this computer hates me

every time I try to close something out it explodes into an evil mac preview of all the pages i have open. it is incredibly difficult to work with. We were trying to figure out what to write about in this post, but all we've done so far this break is watch discovery channel. although we did watch a pretty cool show about whale sharks.
WHALE SHARKS ARE AWESOME!

sweet, huh? world's largest fish. other than that we just watched mythbusters, in fact we watched mythbusters for like 5 hours yesterday.

mythbusters are also pretty awesome! (and very serious about this photo)

and I mean, Christmas also happened, but nothing cool ever happens then right? 

Okay, I was just going to leave it at that but I got really cool things for Christmas, so I just wanted to let you know that. Lauren also got cool stuff but she can never think of things to talk about on this thing. Maybe she will finally post later this week.

We also got a video camera so we will be making lotss of music videos soon yayaya!

Cheers,

Cayla

change

humans don't handle change well. it's hardwired into our systems to not accept change, it has something to do with back in our hominid stages when things changes (like the weather) we were supposed to react. I'm just kidding, that sentence is completely ridiculous, we are still hominids, so are monkeys (monkies?) but I actually googled "why people can't accept change" and nothing good came up so I just made something up. but anyway, back to not liking change. when things start to change out of our control, it is accompanied by a very uncomfortable feeling. like when you cut your hair really short and can't stop grabbing at it even though it's not there anymore, or when it starts to get colder and people that you had just met start wearing sweatshirts and jeans and it's weird because you aren't used to seeing them in coats, or when someone new moves to town and they say "rummage sale" instead of "garage sale". all of these minor things can cause a small amount anxiety, similar to the feelings of despair and confusion that accompany any new facebook update i.e. the changing of the "be a fan of" button to "like". but there are also bigger things, the more common causes of change anxiety like moving to a new town, breaking up with your boyfriend, other scary things. I thought of this today because I received a info package from DePaul University and the little letter that came with it said "I'm impressed that you are thinking about college so soon!" WHAT! According to every single thing they have told me at school and read on college websites has told me that I am too late to ever receive a good education because I have not already enrolled in an SAT preparation course and have allowed myself to get 3 B's. But this letter from this college has simply reminded me that I have plenty of time to not freak out about college and I don't have to accept this change for quite sometime! yay!!
But back to more amusing topics, today we were watching this show about this guy who almost starved to death in a cave even though he was only like 600 yards from the exit of the cave. and I mentioned that The Donner Party was only 6 miles from the nearest town. Then we kind of awkwardly chuckled because it was ironic but it also a bit of a taboo to bring up the Donner Party ever because it is such an uncomfortable topic. (did you know one of the guys opened up a restaurant after the whole thing? insert more awkward chuckles). But somehow, later on, when I left my mother and younger sister in the kitchen while I was on stumbleupon looking at weird ways people have died (okay so this is probably more strange then what I am about to tell you, but it really just came up and it was what I was actually looking at when this happened) my sister came in to ask if I could log her back on to lauren's computer because lauren wasn't there and I was the only other one that knew that password. So I walk out there and type in lauren's password and a page popped up where they had been searching the illuminati. oh, it's fine, I'll wait while you google illuminati. I refuse to explain what it is because I think it is so utterly ridiculous. So, back to the story, I expressed my disdain to my mother about their choices of topics, which had apparently sprung from my mention of the Donner Party earlier. Then, my mother proceeded to tell me that the illuminati was, in fact, real and were responsible for a lot of things, like the deaths of Marilyn Monroe and JFK and I should just ask my grandpa, who was in the FBI. ....right. I don't believe in this kind of crap. But I guess I am one of those skeptical people who don't really believe in all that kind if stuff: ghosts, aliens, romantic comedies. none of them really hold any water. Or at least not ghosts in my house or intelligent life on other planets. I do believe in capitalizing the word I though. as you can see I don't really ever capitalize anything else but it annoys me so much when people don't capitalize I. there was a perfectly good blog that I could not read because they were all about i and not I. I bet they also believe in love at first sight or whatever.

oh, look it's a gibbon! the only type of monkey to not be in the hominide family! which apparently not the correct spelling for what I am trying to get across, but I mean, isn't this a nice looking monkey?

Cheers,
Cayla

ghost party

right now I'm frozen on my couch because as I was sitting here doing some online christmas shopping, a very strange thing happened. our ceiling fans have these little buttons that turn them on, and when you turn them on or change the level, they make a little beeping sound. so I was just sitting here searching for gifts when I hear "BEEEEP". I nervously glance upward and see the two ceiling fans above me spinning rapidly. needless to say, I started freaking out. One of them has stopped, which is even odder, but  the other is still going. out of everyone in my family, I have the strongest belief in ghost/supernatural because the weirdest things always happen to me. these things can probably be explained rationally, but maybe not. all I can say is that I hope the fans decide to stay dormant until the rest of my family gets home, but as for now I really have to pee but can't bring myself to get up and walk across the family room to the bathroom.

tomorrow I have my last final (italian, the worsttt class in history) and then I'm FINISHED. when this semester started, I had enough credits to be considered a junior because of the college courses I took in high school. I decided that I would still consider myself a sophomore, but now that this semester's over I'm halfway to being a senior (!!!!) so next semester I will officially call myself a junior. JUNIOR. whether I graduate early is still to be decided, but one thing is for certain,

I AM GETTING OLD.

it's a little unsettling at times, but also quite exciting. alright, now to get to what I really wanted to write this blog about.

a few weekends ago we decorated for christmas at my dad's house. this consisted of us building a fire, dragging out all the stuff from the garage, then putting on a football game and getting distracted for a good 45 minutes. I must say though, the fire that my dad and I built was rather magnificent. 

then we finally managed to sort out all the boxes and start putting some stuff up. if anything represents our family more, it's our way of storing christmas decorations:

yeah... what can I say though, I suppose it's in our blood. we finally managed to pull ourselves off the couch and away from the football game and started unpacking boxes. my sisters, my dad's girlfriend julie, and I set up the tree and put the lights on while my dad "supervised". madelyn and julie put up a million strands of garland, then my dad and I put up the ornaments while everyone else ate some pie. after all of our immensely hard work, the tree looked really nice. we threw up some more decorations, but were kind of burnt out after the tree escapade. I don't have any pictures of the tree, but I do have a picture of a present that one of my little girls put under her christmas tree

it's kind of hard to read, but it says "Teddy". there are at least five presents under their tree with teddy's name on them, this one I think was a blanket, while another was some plastic rhinestone gems that she found. adorable adorable adorable.

nothing ghostly has happened in my house since the fans, so I think it's safe to say I'm going to live and can leave the couch. and start studying italian? nahh

cheers,

lauren

exempting a final

means you don't have to take it because your grade is high enough that the teacher thinks you know enough of the material so you don't need to waste your time on studying.
you are not allowed to exempt math and foreign language finals because those will probably be pretty hard and stress-inducing and teachers would definitely not want carefree students right before break.
Now, I am been a  wonderful student this semester and am currently I am in standings to exempt 3 of my finals (not including math and spanish, because you just can't), which usually entails a 95% average for the semester, possibly with a gold card. which is a little card they give you when you have good grades to let you know that you are better than everyone else. And I am 0.4% away from exempting another final.
Let's start with my history final, I am definitely not taking it because history is my favorite class so I get good grades, yay. I also have a like 96 average in my chem class, but a couple days ago my chem teacher was like "you guys can't exempt the final because you can take the class for college credit" and the entire class goes "WHATATTTTTTTTT" because a lot of the kids in my class are doing pretty good and I'm also taking history for college cred & as said before I'm not taking it, plus I am not even taking this class for college credit. also may I mention that this is not a college level class, it's community college credit so it just counts a credit, but like a "I need a science but I failed chemistry in high school so I have to take it again at this community college so I can know enough to pass the lowest level of college credit chem" class. So we start yelling at him and he says "I'm just doing what the department head tells me to do". really chem teacher? you are going to wait until right now to do what everyone tells you to? so you teach us your "own way" so that none of my friends in other chem classes know what I'm talking about, openly bash all school sports other than football, and say ra-tard in fron of the special needs girl in our class, but you wan't let us exempt the final? way to stick to the status quo.
next is one that it simply the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to me ever. I have no idea what my grade in child development is. My stupid teacher's brain is clearly not developed enough to use a computer because I have only ever heard about my grade once when it was mandatory to email them out. and she won't tell us what they are in class, because she is an idiot. but anyway, last I checked my grade was a 98% , so I clearly don't have to take the final. and on the last test I got 112% so clearly I know stuff. So I have been harassing her about exempting the final, and after 2 weeks of avoiding me she is like "I'm not going to let all of you exempt the final even though about 65% of you have over 100 because the girls in the advanced class have to take a statewide test"
...... just take it in.... that was her reason.....
so after she told me, I quietly walked back to my chair and looked for a way to outlet the pure rage that was bubbling up inside the very deepest realms of my soul. I asked my friend for a piece of gum and furiously chomped on it even though we aren't allowed to have gum in her class. eff her rules. I have never missed more than 2 on any of her tests and she is making me take an entire final, not because it was unfair that the girls had to take a test and we didn't, but because they did really crappy on it and she is making us take this final as a "practice test" so when we take the advanced class next year we will do better!
over my dead, cold, being eaten by hogs on the battlefield body I will take this class again next year.
and before I start tearing apart the keyboard, my english teacher currently won't let me exempt the final because I have to have a 95 both quarters and I have a 97 and a 94.1. it would totally average, but that would be easy.

So now that you've listened to me whine about my good grades and how I have to take another test :(((((
I hope everyone is doing well on their finals and does do well or did do well!
finals are evil

Cheers,
Cayla

i have a 50 question chem test tomorrow, why do all my teacher hate me?
well i bet college is harder, so i will probably stop complaining now so i can have some friends left to talk to when i actually get there

this is whAt happens when i get reallty tired

my family does this thing that whenever they have something to tell you and they are in a different room than you they call you, then you ask them what, then they tell you that you really really need to get off your bed and come alll the way downstairs. so you get down there and they are like, I made you a doctor's appointment for tuesday. and you are like... and? and they are like that's it. So you had to come all the way onto another room just so they could tell you something that they could have easily told you while screaming at you to come downstairs. it is reallly irritating.
Yesterday, as to meet my monthly quota of going out and being social, I went to a concert with my friends. I don't know who we actually saw but it was in a movie theatre in tempe off of mill and it was soooooo indie. then when we were walking out of the show I saw this really weird statue so we had to go over and look at it. turns out it was a giant jackrabbit. there was 3 of them all around a little pond/waterfall thing. it was incredibly strange. then we discovered a giant christmas tree that I never knew existed. After that we were walking back to the car and my friends denied me ice cream sandwiches. who does that? so instead we went into a creepy graffiti shop, then we went into fat burger and they got milkshakes. who would pick a milkshake over an ice cream sandwich? I was a little miffed over that so I pretended that I wasn't so thirsty that I wanted to die and didn't get anything. then we went home and I collapsed into sleep, because the caffeine in the coke I had at dinner could only hold me for so long. See I was so tired this week because I had a huge paper due on friday and I didn't really remember anything about it until that monday, even though it was assigned like 3 weeks ago. I had a lot of homework on monday and tuesday, mostly because I had a reading test in history, so even though I told myslef I wouldn't put the paper off until the last minute, I didn't do anything on monday or tuesday. so on wednesday I promised myself I would work on the paper, but my english techer decided to make our binders (which have all of our stuff for the whole unit in them) due on thursday. well I didn't have a single thing in my binder currently and it was all kind of scattered around my backpacks, and turns out I didn't even actually have 1/3 of it. so I spent almost the whole night doing that/spanish homework. then I managed to pound out about 200 words of my essay, after rewriting the intro 4 times. then, on thursday, it was crunch time, I needed 300 more words or I would not get crdit. but then my teacher decided to destroy my entire life my assigned another, shorter essay ON THE SAME NIGHT! what the heck. I truly do not understand, but after 4 1/2 agonizing hours sitting at my computer, I actually managed to finish both papers, my spanish homework, and some of my chemistry homeowrk (okay so I did one problem but that is irrevelent). so basically I was really tired, but I forced myself to be social because one I never see these friend becasue they go to a different school and 2 I'm terrified that I will have no soical-related hgih school memories so whenever my friend invite me to something that sound memorable, I jump on it. random indie concert on mill late at night + dinner before? sounds pretty memorable to me, but it actually wasn't that exciting, I actually almost fell asleep during the last band because I was sittin in a comfy movie theatre chair that leaned back. but we can just pretend.

I just realized that the other paper I had to write was actually assigned on wednesday, but i'm not going to change IT BECAUSE WHEN i GET REALLY TIRED i START TO SPELL WORDS LIKE "SPELL" "JUST" AND "PRETEND" WRONG THEN i HAVE TO GO BACK AND FIX THEM THEN i ACCIDENTALLY HIT CAPS LOCK, WHICH YOU CAN'T FIX MY HIGHLIGHTING, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO RETYPE IT.

 well goodnight

cheers,
cayla