May 27, 2006

• Life as a Freshman

  It’s been another 6 months again since I’ve posted anything of value, so its time for… ADAM’S SEMIANNUAL XANGA POST!!! Things are fantastic.  Obviously I miss Nueva, but I am loving high school.  I have figured out about myself that I enjoy keeping busy with school related activities, and I hate wasting time.  There are so many opportunities to get involved or try something new at Burlingame, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all.

  
  

  Igor and Me in Cinderella

  
  

  Speaking of not enough time, I attempted to both play on the tennis team and be in the musical.  Unfortunately for me, the show was Cinderella (I didn’t much enjoy the script, personally), and I was just in the ensemble, and then in tennis I started the season playing #1 doubles on the frosh-soph team, and finished the season at #2 singles (the team has 3 singles and 2 doubles teams).  Tennis was fun, but our coach rarely actually coaches us (especially the frosh-soph team), and there is no team spirit at all.  We did well though, and both the frosh-soph and varsity teams came in 2nd in league.  Every day we would have rehearsal for the musical, I would have to go to tennis practice, and then immediately after race over to rehearsal.  It only worked this year because I am playing on the frosh-soph team, and I didn’t have a big part in the musical, but if either of those changes next year (and I probably will make varsity), then I might have to choose between doing one or the other (still do the Fall Play for sure though).  The coach can’t let me miss a week of tennis for tech week if I was on varsity, and the director is going to want me available for rehearsal at all times if I have a bigger role.  I have no idea what I’m going to do, I guess part of it depends on what the musical will be.

  
  

  Like if it is Cinderella again, no thank you.  I really enjoyed the company of all the people, but the show itself I wasn’t a huge fan of.  I thought the script was unoriginal and cheesy, I didn’t like the music, and there was no added twist or spin to make it exciting.  It was just the story of Cinderella, even dumbed down a bit.  Also, I didn’t enjoy my part that much.  What I like about the shows is the acting part, and in ensemble (especially for Cinderella), it’s just singing and dancing.  Usually in shows, even the ensemble has a chance to do some sort of acting, but not in this show.  The opening scene only had one bar of music for the townspeople to set the scene before we have to start singing.  But enough of my complaining, I still had a great time just being involved with it, the people were great, and I loved our outings after the shows to Friday’s and BJ’s.

  
  

  Me and Trisha at Drama Awards.

  
  

  Recently, we had the drama awards, which is a really fun event where people dressed to the 80′s theme and gave out all kinds of awards.  I got to present the award for Best Musician, which is the coolest award to present because band at Burlingame is basically the most awesome thing since Chuck Norris.  At the awards, I was inducted into the thesbian troupe.  I also won the award for best actor in the fall play, to my immense surprise .  It’s great to know that my peers respect me enough as an actor to even think of voting for me as a freshman.

  
  

  Speaking of voting, I decided to run for ASB Vice-President (school VP) instead of Sophomore Class President.  I decided to run for ASB because I felt like I did almost all of the work this year, and class cabinet just wasn’t as dedicated or motivated as I wanted them to be.  I didn’t want to go through another year of me having to do everything and think of all the ideas if I want something to happen.  So I ran for ASB because people on ASB are much more dedicated, involved, motivated, and they actually enjoy meeting and planning things.  When I decided to run for VP, I was hoping that two or more juniors would run also.  My thought was that they would split the junior vote, and then if I just got the freshmen to vote, that would be enough.  That didn’t exactly work though, because only one other person ran, and it was a good looking, popular junior girl.  Even though I knew my chances weren’t good, I campaigned like hell, talked to anyone and everyone about it, worked hard on my 30-second speech (that was the max.), petitioned to my classes at the end of every class to make sure to vote, and I made 4 different flyers, a poster, and a banner.  My banner was actually torn dorn and ripped into 15 different pieces before it was even up for a day, but as one of my flyers say, I won’t take no for an answer.  So I found the janitors, found out what trash can it was in, pulled it out, and with the help of my friend Julia, pieced it back together and stapled it back up:

  
  

  <–Before the tearing.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

  <–After the repair.

  
  

  As you can see, my ‘tagline’ was: The Fresh Choice, because I’ve got ‘Fresh ideas and a new perspective’, I am a freshman, and I thought people might remember it more because of the restaraunt chain.  I guess it worked, because I won!!!  From what I’ve heard, I think I am the first freshman to ever do that.  ASB Vice is only one of two elected positions out of all student council that is only for one semester, so I’ll just be VP for the Fall semester next year.  My main reponsibilities are that I am in charge of all clubs at Burlingame, I organize the Club Faire, and I organize the Blood Drive.  Oddly enough, even though I will in charge of the Blood Drive for my school, I won’t even be old enough to give blood.  I got a really nice, really helpful letter from the current ASB VP about what my responsibilities are, and he gave me a lot of tips.  It sounds like a lot, but I am really excited for it.  Already, I am so glad that I am on ASB on not class cabinet.  We have already done a lot, and there are some fun things we are planning to do over the summer.  We already had interviews for the ASB appointed positions (Service Learning Liason, Human Rights Commisioner, Publicist, and Student Manager), and we actually chose the girl I ran against for Student Manager.  At the beginning of summer, we are having an ASB Pack-up day, and we get to look in the new building for next year that day.  Then, the very next day, we are all going to a ropes course together, and then at the end of summer, we move into our new ASB/Leadership room.  The day after that, 6 of us (there are 13 on ASB) get to go to a leadership camp that is mostly paid for by the school for 4 days!  I heard it is a lot of fun, so I am really looking forward to that.  We also had an ASB transition party, with the current ASB and the new ASB for next year.  I took that idea and I am doing the same thing for the Class of 2009 Cabinet.  In which, by the way, John Masline was elected Sophomore Class President.  Nueva is taking over the school.  So tomorrow we are having our transition party, and then maybe we’ll go see The Da Vinci Code afterwards.

  
  

  Also this summer, I am going to Kenya with my parents, my brother, my aunt and uncle, and two of my cousins for two weeks!  I’m really excited, it should be an amazing experience, and we are also stopping in London for about 2 days on the way there.  I am also going to the Nike Tennis Camp at Stanford again this year, so that should be a lot of fun too.  I am one of the BHS Representatives on the American Cancer Society Youth Council for San Mateo County, so as a freshman, they invited me to go to a youth summit in Anaheim for one night and two days!  It’s so I can learn from that this summer, and come back and keep it going when the seniors and juniors leave.  The whole thing is paid for, including flying me there, and going to a baseball game.  I guess all these paid for things are my reward for being so involved haha.  That, and I got a certificate and my name on the BHS news for doing over 50 hours of community service (I’ve done about 80).

  
  

  I am also going to be the BHS Rep. on the planning board for Burlingame Relay for Life.  This means I will probably be expected to be on the BHS team, but I still want to have Team Nueva there.  So Nueva people, mark your calendars, October 7th and 8th, 2006.  On the topic of Nueva people, I can’t wait to see you all at the beach party.  I’m so excited we get to do that again.  I really do miss all of you.

  
  

  My classes and homework load seemed to get a lot easier by the end of the year.  I got straight A’s last semester, and this semester, before the finals I didn’t have less than a 97% in any of my classes except probably PE, which I don’t know my grade in.  Health has been fun, it’s kind of like SEL, except more fact based.  Ms. Perea is really cool also.  Spanish has been really easy, and the teacher loves me.  I think I have about 110% in that class.  English was fine, didn’t love it, didn’t dislike it.  I really like that Ms. Caret is so involved with the school, and I appreciate that she eased off the work load at the end of the year.  It’s probably because she only has two freshmen classes, and all of her other classes are senior AP ones, and we all know they do barely anything after AP tests.  Geometry was a really good class, and Mr. Skrable is a seasoned and attention commanding teacher who really knows his stuff.  Probably the more clear and to the point teacher I have ever had.  Biology was beyond easy, and I never took notes in that class.  My notes consist of one page of doodles, including one of Mr. van Rijn, and scribbles that if I remember correctly was me testing out some pens.  The assignments in that class were so pointless, and the people who actually need them don’t actually do them.  They just put down some BS answers without actually doing any work that get them points because he doesn’t check for content.  I feel like such a smartass in that class, because I often corrected and challenged what he said.  I gave him some suggestions the other day and told him what works and what doesn’t, and he actually had a really good idea; that the people who score well on the tests don’t have to do what I considered the busy work, as long as they do the reading and continue to score well.  I said that was a good idea because then he also has less assignments to grade, so he can spend more time actually reading them to make sure they didn’t copy or BS it.  And then PE… I thought PE was supposed to be fun?  It was in middle school anyway.  Mr. Dowd has zero empathy, is borderline racsist and sexist because he can’t control a damn thing that comes out of his mouth, and seems like he has a grading system where whoever he likes or can run a mile in 6 minutes gets an A.  From what I have gathered, it doesn’t even seem like he keeps a grade book.  Anyway, that’s how I feel about my classes.  I am really not looking forward to Chemistry next year, because the single unit in bio I had trouble on was the biochem unit, and I never liked the chem stuff in Ken’s class at Nueva.  Algebra 3-4 should be a breeze after Geometry AS, but I have heard that the honors history class next year is one of the toughest courses they offer.  I am also taking Leadership, Spanish 3-4, English 3-4 AS, and… PE again.  Uhg.

  
  

  Even though I am constantly busy and exhausted, and I have almost no social life, I still am liking high school a lot.  I like that I am able to be doing so many extracurriculars and getting so involved, it feels good to be helping out with something.  A problem about Nueva was there wasn’t enough people to have so many extra programs, but at BHS there is a fully-working student council, two shows a year, the PAWS program (volunteering), a leadership class, and just a bunch of things that a smaller school couldn’t have.  The only problem with all this is it doesn’t give me a lot of time to make good friends and make plans to hang out with people.

  
  

  I guess that wraps it up.  Evan is going off to Pomona college next year, so I’ll be an only child in the house for the next three years.  Hope all is just as well with all of you, and if anyone wants to hang out, the cell is 346-3731.  Good night, and good luck.

  
  

  ~Adam

  
  

  PS.  I spent two and a half hours on this.

  • 5:41 pm
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