~The Music of My Life~

Thursday, May 27, 2004

In Between and Out of It

I'm working on Democracy extra credit so I can cushion myself for a garenteed A. Right now I have a 92% which means I'm getting an A- and during the term it's dropped down to 90% so at least I haven't gotten any lower than the lowest A-. I've never really been very grade conscientious (yes, that's how it's spelt) but lately I've decided if I can get a really good grade I don't care if it means I have to bust my butt to achieve it. I'm searching around for articles to print out and write summaries on for extra credit. Even though each one is only worth 1 pt it makes a difference because the ciriculum is only based on around 400 pts which means less points equal more of the grade. Which also means my last project is worth 12.5% of my grade because it's worth 50 pts. Ms. Vick-Martini said we can raise our grade a full letter with as much extra credit as that requires which means all I have to do is keep up my A- and get A's on all of my tests and my final project and I'll get an A. Psh, all I have to do, yea right.

*sigh* If anyone's wondering why I'm blabbing about meaningless grades it's because I'm trying to keep my mind devoided from a particular topic at the moment. This morning I woke up to a lot of sirens. The sirens continued even until after I took my shower (considering it only lasted about 5 minutes because Ben and Kate both needed one too). I looked up at the hwy as I was getting dressed and I saw the lights flashing just past the renters' house. I told my mom and we both just assumed it was a car accident and so my mom called the renters to see if her kids were ok because our second thought was that they wait for the bus and they could've gotten hit by a car or something and we found out they were ok but the cars and ambulance were at our neighbors house. My mom called there immediately and Bonnie answered and told my mom that Charlie had passed away during the night and my mom started crying and freaking out and then I heard and I started bawling and Kate was crying too.

I just thought to myself, I've known that man almost my whole life. Ever since we moved up into the house on the hwy right next to them when I was about 3 years old until now. He'd always walk Molly, his collie(who died a couple of years ago and then he got a new collie)and I'd take Shadow out and talk to him or I'd help him pick up sticks so he could mow his lawn. I especially remembered the time lighting struck one of his trees and we all went over to his house and helped him clean up. My dad got out the chainsaw and cut down the damaged branch and we hauled it off. Every year he'd put up lights in an ornate display for Christmas. Charlie also gave us his paddle boat because he could no longer use it and he was so happy to know we loved it. He was always so nice to us and I loved talking to him.

So that is why I was tremendously upset today. I broke down in tears many times and I ended up leaving near the end of second hour because I couldn't stand being there and crying in front of everyone. Then I got really paranoid that they'd think it was something trivial like breaking up with Job although that isn't trivial to me it is to everyone else. I gave myself the worst headache and since I'm already sick the crying was really doing a job on my sinuses. I was so happy Job was there today for me. I told a few people and they were very understanding... Katie Barbian, Kayla, Kaitlin, Heather, and Bex all gave me hugs. I ended up telling Bex when I broke down in tears on my way to the office and the first thing he did was hug me which was pretty unexpected. After first hour I was sick of the sympathy/empathy and I just didn't want to keep dwelling on it there. Quite a few people saw me crying too like Job's entire German class, a bunch of people from my Oral Interp class, almost everyone in Wind Ensemble, and Concert Band, and random people in the halls. Kate also skipped her trip to Wausau 1st hour and attended Wind Ensemble with me.

Thanks for reading but I have to get back to my extra credit. Sooner or later I'm going to have to work on that project which includes a big visual aid, 5 minute speech, and answer topic questions from the group sheet. Although it's a group project we do absolutely nothing group related *shrugs* better that it's all up to me so I only have to do my work and not my groups.

Mandy ~ 6:08 PM