tip of the day

Did you know it's more efficient to do homework at a desk than on a couch, lying down, while watching T.V?
I found that out two days ago, and it has been wonderful because even though I get home at 6, I manage to finish my homework by 8 and I have time to do other things! It's a whole new world.

sports

At my school, instead of gym class, we have a sports requirement, which entails that after academic classes end at 1:15, all students are required to go to a sport. So four days a week [no sports on Fridays-darn], you can usually find a mob of students running down the three flights of stairs to the locker rooms. Our year is divided into three seasons, each with different sports, some coed [ooh-la-la], others not. I happen to play field hockey in the fall [a very good outlet for that pent-up anger in us all], swim in the winter [you could find the meaning of life in that expanse of shimmering water], and tennis in the spring [one of the coed sports]. Last year, I also played tennis with a few of my friends, along with four other girls and about ten boys. We were the B team, and let me tell you, we had a lot of good times. We went undefeated: 1-0 [we had one match that Maddie and I say was won because we weren't there-play practice]. Anyway, tennis isn't like the other sports- instead of teaching you how to play, you just played singles and challenged other people to move up the ladder. A.K.A, my friends and I had a fun time. The A team was the intimidating "other half" of tennis [everyone better than us], that we never really interacted with so we just had fun. This year, about 48 people signed up for tennis, which was a lot more than last year, and that meant a harsher try-out process, made worse by the bad weather. That meant the gym [shudder]. It was an intense process, let me tell you [though I'm easily intimidated]. The list of teams was supposed to be posted Friday, but of course it wasn't. Let me tell you, nerves were high. Now here's the JillMark in this situation: Maddie and I were wanted to be on B team. While others had hopes of high placement, Maddie and I were wishing to have the low placement, so when we went to see what teams we were today, you know where our prayers were. Before they told us, the A team coach told us nothing was official, it could be changed. Then the moment of truth came and our prayers were answered [surprise surprise!]. We had our dance of joy, and high fiving all the way to the courts. In our opinion, we got the better half of the deal.

recordings

Alright, so the other day at play practice, I have to do a scene with a boy [a friend of my mine] where we have to run up and hold hands "adoringly''. One of my other friends in the play thought this was funny, so he [not having anything else to do] decided to take some pictures with his phone. Now, this would have been fine if, one, I was photogenic, two, I wasn't in such an awkward position, and three, just two days before [or around then], the dean of our middle school said we weren't allowed to take "recordings" of anyone without their consent. Of course, when I found out he had taken the pictures, I tried to steal his phone [unsucessfully], then asked him to delete the pictures. Predictably, he refused, so I left in a huff to my bus. Later that night when he called, he was mad at me for me being mad at HIM for not erasing the photos, his argument being the photos weren't "recordings". I had to debate him, unquestionably, saying that though a photo was not a movie, it was a record of a specific point in time. Undoubtedly, I won the debate [though he didn't admit it], and we moved on, discussing the pros and cons of different presidents. I would appreciate your input on the debate though, so please comment on who you think was correct in the relationship between pictures and recordings.

school play

So, I got a part in my school's play, This Is Where We Came In [don't worry, none of us had heard of it either]. There are pros and cons to my situation. For one, I got the leading female role [yay!]. On the other hand, I have to kiss two boys. As good people as they are, I really don't want to have to deal with having the entire middle school taunting me for the rest of the year. My sister brought up a good point in the fact that it is not actually my first kiss [when I was 3 I ran up to the boy I liked in Brueger's Bagels and kissed him], so if I ever have children and they ask, I will be able to say my first kiss was NOT a stage kiss. Let me give you an example of what my friends are like though. In response to me getting the part, one of my friends gave me a gift. Knowing how uncomfortable I was about certain aspects of the show, she decided to make a joke of it and gave me all sorts of lip balms and glosses. She sure did get laugh out of that...