replaced by every day

hey everyone... sorry about not blogging for a while... due to various reasons (christine watching DBZ on my computer all the time, work, violin, phone lines being messed up this past weekend), i just never got around to getting on the computer for a good long extended period of time.

well, working at NY deli is going well. i like to think that i'm a good employee: i do things without having to be told, and i'm considerate, and cheerful... and i do enjoy it. i think people are only rude when a) they have to wait too long for their order, or b) you don't get their order right... so i make an extra effort to let people know that we haven't forgotten about them, and that they get their sandwich the way they want it... anyway... it's fun. :-) i think cindy is happy with what i do. today was busier than usual, and so now that i'm home i've realized that i'm actually pretty tired. whew.

someone called last night/this morning at 4:52 am. i don't know who it was, but it woke my dad up, and then he woke me up, and when i picked up the phone and said hello, i heard the beep of keys being punched, and then silence. so i hung up. i think it was a prank call. my dad was alarmed by it, and i had to tell him about three times that it must have been a prank call and to go back to sleep before he stopped asking me what the call was for. who in their right mind calls anyone at 5 in the morning??? i lay in bed for a while thinking about who it possibly could have been, but i couldn't think of anyone. it kind of creeped me out... do i have enemies somewhere out there? anyway, it seems a bit surreal right now, and i almost want to say it was a dream, but i know it wasn't. whoever called me, damn you. i can't believe there would be anyone as rude/inconsiderate/stupid as that in the world. or, at least, anyone that would know my phone number. ::sigh:: whatever. i don't know.

anyways, so i'm too tired to really write anything deep or reflective right now...

but i did get a postcard from danielle today, who's having fun with her family in hawaii.... :-)

hawaii would be nice.

Posted by Jennifer at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

on the downside of working, i had to miss frisbee today. :-P

oh well. there's always saturday. whew. :-)

but today was such nice weather... ::sigh::

Posted by Jennifer at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

my second day at work.

it's kind of funny... when i'm actually there, at the deli, working, i observe/feel a lot of things that i think to myself, "this is a significant-enough thought to blog about"... but when i get home, i realize that i've forgotten most of them. so i meant to write a lot about today, but now when i actually get down to writing it, i find that all i can really say is that i like my job... and i think i'm learning a lot about people, and, on my part, i'm learning better people skills (because god knows i need them)... and i just like coming in contact with people and watching them. i'm trying to think of specific incidents, but really only random faces and words exchanged come to mind... like, i remember there's this guy named chuck: he's kind of old, has white hair and a kindly face, and he comes in and smiles and always sits in the table next to the arcade games. and then today, the black lady that reproached me the other day for putting my hand inside the rim of her styrofoam cup that i thought was really mean turned out to be quite nice; her name is sandra, i think, and she came in today and had a little conversation with me, asked me my name, and later whenever she addressed me, she'd call me by my name. and then there's a lot of tall lanky men, in their twenties or thirties, wearing polo shirts, that come in... the only one i can remember is ian. and this morning a fat benevolent-looking black guy came in, who cindy told me is just known as "the BLT guy"--he gets one every day.

anyways, what i like about working at the deli is that they have a lot of regulars, and so you see the same people again and again. cindy knows almost all the regulars by name; sometimes she even knows exactly what they want on their sandwiches, whatever. i don't think i'll be working there long enough to remember even half of the regulars' names, but you know, i'll try. eh... i don't know. i like the atmosphere of the place, even though the decor's not all that great (the walls are pretty blank; i don't know, maybe that's the effect they were going for?). it's very personal and friendly.

oh well. i'm saying stuff i've said before.

cindy, the "manager" of the place and amy's brother's fiance, is really nice. she talks to me a lot, and she just moved here from korea like, less than two years ago, so her english is pretty heavily accented, but she's very outgoing and confident and i think i can relate to her in some ways.

okay, christine's looking over my shoulder and i've lost my train of thought...

Posted by Jennifer at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

oh, and branden--i tried posting dotcomments to some of your blogs, but for some reason, they don't post. i don't know what's wrong... :-P

Posted by Jennifer at 06:45 PM | Permalink

oh, and i've decided i don't like frames (regarding my homepage). but i do prefer the sidebar dealie, so the other alternative would be to use tables... but the homepage publisher i use is mainly drag-and-drop, and so it's kind of a pain to use more advanced html. i think my dad installed microsoft office 2000 on my computer yesterday, though, and i think that comes with frontpage (at least i hope so), so maybe i'll go explore and see what i can do with that. or i can switch to geocities. hehe. whatever. :-)

if you're wondering why i'm so clueless about the programs my dad is installing on my computer, it's because i haven't had much of a chance to get on it. christine's been watching DBZ on it all the time. :-) i think she's on episode 120-something. she asked me about an hour ago whether i wanted to watch episode 119 with her--trunks's debut! (yay!!!) i told her i'd watch it some other time (i was in the middle of daughter of fortune). hehehe.

she's still watching it right now. you know, i'm getting kind of concerned. i mean, it's a good show and all, and i admit they build up suspense really well, but... DBZ 24/7? well, christine's not that bad, but she's close. she was looking in TV guide today, and it turns out that cartoon network is no longer doing midnight runs of DBZ.

she was devastated. i, secretly and personally, think this is a good thing.

hopefully this obsession with DBZ is just a summer thing. when she finishes watching all the episodes on CD, she'll be content.

i hope.

;-)

Posted by Jennifer at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it's hard to believe that it's already past 9.

sundays... today i woke up a little before 1, went downstairs and had some breakfast, and i have just pretty much lounged around the house all day... practicing quartet music, reading my new Calvin and Hobbes comic books :-) and also Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. i don't know, today has been kind of strange because it's just been so... quiet, i guess. which is not altogether a bad thing. at times today, though, i found myself wanting to do something... i wanted to ask my mom to help me sew some pajama pants or go out to the mall... but then at the same time i didn't really want to put forth the effort. i guess "restless" would be a good word for how i felt today. i think maybe waking up late does that to you... it just makes the day feel much shorter and that much less productive.

i don't know. i think i'm just rambling now.

it also unsettles me that there's only about three more weeks until school begins. when people ask me how my summer has been, i generally reply, "pretty good"... but when they ask me what i have done i don't really have much to say; at least nothing that i can summarize in a couple sentences. so i usually just reply, "not much." which is true in a way, and yet not true. it's true in that i haven't really done anything long-term or permanent this summer, if you know what i mean... like, last summer i could say that i went to GHP, and the summer before to Taiwan... but this summer has basically been a smattering of things: hanging out with friends, Franklin Pond, frisbee, shopping with my sister, sitting around at home and doing chores, and more recently, working... but nothing really cohesive, nothing that i would consider a big "project" or a continued effort. i talked to paul zang today--he was telling me about his summer, which has mostly been music camps--and i've talked to sarah hao and alvin also, and they both have been/are at a music camp... and i kind of wish that i had something like that to participate in, so that i would have some purpose to my summer.

but at the same time, i don't mind this rambling summer... it's kind of downtime and just a chance for me to relax and just do things i want to do. i don't have any summer reading... and the only school-related issues i have to worry about are my doctor's appt next week to fill out health forms. i also think about orientation and moving in and planning how i'm going to arrange my dorm and stuff... but that's not for a couple of weeks, and that's not really anything i have to worry about--i just contemplate it every once in a while. i contemplate too about what i'm going to major in, which at the moment is still undecided, but that hasn't weighed down on my mind too much just yet.

but it's just weird. sundays do that to you, i think. i've had a whole day just to sit around and wander around my house and think. ehh, i don't know. tomorrow will be monday and franklin pond, and not this lazy sunday anymore...

Posted by Jennifer at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

okay, i've just spent, like, an hour playing games on my computer... i've been having the worst luck!

first, i played minesweeper... i was on expert level--the only one i haven't been able to beat yet--and i was down to ONE mine--ONE!--and i had two blank squares left and either of them could have been the mine, and so i had to GUESS--and i guessed WRONG! arrrrggggggghhhhhh...

and THEN i played hearts against the computer, and it was like, the second to last hand--one of the people had 99 points, and i was in first place... and then i got the queen, or just screwed up, or something, because the guy who was second place ended up edging me out for first... :-P

and then i played pinball, and i just didn't have any luck with that... i'm slow today, i kept letting the ball fall into the hole... ooohh...

not that any of this really matters. i'm just annoyed. especially with that minesweeper thing! i was SO CLOSE! ::sob::

okay, i think i need to find something better to do. like read a book. or listen to music. or go do the laundry. anything.

Posted by Jennifer at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ok, so i have two jobs right now... how did this happen?

i was at the movies one night last week with danielle, beth lowry, and mary burge... actually it was after the movie and we were sitting on the curb outside the starbucks across from the regal on medlock bridge... (but i digress)... when we ran into my friend amy and her friend eric. we talked for a while: i haven't seen amy since school got out and it was good catching up. but anyway, danielle and i both complained about our joblessness, and amy said that her brother runs a deli downtown that always needs help. well, danielle and i were both like, "ehh... well, it's kind of late in the summer" and we went on to talk about other things, and so i didn't really consider that job offer seriously.

but then a few days ago, i got an email from amy that said that someone just left the deli and so they really needed help. even then, i really wasn't expecting anything to come of it, but i gave amy a call anyways, just to see. i told her that i didn't have any experience at all--i didn't even know how to use a cash register--and that i couldn't work mondays, and that i could only work for like the three weeks left until schools started again. and amy told me that she could train me easily, that she and i could switch off working so that mondays wouldn't be a problem, and that they really only needed someone to work for three or four weeks. what excuse did i have? so i ended up agreeing to go in to the deli yesterday morning and work a few hours, see how it felt and if i wanted to do it.

so i went in yesterday, at 8:30 am. it really is downtown: we took marta to the p'tree center station, took the elevator up, and the deli was right there, inside a big office complex. and amy just started right in: she took a menu and began telling me about all the different sandwiches and the prices and which breads they had and how to charge when someone says they don't want so-and-so on their sandwich... etc... then i followed her behind the counter, watched her take a couple of customers' orders and ring them up, and then she gave me a quick crash course on using the register. registers are funny things: they look a lot more complicated than they are. you only really use about 5 buttons out of the 30 that are on there. i guess it's simpler at the deli since they don't take coupons or anything like that, so you don't have to worry about discounts and junk, but even so... i don't know. it was just kind of cool, learning how to use a register. it made me realize how clueless and inexperienced i am.

it took me about an hour to finally figure things out, with amy watching over my shoulder and correcting/helping me take orders... by the end of the breakfast hour i felt pretty confident taking people's orders on my own, although i still had to ask questions every so often to make sure i was doing things right. i'd learned how to take phone orders (pick up the phone, answer "new yorker deli, how can i help you?"), scan credit cards... etc...

i really hadn't expected to stay past the end of the breakfast hour. amy had made it sound as if the point of my coming was just to check things out; i hadn't expected to actually work a lot. but after breakfast ended, i found myself wanting to stay and work some more. maybe it's just because i've never had a job, or maybe it was just the whole eye-opening-ness of it all, but i called my sister and told her i'd probably be home around 4.

so i worked with amy on the lunch shift, too... it wasn't as crazy as the breakfast shift; i don't know if it was just that day, but the stream of customers was pretty steady.

so. i'm going to be working at the new yorker deli now... two or three days a week, from 7-4-ish... i'm getting paid $6.50/hr, which isn't much, especially when you consider that marta fare + gas for a trip there and back is a little more than $4... but for some reason i don't really mind. it's weird, because the big reason i wanted to job was for some extra spending money, but now that i do have a job, the pay being less than ideal doesn't disapppoint me, at least, not as much as it should. i guess i'm less materialistic than i thought i was: i'm liking having a job for the experience.

because, it really is different being the employee instead of the customer. i have to be a different self--a smiling me, a non-absent-minded me who remembers people's orders, one that greets customers as they walk in the door with "hi, how are you?" and "what can i get for you?" and deals with the angry/annoyed/unhappy customers is a firm yet tactful way (i don't think i've quite learned how to do that yet). it's different.

and i guess i like it: i mean, i don't like the mean customers (being the nonconfrontational person i am), but for every mean customer there is also a really nice one, who responds to your smile and talks to you. the new yorker deli has a lot of regulars, and cindy (amy's brother's fiance; she's kind of the one in charge) knows all of them, and they know her. and it's also cool just to watch and observe all the people that come. there are a lot of different people... businessmen/women, the shoe-shiner who has a stand in the building, policemen, older people... there was one guy and his wife from a convention that was going on, a couple by the name of Jones who had british accents (reminding me and amy of a certain precalculus teacher!) who had come in the past two days of the convention and ordered a BLT every time. i don't know. i considering myself pretty sheltered, and working in a place like that is kind of change of pace from life in alpharetta...

and i may be idealizing stuff... but... i don't know.

so, that was my first day of my first "real job." i'm working tuesday, thursday, and friday of next week. we'll see how it goes...

the other job i "have" right now, i guess, i don't really have anymore, now that i'm working at the deli. for like three days this past week, before amy offered me the deli job, i went to my dad's office and "worked" for him. i don't know--it definitely wasn't as fast-paced as the job at the deli (i mostly spent my time there in front of a computer working on an operations manual for this syringe pump he's designing), but i still liked it. i only worked for about three hours each day, and i guess i didn't really accomplish that much. but the day before i went to the deli to work, my dad told me that he was getting new software tomorrow and that he'd start teaching me to use autocad (this drawing/design program) or programming.

and so i kind of feel torn right now, because as it stands, i won't have time to work at my dad's office anymore... but at the same time i still want to learn these things, and help him, because i like it, and because i'll be learning some useful skills that i'll probably need to know at tech. so... i'm not really sure of what i want to do right now. i'm kind of hoping that maybe i can stop by my dad's office for two hours or so after i get off work at the deli (since my dad usually works late, i think), and that way i can still help him out that way. because i think my dad likes me working at the office. he was so appreciative the days i was there... and i felt good helping him.

and so i still want to do that. and even though i think he understands that for me, working at his office is secondary to, say, having a real paying job... but that's really not it; there's more to it, i think, even though i don't know exactly what it is. i guess what i am really saying is that i want to have my cake and eat it too. and it's not working. ::sigh:: hopefully i'll get things figured out.

life is funny. i never expected any of this.

Posted by Jennifer at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

okay, emode.com's ultimate personality test says i'm a Skydiver. here's what they say about skydivers:

You're a free-spirited, independent, action-crazed lunatic. You love movies with sex and violence, and you drive like a maniac. "Anything for a good time," is your motto, even if that means dancing half-dressed on some booze-slicked bar. But let's face it, you're so fun, interesting, and gung-ho about life that people find you irresistible no matter what you do.

You're a great leader at work. You're a self-starter and will always volunteer to take on a job if no one else is up for the task. Plus, you're an excellent communicator and tend to spread your enthusiasm to others. But routine work makes you act up and throw things, and then people don't like you so much anymore.

i am NOT a Skydiver, dangit. "action-crazed maniac"? "open and extroverted"? "an excellent communicator"?? i swear they randomly change people's personality types... i used to be a Mastermind. and, although it possesses a negative connotation, i'd rather be a Mastermind than a Skydiver. At least the personality description for that one was somewhat accurate... bleh. emode.com is so whack, dude.

Posted by Jennifer at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i meant to sing myself a happy birthday song on monday the 16th, but i was too tired to get on blogger (13 hours of quartet rehearsing/coaching/sightreading will do that to you)... soooo...

::raises baton::

happy (belated) birthday to meeeee
happy birthday to meeeee
happy BIIIIRTHday to jennifer leeeeee (ooh that rhymes!)
happy birthday to me!

::applause::

thank you, thank you! ::bowing::

:-) just me being silly.

on a more serious note: i'm finally 18!

Posted by Jennifer at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

why does goody's STILL have a "NOW HIRING" sign outside when i applied, like, three weeks ago... and when i called and talked to the hiring manager last month she was like, "well, we really only need one more person"?

i just don't get it. i must just not be hiring material, or something.

Posted by Jennifer at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i've been listening to No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom. i bought this CD in, like, 7th grade. i had forgotten about it in the midst of all the new CDs i've acquired by burning... had forgotten how cool it was. :-) 7th grade!! man that seems so long ago--

Posted by Jennifer at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

oh! i forgot. i got my ap scores thursday...

all 5s!!! even in physics C. i totally wasn't expecting any more than a four on the electricity and magnetism part of that test... wow... that feels so great. i'm really happy. whoo hoo!!

Posted by Jennifer at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

wow, today was actually a really productive day...

i woke up at 7 and went swimming... which is totally unlike me (i'm a lazy bum, i never thought i'd prefer swimming to sleeping)... but my mom has recently been getting on my sister and my case to go swimming ("we paid our homeowner fees! we should make good use of the pool!")... and i really only enjoy swimming when a) i am with a bunch of friends playing pool games or something, or b) the pool is empty and i can just swim laps and get exercise. i don't know, i'm just weird like that. i don't like having to swim my way around people--little kids playing marco polo in the shallow end or families.

anyway, so i swam for about an hour, and then came back home, took a shower, ate breakfast, and then my quartet came over and we rehearsed until 12:30. (man, it was a grueling rehearsal... our quartet is, er, having some issues... maybe i'll write about it later. at the beginning of the rehearsal there was this tension in the air, and it was so uncomfortable and awkward... but we managed to work things out a bit, so i guess everything's okay, for now, at least. here's what i learned, though: i'm totally nonconfrontational and a pacifist, and i am so wimpy when it comes to standing up for my opinions and when dealing with people who are more outspoken than i am... i don't know, i guess there is a happy medium when it comes to arguments... but i wish i were more articulate in my opinions and maybe less timid...)

anyways, after rehearsal i went to northpoint to run some errands... went to target to buy contact lens solution, to jo ann's fabrics to buy some felt to make a pillow with (yeah, me getting artsy-craftsy), bought a hair dryer from bed, bath & beyond (had a $5 off coupon!), returned my little hot pot to linens n things, looked for a recording of the mozart sonata i'm doing at mediaplay (couldn't find it)... yep. i'm so scatterbrained... any person with common sense would figure what they needed to buy and what stores they would go to before they went to the mall, so they could just go down northpoint parkway and not have to do any extra driving. well, i didn't, and as a result i must have driven up and down northpoint parkway at least twice because i'd pass by a store i meant to go to, turn around, but then remember that i could have just kept going and gone to another store and come back to that store i passed later. yeah. that's me being indecisive...

anyway, i finally got everything done, came back home and started work on that pillow. :-) the front is this yarn pooh-bear square thing from a kit that i did like two summers ago, that has been sitting and gathering dust in my mom's room. so i sewed it all up with the felt backing it, and then i went to go get polyfill stuff to fill the pillow with, and i could only find enough polyfill to fill the pillow not even halfway. so my pillow is yet unfinished. i'm hoping my mom will call from macon and i can ask her if she has any more hidden away somewhere in her room. :-)

then i went to go pick up erin and go to the wedding gig we had... it went well, i mean, we only had to play for like, fifteen minutes. :-) the wedding was very nice... it's only the second wedding i've ever been to, and so it was cool to see how this wedding was and compare it with the other one i went to. again, i am convinced that if i ever get married, i'm not getting a dress with a long train or long veil! too much risk of tripping...

i dropped erin off after the wedding, went to krogers and bought some food... my mom had made a list, but i (hehe) decided to splurge a little and buy some pita bread and hummus. that stuff is good. i'm going to save some for my family and when they come home i'll let them eat it and they'll discover how good it really is. :-)

you can tell i'm bored when i no longer write "deep" blogger entries... well, i guess these aren't really any less deep, but they're less philosophical... mostly about my day and events in my life... and my commentary on them. i actually don't know that many people that read this blog, besides wayne and branden and a few others, but wayne's in taiwan, and so i guess i'm really just blogging for my own sake, so that i'll have a record of what happened this summer....

Posted by Jennifer at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

argghhhhh! for the past half hour or so i've been attempting to learn the 2nd movt of the smetana quartet we're doing, since our coach wants to hear it this coming monday.

IT'S SO HARD!!!! there are all these parts where the second violin has broken arpeggios, so i have a bazillion string crossings... and then there's a second violin solo part that's supposed to be all on the G string, and so i'm in, like, 7th position... arggghhhh... and there are all these chords where the only possible way to do them is with really strange fingerings that require you to squeeze two fingers together on the same space... my hands are so tired, i don't feel like practicing anymore, i can't play the music... argghh so hard hard HARD

ummm so i just wanted to share. since i'm sure that made a lot of sense.

Posted by Jennifer at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

my archives are back up! i don't exactly know why, but i changed templates and it worked. hum. oh well. not going to question it... just as long as it works. even though this color scheme doesn't really match the rest of my page... ;-)

so i haven't blogged very much this past week... blogger was down a day or two, i couldn't figure out the whole archiving deal, and i've just been busy. not really busy, but i've been going out a lot. (it's not really the same thing.) sooo i'm going to recap my week for you. hooray!

7.9.mon. the second FCPM (franklin pond chamber music... oh wait... i guess that would be FPCM) session went really well. beth newdome, our coach, was pretty happy (i think) with the work we did over the week, and she wants to hear the 2nd movt of our piece (smetana's string quartet no. 1 in e minor) next week. which is good, because it means we've been progressing, but it means we'll have to practice a lot this week to get it together...

also, jere flint came for our masterclass. he's coming next week too... he's teaching us conducting! :-) jere (or mr. flint, i guess, to me) is so cool... i really admire him for all the things he does. i think he is my definition of a well-rounded musician. he plays cello in the ASO, but he also conducts a lot of the family concerts and the free parks series and, of course, the asyo! and just a lot of the events that get the ASO and classical music out there, if you know what i mean. it's people like jere flint that give classical music a good name so it isn't just stuffy old people music anymore. it's good. :-)

so anyway, he taught us conducting. basically, we all assembled into a 16 piece orchestra, and he said a few words about conducting... then he taught us how to conduct in 2 and in 3 and made us practice it with a baton a little... and then, he stepped back and basically said, "any volunteers?" and he was serious! and so we all got up and had a turn with conducting... i got to conduct the beginning of the 3rd movt of st. paul's suite... i was doing well--i even managed to get in a ritard--but then the piece changed tempo and meter and hehe, that was just too hard for me. but lol, even though i messed up, it was still fun. i think being a good conductor has a lot to do with feeling the music, and, especially, not being afraid to just let your arms do what they want to do and what comes naturally to them... and also not being afraid of standing in front of a crowd. :-) when it was my turn to go up and conduct, i found that even though i was nervous and my arm shook a little... i was less nervous and more confident than i had expected i would be. things have changed since 7th grade, when i was small and timid. :-) i mean, i still am timid and introverted sometimes... but music, i suppose, is one of those things where it's easier for me to be extroverted about. i just can't help getting into it... eh, but then, i hardly know anything about conducting. that's just (in my humble opinion) what i think. :-)

and... after FPCM i got a haircut! it's short--short!!--and layered... and... even though i'm not used to it yet... i think i like it!

7.10.tues. there was frisbee today. it was suffocatingly HOT. and i never thought i'd say this, but i think i have found a bad time to play frisbee: in 90-some degree weather, made worse by humidity, under a burning sun. yep. like today. i lasted about half an hour, and was about to die. :-) oh, and another thing: i got sunburned!! what the heck?? i never get sunburned! (well, it wasn't really sunburn, but my cheeks were pretty pink. i had to put on some after sun lotion after i took a shower.) grr. anyway, note to self: wear sunscreen next time play frisbee...

7.11.wed. i was at my violin teacher's house for like 4 hours... i had to take my sister's friend evelyn to her lesson, which was an hour before ours at 12, and then my sister and i had a lesson from 1-3. except that mrs. baughman kind of treated it like a group lesson and alternated between teaching christine and evelyn together, and then me, and then christine and evelyn separately... so it ended up being going way overtime. we keep talking about having a senior recital, but i don't think either i or mrs. baughman (or my mom, for that matter) have worked up enough motivation yet to make it a reality. but it would kind of suck if i didn't end up having one, because i've been working on a set of repertoire for a while now, and i've actually been working hard on it... and i'd like to have a chance to perform it before i leave for college, make a big deal out of it for once, you know, invite all my friends... :-) so maybe i'll start working harder.

after lessons i took christine and evelyn to perimeter mall... umm... since christine and i weren't really speaking to each other (i blew up at her earlier in the morning for being in a bad mood the past two days--er, she probably wrote about it in her journal if you really want to read a biased account of what we got mad at each other for... but i don't think you do... anyways, we're friends again, so there's no point in rehashing it all), i pretty much just left christine and evelyn to do their own thing and went wandering around the mall by myself. i didn't really have any intention of buying anything, so i guess that makes my three hours spent at the mall a complete waste of time, but i don't feel like i wasted my time; i mean, it would probably have just been the same as if i had spent three hours at home online or watching TV. i guess the mall isn't really anywhere exciting to be... but i like looking/trying on new fashions and just seeing what kind of clothes are out there, and just basically seeing what's going on in the world around me. i don't know. walking around the mall may not have been the most ideal way to spend my time, but i didn't mind it. and i don't really know where i'm going with this story... so...

i did buy a calvin and hobbes comic book... hehe... "tenth anniversary edition"... it was only $7! so, of course, i had to get it.

later that night, i went to see final fantasy: the spirits within with (::thinks::) patrick, katy, didi, matt brooks, edgar, and erin. umm... my critique of the movie? creative plot concept, but some terribly lame and cliched lines... hehe but the animation was SO amazing that i think i can overlook all the bad lines. hehe, katy and didi (being the deep, content-appreciative people they are) were like, "i can't believe i sat through that movie!!", but... i liked it. gray (the male protagonist) looks like ben affleck, which is interesting. :-) but yeah. i thought final fantasy was worth my $5.50. :-) man, it would be so cool to be a computer animator for that movie... wow...

and that was my wednesday. whew.

i'm having fun experimenting with my hair. i can finally use this sparkly hair gel that i bought at claire's awhile ago... so yesterday i went for the kind-of-spiky-sparkly-messy-punky look (bleh, gotta work on expanding my adjective vocabulary) and today i opted for the more cute barrettes-in-the-hair look. hey, stop laughing. it's been a while since i've had hair this short. ;-)

7.12.thurs. i got to hang out with two people i don't normally get to see often today: carol and farnaz! we went "dorm shopping" at perimeter (yes, perimeter again)... and i was the only one who ended up buying anything dorm-related, actually... an egg mattress thing and a hot pot (something you can cook stuff in without using an open flame--although my mom's making me return that, as we already have something similar... boo. i like my hot pot. it's blue and fat and cute.) oh well. we got tired of the mall pretty quickly, and so we went back to my place, ordered pizza, waited like an hour for the stupid pizza to arrive, and then i drove everyone home. eh, it wasn't a very eventful day, but carol and farnaz make me laugh in a different way than patrick and dorsher and my witty friends do: they make me laugh by being their silly selves, and i can be silly too, and in a way, that's refreshing and no less good than humor by being witty... you know? so i'm glad i got to see the two of them. even though carol will be at tech and farnaz at UGA, so i'm not worried about losing touch. :-)

i went back to that bookstore where i got my calvin and hobbes book and bought five more different calvin and hobbes books (there was a whole shelf of them!)... hehehe... ::rubs hands together:: i couldn't resist, they were all half price and there was a "buy four, get the fifth book free" sale... and... maybe one day they will be collector's items... and... calvin and hobbes is just so funny... and... i'm going to stop trying to justify myself. you would have bought them, too. :-)

7.13.fri. finally, i'm caught up! today erin and i had to be at the dress rehearsal for the wedding we're playing at tomorrow... it was kind of pointless because we didn't need to be there, but we got paid $75 for the gig (we knew we were going to get paid, but not how much), and that more than made up for the traffic we had to sit through going to and from the church where it was at. :-) i wish i were part of a regularly-engaged quartet... it would be a great way to earn money, and fun. ::sigh:: maybe one day i will find a decent cellist who lives around here and another violinist and call up kathryn, my viola friend who also wants to be in a quartet but doesn't know any other people who would want to be in one, either. until then, i guess i will have to take what gigs i can get.

also, my parents and christine left today for SETAA, which is this weekend-long retreat/conference for taiwanese associations in the southest. it's being held in macon, GA this year. anyway, i would have gone, but i didn't really feel like going this year (the youth program is not really strong), and so when i got hired to play at a wedding and found out it was the weekend of SETAA, i decided to do the wedding (and make money) instead of going to SETAA. i think my dad is kind of disappointed/angry that i'm treating SETAA like it's not very important to me, and that's true, it isn't. i didn't go last year because of GHP, and the years before that have always not really been that fun. and this year there wouldn't be anyone my age going, because a lot of my GA taiwanese friends are all in taiwan right now on a mission trip with the taiwanese church. so... i just didn't want to go and not have fun. i would rather stay at home alone, and the wedding was a good excuse. but if my dad really wanted me to go i wish he would just say so, instead of being moody and sullen and silent. or maybe he's just stressed out, and he doesn't really mind me staying home, and i'm just reading things all wrong...

either way, here i am at home. i miss my family, but at the same time it's nice not to have my sister being bouncy/going on about DBZ/arguing with me and my mom nagging/telling me to do stuff. hehe, before they all left my mom was like, "ok, before you go to sleep every night, you have to check and see if the garage doors are closed, the stove is turned off, the air conditioning is set on program, and the front door is locked." and i just nodded and said "i know, i know..."

but before they left my mom came upstairs and gave me a hug and said goodbye... aww... i was kind of touched. :-)

but of course i will take good care of the house. i won't let it burn down or anything. :-) and i have plans for being constructive this weekend... i'm going to fold all the huge pile of washed clothes that are taking over the living room couch, go swimming tomorrow morning, read my library books, make a pillow out of this winnie-the-pooh crochet kit thing i did like two summers ago that has been sitting, gathering dust, in my mom's room... and just basically have some time truly to myself. hehe, it's kind of weird... there's always the stereotype of teenagers having parties when their parents aren't home... but this weekend i just have a craving to spend it in solitude. it may be that i've been out a lot these past couple days and i just need some quiet time to do the stuff i've been putting off or have been meaning to do. or it may just be that i'm the kind of person who doesn't mind being alone. either way, i'm glad i have the house to myself. ahhh.

Posted by Jennifer at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

in other [dragonball z] news...

the cell-gohan fight is finally over! cell is gone for good. trunks is undead, and goku has decided to stay up in heaven (or i think it's not really heaven... but whatever), and the earth is back to peace and happiness... and aww... it was a good episode. cheesy, but good. all the z fighters paid tribute to goku and thought of all the good memories they had of him... awww. :-)

Posted by Jennifer at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i wanted to go to on the bricks down at centennial today... but that didn't work out. plus my mom wanted me to stay home because it's the last day our relatives are here, and they came over late tonight to visit... anyways... i'm a little disappointed. not that i'm a huge fan of tonic or anything, but i do like free concerts, and since i haven't gone to that many "rock" concerts, (ok, so last friday's freeloader concert was my first), i kinda wanted to go.

anyways, our relatives just left. ::breathes sigh of relief:: i don't know what it is with asian parents. or maybe it's not just asian parents... but anyways, at about 11-ish all the parents started being like, let's show off our children's musical skills! and so they were all like, "jennifer, play the violin for us!" and at first i tried to politely decline, but all the parents (besides my mom... that's a different story) were pretty insistent, and for some reason, so was my sister, who kept being like, "just PLAY something, geez jenny, how hard is that, i mean you need to air out stuff for your senior recital anyway" and i was thinking in my head, "that's not the POINT... i feel like i'm showing off"... anyways, so finally we all went to the piano room and we kinda sat around before i got up the courage to pick up my violin... then i was like, "hey christine, you can play ave maria and i can accompany you," and i meant it kind of in fun, just to get warmed up and break the musical ice a little. so when i messed up the accompaniment about halfway through, i didn't think much of it, because before we had started playing i told everyone, "hehe, this is just for fun"... but apparently christine took it really seriously and now she's really pissed off at me for messing up because she thought it made a bad impression on the parents, and now they think she's a bad violinist... errrgg! i guess i feel bad for screwing up her "performance" (if you can call it that), but she had plenty of opportunities to play something else, i mean, i told her to play something at least twice, and she could have played a page or two of her mozart... gosh, and she's complaining now that she had to play ave maria--a "stupid easy-sounding piece"--while i went after her and played a page of my lalo, and i guess she feels bad having to be compared to me... but GEEZ, i'm sorry, it's not my fault!

maybe i should try to be more understanding. but then, it's hard to be understanding when i'm being chewed out and accused as if i messed up her accompaniment on purpose... grr! sometimes all you can do is walk away.

it's been a long time since christine and i have been seriously mad at each other.

anyway, what made this all even worse was that all the time the parents were asking me to play something, my mom kept interjecting, "ah, jennifer shouldn't play," and when i joked, "would you like me to play something serious or fun?" she was like, "oh, don't play anything serious, it's so long and boring"... and she just kept on being really negative... and it was just really annoying. and i don't know if that's what she thinks is the "proper" way to deal with the situation--you know, be modest, play down your child's talents--but she could have been more tactful about it... or something... and anyways, i was definitely already trying to be modest, so she could have just not said anything (definitely hard for my mom) or just been like, "why don't you just play something short and sweet?" but man, she didn't have to say, "you shouldn't play" (or something in chinese to that effect).

so after i played the lalo, which was full of mistakes (bleh--sometimes i wish i played the violin with more grace...), the natural and proper turn of events, of course, was to ask cindy and abraham to play piano. so they each played a piece (and i didn't hear their mom say anything negative about them) and... i don't know, i just hate how these sort of things have to be. i couldn't help but notice that it was almost 12 and we were probably disturbing our next-door neighbor, whose bedroom is right next to our piano room, with the music... and i kind of got frustrated with the whole unnecessary-ness of it all. we could have saved a lot of embarrassment/awkwardness/superficiality if someone had just not mentioned playing instruments at all. but then, i guess it was sort of inevitable... and anyways, there's not much i can do about it now.

i think it has to do a lot with grace. sometimes i think i need more of it. and my mom. and just... my whole life. things like family gatherings would be so much more enjoyable if everyone didn't struggle so hard to do what was expected of them, or just had a little more fun, or were just more free with each other.

and in the end, i don't know. it really is easier said than done.

Posted by Jennifer at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

why can't i make blogger show my archives???

Posted by Jennifer at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

grr... blogger is being really bitchy right now...

Posted by Jennifer at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i feel so gross right now...

this morning/afternoon i just sat around the house all day/watched tv/got online/ATE. man, i ate a lot. i wasn't even hungry, but i was bored, and when i get bored, i eat. and it was all junk food, too. despite the fact that we have all this fruit (peaches, bananas, apples) sitting around the house. i ate some of my mom's chili, some rice, instant mashed potatoes with instant gravy (yeah... the lee family are big fans of instant food), a bunch of handfuls of dry cap'n crunch cereal (we had no milk in the fridge)... all while sitting in front of the television watching the christopher lowell show on the discovery channel.

my god, what a pathetic existence.

i wanted to go to frisbee today, but we went over to jenny's (my cousin) house instead for dinner with our relatives, and so i ended up eating even more... shishkebabs and bread and steak and pecan pie and salmon and coke... bleeehhhh...

i think what a need is a nice hot shower... and then a good sweaty game of frisbee one day so i can feel some sort of redemption for all the food i ate today. :-) yeah... okay, i'm going to go take a shower... the frisbee game'll have to wait.

Posted by Jennifer at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

christine wants to know the order in which the first couple colonies were accepted into the union. i used to have a book of the 50 states had that information... where did it go??

i got my recording of the smetana quartet we're doing today... finally!

Posted by Jennifer at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

bleh. this kinda sucks.

dorsher told me yesterday that comp usa and maybe circuit city are hiring. so all this morning i've been debating whether to go out today and go check out those places and ask for an application. it's annoying... part of me doesn't have the energy or motivation to go look for a job and wants to just go work at my dad's office... and part of me feels as though i ought to go and try and earn some money by getting a "real" job.

the thing i can't figure out is why i can't be happy with working at my dad's place. because i can find so many advantages to working there: good experience, learning useful skills (as opposed to how to work a cash register), great hours (i can pretty much work whenever i feel like it), and not having to deal with people or worry about making a good impression, etc... the only disadvantage is that i technically won't be earning any money. which i guess is, in my mind, a big factor, and the reason why i keep feeling as though i ought to go and find a paying job. and that kind of bothers me, because i don't know why i'm suddenly making such a huge deal out of money. it never was a big thing before. ::sigh:: i don't know. oh well.

but yeah, since it's 1:30 and i'm still in my pajamas, i don't think i'll be going out and doing any job hunting today.

eventually i will convince myself that working at my dad's place is a good thing. i mean, i don't think it's a bad thing, right now. it's just that if i had a choice between working for my dad and working at, say, target, i would probably choose target. which is actually kind of sad, and now that i think about it, when i put it that way, working for my dad sounds better.

arrrgghh i am so confused and indecisive! grrr....

Posted by Jennifer at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

addendum: christine, after reading my last journal entry, feels sorry for what she said about krillin. :-)

"well, no, it's not really just krillin's fault. it's more like all of theirs."

me: "like... vegeta?"

christine: "well... yeah."

i love my sister. :-D

Posted by Jennifer at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

dude, those were good episodes of dragonball z. goku's kamehameha move combined with instant transmission was sweet. :-)

i think my sister's trunks obsession is rubbing off on me. :-) i used to think krillin was cool, but after being reprimanded by patrick yesterday ("krillin is so annoying!!") and after christine explained to me how krillin is the wimpiest of the z fighters and how he's practically responsible for this whole cell demise because he let cell absorb android 18, i... well, i can't really argue with that. and i have to admit, trunks does have really cool purple hair. :-)

Posted by Jennifer at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it's really hard to blog to dvorak's 8th symphony (especially when the big violin solo in the 2nd mov't is coming up!) but i'm going to try and put together a coherent post here, because i have lots of stuff to blog about.

today was weird. since it was the fourth of july and everything, i had planned since like the beginning of this week to go down to centennial park with either friends or family and see the show (w/ the ASO and other people). i had wanted to get there at about 2:30 with picnic food and a blanket or two, and of course, a frisbee, and spend the day wandering around the park/downtown and just generally spend a pleasant, relaxing day and at night get to see the ASO and fireworks.

what ended up happening, though, is that my relatives came. what's kind of annoying about my family is that my parents never really tell me or my sister what's going on... and so i didn't know we were even going to have visitors until like, this past sunday. my aunt (actually, she's my cousin, but she's married and has two kids that are my age, and so it makes more sense calling her my aunt) arrived on monday, and her husband and two kids, a boy that's a year younger than me and a girl that's about christine's age, arrived today. last night we were talking over dinner about what our plans were for today, and my dad asked me, "are you going to centennial park?" and i was like, "well, i would like to..." and even then he didn't say anything against it. so i thought, well, maybe they can all come with me to the park, and that'll be fun. whatever.

but my mom came into my room this morning at about 10 am, poked me awake, and was like, "hey, jenny, do you still want to go to centennial park?" and i, being half asleep, mumbled, "i don't know"... and she said, "well, i really think you ought to stay home and come with us today, because, i mean, your cousins are coming to visit you all the way from taiwan, and it would be really kind of rude of you to go and leave and do your own thing." and so i gave an exasperated sigh, said "FINE," and went back to sleep. i guess this is the kind of situation that can be avoided with just a little bit of planning, but... i don't know, i just didn't really have the energy to keep bothering my parents until they gave me a definite answer on what they wanted me to do today.

anyways, so the nine of us (the four people in my family, plus my cousin Jenny, who lives about 5 min. away from us, and my four visiting relatives) went to ryan's for dinner, and then afterwards we went to my dad's office, where we were planning on watching fireworks. while we were waiting for it to get dark, we tried to find things to entertain our relatives (cards, frisbee), but cindy and abraham (our cousins) seemed really tired and worn out from the plane ride here, and it was kind of hard to make conversation. later we found out that there weren't going to be fireworks at the park next to my dad's office, and since they were really tired, my relatives went back to their hotel, leaving jenny and my family. we were about to go home, but we decided to swing by another part of the office complex place where my dad said we could see the fireworks that the st. ives clubhouse set off every year. so we drove to this little hill, and waited for it to get dark. actually, it was kind of annoying while we were waiting, because none of us could come to a consensus as to whether we should wait, go back to the office and wait, or just go home. i wanted to stay at the hilltop and wait, my mom wanted to avoid the humidity and the mosquitoes and go back to the office, christine wanted to go home, and my dad and jenny were just like, whatever. so we kind of argued for a little while, until we heard the sound of fireworks in the distance, and we finally decided to just stay there and wait. so we spread out blankets, and opened up the hatchback of our station wagon, and waited for fireworks.

we did watch the fireworks at st. ives. and even though they were really pretty, they seemed so far away and distant, and small, and it was so quiet. jenny was like, "man, it would be really nice if we had some music..." and for the first time that night i regretted not having gone to centennial park, where the ASO would be playing patriotic music to the sound of fireworks booming above, and there would be people all around me, cheering... and when i looked around at the little hill we were on and the small display of fireworks in the distance, i felt really disappointed and unsatisfied. the night just wasn't what i had imagined it would be.

after the fireworks ended, we took jenny home. i complained to myself about how i wish i had could have gone to centennial park, and just generally felt very miserable and self-pitying. christine, annoyed, told me to shut up, which just made me madder and more miserable.

but then, as we were driving down 141, we saw a big display of fireworks going off, really close to the road, on the left. we passed all these cars that had stopped on the side of the road, their emergency lights blinking, so that they could watch the fireworks. that made me smile, a little, because there really were a bunch of cars--all lined up on the shoulder, for at least a quarter of a mile. so we craned our necks to see the fireworks as we drove by, and my mom joked about stopping like the other cars to watch... but then as we turned onto findley road, where jenny lives, we discovered that we could probably watch the fireworks from her house. and sure enough, as we turned into her subdivision we saw all these people out on their driveways. and so we pulled up her driveway and scrambled out of the car, and we ended up catching the last five minutes or so of the fireworks display, sitting on her driveway, and it was so much better than the st. ives one we had seen at my dad's office--so much closer, so much brighter, so much louder... and there weren't any mosquitos, and the wind was blowing and it made the air really cool, and... it was just so much better. and as i watched, i thought to myself, "even though centennial park still would have been better, this is pretty cool."

and then the display ended, with a burst of red and purple and green and yellow and orange, and i felt a lot less miserable. as we were hugging jenny goodbye, we heard this big boom of thunder, and i felt a big fat raindrop. and as we rushed to get back in the car and jenny ran inside the house as the rain started to fall, my mom and i both exclaimed about how good the timing was... i mean, the fireworks end, and then right after, it starts to pour... geez! perfect. and it really was pouring. my dad could hardly see to drive.

and when i was sitting in the car going home, i thought again of centennial park, but i thought of what would be happening with the rain and all (that is, if it were raining there). i thought of people gathering up their blankets and running back to their cars, or the people who had taken marta having to walk back to the station... and so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that i spent the fourth of july with my family watching a less-than-spectacular fireworks display from a hilltop at my dad's office park and catching the last five minutes of another. i got to spend time with jenny and see some cousins that i'd never met before... and, i mean, i can always go to centennial park next year. jere flint and the ASO will play there again next year. and there will be fireworks there again next year, too. so it's not such a loss. and i don't feel so miserable anymore. i actually feel pretty good.

and i'm missing the goku-cell fight of the midnight dragonball Z run, so i have to go!!!

but there's my epiphany for today. :-)

Posted by Jennifer at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the first session of franklin pond was GREAT. wow... i had so much fun. my quartet is the coolest, and so is the music we're doing... i'm really looking forward to the rest of the it, and the final concert aug. 7. i think the most fun part of the day is when we get to sightead... we went through a whole bunch of stuff: schubert, haydn, mozart... it was a lot of fun listening to mary let out a scream every time she messed up, and me just generally making mistakes everywhere. tiffany said, "why is it that you always feel so dumb when you sightread??" :-) it's true. frequent phrases heard during our sightreading session: "oh... key change... oops" (like, twenty measures afterwards)... "dahhh!"... "are you kidding?? i can't play this!"... "agghh, what are those??" "um, notes?"... "um... i don't know where we are anymore"... etc., etc. :-) but it was a lot of fun. i laughed a lot.

Posted by Jennifer at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i thought i would go to sleep early last night (well, relatively early, anyway: before 1), and so i got into bed around 12:30, thinking to get a good night's sleep since i had to wake up in early in the morning. i couldn't go to sleep until after 3!.... arrrrrggghhh stupid internal clock...

Posted by Jennifer at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i just realized that i've never blogged about the music thing i'm doing. so i guess i should fill you in quickly.

the official name of the program is "Franklin Pond Chamber Music"... it's 6 weeks long, every monday, 9:30-5, from july 2 (tomorrow) to august 6. i'm going to be in a quartet with mary boland, tiffany watson, and william morgan (all ASYO people; mary was asst. concertmaster this past year... whooaaa). there are three other quartets besides mine. as quartets, we'll get an opportunity to be coached by ASO musicians, read a lot of standard quartet repertoire (i'm going to see if we can read schubert's death and the maiden), participate in masterclasses, and give a final concert (tuesday, aug. 7--come see!). ronda respess called me, like, at the beginning of summer and asked if i wanted to take someone's place, and i was like, "are you crazy?? of course!" and even though the program's $450, i think it'll be worth it. after all, i probably won't ever get to do something like this again, unless i randomly decide to change majors and do music... ;-) anyway. there you are. i hope it's as good as i think it will be.

Posted by Jennifer at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

hum... so here is what i've decided to do about my job situation: i'm going to work at my dad's office. technically, i won't be making any money, which is kind of a bummer, because i wanted some extra cash to buy CDs and clothes and junk... but on the bright side (because, you know, i always try and look on the bright side :-) ), i'll have something to write on my resume when/if i look for jobs next summer, i'll have really flexible hours, and my dad says he'll teach me programming and some other cool engineering stuff, so it'll be a good learning experience. so i'm glad. because i've really started to get fed up with all this applying for jobs and stuff. i made a last-ditch attempt today at job hunting... went to cvs and k-mart, and they were like, "oh, sorry, we don't have any applications left..." and i checked back with the mcginnis ferry kroger, and even though there was a big hiring banner outside, the girl at customer service (who looked pretty clueless, now that i think about it) was like, "uh, i don't think we're hiring..." anyway, by that time i didn't really care anymore, and i just wanted to get home. and i'm sure all you folks who read my blog don't want to hear any more about my job life, so i'm going to stop. that's the end of my story, anyway. i'm working at my dad's office. yay. :-)

in other news... the first session of this chamber music program i'm doing starts tomorrow. i really haven't practiced the music as much as i should have... hehehe... but i'm 2nd violin... so hopefully it won't be as noticeable that i haven't practiced. ;-) so far i've read through/worked parts of the music like once. um. i'm planning on going back and practicing some more later. in any case, i'm excited about tomorrow. i don't really know what to expect, but just the prospect of getting to work with so many awesome people... eeeee! :-D unfortunately, i have to be at ronda respess's house at 9:15-ish... it'll be, like, the first time i've had to wake up before 12 this whole summer. :-)

Posted by Jennifer at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)