other side!

 

In one of the Chemical Engineering Laboratories.

 After that we went to eat at one of the Dining Halls. It was still pretty early (like 11 AM which is "early" for a college student) so there was mostly breakfast items. The food was okay, but we apparently ate at the worst Dining Hall. After that we went to the bookstore where I made sure to purchase some UVA gear (I bought a t-shirt and some pin buttons). Once I finished shopping we toured all the engineering buildings. Now I'm going to be honest here, I wasn't really that interested in engineering, but after talking to some of the Chemical Engineering teachers my interest spiked a little. This graduate student in the Computer Systems building also had this really cool original research project where he created a database of 10 million textures that video game companies can use to create the landscapes in a video game.

Once that was over (it was around 2:30 PM now) we went back to the classroom we were in that morning and the some of the mentors sat in a line and we had an "academic panel", where we got to ask them about campus life and being a college student in general. Then once that was over we had a competition! We had to build rockets in groups of 4 with the materials they gave us and we could alter them in any way we wanted. After a very frustrating 45 minutes my group finished (It was me, my friend Eva, a girl we met named Ana and some guy who's name I quite frankly can't remember) and we went to go launch them.

I must be destined to become an engineer because we got second place somehow! We got a UVA tote bag, a portable coffee mug, a stuffed football that opens up and has a little bear with a "Virginia #1" jersey, and a UVA Engineering baseball cap as a prize. We ate pizza for dinner and then it was time to say goodbye =[. I had a really fun time and learned so much about the University. I was a little reluctant to apply to UVA before but now I'm sure that this is somewhere I would want to go. Something just clicked and I could see myself on the Lawn throwing a Frisbee or studying like these people here:

Students playing volleyball.

Overall I'm very glad I went and I plan on doing the program again next year (there's also a summer program for a week that I think I'll apply to) because I really enjoyed myself. Well this post is long enough so I'll end it by saying that thankfully we got home a little faster =]

UYL
Andre

Crashing With Some Engineers Pt. 1

The University of Virginia is GORGEOUS!!! I had such a great time and meet so many cool people but let me start from the beginning.

Right after school I went and got all of my stuff (overnight bag, sleeping bag and pillow) from my locker and dropped off my schoolbag. When I got on the bus there was just one other student from Edison on it! Luckily, I knew Eva from track so even before we arrived I already had a friend to talk to on the long ride (and boy was it a loooong ride). We were supposed to leave the school at 3 but thanks to Will Bolenos (I will never forget his name) who never even showed up, we left at 3:35ish. Not only did we leave late but 30 minutes into the trip we got stuck in traffic. By the time we got to UVa it was 7:30, we were a full hour behind schedule. We were ushered into a very big classroom were the last of the guest speakers was finishing up what sounded like a pretty interesting research project.

Once the last guest speaker finished we went to another large room (which I guess I should just call normal sized since all the rooms were very large. We were a group of 80 and all fit very well) where several student organizations performed. I took videos of most of the performances but apparently whenever I zoom in or out on my camera the sound is cut off and since I was constantly zooming in and out a lot of the videos sound very choppy. I did want to put this video up though because it inspired me to go join the latin dance group at my school called El Movimiento (the movement). Dancing is one of the things I enjoy the most from my Hispanic roots. The salsa group that performed was doing this type of improv circle dancing where one guy calls out a dance move and the all do it and then they switch dance partners often.

The other performances were this really funny improv comedians, two very cool a capella groups (Christian and Hip-Hop), the salsa club, some random guitar player who sang a sneaky song that was really about sex and another comedian (but he wasn't really that funny). Once all the performances we had ice cream and started meeting up with our "Mentors" which were the college students we would be spending the night with. I got this "third year" (that's how they refer to themselves at UVa) named Evan who was nice. He was hosting me along with two other guys (a junior and senior from nearby schools [I think it was Lee and Stuart]). I thought I would be spending the night in a dorm but Evan lived off campus in a place called "The Corner" which is a street with a lot of cafes and bars. It was sort of like a really big townhouse with a lot of rooms where about 15 college kids (mostly guys) lived. Evan started a house party with his roommates and invited some of the other mentors with their mentees and I spent Friday night just like any other college student would. I'm just going to leave it at that for now =P. We went to bed around 2-2:30.

One of the things I found really funny was that the townhouse was so old (it was over a century old!) that it started to sink into the ground sort of and a lot of the doorways were slanted at an angle. That was pretty much my night and I had a very good time but even more exciting was the next day!

High School --> College --> Job

That's pretty much the order of my life for the next 5 years and it is also the order of my weekend! Tomorrow I'll go to school and afterward I will get on a charter bus and will be on my way to the University of Virginia (UVa) in Charlottesville, VA.

I applied for this weekend program called Juntos Podemos which encourages Hispanics to major in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. I had to write some essays and get a recommendation from a teacher (thanks Ms. Pizzazz!) and mail it in. Anyways, so I will arrive at UVa and they will do some presentations I'm guessing and some other stuff and then I get to spend a night in a dorm which is awesome. Then the next day I'm guessing they will do a campus tour and talk more about the STEM majors. Then there is some engineering competition (in teams) and a dinner and then I go home. It'll be pretty awesome and tomorrow is suppose to be a gorgeous day, I'm really looking forward to it.

After I graduate for real I plan to go get a job (I'll get my Master's later in life) but for now I guess I'll have to stick with my new part time job =]. Yup you read right folks, this guy is entering the workforce of America! I went to an interview on Monday which I thought went well and it turns out that it went so well I got a job offer! This will be my first ever job and I will be working at an undisclosed ice cream parlor which I will call Color Spectrum from now on. It's pretty exciting because now I will have extra cash to spend and save (a car maybe?) All I know is that it's going to be a very fun weekend.

UYL
Andre

A Lull in Motion

Sitting home alone in the quiet is so peaceful. I woke up late and everyone's gone and the house is silent and it's great. The lull of motion is pure bliss. I wish every morning was like this, just eating my english muffin and sipping some hot chocolate looking out towards the deck. I feel very happy because  everything is going right. Grades are great, I'm on fantastic terms with family and my social life is stupendous.

The birds are chirping outside which indicates Spring is finally on its way. Even though I have really bad allergies I love spring. Watching all the plants wake up after a long winter sleep excites me. Last year I took pictures of the trees everyday so that I could see them bloom when I put all the pictures together. Maybe I'll do that again this year. If I do consider this photo number one.

The Windowless Room

For those of you that don't know Edison is undergoing some (much needed) renovations. There are some classes that were moved out into the trailers and are now gradually moving back in as the new hallways are completed. The new rooms are very nice but all that construction does have its downsides...like the fact that sometimes the roof will start leaking in the unrenovated part of the building...or hearing those pesky drills while taking a Chemistry test...or finding random refrigerators in the middle of the hallways! (That happened last year, I so wish I had a picture!) Overall though, I don't mind the construction because our school is looking nicer and nicer. Plus the construction team is ahead of schedule so maybe they will finish before the Spring of my senior year.

Anyways, the point of my post today is that my Government class moved out from a trailer to a nice room inside. It's just a little bit smaller and more...square than rectangular like the trailer room. The new room is a lot farther away from my second block French class but I'm okay with that. Once it starts warming up I'll appreciate the walk from the French trailer to the Government classroom inside. The only thing I don't like about the new room is that there are NO WINDOWS!!! How is that even possible??? Well apparently the put like three rooms between two hallways...its hard to explain. However, someone decided to draw in a window for us of a very special place on earth. The beach!

We also put in a lava lamp in a little alcove that faces the hallway outside. I laugh (not aloud) every time I see people stop and stare. =]

UYL
Andre

You Know You're Cool When...

...you sing a song about a day of the week. I'm so getting this on iTunes lmao.

Rebecca Black - Friday (Official Video)

Its Been a While...

Arghhh where to start! Well for those of you that were worried (which I'm sure you weren't) I did very well on that Chemistry midterm that I thought I had bombed due to a lack of blood. Let's just say my name is A good indicator of what I got. =]

Yesterday there were a lot of things going on. On one hand it was my mom's birthday, on the other hand it was pi day, on one foot Albert Einstein's Birthday and on the other foot it was National Potato Chip Day! For my mom's birthday we went to this restaurant near home called King's Street Blues because for some odd reason my mother wanted burgers. Which sucks because I gave up meat for Lent so I had to watch my parents and little sister eat their burgers while I had some chicken sandwich thing. For her birthday I got her some wall art which fits her personality perfectly.

Today was also a pretty amazing day. Since we were taking a test yesterday in Algebra we decided to celebrate pi day today which we did. I got a grand total of 11 digits (3.1415926535) memorized for the "pi-off" which was really small compared to the 55 five this freshmen girl recited. I pretty much pigged out on apple pie and red velvet cake (it's round so it counts) at 7:30 in the morning during our little "celebration". The highlight of my day was definitely during third period when an EWC tutor decided we needed to give our advertising campaigns a boost.

Tweet! Tweet! Follow us on twitter!

So you can now follow us on twitter! I don't really understand the whole point of twitter so I don't have one but feel free to follow us or whatever it is you do on twitter. Our "twitter bird" then went out into the hall where she proceeded to tell everyone going to lunch "tweet tweet follow us on twitter! tweet tweet!" It was too funny. After that I went to Chemistry where I actually understood everything that Mrs. Newton was talking about! I was ecstatic because normally I have to go home and read the textbook but not today!

To conclude an amazing day I watched my favorite show, Glee, where I saw one of the best episode's of the season! Sue Sylvester punching that old lady in the face was without a doubt my favorite part of tonight's show. Well it's getting awfully late so I will update you on my life later! (UYL! That now stands for Update You Later and is how I will start ending (oxymoron!) my posts)

UYL
Andre!

You Know You're Cool When...

...your crayons have a built in sharpener ;P

My Exsanguination!

Yes! I have been dying to use the word "exsanguinate" ever since I read it in this book called City of Bones. It is a great word (and book) and it ties in nicely with what the Key Club of my school was doing this week. They organized a blood drive along with Inova Blood Donor Services. I finally got to sign up this year (last year I was rejected) because you have to be at least 16 years old.

Me donating blood!

It was actually a really enjoyable experience. I got a pass that let me leave in the middle of French class and I went to the Lecture Hall where the nurses & Key Club members had removed all the chairs and set up a mini "clinic". I signed in and signed some forms and then went to go see a nurse who took my blood pressure, temperature and drew a bit of blood out of my ring finger to check my iron level. After that I waited a bit until one of the seats opened up and a nurse could attend me. While I waited for the nurse to set everything up this girl, who's a Junior, started talking to me. She was really nice and a great distraction. There were two other guys who I also started up a conversation with. I was actually talking to Junior Girl when the nurse rammed the freaking huge needle into the vein on my left arm. Normally needles just feel like a pinch but I actually gasped when this one came in, it was bigger than normal. I donated a pint total (which was a lot more than I thought!)

Look at the size of that thing!

This is one whole pint!

While I was donating, there was this one guy who donated double the amount of red cells and when he finished he started walking toward the rest area. The only problem was that he never got there! He collapsed on the floor and it took a while to revive him from unconsciousness. Some firemen even came to the school and took him to the hospital because he couldn't get up. I was sure to get up slowly and I walked very carefully to the rest area. It didn't matter. I started feeling very hot and nauseous so the nurses told me to lie down on the floor. I remember thinking "Hmm seeing people dropping like flies must be very reassuring to those waiting to donate!" After 15 minutes of feeling like an idiot they let me sit again and then I had to wait another 15 minutes to leave. I didn't mind, they had lots of food that they kept on shoving into my mouth.

Unfortunately, I felt extremely tired (and hungry) for the rest of the day which probably affected my grade on the Chemistry midterm that I took during 4th. On the bright side, Mersal's mom gave Melody and I a ride home. Once I got home I went up to my bed to rest and read a little but it turns out I fell asleep! Now most of you must be thinking, "yeah so? I take naps all the time" but this is something extraordinarily rare for me. I have the hardest time ever taking naps, like I don't even remember the last time I took a nap before yesterday's. It was pretty darn cool, I woke up a little bit more refreshed. I was feeling so refreshed in fact that I went over to Cappy's house and (sorta) watched a movie and pigged out on Ice Cream =]

Overall it was a pretty darn good day. My blood will be used to save three lives and I'm pretty proud of that. Even though I felt a bit woozy after, I will definitely go and donate again next year. As should anyone reading this blog. Feeling a bit tired for a day is worth helping others who might have lost blood because of an accident or need blood for surgery or because of chemo or anemia or any other reason. So go out and donate whenever you can!

Donate Blood Today!

Do the WRITE thing

This post is brought to you by: The Edison Writing Center, where there's more than one write way to tutor papers. The Edison Writing Center (here on forth known as the EWC) is a student organization that "strives to create an atmosphere of approachable peer tutors in order to maximize achievement and success in all aspects and disciplines of student writing". So basically what we do is tutor anything that is written.

Me in one of my many EWC apparel

EWC Tutors must take Advanced Composition to be able to tutor during school hours. I take it during third block every other day. So during third block kids generally come down with an assignment they are working on and get tutored during their lunches. The "tutee" gets tutored for about 20 minutes. They also have the option of coming after school on Wednesdays. What many people don't know is that in between the lunches we have "class time" where we basically work on writing assignments that are atypical to an English class. For example we did a huge original research paper on "Writing in the Disciplines" (I choose to do mine on business writing, it ended up being about 22 pages, yikes!) and more recently we have done business letters and restaurant reviews (maybe I'll post that up.)

I really enjoy the class because it's very laid back. Ms. Pizzazz (who is in charge of the EWC) is the teacher for Advanced Comp. and she doesn't hound you to do your work. If you aren't a good time manager this can come and bite you in the butt! But if you are good at time management than you are free to do whatever you need to do (like play bananagrams!) Plus it helps that we tutors are all super close and good friends. Our class is super smart and we have really great class discussions. You have to go through a long application process to be a tutor so we have a lot of bright minds in the class that actually want to be in class.

Some Writing Center Tutors at the EWC's 2nd Birthday in early February.

Tutoring in itself is pretty fun. I mean every once in a while I will get an unresponsive tutee and there's a lot of normal writers. The best part though is when you get a tutee that has a powerful writing voice with a unique writing style and idiosyncratic diction that makes a strong writing piece. I love tutoring those types of tutees even though I get nervous because I know that my writing skills are no where near theirs. It's still pretty nice getting to see people's different writing styles and get to know them better. Oh, by the way, today I completed my tenth hour of tutoring! Yay! The means I have had...30 tutoring sessions!

This may easily be one of my favorite classes and while I am not going to be taking Advanced Composition 2 next year I'm definitely coming back for Senior year.

Pseudothings

Today has been full of lies! Well not really, but imagine my astonishment when I went to serve myself some Corn Pops for breakfast and out came Cocoa Puffs!

This of course is something in my house all the time and it catches me off guard every time. My dear mother loves to save space (for select things of course) so she'll put a bag of Cocoa Puffs that came in one of the big Costco sized cereal boxes into a smaller one like the Corn Pops one. A few weeks ago I saw some cupcakes in a plastic box of dates...another prime example of my mom's crazy sorting system:

This is where you would find powdered chocolate...

And instead find coffee...

Yup you can find this type of organization system all over the house if you look hard enough. By the way notice the much better quality of the Nesquick/Coffee pictures! Yup, that's right I got a camera! I've been needing one for a while and adding the blog to the list of reasons of why I need one just pushed me into buying it. Anyways on to something gross.

So I normally go through the lunch line with Mersal and Emma during lunch (duh). Before I get any deeper in the story I just wanted to mention that I haven't eaten a school lunch since the fall semester of last year when the "Spicy Chicken Sandwich" I was eating tasted completely uncooked. Anyways, I was going through the lunch line and when we approuched the (barely every touched) fruits and vegetables section I saw THIS:

GROSSSSS A MOLDY ORANGE! I have been considering buying one of those new "healthy" chicken wraps but I don't even want to buy those! Maybe I should notify someone about this...

Mexican Dancing Bread

I forgot to mention earlier that I have been home alone since 6:15AM Friday, March 4th. My parents both decided to go and take some time off but not necessarily together. My mom left to go to the Dominican Republic for a week and my Dad is in Miami celebrating his mom's 80th birthday along with all 5 of his other siblings. I'm not going to lie, its kind of creepy being home alone. But it also has its perks like the complete and utter silence which I love and the fact that I only have to clean up after myself.

Only 10 points apart!

Anyways, yesterday, I had the joy of spending my day with Emma. Little did she know that we would be spending the whole day together! We decided to go to Kingstowne Towne Shopping Center (yeah that's really what it's called!) and eat some Chipotle with Melody and our other friend Conner. To be honest I'm not that big a fan of Chipotle but it's eatable. After that we all decided that we might as well go back to my house and play some wii. This is where the fun began. We cycled through all of my multi-player games playing Just Dance the longest. It was hilarious since we are all pretty...er let's say "uncoordinated". Besides losing to Melody once I pretty much dominated the game with my smooth moves. Dear Melody however, was quite the formidable opponent as you can see above. This was one of the many close scores we got. Unfortunately she left and Emma became pretty corrupt in her game playing strategies afterward. She would take one of my pillows and block my side of the screen while playing tennis in Wii Sports.

Conner then left and Emma and I went to her house where we actually got some (and by some I mean barely anything...at least for me) homework done! Emma and her parents fed my lasagna which also had spinach in it which I had never tried before. I really liked it even though I couldn't really taste the spinach. After we cleared the table we started playing bananagrams the funnest word game ever! With two people though it was sort of difficult and we both had our fair share of saying "dump" (if you don't know what I'm talking about I suggest you look up the rules to bananagrams). Which inspired Emma to make Banana-bread! Except it didn't really come out as it was suppose to...

As you can see the banana-bread had three different layers: Not baked completely, sorta baked and burnt! Emma and I could not stop laughing because not only did it have three levels but it tasted more like limes than bananas!!! Apparently the recipe required for 3 teaspoons of lemon zest (or something) not 1/3 of a cup...

Overall it was a very fun Saturday that I really enjoyed because I was with friends that I've practically grown up with (well except for Conner). This fantastic day was not followed by a not so fun rainy Sunday which was full of laundry, cleaning and homework from every subject. If it weren't for the Chinese I ordered and a surprise visit from a very wet Cappy and Sara (why would anyone want to play in the rain???). As I'm writing this my dad should be close to landing in the DC airport where my uncle is going to pick him up. And so my weekend and its freedom ends!

Back to Basics

So I think its a good idea to write about a typical day in the life of Andre so that we all know exactly what and who I am talking about. Readers of my blog prepare yourself for an intimate (and very detailed) look at my normal school day.

To start off I have my "Wake up for School Sunshine!" alarm go  off at 5:25AM in the morning. I roll out of bed, stumble into my bathroom, brush my teeth, shower, shave and have a little pep talk about how great the day will be with myself in the mirror. After that I move to my room where I neatly make my bed every morning and proceed to change while listening to the Kayne Show. The Kayne Show is essential to my mornings since it keeps me up with news and the weather and I get to sing along to whatever is popular at the time. At 6:15 I am rushing down the stairs to pack my lunch and eat breakfast. My lunch typically looks like this:

I always have a PB&(orange or raspberry)J sandwich, chips, popcorn, a fruit, something salty & something sweet!

Anyways after that I'm out the door by 6:40 because I have a 25 minute walk to school with my best friends Emma and Melody every day. We arrive to school and proceed (or proceeded) to go to the (now under construction) band room. The first bell rings at 7:20 and I walk to my first class with Melody and Conner.

My first class is Algebra II Honors which is a little bit annoying because for the past three consecutive semesters I have had math first thing in the morning. Mr. Nojuice is my teacher and let me tell you he is one quirky man! He has the corniest jokes ever most of which are math related. Here's a scenario from what happened yesterday in class.

Student: Mr. Nojuice my calculator says low battery!
Mr. Nojuice: Ok here's what you are going to do: take your calculator and raise it above your head...
Student raises the calculator with a confused look
Mr. Nojuice: See, now the calculator has a high battery, ha ha get it?

You get the point.

After that I have French 3 with Ms. Hour which I must admit is pretty boring. There are some pretty funny people but I'm typically surfing the internet on my iPod or doing Algebra homework.

For those of you that don't know Edison has a "block schedule" which means that you take the same four classes in the same order for a semester. I really like it but once you start getting into the more advanced courses year long classes that meet every other day are sprinkled into your schedule. So on Day 1s I have Government Honors with the most amazing Government teacher ever Mr. Kecar and on Day 2s I have Advanced Composition (relax a post about this class WILL pop up) with my favorite teacher Ms. Pizzazz. I have B Lunch every day and while it can get a little jaded with only Emma and Mersal (another buddy of mine) to talk to I still like it.

Finally I end the day with IB Chemistry 1. Chem and I have a love hate relationship going on. Sometimes I really get it and sometimes I just want to through my textbook at the teacher. Not that I would because Dr. Newton is so sweet and adorable (with her expressions and gestures!) She loves that whole "interactive" learning BS with lots of hands on learning and class activities which are not for me! Just gimme a bad PowerPoint with too much text on it and I'll be more than happy to take notes from it. Unfortunately, Dr. Newton does not believe in that so I'm not going to lie, I definitely have to go the extra mile with studying to maintain a good grade. 

The bell finally rings at 2:15PM and I'm back to that 30 minute trek home only with Melody this time because Emma is on the school soccer team.Once I get home at 2:50ish I enjoy the hour and a half of silence I have by doing homework because as soon as my little sister Valeria gets home pandemonium begins...Once I'm done with homework I'll eat with my mom who gets home at 6 and the start watching one of my TV series or read until its time for bed. Pretty dull but I mean we can't have something exciting happen everyday otherwise what will make it so exciting?

Hmm I realize this post may be longer than I anticipated but it's good to have it as a reference for those of you that might get confused when I mention a teachers (obviously fake) name or say something about the block schedule. Well I still have a few more episodes of Dexter to watch before going to bed so that is all!

Morning Mourning

     You would think that my first official post would be happy but unfortunately it's not going to be. Today at school tragedy struck as a senior from my community died. I heard about it during the announcements in Algebra II class this morning. They did not mention the name so naturally the first thing I did was go on Facebook to get information. There I saw the first RIP post of what would be many by the end of the school day.

     So I looked the girls name up and was in utter shock when I realized that I knew her. Not personally, but I remember talking to her after school one day with some other students about IB classes. Up until now I didn't have any connection with this death. I remember her being very nice and laughing a lot but I didn't think about it again during my first and second block classes. It wasn't until my third block class, Advanced Composition (I'll explain this class in a later post) that it truly hit me that this girl is gone forever. One of her close friends was in my class and just like half of the school, she looked like she was going to burst into tears every minute. I just felt extremely emotional as the teacher rounded us all up and talked about some grieving strategies we could use. At this point I still did not know how the girl died. I honestly didn't even think about it because the principal had announced that she had "passed away". When I went to lunch and asked my friends if they had known her I found out that she had taken her own life. Grief hit me once again. This girl was a stellar student who ice skated well and was involved in almost every school play. She had already been accepted into a very good college and like I said, she exuded joy. Needless to say it was a very emotional day especially since I had only the tiniest connection to her.

   Which brought me to my most important revelation of the day. You can never really tell what people are feeling inside. This girl had everything going for her and just decided to end it. Why would she do it? I can't begin to fathom why. I've heard many speculations but its still extremely depressing to think that the world has one less ray of happiness. I also learned more about myself today too. I always thought I would be numb to the death of anyone outside my parents and sisters. I realize this sounds terrible but I'm really not the emotional type. After today though I feel like a mess. I almost shed a tear every time I thought about her death. I'm amazed by how affected I am. So clearly I will be a total wreck if anyone close to me dies.To conclude...well I can't think of what to say except I hope that girl rests in peace.

P.S.
Due to the sensitivity of the issue I have (obviously) not included the girls name so excuse some of my more vague sentences.

It's a New Dawn

Hello!

I have decided to embark on a new-could-potentially-become-dangerous-lifestyle: blogging. This definitely beats posting on Facebook where you have your 2 minutes of fame before someone else's post displaces yours. Well the reason I have started this is after reading some amazing post by a certain witty and funny teacher. She has always been an inspiration to me and I just recently got access to her super exclusive blog. And my number one follower also helped convince me of course ;).

What could I, a pretty boring nerd from Va, ever blog about? Well let me tell you know, my life is full of ups and downs, lefts and rights, forward and backwards and as a result I tend to trip a lot. My goal: to have a written account of my last two and a half years of high school (and possibly beyond?). The Plan: to write at least once a week. By the way as a good friend of mine says, "excuse my grammar, I'm foreign!" I can assure you, there will be more than a few errors...

This is me! Yes it's old but I'm to lazy to search for a more current one.

For those of you who know me best this is normally the time I commence my 1 hour get-ready-for-bed routine. So this is good-bye for now!