How unlike me, not posting on my birthday. I guess I'm changing. Or getting lazy. Whatever.

I am posting from school! For some reason, the GISD firewall blocking xanga no longer exists! (It used to, I've checked before.) In light of the situation, I shall write during my aiding period although I really should be annotating Othello.

Short recap on my birthday party last Saturday. Fatima comes to my house 40 minutes late acting all cool. She says Julia just texted her saying that she was in Irving on some family business. And I'm kind of pissed. As Fatima lounged on the lliving sofa and I straightened my hair in the bathroom, something catches the corner of my eye in the reflection of the mirror. The miror reflected my room which was behind me. The space between the blinds kept flickering pink. It looked like someone had toilet papered our house again, except with pink streamers?

I walk outside, and there is Julia taping (littering) hot pink streamers and pink ballons to my house and the grass. She barricaded the door with streamers, of which I slid under to look at my house. She told me I was supposed to rip through the streamers, so I did. It was rather funny. She then told me to then follow the balloons. Apparently she had made a balloon path for me to follow. This was kind of exciting, until I realized there were only 3 balloons to follow and the present at the end was white-out tape. Thanks, Julia.

Nadia comes soon after and we commence watching The Proposal and eating Ruffles with a mixture of salsa-french-onion-bean dip. Julia attempted to finish straightening the rest of my hair out as we watchd the film. I guess she was quite successful. I just loved having her deal with African hair for the first time and being astounded by how much gel (ke'bat) goes into our ever-so-dry hair. After the movie, we played some good-old-fashioned Smash Bros. on the N64. I totally owned everyone, of course.

At 6 pm, we piled in our cars and headed off to Firewheel, after almost dying in the car first (with Fatima stopping at a red light and all). We stopped by Papaya until our 7 o'clock reservations at Houlihan's and met up with Mawerdi celebrating her birthday with Niya, Binnet and Binnet (hah, two Binnets).

Houlihan has a pathetic menu. I recommend not going there ever. So I order the Rosemary chicken for 17 bucks. And all it was was a slab of brest meat too dry and salty for my tastes. They ran out of mashed ptatoes, so I had to settle with some weird mix between cold pasta/rice. And the side of artichokes were raw and bitter. Terrible. But anyways, while we were waiting on our food, Julia gets up saying she needs to go to the bathroom. She comes back two seconds later. That was fast. It turns out she had told one of the waitresses it was my birthday and wanted them to do one of those embarassing "Happy Birthday" singing. They didn't. It would have been nice. She instead came up and was like:

Waitress: Who's birthday is it?
Me: Mine.
Waitress: Oh okay. Well you get one free miniture dessert from our oh-so-pathetic menu.
Me: Oh, okay.
Waitress: At least I didn't have to embarrass you, right?

Just don't ever go to Houlihan, okay?

Oh, interesting note. When we arrived at the mall, there was this blue minvan that drivers's seat was unlocked with the keys in the ignition and the engine running. RUNNING. We decided to ignore it, judging that the owner would come back in no time. One hour and twenty minutes later after dining, we come back to the cars and the van is STILL running. Huh. We write a small note, turn off the ignition and leave the note and keys in the drivers's compartment. We then call security over and leave to check out more stores and take more pictures near the fountain. We come back thirty minutes later, and the van is still there, still open. WOW. As we are about to leave the owners come out--two women. We tell them about their car. They thanked us, but, wow, what? How did you--? Where were you--? WHat--? No, just forget it, Hanan.

That wasn't quite a SHORT recap, but hey. I meant to blog today about my falterring grades and despicalbe work ethic. But I think I can sum that up in a sentence or two:

I'm going to get the first C in my life (not counting 5th grade). I may get TWO C's. In short, I fail. Yay.

Holy crap. Where the hell did the time go? Oh yeah, it was carelessly wasted away studying French, college researching and watching two full seasons of Friends--anything to distract me from what I should have been working on since April: my extended essay. Crap, crap, CRAP! And with three weeks left, will everything magically fall together? That is precisely what I'm aiming for. I think I'll hit a major breaking point soon, in which I will frantically and effectively get things done. I've written most of the introducing chapter, and I have an idea what the next chapter will focus on, but I haven't a clue about what the next will cover. And my poor mentor, Mademoiselle Embler, for having to deal with me.

Once I get back from Memphis on Monday, it's on! Oh, yes, we just got in last night. Abdulhakim and Fakiha came last week from Atlanta, orignally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We escorted them on a nine-hour car drive from Dallas. Their son, Hamza, is amazing. If it weren't for his fob-ness, I don't think I would feel the same about him. This video will explain:

Yeah, that was my cousin, Samit and friend, Sitra recorinding Hamza being, well, Hamza. I'll miss that kid.

With all the visitors and travel, I've seen quite a few of my relatives. And all of them seem to say the same thing: I've grown nicer. I sit down with people, and I smile now, versus the misanthropic, animal I used to be. I totally remember being a total brat, but I didn't realize I was so...bad. I never greeted people, I never talked to people, heck, I even hit some people if they bugged me enough. I figure I've changed for the sole reason that I'm older now. I have an act to keep up--the mature, sensible conversationalist. And I think it's a change for the better.

I did not expect this today. What hecticness.

The day started out well. Well, not really: it began at around 2:30 AM as a I finished my World Lit paper. I finsihed at 5:30 AM. I got 10 minutes of sleep. Then my day started officially. I yanked some clothes on my body and stole my sister's camera. I'm glad I did.

Went on a little camera spree. The school day was fun; it was the last real B-day of my Junior year. I turned in the World Lit Paper befoire 7:30 AM, and that is the end of that and school esentially. I DID IT! I SURVIVED JUNIOR YEAR! Now there's that accursed essay to write. I can do it!


Turning in Physics textbooks, whoo!


Someone was bored.


Tim and wtf.


Julia OOC.


What is she doing?

At the end of the day, Julia asked me if I'd like to go to Weaver to paint the mural we've been working on. I said sure. After TOK, she said she had to go to Felton for something. I said I'd go to the orchestra room to get my exemption form signed. I bumped into Miss Embler, my EE mentor, on the way. We discussed a little about my EE. Mr. Peacock wasn't in the orchestra room. Went to the comp sci room for Technology club's election meeting. Ended up signing in and voting Julia as President of the club. She won (yay). Met up with Fatima and Nadia and departed toward the elementary school. Miss Jolley hadn't bought white paint, so there really wasn't much to work with.


Paintbrush Musketeers.

We decided to leave. The Julia coulnd't find her backpack: she had left it in the school parking lot. How you ask? I honestly have no clue.


How? HOW?!?!


It's all alone.

So we were near the school. Might as well go to the ROC and get more CAS evidence and help out Fatima, who went there. It was fun. I felt talkative, played a little Scrabble and met some really cool people.


Yay, Scrabble.

By the time we were done with the ROC, it was around 5:45 PM. I thought it might be a nice experience for Julia, Nadia and me to check out Edward Fretheim's recital. I've always wanted to see the String Bass played as a real instruemnt.


Going at it.

It was nothing short of outstanding, marvelous, stupefying, and just a bit ridiculous. I never knew you could DO that with a bass nor that shifting that HIGH was possible. When it was over, I thought it'd be logical to get Mr. Peacock's signature to exempt.

I'm tired.