I'm back

I've survived the week.  Yay for me!  Let me tell you how my week went
MONDAY:
-blogged
-edited "Changes" my original song I'm performing at MacPhail on Sunday
-took two music quizzes (aced them both)
-started studying for Astronomy test
-started music paper
-enjoyed the one peaceful night of my week

TUESDAY:
-started working on plot outline for a play for my writing class
-started thinking about what to do for 3 points of view scene for writing class
-visited with Mia and Lindsey after Astronomy- had to get coffee from the college's coffee shop because I was nodding off in class!
-reached the level of "Word Dynamo" on Dictionary.com during lunch
-wrote two poems for a poetry contest: "Storm Child" and "The Color of Sound" (I will post them in a separate post for organization's sake
-acted out my first scene (Act 1, Scene 1) at play practice.  Was chased by a wolf, thought to be crazy, frightened by a beast and a magic looking glass, tempted to take a rose, and then nearly killed by said beast.  The Beast and I have to work out a "dance move" (or something inspired by a dance move, anyway) to throw me across the stage safely.  Should be interesting
-raced to dress rehearsal for Stations; stayed there till 9
-took notes for writing quiz while waiting for my turn to go on stage
-planned out 3 point of view scene
-studied for Astronomy test

WEDNESDAY
-studied like a madwoman for astronomy test ((even during the youth group performance of Stations, but I was backstage))
-aced writing quiz, even though I studied only half the chapters (I thought it was 2 & 3, but it was also 5-7.  Luckily, it was a short online quiz with a longer time limit and I knew how to use my book's glossary)
-studied even more for test- could not grasp the concept of Hydrogen fusion
-practiced a short scene'
-raced to Stations performance

THURSDAY
-walked a long way through the rain (I love rain and storms- see "Storm Child")
-took my astronomy test *crosses fingers*
-finally settled on a plot outline- Letters from If (after going through several, well, two.  Back Row Band and Shadow Stories.  Got discouraged and ended up writing an outline for a 3 act play... took all day and was 3 pages long)
-started working on 3 points of view- Back Row Band
-did piano lessons in the morning and started a Beethoven Sonata
-stayed for play practice, but they were doing my scene last, so I spent most of it doing my plot outline.
-found out that we might be doing The Secret Garden musical from pioneer drama next year, along with their version of Rapunzel, which is supposed to be really funny, or The Importance of Being Earnest.  Was just chatting with our director and all of us juniors are begging her to do a musical next year for our last senior performance... wow, I feel old.
-ate at McDonalds for dinner (chicken sandwich and a parfait.  Yum.  now I'm hungry.  Darn it)
-first "real" performance of Stations.  went very well
-got home at 9:30 and stayed up till 11:30 writing my 3 points of view scene, since it was due at midnight.   Another kid in my writing class who played Peter in the Stations posted his stuff at 11:15.  Made me smile.
-went to bed

FRIDAY
-got up at 6:00 am (crying because it was so early and I was so tired and stressed, literally)
-dragged myself out the door with a tuna and cheese sandwich for dinner, two granola bars, a can of Sunkist (the only caffeine I could find in the house- my mom didn't make coffee and I didn't have time to. It's orange juice, right?  That was my reasoning for having it for breakfast) and a toast, cheese and egg sandwich for breakfast.
-studied for communications quiz
-took said quiz
-received my take home sociology test
-received a in class discussion sheet for sociology class
-also was assigned half a book to read and a paper to write on it- not thinking about that right now.
-wrote my music paper
-stayed after for vocal practice and got to leave early!
-went to the library and picked up my movies and the last Song of the Lioness book on audiobook (they didn't have the regular book).  Not sure how I like the Song of the Lioness. I liked the first two books,  but I'm not sure about the last two yet.
-did the last performance of Living Stations and it was PACKED!
-Got home at a quarter to ten, my sister at a cast party, and finished my paper for music.  It was supposed to be 4 pages, but I only got 3 and a half.  I'll take the points off, and I turned it in at 11:30.  My teacher was kind enough to extend the due date for me from St. Patrick's day to March 23 since I didn't realize it was due on Mar 17 until the 19th.  oops.  (a week after the concert I was supposed to see, which was March 10th.  Didn't get that little detail)  I got it in with 30 minutes to spare.
-got into bed crying I was so tired- midnight

SATURDAY
-slept in until about 9 or 9:30- my siblings woke me up
-showered for the first time since Tuesday (gross, I know, but I had NO TIME at all and felt really nasty.  I'm clean now though)
-ate breakfast (toasted maple brown sugar pop tarts and chai tea... I'm weird, I know...)
-blogged
-tried to go on webkinz since my sister dragged me to Justice and they had the lil kinz on sale for $3, and this adorable husky caught my eye.  His name is Sterling.

THINGS I STILL NEED TO DO
-reading response 3 for writing
-all said sociology stuff
-watch movies :) (Juno and Beastly)
-eat lunch
-take a nap
-practice piano
-practice french horn (We're learning the music from How to Train Your Dragon in band- it's pretty epic.  If that link doesn't work, try this one.  Still have to keep practicing Nocturne)
-learn to sing "Pie Jesu"
-learn to sing "Last Rose of Summer"
-post me singing "Home" to youtube
-ditto with Journey to the past... wait, should record that again...with Sadie as Pooka!

*am listening to How to Train Your Dragon and it's making me happy because it's waking me up.  Seriously, this song can't not make you smile or wake up.  If you haven't seen the movie yet, you HAVE TO.  It's got enough adventure for boys to like, and it's cute and cool enough for girls.  Seriously, I really like this movie.*

Oh, and I heard a version of The Polar Express for band and it's so epic, I want to play it for Christmas! (actually, several versions)

Bye peoples.  Will post poems in a sec.

My crazy crazy week...AUDITIONS!!!

MY SCHEDULE (or why I won't be posting until Friday or Saturday)
Monday- solo and small ensemble contest: I'm playing "Nocturne" from a Midsummer Night's Dream by Mendelssohn on the French horn- wish me luck!  Get my sociology paper back

Tuesday: practice for large group contest after school... Flight of the Pegasus horn line at the end needs some serious work  Piano lessons.  Get my astronomy test back *crosses fingers*

Wednesday: youth group- my one day to myself this week

Thursday: Lee's birthday (remind me to post pictures).  Large group contest for band- have to skip Astronomy :( and be at school by 7:30 am.  AUDITIONS!!!!! AHH!!!!  Ahh!
-Okay Haili, are you done freaking out now?
-NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Okay, let me know when you are....

Friday- have to skip sociology because I have A honor roll lunch at Pizza Ranch... but I can only have cheese or fish pizza (do they have fish pizza???) or vegetarian...it's a Friday during lent and I'm Catholic.  CAST LIST!!!!!!! (I hope... otherwise I'll be insane all weekend... oh, wait, I already am!)

Quote from this morning:
Haili: Time to get up!  Time to get up and face the day, Lee!
Lee: (sleepily) What are you, some crazy person?
Haili: (without hesitation) Yep.  I thought we already established this.  I wrote a novel in a month, remember?

Creationism v. Big Bang

Something very interesting I just learned about in my astronomy class.

A lot of people think that the Big Bang Theory describes how the universe was formed, which is why Christians give it such a bad rap, thinking that it disputes or contradicts the creation story.  In reality, the Big Bang describes what happened after the universe was created.  Basically, the universe was super hot and super dense and full of energy when it formed (or God created it) but it was expanding and cooling (the more dense something is, the hotter it gets).  Matter was trying to form, but every time a proton tried to form, a photon (light particle) would blast it into oblivion.  After about 3 seconds, the universe cooled enough for protons, neutrons, and electrons to form, joining the photons.  After 5 minutes, the protons and neutrons were able to stick together and form nuclei.  It took (according to scientists) about 400,000 (some big number- don't remember) years before the universe was cool enough for electrons to be able to stick on and form atoms (it doesn't take much energy to blast an electron off of an nucleus) and anyway, that's how they say matter was formed.

big sciency speech...sorry.  I didn't even get into antimatter and matter...that's strange.  Anyway, who's to say that God didn't cause that to happen?  A lot of science stuff that people think contradict what the Bible says can have some sense of truth to it if you look deep enough.  If God created the universe, who's to say that he didn't use something like this to form the Earth and stars?  the Bible never says how God created the universe, only that he did.  And with evolution, (I did a paper on this last year) There was this thing called the "Cambrian Explosion" where all of a sudden, a whole bunch of new species appeared out of nowhere, with no evolutionary ancestors or relationships to anything that already existed (I'm looking at you, turtles!)  Now science puts these time periods into big fancy numbers..."The universe formed 13.7 plus or minus .02 million years ago..." blah blah blah.  The Bible says that God formed the earth and all the creatures on it in 6 days.

• Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night."
• Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky."
• Day 3 - God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters "seas." On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees).
• Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night. These would also serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years.

• Day 5 - God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird, blessing them to multiply and fill the waters and the sky with life.
• Day 6 - God created the animals to fill the earth. On day six, God also created man and woman (Adam and Eve) in his own image to commune with him. He blessed them and gave them every creature and the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate.
• Day 7 - God had finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy.

So if God created light (photons) first, that matches up with what scientists say about the Big Bang.  Next comes the sky, or "atmosphere" you could say in sciency terms.  Next comes water, which is H2O molecules... formed by atoms (first come protons, neutrons, and electrons, then nuclei, then atoms, then molecules) and I don't know what dirt is made of, but probably more molecules.  If I'm remembering my evolution right (it's been a year- feel free to correct me) plants and other growing things were the first life forms... seaweed, algae... all of that.  Okay, Day 4 has me a little stumped, but maybe this is when God put the Earth into the solar system.  Theoretically, the sun should form around the same time as the earth... you need sun for plants.  The moon makes sense, and the stars would form the same time as the sun... I'll have to learn a little more about this before I can be sure about that.  Next come the animals, and this is the period scientists call the Cambrian Explosion (in my opinion)  And then human life.

Now the Bible says that God created this in 6 "days"  But I seriously doubt that God's days are 24 hours long.  Time is a funny thing like that and seems relative.  If you're having fun, the time flies.  If you're bored and you don't like whatever it is you're doing, it seems to drag.  We've all experienced it- the faster you want it to go, the slower it seems and visa versa.  God's days could be millions of years long to us, which could explain all the science numbers...

When I first got my Astronomy book and saw the chapter titled "Big Bang" I got a bit wary, knowing that I am a strong Christian (and Catholic- I won't hide it).  But I kept an open mind.  You can't shelter yourself from the world forever, you have to learn how to live in the world without becoming part of it.  If you want to argue your opponent, you have to be informed.  I've always approached things like this, evolution, astronomy, and the big bang, in the same way.  Purely informational.  They're just what science accepts as "facts"  I will memorize them for a test and remember them, learn them, and study them, but not necessarily believe them.  I can look at them and decide how much of it I want to believe and how much I think is garbage.  And I love it when I can say, hey... it's the same no matter how you tell it... as I've just spent the last 20 minutes doing...

anyway, I thought it was very interesting and had the insane urge to blog even though I've already done so today... and I've just remembered I'm meeting a friend... so I'm going to have to go now, but I hope you've enjoyed this... and sorry for the crazy science.  I just got really excited.

Adios
Haili

I am waiting...

for 294 videos to upload to my computer from the family video camera... the thing is, I only need about 10 of them... *sigh* this could be a long night.  I need them for my music project.

I got a 75% on my Astronomy test...plus extra credit brings me to a good solid 80.  In this class, anything over 75 is an A, and only about 60% of the class passes the first test... and now I know why.  Trick questions EVERYWHERE!
     x. List all the ways energy is created
    Energy can't be created, or destroyed!!!! Tricky, tricky!

I aced my music exam today but made a stupid mistake on my screenplay quiz...you'd think I'd know the difference between Interior and Professional... they're like opposites!  But my excuse is that it was early, I was tired, and it was online matching...I couldn't draw lines... oh well.  Still did well.

I checked out the script and music for our musical today... and spent most of the night playing the songs.  Dang, some of them go high!!  They have both Beauty and the Beast soaring up to that high f...I can barely hit it...strrrreeeetttch, vocal chords!! STRETCH!  Anyway, now I have "Can I Possibly Be Your Friend" stuck in my head... it's this super funny exchange between Beauty and the Beast.  The Beast keeps asking her to marry him and she says no, but there's more to love than the marriage kind, to which he's clueless and she tells him she'll be his friend, no matter what.  It's cute and very funny.  One of my favorite lines:

BEAUTY: (sings)

A true friend's a person with a giving heart

A true friend will tell you when you're not so smart

A friend won't desert you when the going's rough

A true friend will tell you when she's had enough!

BEAST: (spoken)

Like now?

BEAUTY: (spoken, teasing)

Like now!

BEAST: (spoken)

Sorry

I don't know, I think it's cute.  

Anyway, moving on... my videos have FINALLY uploaded--- seems that the issue was one of the videos had an error which is why it took almost an hour for video 90 to load.  I finally skipped it and had no further issues as it zipped through the rest of them... Anywho, I've got to get my project done.  Gus and I did a recorder duet today so I'll probably post it on youtube soon- I'll be putting stuff up for a project... gotta go

-Haili