Weird/Disturbing Dream

I guess stress manifests itself differently in my life. Yesterday night, it was in the form of a really weird/almost too realistic dream. What did I dream about?
Well, the first scene I remember is me oversleeping for my flute lesson. I woke up and looked at my cell phone and found that Emily had left me a message. She basically called me and said “I know you overslept [first of all, HOW did she know? lol], and I have many students to teach tonight, but if you can PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE call me back ASAP, I can maybe squeeze you in sometime tonight.” I looked at my phone, and I was going to call her back, when I was suddenly transported to school. At school, I see Dr. Coletta walking down the hallway, and she gives me this “i’m disappointed in you” type of look. I was going to rehearse with flute choir, when she stops me and asks, “How many minutes do you have left?” (regarding time for the music lab) I respond “I don’t know…. like 13 minutes or something like that…”
And then I woke up , panting and screaming, because I had to get ready to leave in < half an hour for the flute choir performance at concert hour this morning. Blegh.
Worst fear = oversleeping for my flute lesson
Realistic/Disturbing aspect = Dr. C. asking about my lab minutes. EWW.

You Know How Cool I Am?

I just totally made up a new Spanish word a few minutes ago.

“Flutando”= playing-I mean REALLY playing the flute. It’s the Spanish derivation of the word Fluting. So, the verb would actually be “flutar” (because, we all know that spanish verbs must have an -er,-ar-,or -ir ending in its infinitive form).

So, now, I can write in facebook, “Amanda está flutando”. Meaning, “Amanda is fluting”.  :]] Yay!! New Spanish word.

Old Report Cards

Lol. It’s interesting looking through my old report cards, and seeing how …. bad it was as the years went on during high school…and middle school ones were…. interesting.

My worst report card:
(From senior year)
Wind Ensemble-A
Adv. Band- A
AP Spanish- B
AP Gov- D
AP Econ- D
AP Lit- D+

whoah there.. it was a quarter report card… but still!! :/ bad.

CD’s

The subject of this post is about CD’s. No, I’m not taking about the CD’s that we listen to, when I’m writing of CD’s, I’m speaking of the Certificate of Deposit-type CD.
Honestly, what is the purpose of a CD? Supposedly, the money is supposed to “mature” for some time before the user is allowed to take it out and use it. I believe my mom put a CD in my bank account for me sometime in October–$500. She was telling me all the great perks to having a CD in my bank account, so without even researching about it, I eagerly agreed to it. Now, one month before “mauration” of my CD, I was looking at it, and I honestly wonder what the purpose of setting aside $500 for non-use for a few months was for if the money amount isn’t going to increase much. I was looking at my CD deposit today,  and to my dismay, I only had $505.
I don’t think I’m going to go for anymore CD’s. It’s really not worth it-or is it?
I think my best bet would be to get a job–to become employed. That way, I can pay for flute lessons (without having dear mother transfer money to my bank account) and other needed/wanted items by myself.

Prop 8

I hate how the media has already announced Barack Obama as the next president of the US, but hasn’t announced that Prop 8 has been passed yet. I was SO happy when I woke up this morning to find out that 52% of precincts were voting YES on 8 and 48% were voting NO. The margin has remained the same since then, with 96% of precints reporting on proposition 8 results.
This means that I don’t have to leave California (: But I was HONESTLY going to pack my bags and leave California if Obama won AND Prop 8 didn’t pass.
For those who like to argue that proposition 8 is like equal rights in race, they’re wrong. I’m sorry, but you can’t argue “equal” righs for all, because frankly, gay marriage is INCREDIBLY one-sided. The gay community only wants to appease a small population of people. Because honesty, if California WAS to argue for EQUAL rights for all, they’d let sibings marry (if siblings were to love each other), fathers and daughters/mothers and sons marry, and cousins marry. Incest would be allowed too, because we have to be EQUAL to the wishes of everyone. But this is NOT the case! The gay population wants their ways… and I’m not about to be part of an issue that supports a one-sided cause.
I’m celebrating California’s choices today, on the basis of the proposition results. This issue shows that California residents still have SOME moral standards within them. GOD is still looking out for us. and THAT is something I’m really proud of.

Middle Name…

I’m going to write a post about my middle name since I haven’t written in here for a while.
My middle name is–Sheila. Pretty, isn’t it? But after 18 years with Amanda, I think I like Amanda more than Sheila. (okay, that made NO SENSE whatsoever, AT ALL).
The dilemma… but first, the story behind the dilemma.
In middle school, Renee DeCasas was Britney DeCasas. Her given name is Britney, and she used that name throughout middle school. Freshman year, she came in to the flute section, having changed her name to Renee. I thought that was an interesting idea… Renee sounded more sophisticated than Britney, but people call her both Britney and Renee now.
Anyways. I was thinking, that in college, I want a change. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but I don’t know if I really want to be called Sheila for the next four years of my life. I don’t want to legally change it so it’s Sheila Amanda Chang, but I want to be able to write “Sheila” on my papers instead of “Amanda”. I know that when and if I do go to a large university, there will be a bajillion Amandas in my classes, but not as many Sheilas. That way, I will not be as confused during class when a teacher calls out “Sheila” instead of “Amanda”.
Maybe that’s a difference?

15 Minutes

Every 15 minutes, someone dies from an alcohol related car crash. Or at least those were the statistics a few years back. I think now, the number is around every 32 minutes, which is way better, but we still have a long way to go…
Last week, my school participated in the “Every 15 Minutes” ceremony. This event is exclusively for juniors and seniors, and I remember thinking either Freshman or Sophomore year how excited I would be to watch participate in the activity. Each of our district’s high schools trade off who participates in the activity each year and it occurs every 2 years at our school.
Thursday
Thursday was the first day of the activity. Every 15 minutes, a bell would sound and someone would be taken from our classes. I remember hearing that Emily Myers was “taken” from band and I wondered how many of my friends would actually be taken as well. The grim reaper came into the classroom that the student was “taken” from, and their eulogy (prepared by their parents) was read to the class. The “living dead” would come back to attend the rest of the classes, but they could not communicate with others, and had to be ignored by the teachers. They had their faces painted white with black circles around their eyes and black lipstick with a T-shirt with the words “Every 15 Minutes” written on it. They didn’t have any of their stuff with them either. I remember being in the library during second period and laughing about it with my friends, because some of the people who were chosen we know would NEVER die in that sort of car accident. Then, during 3rd period, there was a dramatized version of an alcohol related car crash by some people at our school. The drunk driver was Nolan Sheldon and one of the passengers was Anna Dorey. There were firetrucks, police cars, and other emergency vehicles present to make it seem as real as possible. The car crash scene was pretty intense for some, but for others like me, I couldn’t relate. The rest of the day was spent with the “living dead” with nothing else.
Friday
Friday was the “memorial service” for those who had “died” yesterday. (Which was also limited to juniors and seniors) I think Friday was the most emotional day for half the school. We met in the gym during 2nd period for the service. During the assembly, we learned that afterschool on Thursday, those who participated in the activity were taken to a court house and then to a nearby hotel to spend the night. They were not to have contact with family members and their cell phones were taken away from them. Those who were part of the staged car crash were actually taken to the ER and the morgue. Nolan, the drunk driver, was actually taken to jail and had to spend the night in a jail cell. After the introductions, all the people who participated in the 15 minutes program walked out carrying yellow flowers and wearing black. Then, the main part of the assembly started. (my friend Lance actually video taped the assembly and put it on youtube) Callie spoke of her dad’s death after he was involved in a car accident (he was the one who was drinking). Her story touched me and I started to cry, but stopped shortly, thinking…. “OMG… I can’t cry at a time like this.” Mrs. Graves also told us of her experience being involved in a car crash, except she was the one who was hurt when a drunk driver crashed into her car. Media productions then put on a video of what happened with the whole entire car crash. Afterwards was the memorial videos and pictures to all the people who had “died” the day before. The video, although fictional (because none of the people had died) seemed so real and I started crying. After the video, the kids and parents (who were invited to the “service”) were asked to read the letters they had written. The kids were asked to write a letter to their parents as if they had died, and the parents were do to likewise. Nolan was given a separate task of writing a letter as if he had been jailed. The first letter started most of the people crying… it was sweet, with words of thanks to the parents. The parents in return wrote the most depressing, saddening letters. One of the sentences I remember clearly was “Now that you’re gone, we’ll never be able to see your shining blue eyes.” The parents and the kids hugged after they had read their letters–it was such a sweet moment. Letter after letter, I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky Daniel was when he got into his car accident (which wasn’t serious AT ALL–he came out of it with a SCRATCH on his forehead? after he and Kester hit a tree). It’s not just the drinking and the driving… I think it was just needing to grieve. Through all the funerals I went to, I’ve never cried at one. Even when my pets died, I really wasn’t too affected by it. Then, the assembly happened, and even though I knew that everything was fictionalized and nothing actually happened to these people, I cried…I really cried. After the assembly was over, I could feel that half our junior/senior population was crying. We went outside only to be greeted by insensitive freshmen and sophomores who stared at us in the eyes with wide-eyed amazement as we passed by them with eyes welled up with water. They looked at us as if we were from another planet. Apparently, after the assembly, the “living dead” were encouraged to go to the teacher’s lounge to talk to counselors because the whole experience was too emotionally unsettling. Emily Myers, one of the happiest, bubbliest people I know actually skipped the rest of the school day because of the emotional toll it took.
I talked to Hilliary afterwards, telling her “I think the last time I cried this hard at school was PREschool.” “Same here.” she told me. Having a sub in Spanish that day didn’t help, either. One by one, we walked in, and we could tell who had been crying. Some of the manliest guys were red-eyed walking into the classroom.
If I had to describe last week in one word, it would be

Intense

Sleep Deprived

I had an interesting weekend….

I went to Knotts with Ashley, Nicole, and Katie on Friday night for CSF. Knotts was supposed to be from 7 PM-1AM, but we didn’t get there until 9 that day. The first ride we went on was Xcelerator… it was only my second time on the ride, and my group all wanted to sit on the front car during that ride, so… being pressured by my group, I did. We spent about an hour waiting in line for that ride, and while we were in line, Nicole sees Miss Shirey (Nicole’s chemistry teacher) and Mrs. Oberle (Nicole’s old biology teacher/mine as well/CSF advisor). She yells out “AHH! Scary! Teachers!” and I yelled out also, “OMG! Teachers!” Then, we were talking to Miss Shirey and Mrs. Oberle about what we had done earlier that evening. Nicole then says, “I don’t like chemistry. It’s too hard.” [note: MISS SHIREY IS A CHEMISTRY TEACHER] and Mrs. Oberle was cheering on for bio…. and I was like.. Oh, no. Physics is WAY BETTER. The most hillarious part of the conversation was when Miss Shirey said to Nicole, “Nicole, I see your grade dropping lower and lower…. first you say I’m scary and NOW you say that you don’t like chemistry?” THAT was interesting. By the time we got to the front of the line, Miss Shirey had chickened out on the ride, so we were all cheering for Mrs. Oberle…
The next place we went to was Johnny Rocket’s.. to eat food. We spent an hour eating there and I went crazy with the french fries and a oreo cookie malt. I believe I gained like… a bajillion pounds. =/
After eating, we went on Silver Bullet, my famous barefoot ride… and I was shrieking just to annoy people around me and freak out other people who were in line, and everytime we went upside down, I yelled out “I can’t see a thing!”
The final ride we went on was this kiddie ride in camp snoopy which … was a ride I wasn’t too particularly fond of, but whatever…. We ended up leaving the park at like… 1:20?

Saturday, I was going to go to the Spanish review session, but woke up at 9:30 (when the review session actually started at 9. I spent the rest of the day working on ECON. The write-up for the lemonade stand that we had done. In the end, it was my MOMMY who helped me figure out the calculations. I ended up staying up until like… 1:30 AM. [Time change=2:30 AM] and… because I lost an hour, I only ended up getting… 6 hours of sleep? Definitely NOT enough sleep for a Saturday evening.

On Sunday, I got to help out the 2-year-old class during Sunday School. I’m so proud of myself… I got one of the little kids to actually speak to me!!! On Sunday afternoon, I had practice until 3 and didn’t get home until 5….. I did chores all Sunday, from washing the dishes to doing the laundry, and I actually washed my colored batch of clothing.. which had been sitting in my laundry basket for like… 3 months. Yay. I ended up going to sleep at 12-1 and was EXHAUSTED THIS MORNING. 

School.

My brain is officially dead.
In Spanish the other day….
So, we were working on this partner activity in class and we had to ask our partners questions WITHOUT looking at the questions and they were to do the same for us. My teacher was walking around the room and I was the one who was answering yes or no to the question. The question that my partner that I had to answer was “¿Se mezcla ensalada con un cuchillo?” (Do you mix salad with a knife?) My teacher got to our group by the time I had to answer the question. I wasn’t really thinking and I was thinking the question asked whether it was POSSIBLE to mix salad with a knife… I answered YES. But of course, in NORMAL circumstances, you wouldn’t mix salad with a knife. *sigh* how stupid of me.

Econ
we’ve taken a monton of quizzes within the past week or two, and I’ve failed each one that we’ve taken. This sucks, because I don’t understand what I’m not understanding (if that makes any sense at all). Our latest quiz: 0/4. How special I feel…   

I’m Failing….

This post by a person in this thread shows exactly the situation I’m going through, except… it’s high school and I’m going to be rejected from all the colleges… *sigh*
But one of the things I should’ve told Mrs. Oberle and I KNOW that I should have said to her, but was afraid to say so was this advice given by a very intelligent person…honestly though, if there’s a second chance that Mrs. Oberle can give me *hint hint*.. tomorrow*. I’d DEFINITELY take that second chance..

“Not once in my entire career has a student come to me and said, “I’m a good student. I work hard. But I’m in over my head.” I’ve also never had a student say, “I put this off and now I’m backed into a corner,” when it comes to a class deadline. Students *never* take responsibility for the situation – doing so would be a breath of fresh air….So, my advice would be take complete ownership of the situation (“I know this is my responsibility”) express empathy with their position (“I know you’re busy and I know I’m adding to your workload”) and express your intention to work hard (“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to salvage my grade.”). Acknowledge you could have addressed the situation earlier (“I wish I had come to you sooner”) and make a specific suggestion (“I did poorly on my last assignment – could I re-do it? Could I do an additional assignment similar to that one to demonstrate that I understand the material?”)”

I really hope it’s not too late to do that.