School

I know I haven't posted anything in forever. I would post more, but China just so happens to have blocked Blogger and so far only my mom and dad have proxies on their computers. I could steal their computers more often, but I always forget, and I like my laptop's keyboard better, anyway.

So, SCHOOL

School is good. I have the greatest homeroom ever. It's awesome. We have plans to make a homeroom band. (I am the lead violinist.) This year we're doing a lot more competitions between homerooms, and I like that.

We went to a two-night school camp last week. It was fun, especially compared to last year. It's not that last year was particularly bad or anything, but it could have been better. Basically they divided us up into groups and we cycled through activities like archery and horseback riding, which maybe I would have thought was fun if I hadn't done them before and under better circumstances. The archery equipment wasn't too great of quality (most of the arrows were losing their fletching) and we only got to ride the horses for one short lap. We weren't even allowed to trot; we had to walk. I can understand not cantering or galloping, but not even being allowed to trot was a bit frustrating. I did manage to convince the workers that I could ride a horse and didn't need them to walk next to me, at least.

The food wasn't that great, either. Oh, well.

Anyway, this year we did competitions like boat races, games, raft-building, group talent show, and fashion show. My homeroom got first or second place in everything except for the talent show, where we got third, so we won overall. My boat got the best time in the boat races when we had six people, one less than everyone else, although when the scores for all the boats were averaged out we got second. My group built absolutely the worst raft, but we managed to float the entire ten minutes and win the competition through careful balancing. What I'm most proud of, though, is the fashion show. Our theme was Latin America, which was perfect because we have a Costa Rican in our class, so she immediately knew what to do. Then we had to make two outfits - one male and one female - out of blue and white poster board, and hold a fashion show. Our girl's dress was the best. Multiple people commented that they couldn't believe it was made out of paper and not cloth. (If I had a picture of it I'd show you, but I don't. Maybe I can get it from one of my classmates.) We didn't win, but I think that's because our homeroom was first so the other models had more time to discuss how present themselves and learn from the models who went ahead of them.

And the food was pretty good.

The only problem was that we were in tents, which wouldn't have been too big a deal except that the mattress pads weren't too great and the ground was a bit uneven, and it rained all night the second night and the low-quality tents leaked.

Since my dad is a ninth-grade homeroom teacher (although not my homeroom teacher) he was at the same camp. Some troublemakers tied his tent shut one night, but since he always has his pocketknife with him he easily cut the string. We don't know who did it, although it doesn't really matter. One of my classmates says he's pretty sure ho knows who did it, but he won't tell me who.

I'm planning on posting more from now on, so expect another post within the next few days, maybe tomorrow.

Computers, Food, and Art, What Else?

We got our computers for school finally. I'm a little bit frustrated with them because they're Macbooks, which are great for some things, but they still have their own frustrations. I like Windows for having a task bar on the bottom of the screen , where I can see all of the applications that I have running, and actually having a RIGHT-CLICK BUTTON!!! On the Macbooks, you have to either put two fingers on the trackpad and then click the button, which often accidentally turns into a left-click anyway, or press control and click. When I used Macbooks in the computer lab at my old school, (and, by the way, what's the point of having a computer lab if there's laptops in it?), I never noticed, but that was before I really started using right-click. Augh...

Anyways, I'm going through a SERIOUS Mexican food craving right now. They have Mexican restaurants here, but they aren't nearly good enough. However, as my dad has said already, there are some really good Muslim restaurants around here with Western-Chinese Muslim food, which we have discovered is really good. It's nice and spicy, which satisfies some of my Mexican-food cravings, and there is this really good flat bread called "nang," and one of the restaurants we go to serves this "pizza," which is nang bread with this tasty ground-lamb-with-spices stuff on top. We sometimes call it "taco pizza" because it tastes almost exactly like a good beef taco.

I've decided to take up drawing again. I've tried drawing two or three times before, but then I get impatient and stop. Now, though, one of my friends (an artist) convinced me to start drawing again. I don't mean realistic drawing, I definitely don't have enough patience for that, I'm more doing manga- and anime-based artwork. Before you start imagining little girls with green hair, gigantic shiny eyes, and pointy chins, you need to know that there are many different kinds of manga styles, and some are better than others. I don't like the little green-hair-big-eye-pointy-chin girl, either. I've also joined a website called deviantART, which is kind of like a Facebook for artists, so if you want to see my art, I suggest you email me and ask for the web address to my profile, because I don't really want everyone I don't know who comes across this blog to find my dA page, at least not yet.

I've also been doing some painting, charcoal drawing, and things like that. I think it's a lot of fun! I think that my two favorite media have to be charcoal and thick acrylic paint. Thick paint is so much fun, because you can put in lots of texture and it's really easy to fix mistakes. I've also started designing a character of my own, so if I ever happen to get a story written about her, I'll put parts of it here, too.

Laptops

We have to buy these Apple laptops from the school because they're starting some new program (but we have to wait until the end of the semester to actually get them) but anyway I'm excited because I love Garage Band. It's fun. Not that I'm any good at actually putting good songs together. I have to figure that one out...

Anyway that's what I'm thinking about right now. But mostly what I want the laptops for is so everyone can use the computer and we don't have to wait for someone else to get off when we need to do homework.