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[03 Apr 2006|05:28pm] |
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[20 Sep 2005|09:11pm] |
Most violinists would see you as the A string.
You're not exactly as popular as the E string
and you're not as dependable as the D string.
You might even feel out of place sometimes.
You're not really one to stay to a specific
group of friends either...you're not exactly
preppy or goth, or....anything...you're just
you, and people accept you for that. And some
admire you for you're individuality.
Which Violin String are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
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| Missing MM... |
[30 Aug 2005|12:09am] |
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I'm still missing Music Mountain, and all the people there...I can't even begin to explain how much it sucks going from a place like that to school in 3 days. I keep forgetting all the good things that happened there...here are some more highlights:
I learned to play clarinet on Amy's Bb clarinet - I can play mary had a little lamb. I got a fairly decent sound out of it, too!!
More memories of the last night...chatting with Carlos and Katalin, watching the play soccer in the dark, etc...
Zeus, Boulder (the biggest dog I've ever seen), and Nick Gordon
Teaching violin to Amy and Lauren
The amazing Gordon Hall, with the incredible acoustics
I still have kind of a lot of summer work left. My personal essay is pretty much done, but I still have a good chunk of Owen Meany work left...oh well. Damn procrastination...
Oh, how much I'd give to just be back at MM for, like, the rest of my life...
Justin
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| MM!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
[28 Aug 2005|08:30pm] |
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mood |
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I just got back from the most amazing week at Music Mountain. I think this year was the best year yet…I hung out with lots of people, and the weather was PERFECT. There were no humidity problems with the instruments and no rain at all except for the last day. The concert went SO well…we played all 4 movements of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, and the performance was just so much more alive than anything I've ever done before. The group I played it with was so tight…we were together, and except for a few things here and there, it was an AWESOME performance.
Some highlights/insiders (stolen from Steph and Will, and modified)
-What are you thinking!?!?!?!...
-Kemps??? Cash! Gimchi...ichmig!
-You're taking advantage of my narcolepsi
-That's what she said...
-Asian reflexes...
-Blonde reflexes...
-The random frickin russian...
-The summer of hook-ups...
-GOD DAMN BUG BITES!!!! (everyone else, I didn't get that many)
-I eat yo face! *chomp*
-Donnie Darko
-Rent (we listened to those CDs like 20 times during the course of 6 days...!?!?)
-Hhhhokay…So...here's the world....
-Jack-ten!!!
-Scattegories...
-Shit son
-Gosh Will, look at your feet...(and Spencer too)
-Will's Madonna impressions…
-Ultimate Frisbee and ultimate badminton
-Laying down, watching the stars with Sarah, with NO LIGHT POLLUTION
-Spin-the-jar game
-Cup of Life
-Midnight graveyard visits
-Watching tid-bits of the jazz concert
MM was too much fun to accurately describe and words…here's a link to my pictures; that should do that last night of camp some justice ;). It's not even a day since I got back, and I already miss everyone :( :(
Justin
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[16 Aug 2005|11:51am] |
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I got back from the most awesomest vacation last Monday, to British Columbia. We went with our family, Matt’s (from FL) family, and two of their family friends…so 12 of us, all staying in a big house. It was quite fun. The weather was beautiful, and we did lots of hiking and walking around…plus some biking and white water rafting. The flight home wasn’t that great, but that’s ok; vacation was awesome.
For some reason, I didn’t really have the urge to update this thing after I got back from vaca; I don’t know why. I haven’t really felt like blogging for the past week or so...
Anyway, my mom has been getting on my nerves a lot lately…about college stuff. Her latest thing is that she wants me to have drafts of all my college essays done by this Friday, before I leave for Music Mountain. It’s been really annoying…she comes home from work every day, and before she even settles down and tells us about her day, she asks what work I got done that day. One day last week, I came down around 8 o’clock one night, and (no joke) she’s sitting there with a copy of the Lehigh application she printed off their website, filling it out so I can ‘use it as a guide when I fill out the real application.’ Last night, I came downstairs around 9 to get something to eat and watch TV, and she starts telling me how much of a procrastinator I am, by leaving all my college essays for part of last week and this week...as if my college apps were all due by the end of this week. She then proceeds to say that I could have gotten them done (as well as all my summer work) right after school ended, so I wouldn’t have had to worry about it. Give me a break…
Justin
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| Union College and surprise music lessons |
[28 Jul 2005|10:46pm] |
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annoyed |
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Today was a pretty good day…I woke up really early to visit Union College, and ended up spending the majority of the day there. It was a really nice visit, and I liked the college a lot. I came home and did a few things, and then Monica called to see if I could come over for a fire and marshmallows. When I asked my dad if I could go, he told me that I had piano and violin lessons tomorrow morning, and that I had to practice. I don’t know who thought to make my lessons the day between getting back from college visits and leaving for vacation (I leave Saturday morning). I haven’t practiced in a whole week (except for tonight), and I’m going to suck. Oh well. The fire would have been nice.
Anyway, that’s it…lots to do tonight, cleaning my room, and just getting ready to leave for vacation. Again, I wrote about my visit so I could remember it…so don’t feel like you have to read it. I tend to ramble…
( Union College )
Justin
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| Carnegie Mellon and the flight home |
[27 Jul 2005|10:16pm] |
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Today was a pretty good day – I woke up and ate breakfast with Allie’s team, before they left for their wicked early game. It turns out that they didn’t even end up playing the game, because of last night’s rain. After they left, I packed all my stuff, and went to visit Carnegie Mellon. After that, we drove really fast to the airport, because we were already late as it was…and we ran into rush hour traffic. They were doing tons of roadwork, and they had crap for detour signs that led us in circles around the airport. We’d come upon a sign that said, “Airport, 4 miles.” 3 miles later, “Airport, 1 mile.” 2 miles later, it said, “Airport, 5 miles.” It was crazy. We eventually got there at 4:50, for my 5:50 flight. I got lucky enough to get through security in time, but my flight ended up being delayed about 4-5 hours, because of bad weather conditions where we were landing. Originally, my mom had just dropped me off at security, and I walked in and went to the gate. When she found out about the flight delay, she got one of those parent passes and came in to help me out. The delay actually ended up working for us – my mom somehow turned my connecting flight into a nonstop one that went straight to Hartford, rather than stopping in Philadelphia. And I’ll end up arriving at almost exactly the same time as the original flight had been scheduled to arrive (I’m on the plane as I write this). Sweet deal…
Anyway, tomorrow is my visit to Union College. We have to get up pretty early to leave, and I still have a ton of stuff to do when I get home. Laundry, unpacking, etc. I have to practice violin for a bit too, because I’ll need to bring my instrument to play at Union. I know it’s not an evaluation or anything (the person I’m interviewing with likes to have prospective students come along with their instruments and play, for fun), but I still need to be good, and so I need to practice. Especially after not having played for a week.
Alright, that’s it. I’ll probably update again after tomorrow’s visit. Here are the notes that I made for the Carnegie Mellon visit. Again, you guys don’t have to read it; I just wrote about it so I’d remember what I liked and didn’t like, further down the road.
( Carnegie Mellon University )
Justin
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| Softball Nationals and College Visits |
[26 Jul 2005|10:43pm] |
The past few days have been fun. I took a semi spur-of-the-moment trip with my sister (Allie) to her softball nationals in Youngstown, Ohio. My mom was able to schedule tours and interviews with Oberlin and Carnegie Mellon, which are nearby the hotel (both within an hour), and so it was a good opportunity. I visited colleges on Monday and I will again tomorrow, and I hung out with the team and everyone else the rest of the days. I’m coming home tomorrow after visiting Carnegie Mellon, and then I’m going to visit Union College on Thursday with my dad. Then Friday is chillin around the house and packing, and on Saturday, my family leaves for vacation. It’s been a busy, busy week…but lots of fun.
Today was a pretty good day – Allie’s team only played one game, and they lost, 6-5. It was one of those games where both teams scored all their runs all in one inning. We scored all 5 in our first at-bat, which was right away, since we weren’t the home team. Then I guess the team gave up part-way thorough, and the other team scored all their runs. Oh well. Tomorrow is the Carnegie Mellon visit, which should be fun. Thursday is my Union visit. My mom talked with the person I’m going to interview with, and she’s a faculty member in the ECE department, and is also an accomplished pianist. She invited me to bring my violin and play a piece or two for fun (no evaluation or anything) – she said it’s a hobby of hers, to accompany prospective students after they come. I just have to find time in between when I get home late Wednesday night and when I leave on Thursday morning. It wouldn’t be too good if I showed up without having played for a week. That’ll be a pretty sweet deal.
Here’s my entry from Oberlin…you guys don’t have to read it; I just wrote about it so I’d remember what I liked and didn’t like, further down the road.
( Oberlin College )
Justin
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| Summer fun...for the most part. |
[19 Jul 2005|09:59pm] |
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Again, it’s been a while. I’ve been doing things here and there…just enjoying summer, generally. Allie had her last softball tournament last weekend, at which they did fairly decent/just ok at. From what I hear from here, there were lots of coaching errors…like telling runners to go when they could easily be tagged out. So they lost a lot of runs like that, I guess. She has nationals next week.
Yesterday, I did quite a bit, but only in the morning. I started out the day with a cross country workout…of which I was late to, because I woke up on time, but then fell back asleep. I rode to Emily Rosenkrans’s house to drop some music off, and ran into Jen and her family, about to leave for vacation (their car had just pulled out). It was kind of funny…because I was thinking about it, because I knew when she was going to leave. And then it happened. Fun…anyway, the x-c workout wasn’t so great. Because I woke up so late, I made the mistake of not eating anything…and I went straight to practice (after Emily’s). Some people can run on totally empty stomachs, but I definitely can’t. I’d run for a bit, then stop and feel nauseous/dizzy/not so good. Then I’d wait for it to go away, run some more, and keep the whole cycle going. I didn’t get much work in that day…but that’s ok, it was only the first day. After that, I went to visit Mr. H, with a few other people. It’s sad to see him go. I know I didn’t make his job easy sometimes, but overall, it’s been a lot of fun. Now I’m realizing how much I took him for granted. I hope the new guy (or girl) is good…even if they’re not totally knowledgeable in the subject, I hope they’re at least open to ideas. We’ll see.
Anyway, after this, I rode my bike around a little bit. I knew Mike was having Kate, Kevin, and Paul over to swim, and so I rode to Mike’s first, trying to beat him from the school. Then I realized that he was going to Kate’s house first…so I rode to Kate’s house, to see if I’d run into them. I didn’t…then I rode back to Mike’s house. Turns out they had taken an alternate route, aside from the quickest one from Mike’s to Kate’s (which I rode). Mike, apparently, wanted to speed (lol) and could only do it going the other way. I hung out with them for a while, and then went home. Didn’t do much else that day…
Lately, my mom’s been getting on my nerves…she’s really pushing me to get a head start on college essays, and she even gave me a few books about the essays to read…just to get a better feel for everything. It’s kind of annoying…I want to enjoy the little summer that I have left (if you take out vacation and music mountain, I had 3 weeks at home, including this one). I know I’m going to thank myself for this later, but I’d almost rather just enjoy my summer, and worry about work when school starts. It’s so early that some schools haven’t even published their admissions essay information yet. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but she’s been rubbing off on me, and now I see her point. So that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time this week. Funfunfun…
Today, aside from the college stuff after dinner and stuff, I went on a massive bike ride with Jasmine and Sarah. On a scale of 1 to 10 (lol Greg…), we rode just under 35 miles (like 34 point something...). We rode the bike path down at the end of Dart Hill, only rode it wicked far, this time. We stopped at Valley Falls, on the way there, to walk around on some trails and eat trail mix. Then we continued for a while…we went all the way to Andover, where the bike path intersects Route 6…and then we kept going for another 3 miles or so. Then, we decided to turn around, and we rode back. On the way back, we were really thirsty, because we hadn’t rationed out our water. We rode wicked fast, maybe a constant 15-20 mph on the trail, so we could get water faster. We went to this plaza off the trail, and found a ballroom dancing place where we though that someone could lend us the bathroom to fill our bottles. A mean lady came out and said she couldn’t help us, but that we should try a restaurant further up in the plaza. We walked up to this place and filled our bottles (and drank one or two each, in the process, then filled up again), then walked back to the bikes. We ate some trail mix, all while thinking of ways we could really piss off the lady in the ballroom dancing place. Of course, we didn’t actually do anything…
The new Harry Potter book came out, and I really want to read it…but first, I’m going to make myself re-read all the old books, because I’ve forgotten what’s happened. I’m almost done with the first one, but it’s taking a while, because my mom thinks the stupid college stuff is more important (ewwww…). Hopefully I can speed this up a bit. My goal is to be done with all of them by the start of Music Mountain, so I can have a book to read while I’m there…a pleasure reading book. Not the horribly boring AP bio book that I had to read while I was there, last year.
Speaking of AP bio, my grade for the AP test came today, and I did fairly well. When it first came, I was too afraid to open it, like if I had gotten a 1 or a 2 or something. Then I waited an hour and decided I was crazy…and then just opened it. My hard work in bio definitely paid off…
Alright, that’s it…hope you liked my rambling/boring entry. Over and out.
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| Wisdom Teeth |
[13 Jul 2005|12:56pm] |
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I got my wisdom teeth out on Monday. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be; I got Novocain and laughing gas, and so on top of not being able to feel anything, I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on. It was pretty painless, though; I didn’t even know that they were removing my first tooth until they had already done it, just because of how out of it I was. On Monday, when I got back, I had the urge to sleep a lot, even though I had gotten my full 8/9 hours the past night. Maybe it was the medicine, idk. I even woke up from one nap after having the dream I was eating something. I soon realized that I was actually chewing on the gauze pad that was supposed to be preventing the blood (from the sockets) from going anywhere. And before I woke up enough to actually tell myself to stop chewing, I had already swallowed it. Fun stuff…it wasn’t that bloody though, because I took out the one that was on the opposite side, and it wasn’t that red. I used a lot of tea bags (moistened) in place of the gauze, and it helped a lot, that day. I don’t know if it was the fact that I had something to suck on, or the tea just did something to make it hurt less, idk. But it was good.
The past few days have been pretty good, too. I’ve been eating lots of soft foods, which was fun at first, but isn’t so fun anymore. I’ve been having this strong urge to crunch on something, but I can’t do that for a while. Well, I probably could, but I don’t want to risk getting anything caught in the holes where my teeth used to be. I’ve also been incredibly lazy the past few days…actually, only yesterday, really. I was lazy on Monday, but I don’t feel so bad about that, because it was the day of. Yesterday was just crazy. I don’t know…some people can sit around, do nothing, and not care, but it gets to me after a while. I just don’t feel good about myself unless I’m doing something productive. I don’t know what it is. Oh well. I will be productive today.
Justin
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| An early case of Alzheimer’s/Other stuff... |
[09 Jul 2005|12:44am] |
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I’m getting my wisdom teeth out on Monday. When I went in to the doctor/surgeon’s office about a month ago for the initial appointment, he wrote me a prescription for a painkiller I’ll need after the surgery. He wrote it then so that I’d have it on hand as soon as I got home from the surgery, just in case. I forgot if it was cream or w/e. Anyway, my dad and I came home from the appointment and we put the prescription paper up on cork board so that it would be there for later filling. That was a month ago. Yesterday, that piece of paper was still there, in its same original location. Hey, that’s what a busy family schedule does to you. My dad and I were the only ones that were home last night, so we thought we’d go out to dinner together. We also grabbed some clothes for Elizabeth, since she changed her mind and wanted to sleep over a friend’s house, after she got there. It was interesting…my dad and I going through her clothes to find stuff. But that’s a different story. Little did I know, my dad grabbed the prescription slip so we could fill it on our trip. We got in the car, and he mentioned that we had to fill it sometime. Allie also needed a new bike (we had been planning this for a while), so we went back to the bike shop to pick up the bike…then dropped off Elizabeth’s clothes, and then came home, because my dad didn’t feel like going out (it was around 8:00PM). Everyone with me? I’m such a great storyteller **coughcough**…haha. So I’m watching Hitch with the family tonight, and after the movie, my dad asks me where the prescription slip is. He claims to have given it to me in the car, asking me to hold on to it. It was kind of funny…I didn’t remember this, at all. Usually, I’ll forget, and then think for a bit, and it’ll come back to me. I even went back into the car and sat in the same seat that I was in, just for fun, to see if it did anything. Sometimes that helps me. But I got nothing. Even now…I still can’t remember it. I thought my dad was lying to me at first, just playing around, but he wasn’t. It was really funny/weird. I mean, I’ve forgotten stuff in the past, but I’ve always come around and remembered it. Never have I actually forgotten something like that. Oh well…
Other than that interesting episode, I’ve had a semi-fun week. On Wednesday, I decided to pick up both instruments since before I left for camp…and let me tell you, not playing either of them a few days before and after camp really added up. Like two weeks or so…I played piano, and it took me a day or so to get back to normal. Violin, being much harder to play, took me until the end of today. My 4th finger even weakened up a little bit…I was trying stuff on Wednesday. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. I tried vibrato with my 4th finger, and it, like, collapsed on me. I practiced enough on both instruments to get back to normal…but it definitely wasn’t worth not playing either one for that long. I learned never to do that again…
Not much else happened this week. Monday was July 4th, and we had a little family cookout. Kevin came over for the day, and brought his guitar, and we were listening to some cool guitar songs. We also looked at guitar tabs. Then ate and went outside and played Frisbee, threw around a football, and played badminton. Then we had a fire with s’mores at night. On Tuesday, I went on a 35 mile bike ride with Jen, and that was a lot of fun. We started out at her house, then went on some back roads in Ellington, then to some busy roads out by Kloter farms, and then wound our way back to the normal bike path we always take…we rode to Valley Falls, and then home. It was lots of fun.
My DVD and CD burner drives on my computer also randomly stopped working a while ago. It was kind of weird…both at the same exact time, so I knew it wasn’t the drives. Yesterday and today (I tried multiple variants of the same fix, really), I opened the case and played around with different configurations of the IDE cables and the Primary and Secondary IDE slots on the motherboard, as well as the open slot on my PCI IDE controller (where my hard drives are plugged in). Still got nothing. I googled around today, and found out it had to do with Adobe programs; I had just installed Photoshop a few weeks ago. Turns out all that was needed were a few registry changes. I made those changes, but I still have to reboot and see if those changes made a difference. We’ll see…
Alright, that’s it. The weekend should be fun – more softball for Allie, and who knows what else. We’ll see…
Justin
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| E2K at UCONN/Other Stuff |
[02 Jul 2005|09:33pm] |
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Today was fun…I woke up early, did Allie's paper route, and then went with my sister to her piano lesson. I didn't have one this week because I was at camp all week. I put a 256MB memory card into my violin teacher's computer, because it was slow, and so they ordered a new one. So now they have 384, total. Then, we disabled all the visual effects in Windows XP. Now, it runs like a rocket…and this is a PIII computer. We'll see how long it lasts.
After that, we went to my sister's softball tournament, and then came home afterwards. I had dinner, and now here I am. I've been kind of bored the past day; I miss camp. As promised, here's the entry about my camp. It's quite the beast of an entry (about 3.5-4 pages in Microsoft Word, without pictures), and so you really don't have to read it all. I wrote a lot just so I could remember what the week was like, especially since it was a good indicator on whether or not engineering will work for me in college. It was more of just a brain dump than anything. So, without further ado…
( UCONN Engineering Camp )
Justin
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| Last Entry Before Camp... |
[26 Jun 2005|02:24pm] |
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Alright, last blog entry before I go to camp. I’ll be back on Friday, July 1st, sometime at night. I’ll have my PDA to check my email, but don’t count on me replying – typing out emails with a stylus is somewhat annoying.
Yesterday was fun – I went to Amanda Schifferdecker’s graduation party. She lives in a nearby neighborhood, so I just rode my bike there. It was pretty fun, although I wasn’t friends with many people there. She invited a few friends from school, but most of the people there were from her dance classes and stuff. They were pretty cool people. I stayed for a few hours, and then came home for dinner. Kate came over at night, and we hung out.
All through yesterday, as well as today (we’re still not done), my dad and I have been fixing my violin teacher’s computer. Originally, I was going to just clean the spyware off of it, load a good antivirus and spyware program, and then finish off some windows updates. I did all that, and got to installing the last of the windows updates. On the last boot, I ran into an error…it didn’t like the ESS audio driver that Windows Update had recommended. Combine that with the instability of Windows 98, and you have yourself an unrecoverable system crash. I love how these kinds of things always happen to me when it isn’t my computer. Oh well. I called on my dad for some help. Because he remembered all the DOS commands, switches, and other stuff like that, we were able to recover his important files. I had an unused license for Windows XP Home Edition, and so I loaded that on there, as well as a few other things. His computer is in a lot better shape, and has the most up-to-date software, but we could have potentially lost some important files. I don’t think we did, though; we called him and asked before we formatted the hard drive. Now, we’re going to ghost the C drive to a backup D partition so that if his computer ever craps out again, we can get it back to this starting point in about 20 minutes. Funfunfun…
Alright…I’m going to finish packing, and then head off to camp. I’ll update again when I get back.
Justin
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| Mike's Pool Party/Greg's Class Comparer |
[25 Jun 2005|12:41am] |
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Tonight was Mike's pool party, and it was a blast. I arrived about 5 minutes early; I rode my bike there, and I caught mike pulling the SUV into the neighbor's driveway so that his driveway would be clear for our cars. We got in the pool after like 10 minutes of arriving, and it was really refreshing. We snacked on some chips and some wings, and Mike's dad made burgers for dinner. We ate, hung out, and then went back in the pool at the end. Jen and I hung out for the last half of the party or so, and it was awesome. We took really weird pictures of each other, trying to make the funniest faces as possible. Those will never be posted…haha. At the end we were playing around in the pool…the low light, combined with the fact that I wasn't wearing my glasses, made my blind. People would throw me the ball and I would not even see it until it got like a foot away from me. Oh well. It was still fun…
Tomorrow: Amanda's grad party, and another meeting to get my Eagle project on the road. This will be the last string of approvals before I can start purchasing materials, notifying people of the work dates, and begin working. Yay…
And Engineering camp starting on Sunday :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
For those of you going into SWHS next year: Try this website out. It's a class comparer that Greg Marra was kind enough to make and host on his website. It's pretty self explanatory - click the link below and click "Add Myself!" Then, type in your name, your grade for next year, select your courses from the pull-down menus, and submit the form. If your class isn't in one of the menus, you just click, "Add Missing Course." Once you submit the form, you'll see a list of all your classes organized by period, and a list of the people in each class nested within each class period. Spread it around - the more people we have, the better results we'll get!
P.S. - Don't make mistakes on your form; you can't go back and fix it!
Justin
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| Summer...... |
[23 Jun 2005|11:23pm] |
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Summer has been awesome so far. Relaxing is a good thing. I also practiced piano for like two hours today, which was awesome. On any given weekday, with an average workload, I’m lucky to get in 45 minutes. Since the last update, I’ve done quite a bit. Priya’s graduation party was last Wednesday. It was fun; I knew a lot of the kids there, but I wasn’t really friends with any of them. It was still pretty good though. Thursday, we had an NHS officer meeting where Colleen (last year’s pres) talked to us about NHS. She basically said that it’s our club…we have to take the initiative if we want anything to happen. But that’s good; we’ll learn good leadership skills.
I had a violin recital last Friday, and it went like they all do – I freeze up, for some reason. I can’t calm myself and just play like I can at school performances. Maybe it’s because school performances aren’t true solo. I had Brandenburg, but the orchestra was with me on that…and the quintet, but there were four other players. I have to work on that. Erin Kalla played last, and she was really calm…I need to learn how to do that. I had a memory lapse, like I always do. Mickey always pushes me to memorize the music, and I never have a problem with that…until I get nervous at a performance. Oh well…
The weekend was fun…Allie had a softball tournament in Franklin, CT. Their team did pretty well. It was nice seeing all the parents and the rest of the team from last summer. I think they’ll do well this year. Father’s day was pretty cool, too. Since my dad loves to cook, we got him a knife from Williams-Sonoma in Evergreen Walk. It’s has grooves cut in on the side so that the veggies or w/e you’re chopping doesn’t stick to the side of the knife. He was very happy, as we suspected. We hung out for the rest of the day after softball, and it was a good day.
This week has been pretty good, too. I was bored on Monday, so I called Jen, and we hung out for the whole day. It was a ton of fun; I had a blast. She stayed for dinner, too. We checked out the llamas, she met (or heard, rather) the infamous peacock that lives behind the llamas, and we lots of fun editing pictures of random people in Photoshop, and making their faces look really funny.
On Tuesday, I was lazy again…didn’t do much; just hung out. Yesterday, I did a lot – went biking with Sarah, Jasmine, and Christina; went to Mike’s to swim; met with Jeff Folger for my Eagle Project stuff; and saw Batman in IMAX with Kate. Batman was really good – most of the actors were well-known actors, and I really liked the storyline. It focused more on Batman’s childhood, what he went through, and how he became who he was. All technology, costumes, etc. were in beta stage, basically…the Bat cave was an actual cave, the Batmobile looked more like a rugged Hummer than a streamlined sports car, etc. I really liked it.
My eagle project is also coming along well, too. I had my final meeting with Jeff before I go through the whole string of approvals. Mr. Olson came over tonight and signed the application…so now it needs to go to Mr. Intino for his signature. Yesterday, at the meeting with Jeff, he brought me to the site where the new L.A. Fitness is being built, and he showed me a really cool water management system they had set up, much like the one that I’ll be setting up. I took a few pics and included it in my proposal, to strengthen it up a bit. It was nice seeing what the end result should eventually look like. This morning, I had driving hours again, and then went to VMP to swim with Sarah and Christina. We found a random, unclaimed tennis ball, and threw it around a little bit. Christina’s brother Randy came with us…he was crazy, as always…haha.
Tomorrow is a meeting with Mr. Mys regarding my schedule for next year, biking again with Sarah and Christina, and then Mike’s pool party at night. Only a few more days before I leave for engineering camp with Monica…I can’t wait!!
Justin
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| Katy's Party |
[15 Jun 2005|12:33am] |
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Tonight (or yesterday, rather) was Katy’s end-of-the-year party, and it was sooo much fun. I was laughing really hard for a lot of it, enjoying myself, and it got to the point where I was crying, I was laughing so hard. I do that sometimes…haha. Anyway, lots of people were there. It was me, Paul, Mike, Greg, Kate, Kevin, Sarah, Phil, Jeff Bui, Jeff Schneider, and Marissa. At about 9:30, Monica, Jennie, Seth, and Ashleigh showed up, because they went to graduation. It was sooo much fun. The other half of the table played Poker, while Greg, Monica, Sarah, me, Marissa, Jen, and a few other people had fun drawing pictures and taking weird pictures. I love my friends :)
Here are my pictures from tonight. I took lots :)
I’m in such a creative mood right now, too…I get like that whenever I’m happy…kinda happens a lot. Too bad it’s late right now, or I’d practice. Oh well.
More fun for tomorrow…it’s Priya’s graduation party, and then I have a few other little things to do here and there. Funfunfun…
Justin
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| School is out/Summer!!!!! |
[13 Jun 2005|11:56pm] |
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It’s summer!!!! It definitely doesn’t feel it, though. It almost feels like I should go to sleep now so that I can get enough sleep for school tomorrow. And I keep questioning myself whether or not I’ve done all my homework. What a nice feeling...having the whole summer ahead of you like that. I’m soooo excited…
I went to the movies with Jen today, and it was a lot of fun. We saw Cinderella Man, which I thought was really, really good. It was basically an underdog story/drama about a boxer, struggling to provide for his family. I thought it was the perfect mix of drama and comedy here and there, as well as a little history too. It achieved a good balance.
It doesn’t even seem like I took finals today, either. It seems more like I took the yesterday. English was pretty easy, even though the prep work was wicked annoying. I discovered that when I was doing the prep work, I didn’t answer one of the questions. Unfortunately, I figured this out as soon as I handed in the assignment. Oh well. Hopefully I don’t lose too many points. The rest of my assignment was good, so maybe that’ll make up for it. Anyway, Harak’s final was a Star Trek episode (we watched it), and then we talked about it and wrote our final conclusion, tying that into the major themes of the texts we had read throughout the year. It wasn’t that hard, but I’m glad it’s done.
Orchestra today was…fun. I had my double stop thing first, and the stupid humidity knocked my G string out of tune just enough for it to sound bad. And the humidity-induced sticking of my hands to the instrument didn’t help either. My instrument was probably covered in stickiness after the 2-hour period. Kinda disgusting. He passed out music, and then we sight-read stuff for the last part of the period. Like 10 minutes before the class ended, this guy named Leo came in and said hi – he graduated from SWHS in 1995, and was a senior when Mr. H had his first year there. Now he lives in Kansas, and has a family with 4 kids. He picked up a cello and played for the last 5 minutes with us…it was kinda fun. It was really hot in the room though; I was ready to get home.
Tomorrow is Katy’s end-of-the-year party, which should be lots of fun. There are even more people going this year, which means that it’ll be that many more times fun. I can’t wait. Wednesday is Priya’s graduation party, which should be fun as well. Thursday is an officer meeting for orchestra next year, which should be good. Mr. H got fed up with the level of interest that people had in officer stuff, and so he decided that he’s just going to appoint officers from now on. The meeting is for interested (to be) juniors and seniors. Looks like fun. Anyway, Friday is my violin recital. I’m playing the Beethoven Romance. Mickey thinks I’m ready, but I still don’t think I sound good with the piece. I gotta practice a lot this week.
Regional/All-State audition pieces were released a little while ago, too. The Accolay piece is the violin audition piece for Regionals, and I know that already, so I’m excited. The All-state piece is a Mozart Concerto, which I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll have time to learn it/Mickey will let me.
Alright, bedtime. And lots of sleeping in for tomorrow morning…
Justin
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