Brain Drain

"The Man" is trying to suck all brain power out of every student! It started with the vile SAT and the ACT for college-bound students. That morphed into the OGT - Ohio Graduation Test for high school sophomores, which birthed the proficiency tests that plague the elementary schools. All to put kids into a percentile and to decide who has ascertained the most with wrote learning.
It's gonna be the death of me!
April 10th will be the third time I've taken the ACT (the more common of the two college aptitude tests in Ohio). Every time I walk in mentally prepared at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning... By noon when I stumble out the testing room doors, I am about an inch away from a coma! My mind is so exhausted that it makes me physically fatigued! And, it's the same thing for any of those same style tests. OGT was easy, but it still took a WEEK of my time; not to mention I had Mono when I was taking it! The elementary-level ones do the same darn thing, and it's every other year -- how atrocious?!
Do other states have their version of the OGT or is Ohio just lead by sadists who want to make students suffer to prove that their 12 years of education set in at least a little?

Spring Break, Splurges, and Smiles

It's been a long while, but I miss doing this. Somehow I've managed to keep up with facebook and my journal, so I guess I should be able to keep this updated (at least relatively so).
My last day of class before break was Thursday, and heck, that day was already a party! Kyle brought in his Wii system, and some of the "Loungies" (people of the lounge at my college) played an old middle school favorite: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yesterday, Friday, Mom and I went shopping and I splurged most of my money for the month on over $40 in books -- so worth it! And, Mom bought her new Nook; now she won't stop saying how she's going to get "nookie in bed tonight." Yup, gotta love her. Along with going to the Barnes & Noble for all of that, we went to Sam's Club and I got my monthly stash of jalapeno poppers. ... And a new laptop! Good thing I'm great with money had have enough already saved up so I didn't break the bank! I've already put about 1/16 of my music on it and all of the school files I'll need.
The future forecast says that I've got some even more smiles coming! Wed-Thurs Josh will be spending the night here and we'll celebrate our one-year anniversary. Then, Fri-Sat I'll spend the night at his house since he doesn't have work. Then, I've got Easter Sunday where I hope to meet Uncle Brian's elusive new lady friend... They must be serious because in all previous relationships, he just never told us anything about her. This time there was a Valentine gift and a romantic evening we were filled in about and also given some tantalizing tips as to what kind of chick she is. Somewhere in those plans, Josh and I plan to go up to the Football Hall of Fame -- the Christmas gift I got him this past December.
All in all, I have high hopes for this coming week! Woo hoo for spring break! I need it... After this, I've got two projects to work on for my lit class and two tests in the same week we return from break. Talk about reality crashing back down. And, then the ACT the Saturday after the first week back! Lovely!

Back Again, Only to Pack Again! PART TWO!

I came home from Camp McPherson on Friday. And lo and behold, Josh showed up that evening as we all celebrated my birthday at Texas Roadhouse.

Later Jordi came over and gave me her gifts. All in all, I got a twilight shirt, a necklace, and a box Total Cereal (best choice ever!) from Jordanne; a twilight game from Heather, my sister; two Edgar Allen Poe books (one of which was published in 1904, awesome), and an art project of his that I've always admired from Josh; a facial powder container that is an antique from Mom (because I love loose facial powder and I always use Coty powder); and an antique candy dish from Grandma (with candies included)!
Camp was amazing. The only downfall was that my camera broke. A friend of mine, Dennis, set out to fix it when it broke on Wednesday. He discovered the problem upon opening it up, hooked a few wires back together, and it was fixed! I was estatic that he could fix it! But, while the microchips were exposed, a girl came up behind us in the pavilion and broke a waterballoon all over it (by accident). So, there was no salvation for my camera while at church camp. But, the next morning, when I went in for my breakfast dose of food meds, the nurse said I could use her camera all I wanted! How amazing! She couldn't essentially leave the nurse's office that much, and therefore couldn't get pictures she wanted; so, she was more than willing to let me use hers, provided I took care of it (of course, I did). The day I returned she emailed me all the pictures that were taken with her camera and I didn't miss a single camp memory!
The weather was actually to my liking most of the time. It was hot-ish out (80s), but the rain and 24/7 fog and misty-rain cancled that out. It made for some amazing pictures and felt nice with the heat.
We were organized by tribes (the twelve tribes of the bible, of course!) and my tribe was Tribe Zebulun.

I really liked this years challenges, they all resembled Survivor challenges. It was pretty cool, and the way they made it this year, there wasn't much of a "compitition" factor to it where people tend to get carried away, but more fun than anything.
But, now I'm back home again, and I'm getting all my missed work compleated so that I can be ready for when my family and I leave to go to Virginia to see my step-mom and her kids (the woman my dad married and her kids from another marriage). We're going to leave very soon. We've got it planned perfectly so that I can return home again in time to celebrate Jordi's 17th birthday and go to Ceder Point with her and Tony and Josh.
By the time I get back, it will almost be time to get ready for school to start up again! Oh my goodness!

Back Again, Only to Leave Again.

Our plans for the Indian's game fell out and we simply all congregated at my house and watched movies, went to the mall, to Wal-Mart, and then our separate ways. I stuck with Josh and spent the night (and the next night--from Wednesday until this afternoon) at his house. I think that I need to simply plaster a sign up on the back porch that says "Loungie's Hang Out" (we all met at the lounge at Kent) that way it's official.
With Josh, I had my first encounter with an X-Box 360. I actually played a real video game! The only other game systems I've ever played was one of the black and white gameboys, and the Wii we got for this past Christmas. We played Halo 3. He got this X-Box for ten bucks! What a steal! But, anyway, I actually didn't die the first time I played, Ryan just took over for me when it came to the flying part. Granted, I still suck at it; I have no coordination for that kind of stuff whatsoever.
Today we went out to eat and I got soooooooo much food. But it was so good! Despite being full after the appitizer, I couldn't let the food just sit there because he paid for it and I didn't want to waste it. So, I ate. ... Only to regret it as we went to GameCrazy. No more needs said on that, because if you didn't get the hint, then you don't need to know. :)
But, I finally got back home, and I'm leaving Sunday! Right now I'm in the midst of doing laundry, making a packing list, and tring to figure out what bag I should take. Too bad I don't have a Josh-sized bag... I could smuggle him into camp! lol. But then I'd have to smuggle in all my Loungie friends, because you can't have one without the whole group.

Oh, My God! What Is That!?

I had a huge scare last night. Mom and I went shopping yesterday and afterwords, we went to a Rally's drive-thru and dined at one of the outside tables. We were by a busy street and Mom felt something hit her back and said, "Hey, someone just threw something at me." I was surprised that something could actually hit her from where we were sitting. So, putting down my milkshake, I glance around the ground to see what hit mom. Nothing. Then as I twist back around to the table, I glance two big, beady, black eyes staring straight at me from Mom's back! I screamed and jumped out of my seat and ran a few steps back, screaming "Oh, my God, what is that!?" The giant bug was clinging to her back, and it had shiny wings and a green-ish body (but, it was dark, so it could have been a different color). She started to scream too, and people eating in their truck a few spots away started to rubberneck wondering what could possibly have happened. Mom jumped out of her seat and started dancing around trying to get it off. It fell to the ground and we looked puzzled at the odd insect. It was a cecada. I'd never seen one alive, only the shells on headstones and trees. It laid on the ground, belly up. It was surely dead. So, we went back to eating, laughing about it, but still creeped out and hoping we saw no more. I was truly grossed out. When we finished eating, the guys from inside Rally's came out to see what had happened. We went to the car, and they stood around it, looking at it and laughing like we did. Then as Mom was about to pull away, the cecada took flight again! We thought that little bugger was dead! We ate by it! *GAG* The guys jumped back and cackled with laughter. We idled the van a few moments more and watched it's creepy flight around the overhead lights above the drive-thru.
YUCK! It left my skin crawling.