A Warm Welcome, a Couple of Sad Goodbyes, and Some Goals

2009 is here at last. To celebrate the coming of the new year, I first had a nice fondue dinner with the family, including my cousin Aubrey and her husband. Next, I went to my friend Alexis' party. There, we talked, played Wii, talked, took a nice stroll, and talked some more. I left at about 10:00 because I didn't want to sleep over with the girls. I had a bad experience at a sleep over before, so I don't usually stay the entire night at those kind of parties. No offense to anyone. So my dad picked me up when he was coming home after dropping off Aubrey and Curtis at their hotel. They had to fly early in the morning, so they didn't stay up. Then, at home, I played Yahtzee with my mom and dad. I had to wake them up for the count down because they ended up snoozing!

My dad left back to India for the next month. For those who are wondering, he comes back for good on January 30. It was nice to have him over for the holidays.

I am dreading having to go back to school. For one, finals are coming soon. Second, I am getting a new Spanish teacher. I loved my old one; he was so relaxed and we didn't have to do a lot, but we still learned a ton. Mr. P (this is abbreviated) had to go to Mexico to help his dad with his business. We'll miss him! I don't know who my next teacher is going to be, but they would have to be very good to beat Mr. P.

For this year, I have a few goals to help me succeed. My top ten are:

1. Keep my room clean.
2. Be grateful.
3. Go to bed early (on school nights).
4. Watch less T.V.
5. Practice my piano and guitar.
6. Hang out with friends more.
7. Eat healthy (like everyone else).
8. Play tennis and golf more.
9. Read 5 new books (The Jungle Books, The Power of One, Life of Pi, Friday Night Lights, and The Last of the Mohicans).
10. Actually keep my goals.

If any of you see me slacking on these goals, help me get back on track! ☺

Imagine This

O.K. So imagine this: You walk into the airport after your mom picks you up from school early. You are expecting your cousin, who is coming from Toronto. So you sit at the exit for international baggage claim and your cousin just won't call your mom saying she had landed. You stare at the stark white walls, wondering and getting a little suspicious. Why did your mom keep bugging you about getting flowers for a cousin you saw just a couple days ago. Then, Mom says, "There he is!" He? What? Where's Aubrey? That's when you see him, your dad. At first, you think it's a dream, that can't be him, he's in India. Then he gets a huge smile and you run up and give him the first hug in weeks. You try to hold back tears of joy, but they come loose. That was my situation yesterday. Yes, Dad's home for the holidays! I am so happy, but mad at Mom for keeping it a secret for 9 days! I asked why and she said it wasn't final. I responded, "What about yesterday, when he was on the plane. You could have told me then?" I don't like surprises, if you can't already tell. We took him home, updating him all the way on all the happenings and finally you reach home. We were at home for about 5 minutes, and then Josh came home from school. The first thing he did was pull out a cookie that had frosting died red from all of the sprinkles and M&Ms and handed it to me. Earlier that day, I told Josh I wanted a cookie from his Christmas party (I did actually eat the thing, though hesitantly). He was so absorbed into giving me the cookie, he didn't notice Dad. Finally Dad said, "Hey Josh!" Then my brother looked up and cried, "Daddy!" as he rushed into his fathers open in arms. Mom, my neighbor who dropped Josh up, and I held back tears as we watched the scene right from a sad movie.

Dad reading Josh a story from a book that kept him sane in India☺

It is Christmas Break! I spent pretty much all of yesterday afternoon looking at the rupees (Indian currency) with Dad. They are sooooo cool! That is how I spend my free time (along with solving the Rubik's cube☺). Anyway, I hope you all have a Happy Christmas Break!

A sample of Indian currency.

The back of the ten rupee bill.

Hi Again

It's been a long time since I last wrote and I apologize for that. It's been a crazy past couple of weeks with all kinds of school work, piano, etc. Well, my dad is doing great! He went to see the Pune Zoo and found that the tiger, if he really wanted to, could jump out over the railing. Pretty scary! He's lost a bit of weight, but he is healthy.

Life's been good. Yesterday was the Church Christmas party and, with my mom in charge, I didn't really get to spend the time with my family. It was fun though, chatting with friends and relaxing.

Thursday was a bit of a stressful day for me, not for anything really bad, though. In Science class, we had to build a mini roller coaster out of flexible pipe and tape. My group was doing great; the day before, we had practiced building the thing and were confident in our "Frostbite" (the name for our awesome coaster). However, we only had 30 minutes to build on presentation day, so we were a bit rushed. We were making great time when, suddenly, the marble wouldn't finish into the cup placed at the end. We kept at it, but by minute 29, we were pretty frantic. Why? If the marble made it through the roller coaster, you made an A; if it fell off, you received an F for the project. We responded in different ways: I was pacing the floor trying to think of a solution, one of the team members actually started praying, and everyone was a mess as we saw the teacher walk slowly towards are project. Finally, D-Andre said, "Put a piece of tape right there!" We were pretty game for anything, so we did as he said. We dropped the marble, Suzy, at the starting point and after 2 seconds, the marble landed safely in the cup. We tried again: it worked again. We were so happy, that when the teacher walked up to grade us, we were dancing together. My grade? 100! In my opinion, our roller coaster was the best after all that hard work; it displayed a paper tunnel, flags showing where inertia was overcome, where the speed changed, etc, and little signs saying things like, "Please enjoy your ride" and "Please exist to the left" (I was rushed so I wrote 'exist' instead of 'exit'). I was very proud of my group; we worked well together.

So that pretty much sums up the past week, fretting over little school projects, papers, and benchmarks. How was your week, Be Happy readers?

TWILIGHT!

So I have read and loved the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I wanted to see how the movie turned out, so on Friday, Mom and I went out, leaving my brother with a babysitter. First of all, we got to the theatre an hour early and, since it was so packed and there were no other seats to be found, had to sit in the handicapped labeled chairs. We weren't kicked out, so I guess it was O.K. I believe the movie wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. They spent a bit too much time on Edward's face and the special effects were kind of cheesy, but that's what you get when you only have a year to make a movie. I also believed the makeup artists made the vampires' faces much too pale; the high school students would have to be pretty stupid not to notice the Cullens were different. Overall, though, they did a good job.

I am missing my dad (if I haven't mentioned before, he is in India). He's been gone for two weeks now and I'm sick of people asking me, "Are you O.K?", "It must be really hard,", "How is your Dad? Do you miss him?" All it does is remind me of him and I have to refrain myself from responding, "Do you want me to cry?" I'll get over it. Plus, he'll be back before I know it.