A New Year

Happy New Years!
So 2011 is going to bring at least three major events.
1. In Six months and eight days I will be graduating from high school.
2. I will be entering college and living somewhere completely new regardless of where I go. I may be living in the middle of nowhere or I may be living in the middle of one of my favorite cities. But that's a bit of a difficult choice since right now I live an hour from the city so I live in a very rural area which will be a big transition.
3. And finally, I will be turning eighteen, which is just exciting in general.

It's definitely going to be a year of changes.
I'm excited but cautious and determined to remain focused on what I need to be doing.
Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can let you in on that secret.

I have mid-years coming up around the end of this month which should not be too painful.

I spent New Year's Eve at my best friend Jessie's house celebrating her birthday and eating lots of Chinese food.

Final announcement:
I started another blog, I feel like it will actually help me focus on keeping updated here.
http://talesofeiggam.blogspot.com/
Check it out if you wish.

Peace, Love and Rabbits,
Maggie

Can you guess?

Merry Christmas EVERYONE!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas Break

It's almost Christmas and that means I am officially on break.
Which means applying for scholarships and my friend's annual sleepover for her birthday. I'm sort of sad it will be the last one where we're all together. I'm sure I'll go by next year but I can't vouch for the others' plans.
I cannot believe all the work I have been doing since Thanksgiving.
I have had papers nearly every night and I was sick for awhile also. This senior year is not going as smoothly as I thought it would be. I'm getting used to all these papers.
I have all my applications out, I still have to send my SAT scores to one college though. I know that everyone decides by May, but I really don't want to wait that long. I'd like to have my decision by March so I can tell people where I'm going when they keep asking: "WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO COLLEGE!?" but right now, I'm not positive.

I still have that secret but I have to wait a little bit longer. I'm sure you could guess what it is but I am holding out for Christmas or New Years. I haven't come to a decision on which holiday yet.

Speaking of the holidays, my favorite part of them is visiting my family. My closest family is an hour and a forty-five minute boat ride away. Then the distances steadily increase. Because of this, I don't see my relatives all that often. I usually see my aunt and grandparents once a month, but I only see my mom's side of the family once a year. And that's at Christmastime. It's such a great time to see my family!

This is how my break WILL go:
-Make Snowflakes.
-Drink lots of tea and coffee (but not together).
-Color (I'm an avid colorer, I bet you didn't know that now did you! These are the things that you NEED to know about me.)
-Watch lots of films.
-Start working on my other blog (http://talesofeiggam.blogspot.com/)
-Write a lot.
-And of course, listen to music.

And that should fill up the next two weeks pretty well. Not extremely productive to some but I NEED this vacation.

I love snow, but for some reason we aren't getting a lot. We got about half an inch over the past couple days. But now it's raining and has all disappeared. This is not my idea of a pretty Christmas. I like snow on Christmas but the last time I saw snow on Christmas, I was nine.

Well Merry Christmas!
I'll be posting next week also.

Peace, Love and Reindeers,
Maggie

Your Last Expectation

So I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm thankful for my dog not dying after getting hit by a car and seriously injured and I'm thankful that he is back to his normal self.
How's that for an intro?
I had a really marvelous time at my family's up in the middle of nowhere New England.
This is how my day went:
Went to the grocery store/got coffee in the morning with my aunt and cousin Jessica.
They shortchanged my aunt twenty dollars and we had to go back.
Barely made it in time for the meal.
At the meal my brother disappeared (he's 31 so it wasn't a scary situation--calm down)
Turns out my dear brother Joel got ill right before he started to eat and went to lie down upstairs.
I ate lunch then graded papers with my cousin Stephanie for her third-graders until 8 at night.
Then we saw "The Next Three Days" and if you have not seen it yet you are missing out big time.
I went to bed at 1 am and got up at 6:30 am for Black Friday.

Wonderful day.

My brother Jason, his wife Sara and their little girl Ava went down to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving sadly. I missed them a lot because we have gotten very close since Jay became sick. He's doing a lot better though. Watching what he eats still and Sara tells us he looks fantastic now.

I have some secrets I'm keeping from you all for a little while. But I will fill you in soon, maybe by Christmas. I'd love to tell you now but let's keep it quiet.

Cue the excuses.
I'm sorry I haven't posted. I've been having a really busy year. My principal had been very tough on our class this year and won't let us fundraise for prom, class trip, or yearbook. It's getting ridiculous. She also has told us we need to meet with her on a certain day and when we try to she refuses to talk with us. I've also been busy getting things done before this break and I actually am procrastinating on a paper due in a couple days in my government class. It's not a major paper. Just a bit of a nuisance.

My school has been difficult about the application process right now. They refuse to send things out until people contact them saying it's getting late. This does not make sense to me. I am not a fan of my school at the moment.

It's been a rough couple months but there's been a few positive notes. I'm ready for a real vacation. I was on full throttle this entire break so I haven't had a moment to pause yet. I thought I'd update you all before I slowed down. Tomorrow I'll take it easier. Scout's honor. I'm not a scout though. So strike that. I promise. There you go.

I love this picture. Not so sure who it's by but it reminds me of Les enfants du paradis, which is my all time favorite film.

Peace, Love, and Gazelles,
Maggie

Thought to be overactive nerves.

So I sent out my applications.
Kind of.
I still need to get my transcripts and recommendation letters sent.
I did my essays and I am hoping they went alright. I didn't want to ask my new literature teacher to review them because he has been looking really critically and negatively at my writing recently and I don't need any more negativity than I put on my college process myself. He's partially why I have not been writing on my blog because he really had been putting me down as a writer in the past couple months. Needless to say, he is not my favorite at the moment and not the person I would use to review my college essay. I had my dad look it over instead. He said he thought it was excellent and that was good enough for me.
Now the only thing that is left is to wait, and wait, and wait.
All of my insides will be upside down until I get an answer, hopefully good. Knock on wood. Kiss a frog. No black cats. Closed umbrellas. Throw salt over your left shoulder. And all that jazz.
Peace, Love and Porcupines,
Maggie

Half way into the exit.

Hey there Blogworld-
I'm back from the great beyond.
I have been uncharacteristically busy recently. Let's go over the basics:
-I am now seventeen years old. Write it down everyone, that's important stuff right there I tell you.
- I got my driver's license. Today. Most nerve-wracking experience and even though it took only five minutes it was painful.
- I started my college class. Yesterday we learned how to do hat tricks. I think I might be able to get a decent grade in it.
- School would be fatal if you took away my best friend. Thanks, Jessie.

I got invited to pages.videojug.com by the editor Jemma. That is exciting.
I also realized I got a job offer in my email. Unfortunately it is only for a Halloween store that will be closing in a couple weeks. Got put into spam. And it was sent two weeks ago. SO thanks a lot technology. You are very unhelpful when it comes to job hunting.
I still have not started my college essays. Even thought they aren't due to December and I get severely stressed out whenever someone brings them up. Apparently this makes me a slacker.

I looked at MCLA a couple weeks ago and I love it there, but I also love Franklin Pierce University, so we're going to have see what happens. I'll definitely keep you posted on that though.

Oh and my brother is doing better. He has Crohn's Disease. So he has to watch what he eats.

Peace, Love and Walruses,
Maggie

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. " - Jim Rohn

I admit I do not have any clue who Jim Rohn is. But I like the quote because it pretty much sums up how I feel about school.
I completed the first "week" (it really was only three days but I'm going to run with this if you don't mind) back. It was pretty good. I went back Wednesday and had homework from six o'clock until ten o'clock. But the actual day was fantastic and I would not trade it for anything. It was probably the best first day back to school since second grade.
The teachers however have not been making the transition back the least bit easy on us. Let's put it this way: I had three papers due the very next day and they instituted a "Zero Tolerance Late Work Policy". We get a twenty percent reduction if we turn it in late the first time, but the second time we get a zero and still have to complete the homework after school with the teacher and they call your parents. I have never turned in homework late before but now I am just absolutely terrified.
Thursday dragged on for so long though. I do not have any clue why but it seemed to go on forever. I was so tired by the end of it but after that Friday was great. We read "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe in Literature which is one of my absolute favorites.
This year may be tough but I think I'm up for it. Let's hope.
Peace, Love, and Ravens,
Maggie