whoops, missed a few days again

maybe its all because of memorial day. I had an extra long weekend jam packed full of work and study. Although I'm excited, because the projects and papers I'm working on are the last of the quarter. In Art, we're each making a six-panel book about a person or a character. Each panel will have a picture made out of pieces of color paper that we have to cut. Yes, it sounds fun, and it looks really cool, but it takes a heck-of-a-long time to cut every piece out. I worked nearly seven hours on Sunday making one panel. Of course, there was a lot of TV involved, and only a little bit of eating involved.
Stepping back a day, I spent saturday at the Asian Festival, WAIT performance in the morning that went well, and several hours walking around checking out booths, looking for free stuff, and sitting in the shade watching people play volleyball with their feet. In the evening, I went to a bboy battle on campus that was pretty awesome. We stayed till ten, by which time I was dead tired, which brings me back to the day before.
On Friday, I woke up late, missed my bus, but got to school in time for my english class. By the end, I realized I really wasn't feeling too good, so I went home, staggered into bed, and slept for the rest of the day. Then, predictably, I was up the whole night, and still wasn't feeling terribly good in the morning, which is why I was dead tired by ten o'clock on saturday.
Monday, we had a barbecue with some families at our house, so we had to clean up and stuff. I slept again in the afternoon, then started working more on my Senior Symposium, which I practiced today! And it went great! nah, not really, it went ok. I never take rough drafts too seriously, but I should probably take this presentation a bit more seriously, because the only good final presentation I've ever given was freshmen year. I hereby vow to take the senior symposium as seriously as my schedule and will will allow.

lets see, what has happened recently?...well, i got my drivers licence, I lost the job position I was supposed to get, so I applied at four other places (cross my fingers), and I started working on my senior symposiuummm!!!
So far its going really well. People kept telling me that I should put part of the powerpoint presentation that we gave in DC, but I can't think of where or how to put it in. So so far I just talk. I'm pretty sure I absolutely need some kind of media, so I think I'm going to ask my mentor in DC for a brochure that I designed and leave it at that.

Thats about all thats been going on recently. Sorry it's not much.

so I'm starting to get a tiny bit excited for graduation. As we get closer to June eigth, I a bit anxious, a bit nervous, and yet...I'm graduating soon. Moving on to bigger and scarier things, growing older, becoming part of a new community. It all does seem a bit exciting sometimes. Of course, I know I of all people am not the most prepared for this new phase, but I'll take it as it comes. I have people who I know will help me as they have already, so it won't ever be too difficult for me to handle.

As for my current walkabout, alls well. I'm in a bit of a rut with a project and an essay, but not terribly worried. I hope to get direction today and if not, well, I'll just have to tough it.

I think it's high time I reflected a bit on my past and current walkabout experience.

It surprises me how much I actually gained from my third quarter walkabout in DC. At least once every couple days I notice myself either using something I learned there, thinking about something I was told there, or else just pushing myself forward because of my experience there. My mentors definitely went out of their way to make sure I didn't forget what I was supposed to learn. Well, I would say one did. He would sit in his chair and just talk for half-an-hour about stuff that I needed to do when I got back home and how to do it. The other would drill the stuff he knew into me in ways that I could not describe in writing. Lets just say it was a huge source of aggravation during my time there. But I'm guessing that it was effective none the less.
Whatever the two of them did to me, I would say it has stayed with me pretty well. I think about my experience there all the time, and I often notice how it affects my behaviour, decisions, and mentality.

As for my second walkabout, I don't think I could think of anything that would be better for me. Perhaps I've already said this, but I've never been one to think much about college. It's always been a monster sitting in silence off on the horizon line, growing bigger as I walked towards it, but never saying much. So now I've taken a substantial step towards it, and I realize it's not as bad as I expected. It isn't too different from high school, the biggest difference being that I don't have as personal a connection to people as I did in high-school. I'm definitely going to miss high-school because of that. I already do.

"I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

Sometimes when it comes to art, I feel like Mugatu from Zoolander. Honestly, is everyone else seeing something that I'm not? People look at modern "art" and think, 'wow, thats incredible and new and different. I really admire their work,' and I think 'what? Are they five?' So I feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something.
We watched a few documentaries on contemporary artists today, and two out of four were...ok, in my opinion, while the other two were completely and utterly ridiculous...in my opinion. And it's so ridiculous, in my opinion, to listen to people talk so seriously about utter crap (in my opinion).
On the positive side of art, we started talking about our new projects today, and they sound really cool. Basically we're making a book made up of six pictures, each made out of colored paper cutouts. We have to pick a character or a person as a subject, and I think I've decided on Edward Scissorhands. I love Tim Burton's movies, and I think it be super cool to cut out Edward Scissorhand's hair and scissors :P

over the past week or two, i have spent a lot of time thinking about a new job, a drivers license, and a car. All of those things need to happen at the same time, since i cant really have a job without a car (unless if i work in walking distance from home, which isn't happening), i can't have a car without a job, and i can't have a license without a job either, since i'd have to pay for insurance when i get my license. so all of those things are happening very soon, and it's a little bit mind-blowing to imagine how i'll manage to juggle all of those things along with school in such a short time. its a good thing i have a family who help me out a bunch.
but since i've been doing all this, i haven't really been giving much thought to my Graham schoolwork, such as this journaling, and the presentation i'll be giving on graduation day. i've been doing some work trying to get the pictures from my third quarter walkabout, but so far have been unsuccessful. i hope to get a better sense of direction for myself from seminar on Wednesday. I know i'll have enough to talk about in my presentation, but i just don't know where to start...... -_-

I took the SAT's on saturday, as planned, and they did not turn out to be at all like i expected. For starters, the math was a hell of a lot easier then i anticipated. to put it in perspective, out of every math practice question i took prior to the SAT's, i got, ohh, maybe 20% of them right. But on the actual SAT's, i think i got the majority of them right. in each section, i think there was one that i had no idea how to do, but other than those, everything else was pretty simple and straightforward. maybe i was practicing for the wrong SAT test....
as for the reading and grammar stuff, well, you never know how you did on those. probably about 35 or 40% of the questions i was absolutely sure i answered correctly, and then the rest, well, you never know.

Other than the SAT's, i had the busiest weekend i've had in a long time. I guess busy is good, but it can be really tiring at the same time. Plus, after not being in math class or thinking about math for four days, i felt thoroughly unprepared when monday morning came. But its all good, I got a math test tomorrow, an english paper due tomorrow, and an art project due tomorrow, and i think i'm almost ready ^_^