harpojaeger.com

What an exhausting set of five days.  I am SO ready for the weekend.

Tomorrow I am working all day.  On Sunday, my family and I will be traveling to Long Island for my great-great-aunt’s one hundredth birthday.

My boss just called to say that work is closed today. Will and I will probably do some more work on the website before I leave for a Mock Trial meeting. Will might stick around at my house for the afternoon, since our old calc class has a reunion this evening. Coincedentally, it is at the same place as my Mock Trial meeting, so I’ll be spending the whole day at home and there.

I have maintained total radio silence for the past four days or so due to a variety of reasons. Some involve Brown, some do not. I will begin with those that do. The long and short of it (as I don’t really have more information at the moment) is that I have been admitted to Brown University. As I applied using the binding Early Decision program, and I have received a legitimate amount of financial aid, I will be matriculating there this fall. I am incredibly relieved to be done with this process, and very excited to start school.
This rather momentous news is, believe it or not, not the main reason for my preoccupation these last few days. I’ve been simultaneously performing in and running sound for our school’s annual Holiday Show, a music showcase which is usually thrown together at the last minute. This year was no exception, and as Mitch (the director of the music department, who is responsible for this show) was out of school a lot for the past month or so, due to a death in the family, the show was even more last-minute than usual. We really pulled it together, and there was even a group that dedicated a song to Mitch, and another teacher, Rahul, whose mother had passed away. They played Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven”, which was wonderful. It was a fabulous show all around, and I had my hands full between performing with 5-Alone and doing a Matisyahu song with some friends (King Without a Crown). Last night I didn’t get home until about eleven because I was striking.
I think I may take today off of work, as I am starting to cough again, and I have a whole lot of homework to do. Now that college is out of the way, I will be focusing solely on academics; more specifically, regaining the ground I lost during this time-consuming process. I have been a rather bad student for the past few months. No more.

Apparently the store where I work was robbed yesterday. Nothing big, just a cheap camera, and it was quickly recovered. But here’s the great part: It was robbed by a group of transvestites. Several of them distracted the guy behind the counter while another jacked the camera; a low-end Canon that was on the display floor. The owner had figured no one would bother stealing such a cheap product, but apparently these people didn’t think it through very carefully.
But wait. It gets even better. Immediately after this occurred, the sales manager’s girlfriend came into the shop. The guys on hand were just figuring out what had happened, and she ran out the door to see if she could see where they went. She followed them to the library, and called the police. But it turned out she had followed The Wrong Group of transvestites! Where else but Northampton would you follow The Wrong Group of Transvestites?
When I heard about this this morning when I came in, I said, “Sounds like you had a run-in with Hell’s Trannies!”.

I got off work early today, and spent the afternoon hanging around at home, gathering potential photos for my senior page in the yearbook (which is due in only a few weeks), and just chilling. Being unproductive is very rewarding. However, so is being productive; I went back out to do some freelance computer work at 4:15. Now I am going to watch 1776; a rather wonderful show.
School begins again tomorrow.

Surprisingly, I have had less time to write while on vacation than I normally do when school is in session. I have been working a lot, but that gets me home only a little bit later than school does. Anyway, it’s not because interesting things don’t happen to me; I have had a very interesting few days. At the moment, our dining room is rather smelly, because my dog attacked one of our chickens and tore out a bunch of her feathers, so she (the chicken, that is) has to be kept inside in a dog kennel until it is warm enough for her to go outside or she’s grown back enough feathers. My sister and I went to Wal-Mart this evening to get some bedding and disinfectant for her. Unfortunately, I forgot that chickens can’t have cedar bedding, and I got real Betadine instead of the house brand. My mom went to return the cedar and get pine instead, and she took the Betadine to try to exchange it for the house brand, which is about eight times less expensive. So I wasted my, and everyone else’s time. But we also got a King Size Reese’s (four pack) so it was not a total loss.
I have a lot of homework to do. I have a Chemistry worksheet to finish, and I have to complete the second component of my honors project for Honors Shakespeare’s Comedies. The Sonnet of the Week project is the first, but I also am reading the full text of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and writing a paper analyzing how his sonnets changed over time, how mine changed, and how they compare.
I went on the Common Application website today for the first time since I submitted my application to check on the status of my recommendations. My second recommendation, from the math department head, was finished today, and we are working on getting it in to the Brown admissions office. I have a third, supplementary, recommendation that I’m waiting on from the music department head, but that may or may not come in, as his father, may he rest in peace, passed away recently. I have not seen him in a while. My father, who works at school (and has been there this week), said that he saw him today, but he was only in for a little while. Clearly, I’d like a recommendation, but for the moment I am just glad that he is doing well. Mitch, if you’re reading this, we love you.
I am taking tomorrow off work so that Will and I can work, but that belongs on the Plog rather than here. Enough said.
5-Alone (PVPA’s a cappella group, for which I am the beatboxer) is getting interviewed by a college student for a project of hers. We might be on the radio, which is exciting.
Over and out.

This sonnet done, I now will go to bed.

I have to get up at 8:00 to work, so I need some sleep.

I have returned from work, and Will has arrived. We are going to deploy the calculus and do some physics work before the show this evening. We will probably work on the LC(A) tomorrow morning.
Today at work I checked in repair number 3000. It was very exciting.

Here ends one of my more exhausting weeks. Between the general pressure of school work and my long night (morning) yesterday (today), I am very ready for this week to be over. I will sleep well tonight.
Tomorrow I am going to work before meeting Will and going to my school’s production of King Lear. We will work tomorrow night and Sunday morning. I will be going to work again on Sunday, and that evening I have a rehearsal and then a show.
I need to find some time to do homework somewhere in there. I’m not sure how I will do this, but somehow I don’t feel that stressed about it.
Let the relaxation begin.

I’ve just finished writing a new contact form for the site. Up until now, I’ve been using a WordPress plugin to generate the form, but I got tired of not having enough control over it. It seems to work fine, and looks rather similar to the one I had before.
I also bought a snazzy new Apple Aluminum keyboard and a Bluetooth mouse, taking advantage of my employee discount today at work. They not only look cool, but work much better. Typing is so much easier now, and I have cleared up a significant amount of space – my old mouse was a Microsoft wireless, and it had a big clunky receiver plugged in. Bluetooth is far superior.
Bedtime.