Parking Ticket

Today was a pretty awful day. It started off with senior sing practice at the ungodly hour of 7:30. I haven't started at 7:30 since junior year, so I was not used to waking up so early. I had planned to go work-out at my friend's apartment building after school, so I decided to drive to school. Today would make the third time this whole year that I've driven to school, and so I had to stress out about finding parking, and make it to Cornuelle for senior sing practice by 7:30. On top of all of that, I had an oral presentation for Chinese class today right after senior sing practice which finished at 8:30. An oral presentation in Chinese class consists of memorizing 10 minutes worth of Chinese discussing a certain assigned topic. I was so nervous for this and it didn't help that I didn't have time to refresh and practice before class because of senior sing. After presenting my presentation, I had a nice and long relaxing three hour break, went to Composition class, and then it was off to Chemistry class at 1:30. Chemistry class was utterly exhausting mostly because I realized that I don't understand any of the material we are learning now and we have a quiz on Friday. Uh oh. My school day was done after Chemistry class at 1:30. I walked about a block away from school to my car. It was blistering hot, and I was exhausted from a tiring, rough day. To top of my horrible day, I had a parking ticket wedged between my windshield wiper and the front glass of my car. I was very shocked because when I parked at that spot at 7:15 this morning, I thought I made sure that it was legal to park there at that time. Turns out there was a sign saying no parking 7:00-9:00 am on school days only, but it was all the way at the end of the street, hidden by a bush, and the words were facing the opposite direction from a driver's point of view. What a way to top off the end of my day, huh? AHHH.

Housing

The next step in completing my college decision process is to sign up for housing. I just finished looking at the selection of different dorms, and I'm having a hard time deciding what dorm I want to stay at...there's a gallery of pictures of each dorm and certain ammenities, but they all pretty much look the same. A bunch of my friends are applying for housing around now too, and I'm trying to decide if I want to be in the same dorm as them. I'm afraid if I do stay in the same dorm with a bunch of my friends I'm just going to be hanging out with them, but at the same time I want to be with at least some of my friends so that I don't feel as lost and lonely. Honestly, I'm getting pretty intimidated by going to college, and the whole process, but I'm really excited at the same time! All I can really think about is going up there and being on my own..finally! It's been very hard to think about school related work this semester, but I'm trying my hardest to stay on track and focus on getting all of my work done on time so that by the time May comes along I'll basically be on cruise control. May is full of activites to prepare us for graduation, and so it is really hard for us seniors to fullyu concentrate on school work.
I hope I can survive this month!!

4th Quarter..

It's the last quarter of my high school career, and I should be excited right? Nope. Starting this week, seniors have to attend senior sing practices during certain times of the day. The time must correspond with a time when you have a break, because you can't miss classes to attend them. Which sucks a lot, because some days I only have one break or no break at all. You must attend four practices a week...and if you can't go you have to write it down on some sheet of paper with the deans or something like that...I'm not completely sure about that part. Anyway, my point is, I'm going to be so busy this quarter, and I already have a lot of work to do, and to top it off we have senior sing practices during our breaks? UGH.
I'm getting less and less excited for prom, which is just around the corner...getting everything organized with the limo, and flowers, and tuxedo's, and pictures, etc. is very stressful and frustrating because everyone wants something different, and it just becomes a big mess. I hope when prom actually comes along, it will be really fun and all of this stress and frustration that is happening now, will all be worth it.
Well, here goes into the fourth quarter...gahhhhhh

Teen Drinking...

Because my group had the chance to read the public interest essay on binge drinking, and we had the chance to discuss the drinking issue as a big group, I decided to write about my opinion on teen drinking and the drinking age. I think teenage drinking is a big problem, but I think that one of the main reasons why so many underage teens drink is because of the fact that it is illegal. I feel that if it weren't illegal, a lot of teens wouldn't have the urge to do it. But because underage drinking is illegal, not everyone can get ahold of alcohol, so not that many people can drink. If it were legal for teenagers around the age of 16 and up to drink, then I think not so many people would be doing it because all teenagers who are 16 and up can gain access to it, so it's not that cool if your group of friends are drinking.
In our class dicussions, we discussed that if the drinking age was lowered to 16, and the eligible age to get a license was 16, then the two would not mix very well. I agree with this, but I think that in that case, the issue is more about drinking and driving versus the age a person is allowed to drink.
I think this topic is something that can be talked about for hours and hours, and a logical solution can't ever be found that can make everyone happy.

blades of glory!!!!

This past weekend was a very fun one. I got to hang out with some of my guy friends that I usually never see on the weekends, and it was really fun because I haven't hung out with them in a really long time. On Friday a friend of mine had a get together at his house and it was really fun because there were a lot of people there and a bunch of them were people who I usually do not hang out with outside of school. But Saturday was even more enjoyable than Friday because I got to see Blades of Glory...TWICE! In the same day!! I can't even begin to explain how funny this movie was, but it was funny enough for me to spend nine more dollars to see it later that night. My whole group of friends ended up going together, and it was just a good weekend. I haven't had a good weekend like such in a really long time...and I hope the weekends will continue to get better as the year winds down to an end. With prom just around the corner, I'm anticipating this last quarter of high school to be a good one!

I highly recommend Blades of Glory.....see it ASAP!!

Decisions

In about a month, I will have to decide on what college I will be attending in the fall. It's scary to realize how fast my senior year flew by. I remember around this time last year, graduation and just being a second semester senior seemed SO far away...but now that the time has arrived, it went by really fast. As stoked as I am about graduating in about two months, deep down inside I wish high school were longer because I'm going to miss everyone, and it's going to be hard to live without the people that I see almost everyday.
Today on the news, there was a report about high school seniors and how now is the time where seniors are in the process of waiting/deciding on colleges. But for parents, their main concern is the cost to send their kids to college. For seniors, their main concern is what colleges they get accepted to, and what college they want to go to. The story went on to discuss why college tuition is so expensive, and where the money actually goes. I didn't listen to the rest of the story, but I heard enough of it to give me inspiration to write my blog about making college decisions.
Since a parent and their child have different concerns when deciding on what college to attend, there will definitely be conflicting opinions on what college the student will actually attend. Should the student's decision be based on the amount of financial aid received and how much the tuition is? Or should it be based on where they really want to go/their best fit college? Which is ultimately more important? Right now I am somewhat having a hard time deciding on which is more important. I have my heart set on going to the University of Washington, but that is also the school that gave me the least amount of financial aid. The school that I don't want to go to at all gave me the most financial aid. The cheapest school is the school my parents want me to attend, but I don't think I will be happy there.
I have a month to decide...
:/

Dress Code.

When we were asked in class today to talk about public interests, the first thing that came to my mind was dress code. Dress code is something that most female students at Punahou have a problem with. Most guys don't really care, because they can basically wear whatever kinds of shirts they want, and some boys would wear polo/collared shirts anyway even if there wasn't a dress code. Anyway, I think the dress code is really ineffective and I am no less distracted in school than I was when there wasn't a dress code. I think that the only good thing about dress code is that you really don't need to worry about what to wear to school anymore, and money is definitely being saved to some extent because I don't need to buy as much clothes as I did when there wasn't a dress code. But whatever. I hate the dress code, I think it's stupid, and ineffective. Plus they are kind of expensive, and did require extra money to be spent to buy the uniform clothes last school year. I also think that all teachers should enforce it, or not enforce it at all because the way it is now, with some teachers enforcing it and some not, it is very unfair for students who have teachers that enforce it versus students who have teachers that don't enforce it. The students who have teachers that enforce it HAVE TO dress in dress code, and students who have teachers that don't enforce it can choose whether or not to dress in dress code, and take their own risks in running into a dean during the day. No matter how many announcements/reminders that the deans make in assembly about keeping up with the dress code, I still see handfuls how students everyday who aren't following dress code.

LEGGINGS AREN'T PANTS!

At least I'm a senior so I won't really have to deal with this dress code madness for much longer.