Nerd alert.

This entry is dedicated to one topic: books.

The first of the following two lists came from the syllabus I received for my AICE English Language class I'll be taking next year. I am going to try to read all of them this summer. No, I have not lost my mind. My rationale: do this so during the actual school year I can engage more in discussions and also be reading through it for the second time, increasing my chance of uncovering any hidden meanings. As much as my classmates might, I do not want to heavily rely on Sparknotes. Sure, I could reference it from time to time, but it would not be lifeline for me.

The ones in bold here crossover with the second list and vise versa.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansbury
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

The second list was compiled by my English teacher for the past two years. Basically it consists of the read-these-before-you-graduate-college books. I've already read two!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
White Fang by Jack London
Call of the Wild by Jack London
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Antigone by Sophocles

So if you've read any of these, please feel free to tell me what you thought of them or what you essentially learned. :D

Let the wild rompus begin!

I am now a junior in high school.

This past -- and last -- quarter has gone by fast.
(I'm a rhyming beast. ahaha.)
I'm done.
School's out.
I'd post my exam scores, but who really cares?
The important thing is that I'm pretty darn sure I passed everything with an A.
Even math!

To everyone still in school: good luck and try to stay focused.
And for now, enjoy your weekend.

Sleepyhead.

I am tired, but this peppermint gum is helping me stay awake. I'm halfway through my exam week and I am ready to burst with joy. "Two more days," I shall chant. "Two more days!"

I've been researching various art classes held during the summer at a local museum. Choices, choices! Advanced pottery is out of the question but beginning isn't. Glass fusing and slumping sounds interesting as does sculpture in clay. Hmm. I think I'll have to narrow my selections by the timing or something.
Oddly enough my aversion to studying has propelled me to read two fiction books in the past two days.This wicked fast pace is somewhat unusual for me. You should have seen me at the library when I checked the five books out. My friend Puja and I had been there to try to study for our IGCSE Chemistry exam (not a total bust, but I feel I did not pass with flying colors,) and she shook her head disbelieving I'd have any time in between studying to leisurely read. Can you blame me for becoming involved in other worlds? I mean, slaving over my 190 problem long study guide for history is not fun while the novel Looking for Alaska by John Green is. It's probably one of my favorite books. You should read it. The other book I read was North of Beautiful by Justina Chem Headley, which had its charming moments, I suppose.

I hope everyone's week is swell!

The mesmerizing sky, the certainly uncertain future.

My older brother has now officially graduated high school.

I feel old.
I feel young.
He'll attend Brown University in the fall.
What does he want to do with his life?
I think politics.
I mean, his friends joke he'll be president one day.
We'll see about that.

I wish everyone a good week as I slog through my dreadful week of exams.
I suppose I should keep my eyes on the prize;
the promise of summer.

Anything helps.

The social issue art project of mine is done. My issue was homelessness and I did some background research before I started it all only to come across a scary statistic. Florida is ranked third in homelessness, and even scarier, ranked number one in hate crimes against the homeless. The ultimate hate crime I took time to read about, though, was a homeless man in his 20s being burned to death in San Francisco. Literally set on fire. How crazy is that?

One more week and then I am free for summer. Granted, I'll have to come back a few days after next Friday to sit for Cambridge/IGCSE exams, but that should not be too bad. No more dumb HOPE class and no more Spanish class in five days.

So, let the extreme studying (it should be a sport) commence. Speaking of sports, is it weird for my school to be starting a bowling team? Were we just deprived of its awesomeness before and every other high school in the nation has had one? I think the latter...

Have a fun weekend, everyone!

Beach!

Swanny's birthday party was awesome today. For the first time in what felt like forever, I got to see and swim the ocean blue.