Take the What animal best portrays your sexual appetite?? Quiz
February 17, 2001
Yeah, I know it's been a week since my last update. Bear with me, ok?
Aside from a week of school last week (now, of course, is President's Week, which means a week of vacayshun, baybee), SING! is starting. I'm directing orchestra, along with Allison Kean, and Tuesday morning all the department directors are meeting at Grand Central to go to the director (Alison Melville)'s house in Connecticut for a sleepover/SING meeting extravaganza. I'll keep a journal of this and let you know how it goes, not that I can reveal any specifics of our story online, lest any underclassmen or juniors read it.
Yesterday we were ALSO in Connecticut, where my aunt lives (in Guilford...), 40 exits past the train stop we're going to (which is Westport). My aunt babies her animals like crazy, she's got 2 parakeets, 9 finches (in their case, she began with two), 2 cats, a hamster, and fish. The cats are two of the fattest I've ever seen. And since my cousins are all younger than I am (the oldest, Erik, turned 15 today, Justin is going to be 12 in June, and Nick is now 10) they played video games and Caryn and I talked with my parents and aunt and uncle. Funfun...
So Jay bought his opening day and Mets-Yankees tix, nevermind the fact that the latter game is THE DAY BEFORE PROM... ugh.
As you probably expected, Chuck Schumer is a guest speaker at our graduation, seeing as his daughter Jessica is graduating. Note the word "a" and not "the", because we've also got Bill Clinton coming.
I've got interesting stuff to say about the things I am reading... pease take a peek!!
February 10, 2001
I went to see the winter drama, With Their Eyes this weekend. There's an article on it in the New York Times if you want to check out the archives there, it was really really good. I fought back tears a lot; and I realized how much I forgot about what I saw, felt, and did on September 11. I wrote over two pages (single spaced) of diary-like account of it, and saved it. I think it's important to remember. And trust me, what you saw on TV? Nothing like living it. It still feels like it was a movie.
I'm waiting on the SING! directorship info... meanwhile, I've got work (yes, I treat myself horribly for a second-term senior) but it's not a big deal... after all, I'm in college now =)
There's not really too much to say...I'll write more as it happens!
February 5, 2002
Yeah... SING! department director interviews are on Friday... wish me luck.
February 4, 2002
Wow, nobody noticed that I had February 1, 2001 up there? Hmm... read more critically people!
Playing the soprano sax is hard business. I should know--and doing it in front of 110 people is even harder. I can't REALLY play it yet, so I feel kind of like a sham. But it's fun anyway.
Okay so I have A TON of stuff to do this week. Three days of Arista work, prom committee meeting, KCC, plus REAL homework, capped off by a test on Friday?! I can't wait for the weekend, and it's only MONDAY.
Roger will be happy to know that Polazzo was thrilled with the outcome of the Super Bowl. I think he made some money off that. We talked about Americanism as a religion... wacky yet true. Polazzo is one of the guys, by the way, who gives a lot of work, Ms Yoon being the other guy who does that. She's not really a guy... or is she? She's too prissy.
Ah well, off to write a stupid page of essay, and read for comp gov.
February 1, 2002
Okay, so February has come...four and a half months... three and a half before APs. Today was kind of fun. Tushar claimed that Raisin Nut Bran are like a party in your mouth (at least the "raisinuts" are). And Ms. Yoon, who continues to be crazy, has done 2 things. First, she assigned us Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which is apparently one of the most-requested set of notes on pinkmonkey.com. That's not good. Plus I've got all of 3 days to read about 100 pages. It's frickin British turn-of-the-20th-century writing. I hope this happens decently quickly. Back to Ms. Yoon... second, she made fun of the voices of some of the most obnoxious seniors at Stuy. That was VERY nice of her. At least because I dislike them.
Also Polazzo was telling us today about Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's visit to his 10th period AP American class yesterday. (Yes, this happened, and yes, I saw him pass by as I sat on the bar. This was only interesting because of judicial review... he's one of 9 people who can decide which laws are the most valuable, which ones are "right"... you know what I mean). And apparently he treated the class like a law-school class or something, yelling at this kid in my homeroom about a personal opinion of his. (Speaking of law school, Legally Blonde was pretty good.) Narsty of him. Suffice it to say I was much more jealous of the people who got to see Jane Goodall.
Then I had a fight with my dad over internet usage (I'm using the wrong phone line for his preference). It was stupid, and yay now it's over!
Keep reading the "What I'm Reading" section. I'm going to archive this page and delete some of it now... happy reading.
January 30, 2002
YES!!! My schedule went really well. You know what? I'm glad I didn't change my program--we're no longer allowed out during frees, only lunch periods. But since I have 8,9,10 free I can go out for a long time anyway.
Aight, well my first three periods are the same as last term, Stage Band, Music Theory, and then Symphonic Band. After that is NYC History with Scandura... should be an easy grade, plus I hear there's trips too!
Here comes the interesting part. Polazzo's AP Comparative Government. The man is every bit as cool as I heard he was. He passes out little sheets that look like this:
1. What's the toughest decision you ever had to make?
2. What's your favorite movie?
3. What do you think of Mr. T ?
4. Who would win in a fight--Prince or Michael Jackson?
I love this man. He drew a big sample delaney card on the board with Richard Cheney as the sample name. In the boxes he drew "DICK" because it's the name Cheney likes to be called. So when we're going around the room answering one of those four questions, this kid Elan says "Hi, I'm Elan and that is a really big Dick."
This is why I don't want to go to college.
For English I've got Ms. Yoon... better than Raggi. The class is mediocre but Mohammad is in it and Jeff Orlowski, and Tushar may join soon. Not that you know any of these people but still...
I've got the same psych teacher as last term, Aukim, but a better class. Including the Eric Miller lookalike who played Big Jule in Guys and Dolls.
That's it. Then I've got lunch, probably with Isaac. And Roy and Eden seem the likeliest buddies for time-killing, when they're up for it.
Must go print Yoon homework now... I'm out for now.
January 29, 2002
Halloween: H20 sucked. It really did. Caryn and I walked to Blockbuster, 3 miles there and back, to enjoy the good weather and return Traffic, which moved faster upon second viewing, and Shrek, which Caryn insisted on seeing again. We also rented Legally Blonde, which is supposed to be good. We'll see.
Ah, off to Kingsborough at 6:30... tomorrow begins my final term at Stuyvesant. And the weather is going APECRAP on me, down from 67 to a high of 55 and RAIN (which we need, we're near drought level here)... but that does spoil my plans to go blading in the park after class. I get out at 12:30 for the rest of the week, and I have a stupid senior assembly thing tomorrow. Sigh.
My Schedule
I'm going to be really bored every day... Here's my schedule:
1 Stage Band
2 AP Music Theory
3 Symphonic Band
4 New York City History
5 AP Comparative Government
6 Later British Literature
7 AP Psychology
8, 9, and 10 are FREES!
This is going to be very nice when Jason's
New Section: What I'm Reading
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
'Nuff said.
The Wrong Man by James Neff
About Sam Sheppard, a very famous 1950s case. Long book, I'm about 1/4 of the way through.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Today (February 17) I actually watched Apocalypse Now which is based on this novella... it was SO BORING the first time through, but it got Way good by the second/third time.
In Our Defense by Caroline Kennedy and Ellen Alderman
Specific cases demonstrate the Bill of Rights in action today. Some of them were quite fascinating. What's great about it is that the cases forced you to think about constitutionality, and not about case specifics. In that regard they were good examples.
My Life on a Plate by India Knight
Actually I finished this one while sitting in traffic this morning. It's about a British housewife who's 33, a mother of two, and feels entirely unattractive (she's a size 16). She hasn't had sex with her husband in a long time. The main attraction of this book is the irreverent style Knight has. It was enjoyable.
Home Run Ed. by George Plimpton
This is a collection of essays and other writings on "baseball's most exciting moment." While some of the facts (namely, records) are outdated, naming Mark McGwire the homerun king, Babe Ruth the record-holder for walks, etcetera, the older stories are the best so far. A lot of the stuff on "the Babe" is great. Right now I'm reading about Roger Maris (apparently the commissioner of baseball at the time, Ford Frick, who said that it must read 61* in record books, was a friend of Babe Ruth's... ah, corruption); my favorite piece was "Josh", about Negro Leagues star Josh Gibson. Another good one was John Updike's tale of Ted Williams' last game, which he attended. Yes, he hit a home run in that game. Makes me understand why his being in the hospital is such a big deal to people.
M-E-T-S, Mets, Mets Mets! Revamped and better!
My Jason's website... of course, I find it the most entertaining of all these sites
Roger's site, nearly as entertaining as Jason's