I'm talking about the magazine drive. Every year we have it to raise money for our school. The students try to sell lots of magazines (or they can donate money differently instead, $20 counts as one "magazine subscription").

You can earn prizes like Jamba Juice smoothies, Weepuls (little furry collectible things, the sixth grade girls this year thought they were so cute because they went "Awwww!"), even an iPod Touch if you sell enough magazines...But it's really hard to do that unless you have lots of relatives who like to read magazines, you're a superior salesman (and how would that work? You're not allowed to go sell door-to-door. That's lame considering you were allowed to do that for the Walkathon in elementary school. So they're saying older kids are more likely to get kidnapped?!), or you just have lots of money to spend.

This year there was a dog that rolls over. When it senses movement in front of its face, it rolls over. It's a pretty hard prize to get, though. And the class that sells the most magazines will get a 10-foot long snake. Maybe I should win one for my dad. It can be his birthday present or whatever.

Speaking of snakes, I had a dream about a snake. I was in some sort of observatory place in a rainforest, I think. My family and some other people were in it, sitting on wooden benches, peering out at the wilderness. The previous president, George W. Bush, was also there, but he didn't say anything. He had a very small snake. It was short and skinny with a wider head. I forget the exact color but I think it was a dull brownish sort. George W. Bush left and dropped his snake on the floor. I was freaked out since I wasn't sure whether the snake was fond of biting or not.

More recently, I had another dream about an animal. This time it was about dolphins. I don't know much of the specifics of the dream but I was in a room, with my mom, and maybe more people, but I don't remember if there were. There were dolphins there and I tried to get on the back of one to ride it. The dolphin flopped around in a panicked fashion until I let go of it. My mom left the room and I was leaving too but the dolphin, which had been resting on the ground, jumped up and made a really ugly face, like it was going to bite. I was frightened out of my wits and ran out of the room. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to have a negative run-in with dolphins in the future.

My French teacher told us something amusing recently. She took her class last year to a restaurant called Crepe Daniel. The students were excited since they thought they would be able to practice their French skills...No dice. The restaurant had been owned by a French person a long time ago. Now it was a Chinese owner. The French teacher said, "I don't know, maybe you could practice your CHINESE at the restaurant."

My new camera arrived. It's a dark blue Panasonic Lumix. There is a really funny feature to it. It's called Transform and it says in the manual, "Changes the subject to a slim-looking or glamorous appearance." It's like how before cameras were invented, people would paint portraits of people instead, and they would try to make the people look better than they actually looked.

Labels: camera, chinese, crepe daniel, Dogs, dolphin, door to door, dream, french, funny, george w. bush, magazine drive, mandarin, president, prizes, restaurant, rollover, sales, snake, transform, vicious

I think it's something the old President George W. Bush said, but I may have mistakenly attributed to him. Anyhow, I heard that he said this on his 60th birthday when he was still in office. If more people thought like that, you wouldn't be hearing a lot of them complaining about their grey hairs and back pain and how their kids are growing up too quickly or how they want to retire but they need to make more money... Blah blah blah. If only we could all be a little more positive and think, sure, this means another year of my life, and that's tiresome, but there are good things and memories to be made every year along with the bad things. Sometimes you might not realize right away, but you could be having the time of your life.

The reason why I started off my post like this is because my age just changed yesterday. Yep, it was my birthday. More specifically, the 13th one. I hope that age really is just a number since I don't want this to be an unlucky year for me. Judging from my school schedule, which I was able to see from Pinnacle Internet Viewer (thanks Shirayuki no Kimi or I wouldn't have known), it seems they plan to put me in village K. I don't really know the 8th grade teachers, so I'm kind of nervous. I've been looking on a site where you can rate teachers, and it seems my French teacher and science teacher are the ones that the students like the least...I hope it won't be a rough year, then. At least you have a chance of changing PE teachers. My intended PE periods are 6th, 3rd, and 3rd. I like 3rd period PE, so that's good to hear. But it seems like I always get 6th period PE sometime in the year. (Oh, well. I'm glad I don't have 5th period PE. Then I wouldn't even have time to digest my lunch)

Today my mom actually did Wii Fit. In fact, a lot of it. I'm sure it was at least more than half an hour. It's been so long since she did Wii Fit, she seems to have forgotten how to do some of the exercises (like Advanced Step, which is in a way a different kind of DDR) but I hope she'll make a habit out of exercising so she can build some muscle. No offense intended to her, but she's not much of an athlete. She could use it. My dad has not used Wii Fit ever since we came home from vacation a few days ago. It's hard for us to get back into the groove after being away for a while.

For this week my mom has been taking time off work and staying at home, so she can pretend she's still in Australia and get some more relaxation time before she must go back to work and get bombarded by unanswered emails and projects and things like that. It's nice to have someone around so you won't feel too lonesome. (Maybe it's just me who gets lonely. I'd actually gotten used to it in sixth grade, after a good friend of mine moved away in fifth, I think, but eventually I started wanting to socialize again.) During school it isn't so much of a matter but when you're by yourself, or/and something bad happens, you feel like this.

Labels: age, birthday, classes, corner of woe, exercise, feelings, george w. bush, lonely, luck, number, president, schedule, tamaki, teacher, thirteen, time, wii fit

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