So busy...

This weekend was the most ridiculously busy weekend of my life so far. A bajillion grad parties to go to, plus my own to host, and today is Class Day and Commencement. I don't believe I've slept in about two weeks...

So, my grad party was actually a lot of fun to host. It was nice to see all my extended family, family friends, and especially friends from school and church. I really only had one problem with it: Not as many people showed up as I thought would. Most of the people who did show were family or really close friends. From school, I had about 4 friends show and about 6 friends from church. Other people who came were either family or close friends, and about two families from church who weren't my youth pastors or the interns. To tell you the truth, I'm kinda pissed off. It's insulting that hardly any of my friends showed up. Some of them had good excuses, I know. I'm not hounding them. It's the people who said they were gonna go or the people whom I KNOW had nothing better to do or will use the excuse, "But there were so many grad parties." (<--In a whiny voice) Okay, I know there were a lot of grad parties. I went to several of them. All I was asking for was about 5 minutes of your time:  time to come in, say hi, sign the book, eat something (if you wanted) and leave. I wouldn't have minded that. I DO mind being stood up. So, thanks for making me feel so incredibly disappointed, all of you who I invited and didn't show up.

On a happier note, the people who did come were awesome. I got to actually talk to my friends who showed up, and we had some very interesting conversations. One friend in particular stayed for practically the whole thing and then for some time afterwards so that we could talk about college life at UNI. (Thanks Josh.  :]  ) I'm glad that a couple of my friends, even though they couldn't come to the party, came to my house afterwards to say hi and congratulations and drop off their cards. Means a lot guys. (Especially Ananya, who ended up getting to my house when I was no longer there. She stayed a while anyway to talk to my family. Pretty awesome.)

Now, Class Day. The boringest event in the world, besides maybe some golf tournament, which is basically watching the grass grow. Class Day is where all the seniors file in in their pairs, which, for our class of about 400, takes almost 10 minutes in itself. Then there's the playing of the Star Spangled Banner by the senior band members, who have to make their way out of the seats they just go into and up into the pep band area. Then they file back down, and the top 3% and 15% of the senior class are announced. I had to go straight from up top to finding my place in the aplhabetically ordered line for 15%. We all file up to the podium and are given cords and plaques. Then it's scholarships. Practically every scholarship that a senior has earned is announced at this point, including Dollars for Scholars, which is practically the whole senior class. But right before Dollars for Scholars, there's the last performance of the senior choir members, then the band and cheerleaders. After that, anyone who got $500 or more from Dollars for Scholars lined up and got a certificate. All the people who got $350 were announced, but they at least didn't have to line up. Then there was the Principal's Award and the Department Awards. Then, finally, the last part: mementos. These are generally the bast part of the whole thing, not only because they turn off the lights and put spotlights on the pile. A memento is usually an inside joke between members of the club or a token of significant achievement. The best was for AcDec, which I participated in. We painted a toilet seat gold with a flaming J on the lid, then we all signed the inside. It was the awesomest thing ever. :)

Commencement is tonight. Luckily, this year I don't have to play Pomp and Circumstance 18 times in a row. However, since my last name is at the beginning of the alphabet, I have to wait for FOREVER after I have my empty sleeve (we get our diplomas when we return the gown and collar) until Joe Zahn gets up on stage. He switches the tassel, and then everybody throws their caps in the air. Except for people like me who are going to bobbypin it to their heads so that they don't have to worry about it falling off. I'll toss it later, though it's not as special. I didn't want to lose my cap amongst the rest of them anyway.

Annoying

Soooo......annoying things. I hate writing thank you letters. I would love to write something personal and original in each letter, but I've generally got several to write at once. By the end I just want to get them done. It kinda makes me feel phony when I've written the same thing in four or five thank you notes in a row. The biggest problem is that I actually am really grateful, it just doesn't sound like that if your card/name happened to be at the bottom of the stack. I know it seems cheesy, but I would prefer just getting a card that has a pre-written message in it and then just sign it. It keeps me from having to feel like I need to write something personal in every card and then feeling bad when I don't.

But currently I have to write something personal in each card. The cards are thanking people for giving me money for a missions trip to Belize. Because of these people, I don't have to pay any more money for either Belize OR Rosebud. So I feel kinda obligated. It still takes for-freaking-ever, which is incredibly annoying. Gah...

Boyyyfren

So, this is a tribute to the awesomest boyfriend ever, Tom Donoho. He likes to hang out with me and give me hugs an make me feel less stressed when I'm freaking out about school.

This past weekend I had two HUGE projects to do that were due on Monday the 16th. One was a term paper that constituted half of my final. The other was a 17" x 22" horror vacuii (horrible space) drawing of architecture. On Saturday night, after a round of grad parties, my friends Emi and Ananya came over, and they were shortly joined by Thomas. We were playing Scrabble and watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire while I was also working on my term paper. (on the topic of color blindness) Not too long after he got there, Heather (his completely awesome sister) sent him a text from work saying that she would really like to kill a person. So, because he's an awesome brother, I let him go and visit his sis at work.

So, on Sunday, Tom-Tom asked if I would be up to going to HuHot right after school for lunch, even though it was kind of late. For those of you who have been to HuHot, you would know that this would be worth it even if I didn't wait until after school every day. For those of you who haven't, I pity you and tell you that you absolutely HAVE to go to this restaurant. They are AMAZING. Anyway, I of course said yes. On Monday we went to HuHot at 4, even after he had had some trouble with keys the night before, and it was awesome. It was precisely the stress-free relaxer that I needed after having to cite every single picture from a huge drawing (you should measure this out- it's a lot bigger than it sounds) and writing half of a term paper.

So I repeat again, I have the awesomest boyfriend ever. :)  (hopefully he'll read this- Hey Tom!!!)

Bothersome

You know what really ticks me off? The complete lack of respect that my younger sister (Call her YS1, since I have two) shows to everybody. It's as if the world is hers and everyone in it was put here merely to respond to her every whim. Then, when that obviously doesn't happen, she throws a little fit. (known as regression by psych people)


     Recently she was mad about something or other. I wasn't really listening, but I think it had to do with the fact that Mother wanted YS1 to do her chores before she left for the night on a Friday. It's reasonable to expect that, seeing as YS1 probably wouldn't do anything on Saturday chores-wise; she had to work and had some disciplinary measures put on her by the school that required a chunk of her Saturday morning. Between work and that, YS1 wasn't going to do anything that even seemed like work, even if she said she would. (She's pretty lousy with keeping her word on things like that.)
     Anyway, YS1 decided that Mother was making an unreasonable demand, and instead of talking to Mother like she was an intelligent person who would listen to reason, YS1 shouted, screamed, and generally insulted the authority of Mother. Until Mother was crying and left. You have no idea what helplessness feels like until your mother is crying because of something your stupid sister said and you can't do anything. At least after this YS1 actually did some of her chores, but Mother didn't come home for several hours.

     But it's not just Mother that receives her wrath when she doesn't comply with YS1's wishes. Nope, I've been there a lot too. Been referred to as many derogatory words that I shouldn't put on a blog that I expect people to read. Most of the time it was because I wouldn't give her a ride. So, your opinion: is it unreasonable to expect that my younger sister treat me with respect or refuse to give her rides places? How about expecting her to be on time after school or leaving her there? (Just so you know, school is only ten minutes from our house, so it's not like I'm leaving her in Grimes and going home to Urbandale or anything like that) How about before school and leaving her at home to ride the bus if she wasn't there on time?
     Oftentimes, it wasn't YS1 who ruined those plans. It was generally Mother, but she never seemed to understand since she never heard the way YS1 would talk to me, especially after I left her at school 2 days in a row. (Or left her at home 4 days in a row) One time, I refused to give YS1 a ride to school at all. She said she had a test that she HAD to make up that morning. I told her that I would talk to her teacher (who was my English teacher also) and make sure that she still had a time to take the test. She just kept saying that if I drove to school, she would get in the car with me. So I said I would take the bus. And I did.....And Mother ruined the whole thing by letting YS1 get a ride to school with a friend. And then she didn't even take the test that morning. (I did talk with my English teacher about that)
     Our family STILL isn't the only thing that gets her anger. Most of the juniors that I know from school all practically fall backward when I tell them that YS1 and I are related. They can't believe it. We're complete polar opposites, and most everyone I know in both the junior and senior classes who know YS1 dislike her immensely. She strikes them as an imposing, rude, selfish brat. (And she is)

Okay, now I'm done ranting. Sorry to subject you to my mindless ramblings about my stupid sister.

Color Blindness

Really random things happen once in a while, and guess this is one of them. Right now, I'm writing a term paper for AP Psych on color blindness and all things associated with it. At the same time, in Drawing, we're doing a unit on color and its values. So randomly coincidental...

So this would be the point that I mention that I'm colorblind. BEFORE you start asking, "what color is this? what about the sky? How about this red shirt I'm wearing??" Seriously, just because I'm color blind doesn't mean I'm stupid. Don't ask me what color the sky is, don't ask me what colors are on the American flag, and don't ask me what are the colors in the rainbow. And another thing: I don't have achromatopsia, which is seeing things in only shades of grey. Instead I'm protonopic, which means I'm missing my red-receptor cones. That just means that I see colors wrong, specifically to do with red and it's many shades.


The colors I have difficulty telling apart:

•  purple and blue
• cyan and white
• light, bright green (think highlighter) and yellow
• red and brown
• certain greens, oranges, and browns
• dark pink and purple (which means dark blue too)
• red and black (if there isn't a large space of red)

So maybe you can see why this art unit might be a little difficult for me.  Already I've had to ask the girl who sits beside me which pastel was the purple and which was the dark blue. If I leave them in the container, I know which is which because I know the order that the colors go in the rainbow. However, once I take them out, they look the exact same. To you, they'd be incredibly different, but to me they're the same. At least until I try to use one in my drawing and it's the wrong one. -____-   That's always incredibly annoying.

So, some random facts about red-green color deficiency now. Apparently nature made up to us color blind folks by giving us the ability to see through camouflage; it has no affect for us according to one article. It's also incredibly dangerous for us to be working as doctors or medical technicians. Another article from the US National Library of Medicine described a problem with color blind people misinterpreting charts and slides, not being able to recognize things like jaundice (where your whole body turns yellow) and not seeing titration end points (titrations are mixing acids and bases until the solution is neutral, shown by an indicator in the solution) or being able to tell tissue samples apart. Basically that means that someone like me, working as a doctor, could interpret your results wrong, and me as a technician would mix your meds wrong. Yeah, guess there's another good reason I shouldn't be doctor. (Besides the fact that I would throw-up all over the patient...)

And, for good measure, if you're wondering if you're color blind, here are a few tests that you can take:

 

• http://www.colblindor.com/color-arrangement-test/(by the way, the line is supposed to go from 1-15)
• http://www.biyee.net/color-science/color-vision-test/protanopia_test.aspx (for protonopia- I got 14 right, 24 wrong, for a percentage of 34% correct)

•  what you do is click the choice that most closely matches the larger pattern

• http://colorvisiontesting.com/ishihara.htm#plate%20with%2010%20answer (I didn't see anything in any of the circles)

End of the Year Projects...

...can go die in a ditch. I swear, does every single teacher in the high school need to assign a final project two weeks before the seniors leave??? Especially when that coincides with the AP tests. I have maybe 5 major projects that I need to have done by next Monday:

• AP Psych term paper
• Sociology Social Norm breaking
• ELP final project
• 17x22" horror vacuii drawing (architecture more or less abstracted)
• Short film to be filmed and edited

All this on top of finals!! It's a darned good thing that the only other classes I'm taking aren't hard at all. (there's only three of them...) I get little enough sleep as it is; this is only going to cut down the amount I get now to about 2/3. Which probably isn't good for taking finals. I'm really glad that this whole thing will be over in about a week. Can't wait.

18-year License

Today I got my 18-year-old full license today. It came in the mail in a plain white envelope, but I knew immediately what it was. It definitely looked governmental, though I'm not exactly sure why. Somehow I just knew that it was from the government. This one is plastic and will replace the paper one I got at the DOT the other day.

There are a few things that I don't understand about this license. First, one of the good things, why are my eyes finally listed as green? What took them so long? I'm glad it's finally like this, but still. It took four year for them to get it right, even though I listed my eyes as green on every application-thing I've turned in to the DOT.

Second thing I don't understand: why is my signature suddenly not just a copy, like the rest of the card, but looks as though it's be put on with puffy paint? Is this something that's a part of getting a full license or the new system? And if it is, why did they feel that the signature had to stick out from the rest of the license? Is there something particularly special about it? Not that I know of...

Third thing: Why do I now have three pictures? Even on the paper one I only had two; the plastic one has three. Why the random change? I assume there must be some specific reason for needing three of the exact same picture on the same card....

Fouth and last: What's with the new rules on not smiling and no glasses? I don't know about any other nearly-legally-blind people, but I'm never planning on going driving without my glasses and I hate contacts. As for the not smiling, now every license that I see, instead of having a merely unflattering picture, has a mug shot. Everyone driving now looks like a criminal. I suppose that makes it easier to identify a criminal, but I take that as an insult. I am not a criminal.

Even with all this stuff, I still think it's worth it to have my 18 year license, especially since it's a full license and my 16 year one expired. (I was three days away from having to take the driving test all over again)