Ninth Grade Orientation

Freshman Year, here I come!!! Friday-I had my ninth grade orientation. We first checked in, then we were introduced to our "blue keys". Blue keys are kind-of like  "big sister, little sister" at Wellesley. Blue keys eat lunch with you and your friends, you eat lunch with them and their frinds, you hang out after school or during the weekend, you help each other get ready for the social events (Halloween Dance, Winter Formal, Prom!). All in all, you're supposed to be really close with your blue key. Although last year the blue keys and their buddies worked for about two weeks, this year's blue key program is much better. My blue key is Channelle Gaines. She's super nice and helpful. During orientation we went over the do's and don'ts in high school (which teachers are the best, where to eat lunch, what's the best way to do your homework, when to get the pe and health credits done and over with, clubs and when to join them, how to get past girl grudges/fights, basically how to survive). She's a makeup/fashion diva and a studier combined together. Already she's asked me what I'm going to wear to winter formal . I gave her a  big scare when I told her that I was going to wear a hot pink tutu, black leggings, and blue pointe shoes. :)
I got my schedule. I am happy, and disappointed. Here's my schedule:
Period 1: Ancient World History
Period 2: Bio/Chem 1: Biology
Period 3: Geometry Honors
Period 4: Spanish 2 Honors
Period 5/1 : Clubs/Tutorial
Period 5/2 : Service Learning
Period 6: Photography!!!
Period 7: English 9
Period 8 : PE (Volleyball!!!)

Scared, but excited. School starts in 4 days!!!

Last Week of Summer

A lot of things happened this week:
 Last Sunday: Grandma Christina's birthday party. I tried my hand at adult conversation, didn't really succed. BUT, I acomlished tying a cherry stem in a knot using only my tounge! :)
Monday: First JV practice, went faboulus. I love my team, I love my coach.

Tuesday: Stayed home, cleaned the house, went to Spanish class.

Wednesday: First volleyball mess-up. Apparentley, practice started at twelve. I though it started at one. My mom, luckily, dropped me off about fifteen minutes early. I arrived 40 minutes late to the practice.  The coach doesn't like tardiniess. As an example of what the girls had to do next time they were late, he did a little drilll with me. It was kind-of like suicide runs, but faste and harder. Basically, he throws balls to the endline,  that you have to dive to touch, and spikes balls as hard as he cans at the floor, your head, or your feet. Hard, but fun.

Thursday: Stayed home, cleaned the house, went to violin lesson

 

The Last Week of Summer

First things first:

Volleyball for four hours+competitive coach+ 5'5- 5'9 girls= sore, bruised, and happy.

I think that pretty much says it all :P But, all of that hard work paid off. I got onto the JV team, next year I'm going for Varsity. Iv'e discovered a wierd kind of rash on my knees; kneegaurds??? I'm nt quite sure...

Mom started school on Wednesday, there's nothing like rude seventh graders to put you in a good mood. I was helping out the librarian at the school, first thing I hear when I walk through the door (from some eighth or seventh grader) : Look! Here comes little goody two shoes!  Second thing (while making a delivery to a classroom): Can I have that (pointing to me)? Fortunately, there was a noon duty there to deal with that one. I would have gone ALL kinds of Nati on him if she wasn't there. But other than that, I really like helping out. I got my own desk in the back of the classroom and free lectures on history,what the world has come to , how education is important, whether being quiet is good or not (yeah, my mom gets a little of topic sometimes).

I'll be starting my freshman year  soon...... That's all there is to say, I'm dead.

Grandma's B-day was today. We went to Olive Garden with her side of the family. It reminded my of my Italian class at EXPLO :) After that we spent another two hours at one of my tia's house looking at the photos my cousin took when she went to Africa. It was a charity thing, she had to pay for her ticket (fundraising), and basically went to ghettos and buil houses and helped feed children for 15 days. I wanted to go sooo badly!!!! Next year's plan: spend at least a week in Boston (we just didn't have enough time to see everything; it was litterally, stop, look for a second, and keep on running) , go to New Haven for EXPLO, get ome volunteering hours in there, some how plan to go with one of my cousins to Africa?? , go out for Volleyball and be there for the pre-season, and be able to see my old dorm room or cordinate a girl's night out /get together before next year's Explo with my friends.
Iv'e got to get A LOT of stuff crammed into this week, which includes getting a good-luck henna!!   

   

Una Cocina Mexicana

I'm going to be learning a lot of new home-made Mexican recipes now that I will be able to cook at home and pitch in more. I'll post them here as I learn them!

Sopita

This dish (as well as most Mexican dishes) are based on how much you want. If you want more of an ingredient, put it in!!!There are no real amounts, just a basic guideline of what to put in.

What you'll need:

• tomatoes
• onion
• garlic
• fideo (a kind of pasta)
• oil
• 2 cans of chicken broth (we use Campbell's)
• a blender
• a soup pot

I'm going to put the amounts for our family in here:

• 4 tomatoes
• half an onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• half a bag of fideo
• some oil
• 2 cans of chicken broth

What to do:

• cut of the ends of the tomato, put in blender
• cut up the onion, put in blender
• put the cloves of garlic in the blender
• put the can of chicken both in (we dilute in with some water as well, one part chicken broth and one part water)

• blend the tomatoes,garlic,onion,and chicken broth   
• put some oil in the soup pot and start to brown the fideo (try to not have any of the fideo stick to the bottom)
• drain excess oil


• put what's in the blender into the pot with the fideo and add the second can of chicken broth

• cook for about 20-25 minutes, taste to make sure it's cooked 

LETS GET DOWN TO BUISNESS, TO DEFEAT THE HUNS!!

As it turned out, we didn't get to pull an all nighter. BUT!! We have a plan for the next sleepover were doing:
1) make at least 2 bags worth of cookies and put them in the fridge for a midnight snack (save some cookie dough as well!!)
2) watch True Grit, Kung Fu Hustle, or The Exorsist at the BARE minimum
3) go night swimming at 1 AM :P
4) devour all the candy in the house
5) make a cake....?
6) scavenger hunt in the biggest mall around
7) hide n scream (a have-to-do after we watch the Exorsist)
8) prank call crushes
9) tye dye t-shirts
10) FLASH MOB AT WALMART!!

I was watching a video on youtube when a "Cats" (the musical) clip came up. I got sucked into it :P Favortie character: Jemima Favortie scene: moments of happiness all time favorite songin the musical: memory!

                                                                       Jemima

Grizbella in "Memory:

                                                                   Actor Shot

I'm SOO SORE!!! My volleyball coach for the 4-6 session is exttremely hard-core. We did squats for half an hour, and every time we passed we had to squat to the groundand pass the ball by using only our legs pushing up. She suggested I take anice bath, can't wait for that...

Moody Mondays

Well, today started out with a 9 -11 AM volleyball camp. It was fun, some of the girls there were serving bullets at my head. It's a good thing I'm short. I embarrassed myself,as ussual, when my group handed me the ball and told me to serve it. Because I have an eagles sense of hearing, I thought they said to "smurf" the ball. I was wondering if this had any connection to Emmys, a friend from EXPLO, addiction to playing Smurfs on my iPod. I sat there wondering how to smurf a ball for about five minutes before I finally figured out that they were trying to say serve. Nice going Nati. After that I enjoyed an hour and a half of the "find-a-way-to-entertain-yourself game in my mothers classroom. We the went to barnes and noble, one of my ABSOULUTE favorite places to be, and picked out some gifts and got my school reading book for the summer. Each grade has a book, mine this year is "Ishmael" and the high school book in common was "Zeitoun". Zeitoun was a good book, but so far I'm incredibly bored with Ishmael. I might as well be reading a dictionary. I have started applying to a scholarships, my recent one was an essay writer. Hoping I get it.....
Something incredibly wierd also happened today. This morning , I woke up to find I didn't have my retainers in. I just thought I didn't put them in last night, until I found my top one a few feet away from my bed. I later found my bottom one wedged between my matress and my headboard. My sister said maybe I had spitten them out, I seriously doubt that. To take my retainers out I have to pull them out. .... Maybe I took them off in my sleep.  Tomorrow it's two volleyball camps, one Spanish camp, a wish for my retainers to stay in place, and SCHOOL SHOPPING!!!