3/29/00-well i hear we have 49 days or something til graduation...just another stepping stone in the pond of life. you know how we thought middle school graduation was so cool cause we had a dance and we were going to the high school. and now we were gonna be with all the "grownup" teenagers, blah blah blah. you know what? high school graduation's gonna be the same thing. kids are gonna be getting drunk or something. some people are gonna get cars for presents. we'll walk down the aisle, grab a piece of paper and that's it. we move on to the next place where we're a small fish in a big sea. i think we'll all be happy to leave south windsor and graduate to another phase of our lives. but in another four years we do it again. the thing about high school is- a hs diploma won't really get you a great job. nowadays, in order to get anywhere, you have to have a college degree of some sort. so in some respect, college graduation is a bigger step than hs. graduation. i think the feeling will be happy for both graduations however in the scheme of things and the importance of things, college will be more. that's my guess

yesterday was a ridiculously boring day in which i did nothing and so was today. i went out with julian for lunch at friendly's in the mall. it was really fun cause we got to talk about everything that's going on and sometimes, it's just too hectic otherwise to catch up on things. went to the dentists at 130-no cavities, then went to the radiologists to drop off my x rays, aaa to get some maps and whatnot to montreal, went to manchester town hall for a summer job app, went to my mom's school to see how it was going and ended up fixing her new toshiba satellite laptop. damn i want my laptop. i got some reading to do and some math and physics for hw. i realized this year that i've gotten all as in my humanities courses and bs and whatnot for physics and math. maybe i really am not cut out for the sciences. or maybe just not the physical sciences that involve math and everything. maybe they're right...maybe i would enjoy something like entertainment law. i also got this program online on emunation.com it's great cause you can play all kinds of sega and nintendo games on your computer. tomorrow we're getting the cable modem so i don't even know if i'll have aol tomorrow night. but it's a sacrifice i'll have to make for speed and constant connection. if we get an ethernet hub, i can plug in when i come home from school and get the same speed. it'll be great. as for the rest of my night, i don't know how that's gonna turn out or what's doing tomorrow. i'm hoping it'll be a great day cause for some reason i either feel tired or depressed or tired and depressed cause i haven't really gotten to see carrie much today and this weekend we're both gonna be busy. i got my first convention i'm going to since fall 98 (or encampment if you wanna count that). i'm looking forward to it cause some of the kids i haven't seen since november, but i dunno what's happening. oy i have to send a mass email to anyone on my buddy list to let them know that i'll still be on aim as smalrus(i dunno if i can retain that name if my aol account is dead) or thesmalrus and that they can write to me at smalrus@hotmail.com. i've had that account since about spring 97 but when i got back on aol, i no longer used it much anymore. my page will still be here and everything else should be the same except for my email address. if you're reading this, it'll be the same message in my email...that should do it for me for now...hopefully the computer won't crash in the installation process tomorrow and my next update might be uploaded at 10Mbps. til then, that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/27/00-today was a great day marred by only one thing- the 62 on my physics test. and i talked to mcandrew and he didn't really do anything for me...we just went over the problems again(as in class) and compared my work to what i should have done, but at least he knows i'm concerned with my grade and have made attempts to get help on it. in french we talked about le voyageur sans baggage. i didn't do any of the reading in depth, but it went ok, mrs. mckenna realized that i wasn't gonna do any hw since i got into mcgill, so actually the last hw of the year for her was sometime last week :) in theater, i learned that i'm definitely not cut out for janitorial services. i just can't use the mop bucket right. but i guess that's ok. handed in my calc test after finding out somewhat of how to do one of the problems, but i didn't quite finish it. was a rather difficult problem. in study i chewed out my tudee, because i can't seem to get through to her that i don't want her to have a d average. i want her to have a b average. i can't get her to make flashcards or anything, it's annoying. in physics...well obviously...in english we talked about music and different stuff like where we're influenced by what kinds of books and authors we read. i liked the music selections that he played. like i said before, i love music and it was cool to be able to analyze them as musical pieces and the different techniques and styles and layers about them. so then i went to robbies to talk to him about the test and went to the talent show auditions around 2. there were some good acts, there were some so so acts, and there was one really awful act, headtrip. they were the only performance band there and were a bass and a guitar with way too much overdrive. i coulda allowed some basic distortion, some flanger or reverb, and maybe a smidge of overdrive, but this kid's music was indiscernible. it was ridiculous, then they were playing outside in the hall and he still had it on. i've heard a lot of heavy metal like korn or bizkit or incubus or sevendust, or oldschool metallica and acdc, but these guys were ridiculous in comparison. they may be the only cuts. riaan did his firebreathing gig. holy shit, if we wanna advertise this show, we should throw in riaan's firebreathing on the posters. they put on the blue lights til he lit the fire and then turned them off and some rob zombie was playing in the background through the whole thing. of course the music was tonesetting, but riaan was awesome. as scary as he is, you really feel safe since you knows that he does know what he's doing. i was really impressed, graner was impressed and due to the smoke in the auditorium, that's prolly gonna be the final act so we can then vent stuff. i'm sure my family'd come see it :)

so nikhil came and drove me home when he was done with tennis. went to the mailbox and got two more acceptance letters to 2 really difficult universities:brandeis(waltham, ma) and emory(atlanta). so basically i'm in at mcgill, penn state, emory, brandeis, syracuse, gwu, uconn, umaryland, on the waiting list at washington-st louis, and have yet to hear from northwestern and umichigan (which i predict to come in a day or so). so despite the fact that i had to apply to 11 schools, some tougher than others, i've gotten into 89% of the ones i've heard from thus far. hopefully i'll hear good news from the other two. it would be so nice not to get a rejection letter, even if i'm into my first choice...syracuse also sent me a book that was printed at syracuse and edited by one of the professors of judaic studies. it's a bunch of translated works of shalom alecheim. i flipped through it. looks pretty interesting. so tonight it's 62 pages of english reading and some piano practice and that's about it. oh and i just found out that the weekend of the talent show is the weekend we're visiting montreal so i'm expecting my parents to call graner so he doesn't "bag" me. my grandfather says he's got an in on some really good montreal canadiens seats so i might be getting some tix for that. that would be sweet. i've been following the habs since kindergarden when i met chris frechette. before that, i knew only the new haven nighthawks minor league team. chris was a goalie and liked the habs' goalie, patrick roy. since i liked hockey too, he got me into the canadiens. and i've been following them (not too extensively though) ever since. tickets to habs games are really hard to go by(apparently season tix are in their wills) so these seats would be cool.

but all those sundays taking the kaplan course really paid off i guess. i should be getting into northwestern. that's a good bet because i got into emory which is also highly competitive, and plus northwestern likes a family tradition. and michigan should be good too. anywho...saturday, april 22nd is radio 104's modern rock the earth day show at bushnell park. it's a free outdoors show. rane is playing third and also playing are vertical horizon and goldfinger among acts. if you'd like to come with me, please let me know (cause i can't go myself). it should be a really good show from all the bands...

also official is that we're getting a cable modem. so i will no longer be on aol shortly. i'll still be on aim(either on smalrus or thesmalrus) and i'll also have yahoo messenger and msn messenger. of course, the name is always smalrus. so you can contact me there at yahoo, hotmail, and hopefully cox will let me have smalrus as a name. anywho...like i said, short of a poor physics test, this was a great day. it's been a great last 10 days. i'm happy right now. right now i'm focused into my life and where i'm going now and anything else thats fucked up around me has taken a backseat to what's going on that's good. right now, i'm just ignoring all the shit thats going on in my life that has me depressed and am worrying about what i'm doing for myself...*sigh* that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/26/00-alright, now that the initial shock has subsided a little...wait, no it hasn't. my parents basically called everyone they knew that was interested in where i was going and told them. so everyone's been congratulating me and i don't think i've been congratulated this much on anything since my bar mitzvah, which was important to my jewish life and identity, but probably didn't have the biggest impact on the future of my life as my college acceptance does. but it still feels really great, even if i don't know how to handle the compliments as well as i should :) after i wrote yesterdays update, my dad came home and whatnot and then it was deciding what my plans were for the rest of the day. i went to rye street in hopes they were still there, but they weren't, so i went to the concatellis courtesy of my dad's car which now has brake problems. so i was dropped off and jon, nicole, lisa, garret and a+s were there and they were all playing poker. so it was a good time. but unfortunately, i heard jon's uconn application was lost. which has got to suck big time because i know if mcgill didn't have my app, i'd be pissed at all anything. hopefully he'll go somewhere else and transfer next semester. so they left like 20 min after i came and then i stuck around cause my dad was at the library.

so we were chillin and a+s were doing work and i was reading andrews entertainment weekly. it's not a bad magazine, but i think i prefer rolling stone better. ew is geared more towards movies and tends to have shorter articles, whereas rolling stone is more geared towards music and has profiles and extensive interviews about all these artists and actors, etc...which is more of what i'm into. like that's how i know so much about santana, the bsb, and nsync, and now dmx(real name-earl simmons), and all these musicians. i mean they've had stuff on christina ricci, nic cage and brad pitt and theres an interview with julia roberts this week, but i think i tend to be more of a music man than a movie man. there's something about the power of an instrument and how you can play it, and the groove of a beat, the way you can write lyrics and either be funny, be poetic, be stupid....it just intrigues me more...not to say i don't like movies, but music's more to my heart...even the "crap" other people don't like lyrically, ie bizkit, nsync...something about the beat that makes you wanna jump around, or dance, or bop your head is enough to set me off....the fact that different types of music is for different people...in depressing times, there are a lot of third eye blind songs i think suit my mood both musically and lyrically. in angry times, limp bizkit has been good aggressive release-after all they have a song called "break stuff." the boybands are good for something rather uplifting, particularly when you do the dance :) or if i'm in a relatively neutral, calm mood, i like listening to rane. their style is always comforting because it's not too slow and rootsy, but not heavy or alternative. or i'll pop up an mp3 from my collection of various artists of different genres (ie, now i'm listening to the new 311 song, Flowing) i guess that's why i got into mp3s between when they came out and when the craze really started to hit it big. because there's stuff from different artists that i didn't think i'd buy the entire cd for. but there's stuff i may consider downloading the cd for (blink182). right now i think i'm up around 77 mp3s (cause they take a while with my modem). ooh, and i got a fight club skin for my winamp :) it's cool. april 11th...dvd...and now my dad's noticing how mp3s are pretty cool and we have til the end of the week to decide on the cablemodem for the march deal. we'll prolly get it, and not be on aol anymore though :( but i'll have aim, so that'll work i guess. i think it's also got him thinking cd burner.

anywho...so my mother came home from shopping with my sister and my sister got the envelope first and started running down (cause we were gonna play a joke on them) so my mom was screaming and whatnot and then we started talking about when we're gonna go up there and what not. i think i'm gonna push my laptop purchase up to then so i can get a better deal in canadian dollars. if anyone knows any computer chains in montreal, lemme know please. looking for a laptop with a touchpad and dvd. those are my two prerequisites. oh man, this means i gotta learn the rest of the words to "o canada" :) so we went out to dinner at angellinos cause i really wanted fettucini alfredo...that place is incredible...i've never had a doggie bag with that much left over food...i had a salad, my soup, most of my sisters soup, some mozzerella sticks, and then some of my bigass dish and i was done. even my dad didn't finish(surprisingly) and the food was really good. i'd eat back there again, definitely. came home, went online and started unsuccessfully looking for canadian computer stores.

so this morning is tutoring in about 10 minutes. then lunch, working on my homework*grumble* my grandparents are coming up i think, then tonight's the oscars. like i said, the movies aren't as big a deal to me, and even though i know american beauty is gonna win a bunch of them, i wasn't as impressed with it. but i'm not the movie man. if no one was doing anything for it, i prolly would flip in and out of it, but since it doesn't have as much interest to me, i'm really going to be around everyone cause i'd rather soak up the glory of the weekend while i can. anyways...i got about 6 min til he comes, so until nexttime, that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/25/00-i don't know if i'll do another update tonight(possibly), but i think i just got the biggest news in my 17 and a half years of existence....I am INNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!! I AM FUCKING INTO MCGILL!!!!!!!! I AM IN I AM IN I AM IN I AM IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!woooooooooooooooooooo.....alright, i've only been awake for an hour but already, this is probably one of the happiest days in my life...at this moment, all my other problems are taking a back seat that i got into the top school of my choice. it all started when i woke uo around 1145 and then got online and jon was telling me about how a coupla people are going to rye street park to hang out and if i wanted to come. but i'm carless, so i didn't think i could. so then i got the idea to ride my bike, but i knew it would take me a little later, but that would still have to mean that i'd have to leave relatively soon. and i know everyone's at rye street right now an hour later, but i'm not as fazed...so i got dressed and went to check the mailbox as i so eagerly do every day to see if i've been accepted. mcgill started mailing march 22 and i joked with carrie last night that maybe i could get a decision today, but i doubted it big time. so i went to the mailbox and opened it and saw this big ass package, and then i knew something was good...i pulled out the rest of the mail covering the package and the return address was McGill University. and then i knew that was it. i was in. so i booked it home, called my dad(who offered to buy me lunch if i wasn't going to rye street), called my grandparents and here i am. i'm so freakin happy, they didn't accept me for the school of sciences but i'm in the school of arts. that can always be reassessed in fall though. so there's this big ass package of registration forms, payment forms, i'm guaranteed housing, there's some visa forms, international handbooks, course guides...it's all there...so i'm obviously gonna be late for rye street, but i don't even know what i want to do next. not a clue, my mind is in a complete fog. i'm sure there'll be more later...

3/24/00-today was a pretty decent day. woke up, same old routine. in french we talked about some pictures and did some listening exercises. in theater, we demolished "the cube" , in calculus we did some stuff, got our grades thus far, and our take home test of which i'm sure people will be talking about all weekend. in study i got AP exam stuff straightened out. i'm taking french language, english lit, and calculus ab. then in physics, robbie gave us a lot more time to work on our failed test, but i'm still predicting a curve. but i think i got 2 more answers so that's cool. and then in english we discussed a few more things on some of the antistories and that was about it. played around in the library during lockout, then went home and i got accepted to george washington university. that means i've been accepted to my 5 backups and penn state. so GWU is offering me $12000 for freshman year, so i went back and looked and i opened an envelope from syracuse from the beginning of the month, turns out they're giving me $6000 a year each year. so i got money i never knew i had. i'm actually worth something! so i talked online for about 4 hours and whatnot. then i putzed around til carrie picked me up early and we went to the equator. i love rane. they're one of my favorite bands and it's always cool to see them play because they're truly gifted artists. so they're coming out with their third album june 13th called camelopardalis(RA75m9sD80(degrees)58') it's named after a constellation in which the guys have a star named after them. i looked it up and it's a constellation of a giraffe. but it's cool nonetheless. they played about 4 songs from the new album, plus a few others like gemini, long road, and apple. but the set was good. the first guy was mediocre and the second band, addison groove project was really good jazz jam, but of course there was nothing that topped rane, who actually got the crowd off their feet dancing. then carrie and i got lost in manchester and i thought she was gonna get us killed or something because she was really tired, but i made it home, right? tomorrow's truly a do nothing day since we don't have tech anymore...*sigh* i don't know what my plans are...anywho...it's kinda late, i'm kinda tired and i'm going to putz around online more and get something to eat or something...that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/23/00-i forgot to mention in my last update that the holiday i was talking about was purim. basically what i wrote was the short version of the story. i brought my hamentashen into school and managed to get rid of almost all of it by the end of the period. luckily, i baked extra for the house so we still have some. a lot of hard work and gone so fast (well we still have more because we have to ration :)) but it was worth it. on tuesday, we started the stupid capt practice schedule. the only thing capt is good for is sleeping late junior and senior years. because seriously, there's absolutely no point in taking them. none of the colleges give a crap. i failed the interdisciplinary test by two points, but i decided it wasn't even worth it to retake and you know, i still don't think it is. besides i'm into the 4 colleges i've heard from and i'll prolly be getting some letters in the next 2 weeks. yeah, and mcgill started mailing international decisions yesterday, so the latest i'll be hearing from them is april 15. the fact that i'm getting senioritis isn't that bad, however i guess it's bad if i'm getting it and i have yet to hear from the majority of schools i want to go to.

yesterday was an essentially wasted day. got the car and took my sister into school, speeded over to carries and picked her up. driving around town at 715 is still my groggy time so it's always amazing when i get to school without totalling the car. but it was still cool. tuesday night after i got the BK (and the guy screwed up the order), i went over and picked up the new *nsync cd. it's really good and i agree with the hartford courant when they say it's perhaps the best boyband album out yet. you can read my review on the media page and i'm prolly gonna submit it to the southwinds. first period was calculus. we went over some homework and a new section and that was about it. somehow the fish end up not getting fed at the end of the day though, so they're always hungry in the beginning of the day (..........julian! ;)) then i stuck around study hall for about an hour and did the xword puzzle again...that's my fetish, xword puzzles. i started out doing them about a year or two ago, when i'd do the one in the classifieds in the JI. but then the clues started to repeat alot and it got too easy. then came the courant. and i found the courant to be relatively easy. so basically i stick a lot to the USA Today xword puzzle. i've tried the sunday one in the courant and the ny times one, but sometimes they're a little too over my head. USA Today is just around my level...of course, that's considering the fact that i do as much as i can with no dictionaries or anything. occasionally i'll ask a random clue, but i'll only do as much as i can. anywho...at 1015, i left our minimum security prison and went to pick up my dad. we drove into hartford to the connecticut childrens medical center and i had an appt with a pulmonologist. basically they did this breathing test and gave me medication and had me test again. then the doctor came in and asked me all these questions about my entire history of my cough including my surgery, my two hospitalizations, what it sounds like, other tests, blabbedy blah....basically, there wasn't much that he could get out of it. he thought maybe some of it might be a habit cough, but he's not sure that its psychosomatic. potentially might be irritation of the vocal chords, but he wasn't sure what to make of it. he just gave me this plan of how to rework my medications and trying prevention techniques early next year before it starts. one of the medications i'm on only came out last year. so i didn't really know it takes about 2 weeks to kick in, so he said to start earlier next year....then i came back for an hour of physics help with mcandrew and then went home to do nothing and study another hour. oh, and my dad's getting serious about getting a cable modem, which would mean we'd get off aol, but i think the speed would be worth it.

today was a great day. i woke up kinda sore from sleeping funny and then had a physics test. he wrote it for a normal period but even with 90minutes, no one got any of it but thanh. then was theater where graner spazzed about us doing the talent show and then we smashed sets and i went nuts with the hammer and crow bar and basically started smashing anything, even if it didn't need to be taken apart....i think i have the making of a criminal or something :)....then was our four person study hall and lunch and english, where we discussed our essay concepts. came home, hopped online, took an hour nap, wrote up and have posted my review of kdd's Résurrection on my media page. and wrote this and shuttled my sister to dance and somewhere in there attempted the calc hw. that was about it for today. tomorrow should prove interesting as i'm not sure what my final final plans will be. i have a feeling i'll be going to see rane w/carrie at the equator. as for the rest of tomorrow, that's a breeze cause my life is boring anyways. and looks like sunday skiing is out since it's supposed to rain sunday up at killington. last year we went on the same trip and it rained then too. so the trip was sucky and horrible skiing, so we're prolly punting on it again. which sucks cause this is the last opportunity i have to go this year before school...anyways...time to wrap up....go to doodie.com. i'm sure cloutman would love you...that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/21/00- its another celebration of religious freedom...if you've heard the expression "megillah" that's where it comes from. the "scroll" the story is written on is called a megillah. its about a man, mordechai and his niece, esther. they're both jews in persia. the king, achashverus(sp?) wants to get rid of his queen, vashti, so he has a beauty contest. mordechai enrolls esther and esther wins, becoming the new queen. but no one else knows she's jewish. meanwhile, a wicked man, haman, talks to achasverus.. and gets the kings permission to build gallows to kill all the jews. esther finds out and talks to mordechai. mordechai tells her that she must tell achasverus that haman is going to kill the jews. she does. achasverus tells haman(who wears a 3 cornered hat) that he must parade around in front of the lead horse of a parade honoring mordechai. he also must die on the gallows he originally intended for the jews. esther remains queen, mordechai is made an advisor to the king, haman is dead, and the jews are allowed to practice freely. so when we read the megillah, everytime we hear haman's name, we stomp and use groggers and whatnot and drown out the noise. and we make 3 cornered cookies called hamentashen...

i baked 6 dozen of those cookies today from scratch, spent 3 hrs making it and i have yet to clean up...but i hope the calc class likes them...today was a boring day til after school...carrie picked me up...i think it's the first time i was picked up by someone to go to school other then when christine used to be here in the hood and drove us in...french was just a bunch of computer stuff and then eating cake and half going over a play...but there's no hw fourth quarter, so i got no problem with that. in theater we had cafe study and i did the complete usa today xword puzzle. then i fell asleep and was woken by something loud which i mistook for a gunshot. then was physics, mca was out again, so we worked on the problems and he gave another study guide with it, so it helped a little, but the test is gonna be a mess. in english, we finished presenting english plays. mine was today. i think duclos didn't think it was that bad. even though it was supposed to be a serious drama but kinda turned out not serious, i think he realized that it wasn't as stupid as he expected with the swears. then carrie drove me home... about 3 i started on the hamentashen. and then i worked til i started writing this...tomorrow's an interesting day cause i'm going in for calc, then study, then drs, then if i'm back in time, i need physics help. so i dunno what else...other than about a 1/2 hr today, the rest of the day was really boring...anywho...now jeopardy's over, so i gotta pick up BK for Elise and me and then clean up the kitchen...that's my story and i'm stickin to it....

3/20/00-wow, i haven't skipped updates in 9 days since almost the summer. i'm not gonna go over the past two weeks in great depth because most of it was the play and it went really well. we sold out like 3 out of 4 nights and had 65 seats left the first night. rehearsals went really well except almost everyother day i had a drs appointment so julie had to run sound herself. it was prolly annoying for both of us cause i hate coughing. i'm finally starting to die down on that end and i bet in another 2 weeks, all traces of my cough will be completely gone. during the show, the first night was rinaldi and sclare and rinaldi kept telling us to do stuff and change cues and whatnot, but the second night he left us alone and sclare kept annoying us. and the last 2 nights they weren't there. i dreamt of mike wetmore singing sincere for two nights because the green wireless mic didn't work the first night during sincere. that's prolly my favorite song in the musical. the musical went really well. well, insofar as our sound end goes. 3 mistakes the first night, 1 the second, none the third, and 1 the last night. but it was really great and i had a lot of fun working it, once i realized what we needed to do. and i think i learned a lot about sound, and almost every night, i learned something new on how to work the promix.

school's been rather boring as usual. i ended up writing a 22 page "Great American Novel" and it was really pessimistic. i typed it up and sent 8 pages of it to carrie for review and interestingly enough, was glad i did. there were so many things there that i wasn't happy about, but my friendship with her was one of the only positive things i had to say. i haven't heard back from any other colleges, so that's really irked me a bit. i'm too anxious now to hear stuff and mcgill doesn't start mailing til wednesday. so everyday for the next week and a half is in anxiety for that letter from them. things though have been going really well for me since then...

for the first time, i think i managed to keep my own secrets to myself on an issue. usually i'm always liable to tell someone what i'm thinking about anything, or anyone, but for the first time i think i didn't...see, carrie and i had been talking a while online and we realized how much we had in common. and you know, i think when someone said that we had to have liked each other to wake up at 8am during vacation to eat breakfast, there had to have been something there to do that. i kept on making it out not to be a date, but i guess it was. and even then, i had a good time, but had never thought of a relationship seriously. someone suggested it and the idea seemed good, but i never took it seriously. i guess the idea really was never taken seriously until about wednesday. then thursday afternoon and thursday night, i really decided that perhaps we should take it to another level. so despite what everyone thought about carrie and me hating each other, it turned out to be the complete opposite and so i asked her out friday after school. might i say that the great american novel had an extremely great ending. it was interesting to listen to everyone's reactions cause no one suspected it but margaret who wants to kill us all cause she thinks is abnormal. ah well. julian was the first and only person i told of my intentions only a few periods before i did anything. but i was really glad that i asked her and for the first time in almost 10 months, i think i'm actually happy. despite the fact that people think we're ill-intentioned and settling for each other, i can't say i'm down. people are just going to have to accept the fact that the two people who seemed to hate each other the most actually had the most going for them. but that made the friendly's trip and the cast party all the much better ;) and to think she gave me a bloody nose when i ran from her trying to give me a hug :) but anyways...it was a good st. patrick's day for us. 2 weeks ago i felt like i was in a big hole...now i can honestly say i'm feeling pretty damn good about myself again and this relationship...as colin quinn would say, that's my story and i'm stickin to it (see, you still get your spencer/snl combo ;))...

3/11/00-today was really a do nothing day. i woke up and went to services. it was a men's club services, but they didn't have enough members so i got a call last wednesday to lead torah service. so there was me, congested, hacking, sniffling, leading the service. but it went okay. then flew like a butterfly and picked up elise, got changed and speeded to tech. we worked on a whole hodgepodge of things and that was about it. wandered around borders afterwards and bought myself a copy of the alchemist. i dunno if i'm gonna be able to use it for my thesis, but i hear it's a good book. came home and made a few calls...the nut on the input jack on my guitar came loose when i plugged in, so the guitar's broken for the time being. went to pick up some pizza at randys and got back home to play the piano and take some meds. it was really a do nothing day. we got some pics back last night. it's sad. there were two pictures of josie in there, taken either in october or november. there's not a day i don't think about her and of all the things i've been losing the past 5-10 months, she was the biggest loss of mine and it was really saddening to see the pictures. but there were some pics from the nhs induction ceremony that i might post when i scan them. some pics of me playing my guitar shortly after i shaved my goatee. it's kinda weird, now that i've had the goatee for so long. i dunno. i work on these updates too late at night. i'm supposed to go up to bed in 12 min, but i haven't gotten to talk about anything i wanted to talk about the past 3 days or so...tomorrows a busy day. maybe i'll get to it sometime. i don't know about tomorrow. its tutoring for an hour, going to tech, doing a lot of hw, and then usy board meeting...now that's another story alltogether...til next time, that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/10/00-today's rundown...i got up, i went to school and i didn't get the car. went to first period french where we went over some homework and celebrated the shit's 18th birthday. then mrs. mckenna was trying to have us talk about our week in french. of course when you get angela saying "j'ai spilled paint on my tank top" i think it all falls apart. went to the cafeteria to wait til 9 while i did the usa today crossword puzzle. i almost finished by the time the field trip was over. so we went on this field trip to uconn to see the play "lovers and executioners." it was a really weird play, but hillarious in sexual humor and innuendo. the play was written in 1996, based on a play by the french playwright montfleury. the fact that it was written in verse made the plot all the more creative, though sometimes it was easy to guess how the rhymes would end. afterall, how many things can you rhyme with bernard? after the play was over, we went to the student union for lunch. surprisingly there was no discussion after, like we thought there'd be at a play presented to multiple school classes. but i guess it's ok since all wallis wanted to talk about was why it was a tragedy. the thing was, no one cared. but it was a great day out and then we went back to school and putzed around the theater for about 15 min before school was out and we had to set up for rehearsal. not much happened at rehearsal. we went from scene to scene and did mainly musical numbers. there were a lot of techies gone so i was kinda running around checking on some sound stuff, some stage stuff, and some gallery stuff and still hacking up a storm. the doc heard about my xrays today and apparently there is some inflammation in my sinuses but basically normal so my doc's prolly gonna talk to a pulmonologist on monday and see if i can get some sort of appointment with him. maybe he'll figure out something that will fix me once and for good. i was reading in merck's manual about chronic sinusitis being treated by surgery on the sinuses. i'm wondering if whatever it is they do would cure me once and for good of whatever i've been going through the past 15 years. i mean i'm up to 11 drugs now and still not better at all. i don't know what i'm gonna do other than be ridiculed for taking medication that my dad gets me. tomorrow i got services and tech crew and then some homework. and prolly a whole heap more of coughing. i was gonna ramble a little more for myself, but i gotta go to the bathroom right now and then i dunno what, prolly get ready for bed soon....that's my story and i'm stickin to it

3/9/00-it was a weird day today and i have a headache now from coughing. i figured that i'm on 10 meds and the doctor put me on another one today after i saw him. i also went for chest xrays and sinus films(but i don't think i'll be putting a review of them up anytime soon. get it, review? hahaha) i've concluded that these meds don't make me drowsy but instead make me a schizophrenic with mpd. muahaha. and i'm saying this as aol has kinda gone weird on me and i had to reinstall. in theater, we gelled some lights and in calculus we went over some problems and cloutman passed out a lab and we were basically confused. today was the blood drive so people were missing from various classes. i was supposed to donate but ended up not doing so. in study hall, i didn't do much tutoring since amanda basically hasn't been doing much in class. just a basic review of futur simple and that was about it. and i won the black history month contest which is cool cause it's $100 to borders which is great cause now i don't have to save up for the fight club dvd and maybe i can even get some thesis books with it. in physics, we did a lab which was a complete waste of time because it's all computer calculations. lets hear it for microsoft works. then in english we talked about "as a wife has a cow" and it was interesting to talk about limits of definition and the syntax of language and interpretation's necessitation of form...i found it to be really interesting. then i basically left at 230 to go to the docs, he doesn't get what's wrong with me and because of that, he sent me to the radiologists. i made it back around 5ish after picking up some more perscriptions as well. sat through more of rehearsal and then at around 630ish, we went out to mandarin mae's for chinese food. me, jon, valerie, andrew, and carrie. so we were there til around 830ish and watching the tv and talking about the play and the prom and what not and left. so i took andrew home and came home to getting yelled at because i didn't give a courtesy call that i was gonna be out later than 8. it was an interesting boring day because this sinusitis really affects my mood. coughing like this is no fun, it gives me headaches, i take too many meds that aren't working and it makes me cranky...

its weird because in english today, we were talking about epiphanies and how you rare they are in your life. but i think i had one today at the chinese restaurant tonight. ever since around last may, my life has been so strange. i've not felt the same, my outlook on life hasn't been the same, and the fact that i have about 3 months til graduation is certainly not giving me much time to feel better about myself. and it's evident since the beginning of my reflection logs that i've undergone a personality change. i was more upbeat around the musical last year but then around may it started to change and then in novemberish, it started to really change again. i don't know how to explain it. part of it, i could say that i attribute to my single status that i'm not happy about because it was around the time i broke up that i started to change. and now with the juniors talking about the prom again, it's very strange for me, not going, while all my friends, even my senior friends are. it's like the juniors get to do everything twice. now i'm not knocking the juniors, but i just feel really weird about everything. like who i hang out with and the frequency i hang out with them has changed so dramatically in my life that i can't keep up with myself. i have a hard time putting into words exactly how i feel because there really aren't any words that can describe it. like i feel like the dynamics of my friends and the dynamics of my friendships are completely alienating me. like i'm closing off/being closed off from south windsor. like i said, i really can't explain in words how i feel. and the most i can say is that i feel strange. everything i do, everyplace i go around my friends...it's not the same as it used to be...i can't explain...i wrote a song a few weeks ago that i'm posting the rough draft of lyrics on this page, since i'm not up to putting it on the lit page at this moment. i'm thinking of recording it on the album as well. i haven't decided yet. it's currently untitled, but in response to my leaving for college and my friends' interactions with me and with each other, and what's going on around me in my life....

I don't know why my life is changing so rapidly
I sit and stare at the clock, counting down the days til I leave
My friends, they say they know just how I feel, that I'll pull through
But when we part our ways, at the end, we start our lives fresh and anew

We've come this far, how can we go back now
The struggles, the triumphs have led to the memories that we endow
And no one knows what the future holds
Just how many friendships too rich for their blood so they fold

I can't tell if I'm escaping their grasp and forging this path on my own
Maybe they're willing to help me through it or is this truth to be unknown
This wave of loneliness surges through me like a babbling brook
All I can do is sit by myself, reflect, and take a second look

I'd do it over again if I could, wouldn't that be just nice
But not everyone gets to have those same opportunities even twice
When I go, it'll happen again, in maybe a day, a month, or a year
After a short span of time, who will even remember that I was even here?

...and so maybe it's me, maybe its not me, maybe it's everyone else, maybe it's not everyone else. and i'm not sure at this moment how anyone else or i can change it...maybe that epiphany will come to me later. for now i'm told to go to bed so i can't expand much on it...that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/8/00-i'll be a monkey's tushey...*shrug* i dunno, i just felt like saying that. today the drugs seemed to have some weird effects cause i've been saying some doofy shit all day. well right now its 1150am and i'm actually home from school on a wednesday. i'm watching the freakin it video on mtv now. you know, too many videos now are using a landing airplane sound fx to begin the video...bsb, will smith, blink182, etc...hrm. what's the deal?

something from an email i wrote to margaret in response to some politics and in light of the recent losses of bill bradley and john mccain, whom i both supported...as for john mccain, i support(ed) him. because of 2 reasons. 1) mccain basically stayed out of the religious debate. due to his experiences in vietnam and whatnot, he's basically kept religion a private thing. which is what it should be. if another republican was in power, particularly keyes, religion becomes more involved in it all. keyes is saying that leaders should have to pass some unwritten religious tests to be in office. you get guys like him or george w in power and you open it up for republican-nominated supreme court justices who wouldn't have a problem voting for things like prayer in school. mccain stayed out of that. and for that reason alone, i supported him. 2) george w on gun locks-what good are gun locks if we can't enforce them? what, are we gonna have gunlock police? seriously, that's what he said in the los angelas debates. no, you can't enforce it with police but having it on the gun would be better regardless. you couldn't eliminate guns from this country, even if you were president because it's unconstitutional. the bill of rights guarantees you the right to bear arms. now with modern weaponry we've taken it too far out of line however there is no way to get rid of all guns. the best we can do is put limitations on what kinds of guns can be sold and background checks with the brady bill and what not...but unless you could get a constitutional amendment passed to reverse the (4th?) amendment, it won't happen. and if i'm correct, it takes what, either 2/3 or 3/5 of the states to ratify that amendment. it would be nearly impossible to get 31-34 states to support an amendment like that. back then the amendment seemed good when we wanted to defend ourselves against any other british, however we were too shortsided and didn't think in the long term. now, it proves to be a fatal mistake that is essentially impossible to fix with the backing of million member groups such as the nra and lobbyists. so basically you can do one thing, control the guns. something george w seems to have no clue as to what to do. with bradley leaving the race (who i'd vote for for president, too bad he lost all the primaries) and mccain, i'm supporting gore. atleast he's not george w bush.

today in french we did almost nothing, in theater we aimed 2 new lights, and in calc we had a pop quiz and went over some homework. i'm supposed to take a nap but i'm putting up a review of the movie we saw in french yesterday called ponette. it's gonna be on my reviews page. hopefully i'll go see mission to mars sometime in the near future and write a review on it. right now i'm also downloading the new hanson song on mp3. they sound pretty good, it's got more edge than mmmbop and the youngest one's voice even sounds deeper "this time around..." (get it, that's the name of the song) got rehearsals in about an hour, 20 min. it should be okay today. came home now for a bit so i'm chillin and dillin. i might work on some hw soon. my ears keep popping. meds work sorta but not all the time. i'm still horking stuff up. and unfortunately that means no blood drive tomorrow :P i was seriously looking forward to it. in hebrew we call it a mitzvah- an act of selflessness in return for nothing. and seeing as to how it might be saving a life and all i'd have to do is lie down and squeeze a ball, i'd have liked to have done it. anywho. now that i've finished with the hanson song...i'm prolly gonna work on my ponette review, take some meds, work on some hw and if i have time, squeeze in that nap :) til then, that's my story and i'm stickin to it...

3/7/00-well i've been sick the past 3 days still with my sinus infection. i'm convinced this antibiotic isn't working right. sunday was rather boring, i worked on my essay on the play God virtually all day. my essay goes all over the place, starting from the movie it's a wonderful life to talking about the matrix to my songwriting to some other stuff and back to its a wonderful life. updates are gonna be relatively short for the days, if any, due to the musical's restraints on my time. yesterday was my first day back in school since the field trip. in french, we did some stuff that i kinda kept up on. today we watched a 2 hour movie called ponette. it was really good. i might review it if i ever get time (i'd have given it 4 1/2 stars-that's the short review). in theater, i kinda hacked away while some other people aimed lights. in calc, we played with playdough. now how would cloutman expect some honors seniors not to play with playdough. i don't think anyone was paying attention to the lesson. then i actually did something in tutoring. in physics, mcandrew confused us for two days and we didn't get the hw. in english, we did book chats for our theses and then read some thing by edgar allen poe. and then julian and i rang some mics on monday and then was rehearsals both days. they went ok. i'm on sound on the promix with julie. it's not too hard. but i'm writing this now while i'm watching jeopardy so my attention's kinda distracted. and today i had a piano lesson. and i found out that i can't be in the history day competition in the individual categories unless i did a paper, which would be due friday. so this sucks big time. i wanted to see how far i'd go by myself which i can't do. and i can't be in a group because no one wants to be in a group with me, therefore, i can't enter. anywho....jeopardy is easily distracting me...so til i have time for the next update...that's my story and i'm sticking to it...

3/4/00-can't complain about today...well yeah i can. i can complain about today til about 7ish. i woke up around 930 and took my meds. the time i cough less is in my sleep, but i wake up with all this crap in my throat and spend the day trying to hoarke it up. so basically i putzed around the morning trying to not work myself to death so i wouldn't make it tonight. basically all i did today was play the piano, play my guitar a lot, do my physics homework, and sleep for 2 hours. i got a call from erin wanting to know if i was dead or not, if i was still going tonight. so i told her that i was doing better and if i wasn't going that i'd call her later in the evening. so i slept a little more. then i woke up and played guitar more. got ready tonight and went and picked erin up around 730...ish :) then we went to uhart to catch rane play. but noone started playing for a while. oh yeah, so we also had a bit of trouble finding the spot on campus and had to ask for directions twice. anyways. we got there and waited around 45 min. and rane had setup and i talked to alan for a few minutes. then this guy started setting up...name of ty braxton (and his loop choir). that is by far the trippiest music i've ever heard. this guy was his own, one man techno band who created everything by looping it over and over again...and by the time the song was done, you never remembered how it started. it's music that's interesting to listen to, but you really have to watch what he does for the music to make sense. otherwise it kinda sounds stupid. you need to see him playing and looping...it was just really unique. then rane came on around 10. we couldn't stay the whole time cause erin needed to be home around 11, but we heard them play mirage, some new song, goomba, minutes, and they started playing 13/8 when we left. i tell you, they're really cool to see play live. they just have some sort of energy that makes you want to dance. at least it made this guy in front of erin and me dance around the place :) there weren't many people around to begin with, even for ty braxton, but once rane came on, the place became packed, and i caught eye of a few people from swhs and even matt soycher who used to live here but moved to simsbury in 4th grade. the new album is supposed to be out in june (dan promises) and alan was telling me how they're spending from next friday to next sunday in the studio in rhode island. i really hope minutes is on the new album. i've heard them play it live twice and it's a really good some that i hear might be on the album. i dunno. anywho, i prolly should still get some more sleep tonight since i have to write an english essay tomorrow...maybe i'll expand on it in conversation or at a later time. it was a really good night and despite the fact that i'm still a little sick, i was glad i got the opportunity to go out. anywho...also one more thing i have time only to touch on quickly...people have been asking what you would do if someone loved you for the last 4 years and didn't tell you til the end...what i would do? depends on who the person is/was. if i shared similar feelings, it might be worth pursuing. i can't say anything too far out there without being hypocritical because i was that person. sometimes you find it might be best left unsaid for another 4 years. on the other hand you never know til you tell that person. as someone who hides few secrets about himself, its interesting that issues of relationships percolate in my head well before anyone else find about them...unless it's a person you intensely dislike, i can't say that you can't give the person a chance...that's all i have time for for now....that's my story and i'm sticking to it...

3/3/00-today i stayed home from school due to my cough. i woke up around 8 and took my dad to work so i could get the car. came home and downloaded 2 mp3s and went to the docs around 1115. so he says i have a sinus infection so i go to cvs to put in my prescription of an antibiotic and some claritin. while i'm waiting, i go to the bank for my dad and then check up on things at swhs. andrew, julian, and amy were working in the theater during lockout and then staying for rehearsal. so i went back to cvs to pick up my prescription. came home, made some lunch. took my meds and fell asleep. woke up to a call from hotchkiss who needed my parents to sign something that's apparently due today, meanwhile, i haven't heard from the history day coordinator. so then i ate the lunch i made and got online a bit. i rented 2 movies, monty python and the holy grail and the usual suspects, but i fell asleep about 20 minutes into both movies so i dunno if that says something about the movies or the fact that i keep falling asleep after i tke my meds. i hate this damn cough and my sinuses feel like balloons. nobody woulda wanted to hear me coughing in school all day, it's a pain in the ass. so we had to give my dad the car back tonight and i played my guitar a bit. i hadnt really felt like doing any thinking work. i didn't work on any hw or anything...just plain resting and chilling online. i'm trying to make it to tomorrow night w/o hacking so much. tomorrow night would be the first time i'll see rane since last august. and nothing better stop me. so i best get some more sleep now so i can go...that's my story and i'm sticking to it...

3/2/00-3 days to cover here...excuse my brevity...my hacking cough is making me miserable and irritable. i don't think anyone can get a cough this bad...i've had this cough 1 or 2 times a year since about when i got pneumonia when i was 2 years old. the doc hasn't been able to figure out for sure what it is. ususally it starts out as a simple cold, but then it progresses into a sinusitis/bronchitis/asthmatic cough. there's no positive identification on what it really is because i'm not a true asthmatic. but it really sucks. i'm sure people hate to listen to it because it's really disruptive, but lemme say it's not fun either. it really takes a toll on me. my chest muscles are really hurting. i mean unlike exercising where the muscles are getting a little work at once, this is like they're doing the same work nonstop. right now i'm on more medications than i know what to do with...oral corticosteroid, nasal inhaler corticosteroid, some medicine that i don't remember what it does, asthmatic inhaler, antihistimine, cough medicine, and of course some tylenol cause my throat is hurting from the coughing...i might be out of school tomorrow and i have a docs appt tomorrow. we'll see how that goes. tonight, my dad picked up some of the medicine that can make you drowsy and hallucinogenic, and if it dissolves in your mouth, has an anesthetic that will start working right away and can numb your throat and potentially shut down your central nervous system. the anesthetic's supposed to be for the stretch receptors in the lungs to ease some of the irritation up. so that's where i'm at tonight

tuesday-we went to french and had a quiz. then went to activity period where i paid my class dues. i didn't do the magazine drive, so i owed everything and paid up everything...in english, we talked a little about dali for our trip to the wadsworth. went over some of his styles, meanings, etc. in physics, we started the new chapter on rotational motion, which'll suck, since i never got it in elementary functions and it's a pain in the ass now with these technical physics terms. then i hung out with julian in the DES and we worked on some samples for the play. came home did crap and then had a piano lesson for the first time in 2 weeks. not too bad for that long span. that was about it for tuesday...

wednesday-i woke up and my cough started to creep up on me. went to french and read this story by roch carrier, who's one of the leading children's storytellers from canada. it was the story about this old hockey jersey that this kid has, so his mother orders a new one, but for the wrong team. i read this book in english out of the public library. was a cool book or maybe that's because i'm a canadiens fan like the boy in the book. in theater, we didn't do much other than...you know, i don't even remember what we did in theater. must not have been that important. oh right, we were in the DES with rinaldi. see, it wasn't that important after all. we need a USB hub so we can hook up the new printer and the midi thing that interfaces the promix to the audiodesk program. there's not enough USB ports. after that was another confusing calculus class where we went over homework and cloutman gave us some more problems to do in class. then i took down some notes for the black history month contest. hehe, i'm not letting andrew get this one without a fight :) besides speaking of fights, i could use the money to buy my fight club dvd, so that would be really great since the dvd is gonna be about $35-40. that's the sucky thing about dvds. like, when videos came out, they used to be really expensive, like $25 a video, but with dvds, costs of videos have dropped as low as $5. now dvds are expensive. but hopefully i'll have a dvd player on my college laptop so i'll at least be able to play the videos. then andrew, me, and julian headed to margaret's house to pick her up. she slept all day though i think, but we picked her up and shot over to burger king in east hartford. talked about some weird things...i don't remember a lot of yesterday. we then finished up there and bought some fish for the tank. the guy claimed that the tetras would fare well with a betta and the others wouldn't (though my dad insists a tiger barb woulda been fine) so there was art, the luminescent tetra, dave, the black tetra, and bobby v, a white tetra. shot back to school to put the fish in the tank. the 4 of us got there and went in the building and as soon as we looked in, we could see mrs wojeczowski, the head of the math dept, evaluating cloutman (i guess he forgot to remind us), so we didn't even go in the room before we booked it out of there. but before we could make it around the corner, she comes barrelling down the hall demanding to know why we were going in there, what was in the bag (she didn't believe it was fish), where we were supposed to be and if cloutman knew about it. so she let me put the fish in the tank. it took almost the whole period, since i could only fit 2 bags in the tank at once. so i got them all set up and fed them. went to tech crew, but by then i was already hacking up a storm. when i'm sick, i get all goofed up. i think i was doing impressions of dan mccann and startrek characters while julian was trying to teach me some sound stuff. sorry julian. then came home for a bit, worked on some of the contest, went to a usy board meeting, and then came home, worked on some hw and emailed it to mrs mckenna, worked more on the contest...

today-woke up and felt like shit because of this cough. couldnt stop coughing all day. went to school and found that art was belly up under the lip of the filter siphon. looks like nuala took her first victim. so i wrapped him up, we went in the ladies dressing room in theater, graner sang taps, emily read from heart of darkness, and i did a three flush salute, the middle, the left and the right toilets. goodbye art, we barely knew you. i just wonder if it's a bad omen...we left at 850 to the wadsworth atheneum. we got to see about 5 paintings in the museum- a caravaggio, a pollack, a monet, a picasso, and a couple others...they were pretty neat. then we went to the dali exhibit for about 1 1/2 hrs. there were some really cool paintings there. lke i said, i love dali. so we did some work on the paintings, discussed a few and then i went around this exhibit of some deaf guy who made some of the conversations he's had with people in writing into an exhibit. it was neat too. all in all, i was impressed with the bottom floor of the museum. went to lena's for lunch. we ate in the tavern section. there was this video game/porn machine...duclos had impeccable timing when he kept coming back to us when the porn pics were on. and anand's like, "oh boy, oh boy, oh man..." and so we were all joking around about that and i just kept hacking away at the bar. came back to school and finished my contest entry and handed in the results. stayed after, the temperature in the tank was 90 degrees, yikes. so cloutman had unplugged the heater to hopefully bring it down. luckily they discovered it early in the day. not sure how come the heat was so high. luckily the fish didn't die. took care of the fish and retook my math test. i think i need like a 93 to get a b- in that class so far. i'm hoping i did decently. came home on the latebus for the first time in 3 months. had to cancel my dentist's appointment because of the cough and then unloaded groceries. i've done no hw whatsoever, just don't feel like it. got into syracuse...that's about 3rd from last on my list. so basically i'm worrying about the rest of my major schools. and i picked elise up for dance...anywho, i'm wanted to get to bed a little earlier tonight...whether or not i'm in school tomorrow will be a debate. i dunno, i have a docs appt, but if i stay home, i'll prolly get it earlier in the day. the sucky thing is i dunno if i'll be able to donate blood next week since i'm on all these meds. :P and i really wanted to do it too...but i dunno if i'm in school tomorrow and lord knows i want to be ready for the rane concert on saturday night. that should be real fun...some talking and great music...but i gotta be better...so in the meantime, all i can do is take my meds and go to bed. there might be more i could write but i don't have time now. that's my story and i'm sticking to it...

Past reflections: