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I spent over 11 hours in the freezing cold and went 30 hours without sleep to have a part in this great historic moment...and it was sooo worth it.

"America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations." --President Barack H. Obama

Normally, I'm not into the cheesy idea of "yes we can!" or even really optimism in general-- but Barack Obama's campaign, policies, and inspirational speeches really make me feel like our nation and its standing in the world can drastically improve. I am so incredibly elated and grateful that he is our nation's 44th president.

Finding out Tuesday night that he won was phenomenal, especially in a college campus setting. People immediately stormed the mall (our "quad"/grassy lawn in the middle of many academic buildings), took off their clothes, and jumped into the fountain screaming and yelling. The cops had to drive up on the mall to break up the crowd, but from there people just went down Route One. We held a dance party complete with loud music and strobe light in the lounge on my floor until the wee hours, ate patriotic chocolate cake, hugged, yelled, and exclaimed. By the end of the night, Barack's head was posted above our 48" TV and there were several people stumbling drunk (not that drinking on a Tuesday night in response to the great news is necessarily something I condone). I have never felt such a pervasive sense of community and elation-- even some of the few Republicans I know joined in the rioting, the celebration of a major landmark in this nation's history.

I have been behind Barack since primary season and I am so excited to see the changes he will make once in office. I am so glad I got to be a part of this historic election. I made the cut-off by less than two months and I could not be more thankful I received the opportunity to voice my opinion, even though it was in a deep blue state anyway. America has spoken. January 20th, 2009-- here we come!

1) Black & Gold- Sam Sparro
2) El Mareo- Bajofondo
3) Viva la Vida- Coldplay
4) Paper Planes- M.I.A.
5) Grace Kelly- MIKA
6) Mama Tierra- B-Negão, Macaco & Nazão Zumbi
7) Dark Blue- Jack's Mannequin
8) Love Remains the Same- Gavin Rossdale
9) Free Bird- Lynyrd Skynyrd
10) Reptilia- The Strokes

The more exploring I do on Facebook, the more I come to despise the site. 


The pictures used are screenshots of various profiles I am able to view on the site; all personal information/photos are whited out to protect the privacy of my friends and myself.

I am so hilariously guilty of overpacking it's actually really embarrassing. For a week at the beach, I currently have one large suitcase full of clothes and shoes, a duffel bag with toiletries, make-up, jewelry, books, and a sweater; another duffel bag with beach towels, shoes, and hoodies; and my purse. That isn't even including the food, beach umbrella, and beach chair I'm also bringing.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! :(

After being submerged in French for 45 minutes today, I can safely say I certainly made the right choice at age eleven to take Spanish.

Of course, part of it is that about six years ago, my brain was easier to mold and quicker to pick up a new language. Then there's the fact that French is fairly difficult to learn i the first place. Today's introduction to numbers, the alphabet, and the simple phrases "je m'appelle Jessica" and "je suis americaine" just resulted in a massive fist-fight in my brain between English, French, AND Spanish. Ay. I totally respect my teacher for being fluent enough in both languages to teach them at the AP level. Yo prefiero el espanol.

Plus, francais made my throat hurt. :( Oh, Spanish with your phonetic and front of the mouth pronunciation, how I love thee!

The culturally illiterate hilarity that ensued during this class period was certainly worth the headache, though. The overuse of evil French laughter, the Canadian expression "Wa-ta-ta-tow!", and the endless questions about the French in the song Lady Marmalade from Moulin Rouge kept me laughing all period.

Au revoir et adieu!

I'm not exactly an exciting or regular poster, am I?

I've been drawing a blank on what I could post about for a while now. Life has been boring and pretty uneventful, but for that I am also thankful. Right now I'm really liking this boring, predictable lifestyle. I'll be ready for some excitement come summer.

I could post again with something (hopefully) interesting tomorrow or it could be a matter of weeks-- who knows? I'm still reading all of your entries.

Though my internship has made me realize that I don't want to be a teacher, it has definitely given me great respect for the profession.

Upon reading the comments to this article, I became even more infuriated about the public opinion of education. There is nothing I hate more than parents who think they know how teachers should teach and what is best for the school system. 99% of the time, these parents have NO clue.

One teacher who posted on the article summed it up well: "The irony is that people like ____ think that because they went to school and watched their teachers, that they know what it takes to teach. Well, I've seen my doctor, do I hold a medical license? I buy clothing...can I design and market it? Just because we experience things in our lives, doesn't make us experts in those experiences. It takes a lot more to teach than anyone who has never taught a day in their life will ever know."

I wish I could somehow beat it into peoples' heads that they better have an informed opinion about education before going around denouncing it and making assumptions about what it's like to be a teacher.

Favorite quote of the week:
"Saying that Hillary has Executive Branch experience is like saying Yoko Ono was a Beatle."

I was wondering when people were going to come out and say more firmly, "What exactly is Hillary's 'superior' experience?"

The fact that I'm working tomorrow isn't helping.
--Study for test on Bodas de Sangre
--Read Yerma
--Write eight-page paper for English!!
--Read Hamlet
--Plan entire lesson from scratch for Tuesday for a huge project
--Attempt to understand/study Calc
--Write essay for UMCP Scholars Program!!!!!
--Get ten hours for NHS

Buttttttt...it was 70 degrees outside today! :)

"All four candidates have made recent campaign stops in Virginia and Maryland, transforming a region that played a small role in primary politics before into one that could help shape the presidential campaign."
--CNN.com

I have decided that I really don't like Hillary Clinton.

As frustrating as it can be at times, grading seventh grade writing really can be amusing. I've been working on evaluating their persuasive essays on whether or not kids should have chores, and there have certainly been a few gems in their responses (paraphrased below, with purposeful poor grammar/spelling at times):

--"Kids should have chores starting around 12-15 because that is the time in a kid's life when he is a teenager/grown man."
--"If kids don't have chores, then they will sit around watching TV all day and be bored. Giving them chores gives them something to do so they don't hang out with drug experimenting friends. Most kids start drugs because they're bored. You don't want to be the 'parent of the kid who does drugs,' do you? Or worse yet, you might see your kid's death because they didn't do chores."
--"When you go to college, you need to know how to clean your room because your doommate or society sister or paternity brother won't want to have a messy room."
--"It can be really easy to convince your parents to buy you a new car if you do chores."
--"Parents, you should give your kids chores because it will give you more freetime. In fact, you'll have so much freetime that you can discover new concepts of physics or memorize pi."
--"So basically, don't hire an inexperience butler/person to clean the valuable items in your house."
--"If your kids do chores, JUST PAY THEM!"

And there's plenty more where those came from...

These past couple days the highlight of my daily routine has been driving. There are few things I enjoy more than feeling the breeze whip through my hair as I cruise with the sunroof open and all the windows down, blasting The Eagles. Unfortunately, as I have been weighed down with schoolwork and other commitments, this has been about the extent of my time "outdoors" in this beautiful, out of the ordinary winter weather.

It's going to be hard to adjust when it's suddenly 30 degrees out again. When it's nice outside I automatically feel deliriously happy, regardless of what else is occurring in my life. Now I'm starting to remember why last year I was so stuck on applying to schools in the south. Too late now. =/

As part of the class associated with my internship in education, I have a "synthesis paper" due next Friday. Due to the wealth of information available and its relevance to my own life, I chose standardized testing as my topic.

Before beginning my research, I believed that standardized tests were annoying, constricting, and not so accurate, though I hadn't ever struggled much with them. Now that I am in the midst of a stack of literature on the subject, I am so inquisitive about how testing has affected my life.

Thoughts have been racing through my mind as I go through my sources to take notes. I've realized that the only reason all students have to pass the HSAs in Maryland now is because of the No Child Left Behind Act, and thus a lot of my teachers have "taught to the test" we were expected to do well on-- whether it was a HSA, county assessment, or AP test. Possibly the only reason why my high school is considered one of the best in Maryland and in the country is because of INACCURATE NUMBERS! The school system has to protect these numbers, thus potentially most of my education has been focused on doing well on flawed tests to insure the money flowing into one of the wealthiest, "best" school systems in the country. I had always naively assumed that attending the best school in this district meant that I had a high-quality education. I even believed that Howard County was exempt or unswayed by the accountability pressures of legislation based on standardized testing. Being in upper-level classes has blinded me to the fact that no district anywhere is immune to this sweeping epidemic.

What if the only reason I'm a strong test-taker is because my education has forced me to become one? In fact, my one poor experience with standardized testing was the test in fifth grade to get into Gifted & Talented (GT) level classes for middle school. Despite the fact that my academic performance indicated otherwise, the test said that I shouldn't be in GT classes in middle school. Fortunately, my teachers were able to waive that decision and now I am a high school senior who has excelled in her GT and AP level courses. But what if they hadn't been able to? Where would I be?

My work in this area hasn't exactly had its intended effect-- I am now starting to feel as though I don't want to be a teacher in a time of extreme bureaucratic intervention. But this has truly become a topic I am fired up about...I anticipate my paper to be embarrassingly long, since there are just SO. MANY. THINGS. TO. SAY.

I don't think this post really communicated my epiphanies well, but I felt the need to try to share anyway. :)

As much as I've tried, I just can't enjoy most of the Christmas season. I hate the crowded parking lots, I hate dealing with long lines of obnoxious customers at work, I hate the freezing weather (or even worse, snow), I hate bickering over the assembly of the family tree, and I hate trying to figure out what presents to give to others.

What irks me the most is that the time of year supposedly centered around the birth of Jesus and his good deeds instead brings out the worst in people. Two mothers got into a fist fight at the local mall over a parking space on Black Friday. People have yelled at me when we don't have any more of the stupid flashing Christmas light necklaces left at work. As Huck Finn said, "human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

The one sliver of time that feels free of the merciless commercialism and acts of hostility is the night of Christmas Eve. I only feel God's presence in this entire retail-driven month when the lights are dimmed at the end of my church's service, lit candles are passed, and the congregation sings "Silent Night" together. In those four minutes or so, I forget all my doubts about my faith and just know there has to be something up there that has blessed me. One of the few adjectives to describe it is purely magical.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

As an exercise in dication, my Spanish teacher handed out sixteen tiny slips of paper, one for each student. We took turns reading our sentences twice, lentamente, with our best possible pronunciation to aid our peers in spelling and accenting every word correctly.

After writing down twelve other phrases and nervously folding the edges of my paper, it was finally my turn.

#13: Siempre se puede poner más esfuerzo en la vida personal.

I did not even bother to think about the meaning of the sentence during the dictation activity; I could only dig into the nuance of every word to secure a four out of four for reading my sentence aloud perfectly.

El profesor didn't want the slips back at the end of class, so as I dashed out of the room to English class, I let it fall between the various binders crammed into my backpack and immediately forgot about it, turning my attention to my upcoming test next period.

Today the paper fell out of my backpack as I pulled out my Spanish binder, and not knowing what else to do with it, I randomly set it on a shelf above the computer where its folded edges allowed it to stand.

An hour or so later, I sat down to write a paper, feeling lazy and uninspired. I read the sentence again.

Siempre se puede poner más esfuerzo en la vida personal.
Roughly, "you can always put forth more effort in your life."

Indeed.

I know a lot of people who herald it, worship it, pray for it to somehow interrupt the daily grind. Me, I'm not so sure.

All day long "snow!!" was the buzz-word. In English we designated a person to go outside and report back on the accumulation and state of the roads-- perhaps an early dismissal was in order? If anyone were to visit the school and overhear the excited chatter, he or she would expect to find themself surrounded by fifth graders. But nope, twas the discussion between 17 year olds.

Generally, I am a Snow Grinch. I despise cold weather, and snow just epitomizes everything I despise about the season. Days of summer vacation get taken away-- which is one of the worst things anyone could ever do to me-- and my schedule gets thrown off. This year my anxiety has only grown with the possession of a driver's license and an internship in a school which requires a certain number of hours each month. Any delay, early dismissal, or worst of all, day off, somehow ALWAYS fucks me over in almost every single area possible in my life.

At the same time, I understand the magic. If I hadn't been so busy trying to find a spot where I could actually see out my windshield, I might have been able to enjoy driving through the neighborhoods with pine trees beautifully blanketed in white. It's especially peaceful to watch the scene through my family room window, warm and unaffected in my pajamas and an oversized comforter.

And hey, maybe this will get me out of working tonight? *prays!!*