“Oh! So that reminds me. Have any of you ever taken a CPR class? or you know CPR? Yeah. Ok. It’s a good thing to know. So, anyway. I used to be a lifeguard at this pool, and every now and then this guy, Chris Porter — he’s such a jerk, which is weird cause his brother is like the nicest guy — would come to the pool to make sure the lifeguard is doing his job. So he’d like pretend to drown and stuff, and I’d have to save him. Cause I was the lifeguard.

“So sometimes, he’d come to the pool when I was there and yell stupid stuff like ‘There’s a dead baby choking on a hot dog in the bathroom!’ Which is logical because when most babies get bored at the pool, they go to the bathroom and eat hot dogs. Or buffalo wings or something. Anyway, dead babies aren’t funny.

“So back to CPR, you know how they teach you to do CPR on babies? And if the baby’s choking you can’t just tear it’s mouth open and pour the food out, cause that would hurt, and it would just be weird. So you’ve got to do two little pushes with your fingers, and get the food out!

“So one time, he runs up to the pool with a baby doll, tosses it in the bathroom, and runs to me yelling: ‘Mike! There’s a dead baby choking on baby back ribs in the bathroom! Help!’ So I’m like ‘ugh!’ Dead babies.

“So I have to run into the bathroom and check the dead baby — who gives dead babies CPR? — and I have to open the airway. So I can’t just stick all my fingers in there and pull the ribs out. They teach you at CPR class, right? You have to curl your pinky. Like this. See? And then you just barely push it in the dead baby’s mouth and slowly pull the ribs out. Right?

“So when you’re holding your bow…”

–My orchestra teacher, Mr. Giel, on how to hold your bow (with proper pinky technique!)

edit: geez people. I have an average of 1.6 comments per post. This deeply saddens me.
BTW, be careful who you choose as friends. You have no idea how much they can impact your life. And how soon they can do it. And that’s not always a good thing.

Basically, we sold the house last night. We have to leave before September 15th…

I need to read, cut the grass, practice violin, and take a shower. And I hear we’re going to IKEA too…

Who reads this??

edit: Not 10 minutes ago, my toes were attacked by ants. They’re already swollen like nobody’s business. And they don’t itch, they sting, so that’s not very good…

Counting down to summer already I guess. 285 days if you’re interested, not sure how many school days though.

Anyhow, this week was excruciatingly long. Each day progressively got better, though. So I guess that would be good?

However, I’ve already gotten to the point where I walk into 1st period hoping we’ll take notes till the bell, so I can go do it 5 more times. But hey, my first week at Dacula was pretty lame too.

Let’s be optimistic:

• Coach Klinect is pretty cool I guess. The subject can be somewhat interesting, though I’m not terribly fond of all the reading… or any reading. And, hey, my first grade was a 72 (+10!!), so that can only mean good things
• Still stuck in Honors Eng, but if I can’t move, it’ll be easy Some ditzy blondes sit at my table (we have circle tables!) and I like to laugh at their stupidity.
• Algebra is still easy. Plus my teacher makes a lot of mistakes. And gives tons of easy extra credit. Which you know I definitely need.
• Well… Dr. Pritchard is obviously a doctor for a reason, but Mr. Giel is aawesome. If he was 15 or 20 years younger, we’d probably be friends. I’m not fond of the class though. We only get to play like 10 minutes a day because it’s virtually impossible for the whole class to play together at this point… Ah well
• Lunch got better today. I found the kid that will eventually live across the street from me at lunch today. He brought up home automation systems (because apparently they have one), so I’m not sure if he just wanted to tell someone about it, or if he’s interested in geeky stuff like that. Let’s hope for geek.
• Chemistry is somewhat interesting, and the teacher isn’t terribly over-demanding. The way she talks is sort of annoying, but oh well… She let us watch part of Indiana Jones so we could figure out the density of the idol the other day. Maybe she was just trying to get us to like her…
• Spanish is basically my favorite class since it’s easy (thus far) and I have basically no homework. I sit next to Ricardo (James?) and he seems pretty cool.

I still think there’s something weird about all these kids at Brookwood… Maybe it’s just because it’s the beginning of the year, but everyone seems a little too… good? Like you know when your math teacher asks what the next step is and everyone (except like one kid) just stares at her and waits for her to answer the question herself? Basically everyone here answers. Maybe I’m just overanalyzing or it’s just my luck with classmates… but who knows…

Stuff to do:

• Read some pages for World Hist
• Probably reread my summer reading book…
• Piano
• Read driver’s book

And I think that’s it.

Some people are sending an offer on the house tonight. I’m confused as to whether or not this is good. I’m already getting sick of being driven to and from school… It takes too long!
So I hope it works out.

~Ramón

I’m going to try and make this not too long, but it’ll take a while…
LISTS!!!

Let’s start with… psychoanalyzing every period!

1. AP World – Teacher is pretty cool… not terribly interested in the subject or all the reading I’m going to have to do… test tomorrow! :O ugh
2. Honors English – Teacher is crazy! She’s like really anal about everything and far too neat, organized, and overachieving. I’m hoping I can get into a Gifted class pretty soon…
3. Gifted Algebra II – Small class. Sort of boring teacher… but it’s Algebra! yes! Easy class!
4. Concert Orch – Well… the teachers are pretty cool. Dr. Pritchard seems sort of lame, but Mr. Giel is a playa! The class is really big… like 70 people I think! Huge change compared to 15 last year… Guess which one I liked better… I’m hoping my audition tomorrow will be good, and I can get into Symphonic.
5. Gifted Chem – Lunch was before this period. That put me in a pretty bad mood… I can tell I really don’t like the teacher. She’s boring, stiff, and… boring. In one day, she told us like 4 stories about her family which she apparently found hilarious… but she was the only one. We have “study hall” during this period, which was quite different from what I was used to, if you know what I mean. She made us read and stared at us the whole time. The only good news is that if I can get into Symphonic, I’ll have to at least change into another period and hopefully another teacher…
6. Spanish I – Teacher seems to be very nice. And my name is Ramón. Too bad they’re all freshmen… :/

Things I’m not terribly fond of:

• History
• Mrs. Ramey, the English teacher
• Mrs. Santoianni, the Chem teacher
• Lunch… no comment
• Orchestra audition

Things that were cool:

• It’s my birthday. My teacher gave me a kid’s meal toy. Barrel of Monkeys.
• We got a copy of our transcripts to show our teachers (so a gifted kid isn’t in a tech class), and at the bottom it said… “Class rank is 1 of 846″ HOLY CRAP!!! I was definitely not expecting that! Hopefully it won’t drop this year since Brookwood is statistically a better school, thought I suppose that means it should go up… WHO CARES! 1!
• My name is Ramón.
• I got off at my future home’s bus stop, and met this kid named either: Joaquin or Joaquim. I think. Heh… maybe he’ll read this someday. But this really put me in a better mood… I’ve never had a kid in my neighborhood in the same grade as me that was not: a weird emo/druggie kid, a jock, a weird jock/emo/druggie kid, or female. This kid seems pretty cool. He’s a sophomore too, and he told me he went to Grayson HS last year, so we have that whole “Hey I have no friends” trait in common. Darn. I should’ve asked him what lunch he had…

Alright… stuff to do now:

• Shower
• Piano
• Practice violin for audition
• Get crap signed
• Maybe study for Old World Encounters quiz/test?
• Eat my cheesecake

Comment if you’re uber cool. Like me.
~Ramón

edit: Why does my orchestra teacher’s resumé look like this and not say “Alcoholic, Cigarette Addict, Clumsy, and Fashion Impaired”? I was thinking about it today, and other than 9th grade, I never really liked orchestra that much. I’ve never found it that enjoyable, mainly because I’ve never really had many friends in the class and most people don’t really care about the music. I’m thinking about dropping out after this year, which I might have already done this year, but I don’t want to disappoint my parents. My violin was pretty expensive…
I like piano much more anyway… :/
I’m so confused!