Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Ouch.

I injured myself THREE TIMES at tennis today.

First, we were doing a drill where we had to run back and forth across the court to get the balls they were feeding. Basically, I couldn't stop after I hit the ball, so I slid like three feet over the clay on my side. I skinned my knee, my hand, and my elbow.

Then, in the same drill, I tripped. Over my own foot. And twisted my ankle.

Then I had a *minor* reinjury of my wrist.

Doesn't my tennis camp sound super fun?

Saturday, July 26, 2008

The worst thing about my school

All my friends live in towns scattered around the county.

It can take up to an hour to get to some people's houses. And my parents HATE HATE HATE driving.

Hey, at least I've become an expert in getting rides from people.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Not dead yet...

We didn't do our core/strength/endurance/agility work at tennis today!

I got back from my vacation on Saturday. I was having fun (most of the time) for weird reasons. Last year, I didn't enjoy the trip very much, because I was having so much trouble dealing with the ultra-preppy and waaay upper-class backgrounds of everyone, along with their general snarkiness and teasing. But this time around, I was mentally prepared, so I spent the trip being grateful that my friends (thanks, guys!) are nothing like these kids.

Don't get me wrong, I love all of them to death. For the first two days. But their personalities are so totally different from mine that I just get tired of having to deal with it. I enjoyed my time on my own, though. While the others were tubing (I'm not so cruel that I would make the others be bored to death while they go slow with me), I would sit at the little candy/ice cream shop and do my summer reading or talk to the girl who works there. Oedipus the King is actually really really good! I also read three books of my own, plus my dad's book, plus the beginning of this book about first amendment rights, plus two issues of Golf Digest, of all things.

I wore my new dresses for the first time! My red one was a hit--I wore it twice, once with straps, once strapless. I also wore the purple one twice. I was astounded when I ironed it at the way it unwrinkled itself nearly instantly with me barely touching it with the iron.

Other things going on...dinner with a friend tomorrow night, then poker/game night with other friends on Wednesday. I'm trying really hard to force myself to get out of the house occasionally. I also emailed the president of my town's historical society so I can line up a bunch of volunteer hours (I think it's 10-15 hours for NHS, plus ten more to fulfill the school requirement) before the summer's over. Tomorrow I might give Senator Lautenberg's campaign office a call so I can get something lined up for the fall.

I have recently become addicted to Law and Order SVU. This is a problem, because my dad thinks it's too "adult" for me and gets annoyed when he sees me watching it (weeknights at eight on usa!). Even though he'll never actually make me turn it off, he will give me a look and ask "Is that appropriate?" every time.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Tennis, Day Two.

Tiring. Last night, my calves cramped up. Both my legs hurt like hell--the only thing that soothed them temporarily was warmth. It took me the longest time to figure out a way to go to bed while still keeping the warm water bottles on my legs. Finally, I realized that just bundling myself up would work just as well. So I put on two pairs of knee socks and folded a blanket up so it would only cover my legs. It sort of worked, but I didn't get much sleep.

Tennis was fine. But instead of running, they made us shuffle halfway down, then do crossovers back. And then do it again Not fun. And then during my match my opponent reinjured her hand, an old injury. I hit with one of our instructors, this oldish lefty. He was good. Man, I was hurting after that. He ran me all over the place. His placement was absolutely impeccable. I mean, opposite corners on every shot.

We played some King of the Court later, which was pretty fun, even though we only had one serve and it had to be a spin serve, which I barely know how to do.

Then I went shopping and bought yet another dress at H&M ($20!).

I bought one of Subway's "Five Dollar Foot-longs" for dinner. It was way too big for me, of course.

This post has been more incoherent than usual. I'm exhausted. Four hours of tennis plus shopping? Yikes.

Why the Israel situation scares me so much.

I'm not going to write about it because I don't feel like thinking too hard, but please read this.

http://postcolonialhubris.blogspot.com/2008/06/denied-right-to-go-home.html

Monday, July 7, 2008

Ick

I just wrote a post that makes me sound like a spoiled brat.

I try not to do that. Oops.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Tennis

My serve today was much better.

My backhand today was really on--too bad I was playing with my dad, who's a lefty. A righty would have missed a bunch of the shots I was hitting, according to my dad at least.

The forehand was meh, as usual.

I didn't volley much, but I was getting to a lot of drop shots.

Tomorrow begins my daily four-hour tennis class. Starting at noon. Wish me luck.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Pretty clothes!

Yesterday I went shopping with my sister and four cousins. I needed dressy clothes to wear on our vacation to Basin Harbor, where my family goes every year. All of my dad's brothers and sisters go, and so does my grandma. This year will be (I think) our fifteenth or sixteenth year going. I am SO excited. We go the same week each year, and since we've been going so long, we know a bunch of families really, really well who go at the same time as us.

At dinner, we have to dress up, and the only dressy clothes I own are a) Western business attire for Model UN or b) wintery stuff or c) just not quite appropriate.

So I bought two dresses at H&M. (I love that store)

This one, in a magenta color, but without pockets:



And another one that I can't find a picture of. It's red. The straps are about 3/4 of an inch wide and are removable. It's fitted from the chest to the waist, and the skirt is an A-line shape. It fits perfectly, which is waaaay more than I could say for the no less than SIX skirts I tried on at Forever 21. I love it so much. One of my cousins found it for me. Now I love her forever :)

(By the way, the H&M website is such a pain. It doesn't have most of their clothes on it.)

I still need some stuff. I'll probably go to gap (or back to H&M) sometime this week.

My younger cousins left today for their vacation in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow, my older cousins are going home to Anchorage. Monday, tennis camp starts. Then, one week from today, we leave!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

I'm so sick of this

This post is a long, rambling vent about why I should be spending less time with my family.

My mom is insane. Since my cousins are visiting (they live in Anchorage), she been taking time off to spend with my aunt, her sister.

She views everything as a task. She's even less content than I am to just sit back and let stuff happen. She is way way conservative. Today we went to the beach, and she seemed completely unable to enjoy herself.

Every ten seconds:
"Let's take a walk." Um, no. I want to relax and read my trashy novel. Leave me alone.
"Stay between point x and point y" Um, the current. Hello. It's like impossible.
"if the current is pulling you. you're in too deep! And you shouldn't be swimming then!" Swimming is one of the points of the beach. Also, the idea of the ocean is that it has currents. That's kind of the point.
"Time for lunch!" I'm not hungry now!
"Too bad, the sandwiches will get cold!" Who cares? It's peanut butter! Which is good warm!

At the boardwalk later, she was going pretty crazy while we were ordering food. She was trying to micromanage EVERYONE.

Argh. I'm just sick of this. And in the car on the way back, she was going on and on about how "outrageous" things were. Never mind that nobody actually cares because they're never going to change. And never mind that they don't actually bother the people who are affected.

And then there's my cousin. Her parents can micromanage even more than my mom, so I definitely feel bad, but it's weird to be with someone like her who's not as academically motivated as just about anyone else I know. It's hard. I don't know why it bothers me, but it does.

My sister doesn't respect me at all. She thinks I'm there to amuse her. She'll start a game on the nintendo and then get offended when I don't want to play, even when I'm in the middle of something and I was never asked if I would play. She bosses me around and acts superior ALL the TIME. Seriously. She's younger than me. She should at least be nice occasionally. And yet, it scares me how much I love her. I mean, I would do just about anything for her.

My dad's awesome, but he plays a lot of tennis, so he's not home that often.

I miss my friends. I miss having time alone. I miss having time with my dad. I miss having some freedom. I honestly just want to be left alone.

*I'm almost certain this post will go poof very very soon. I just needed to get it out there.*