APUSH in a bad direction

Like always, I like to come up with somewhat witty titles for my posts and this one is no exception. APUSH, aka AP USH, aka Advanced Placement United States History, which is also a pun on a push. Anyways, on Wednesday, our teacher assigned us our groups for our pop culture project. Our pop culture project consists of being assigned a decade of American history, and then we make a powerpoint explaining some of the fashion trends, fads, and popular songs about the decade. Anyways, I get 1940-1949, and I’m psyched at first. After all, I got my first pick. However, my friend Alex turns around and asks, “Why did you pick the 40s ?” I look at the handout my teacher gave us, and I can’t find the reason I picked the 40s. So that was a bad start immediately since I didn’t like the songs or the trends or anything else. I still have no idea why I put the 40s as my first choice. T.T. However, that’s not where things get hairy.

I get paired with one of the people I dislike the most in my AP US class. I won’t get into the people I dislike in that particular class, but let’s just say I wouldn’t mind removing him from my high school. Nothing as extreme as pain, but as long as his voice doesn’t reach my ears and his appearance doesn’t stain my vision, I’ll be two steps happier. The next worst thing is my other partner. I really don’t like or dislike this person, but he doesn’t show up to class from time to time simply because our teacher doesn’t really take roll. He’s started to show up recently, but I’ll bet he doesn’t do work. *shrugs*

On to better and brighter things! :3

Today there was a rally at school. I didn’t go, but I did go to an open classroom and chillout with my friends playing poker for the entire time span. We had eight players and even after the hour span, we didn’t have a definitive winner. There’s a problem when people starting throwing chips around like nothing. It gets annoying when everyone is raising and making side pots here and there. Next time we play with real cash. Then we’ll see a change in tune!

The funny thing is, afterwards I was talking with my English 3AP teacher, and as it turns out she plays poker. I like her for her dry humor, but it makes it difficult to tell when she is joking or not. For instance, I asked her why she didn’t join us in playing. She replied, “I didn’t think I’d be able to afford it.” Now either she thought we were playing with real money, and if so her concerns are justified since we were throwing around big amounts, or she was joking with that dry humor I haven’t found elsewhere in real life.Later on in the conversation, she comments that if she played, “I would have unmercifully crushed you all, and then there we be grudge holding for the rest of the year…” Now I must get her to play at our net poker game haha.

Still no pictures, and nothing else worth mentioning.

Oh wait, I’m watching Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls right now, and he’s in the freaking Sahara Desert. He meets with a group of Berbers and some crazy stuff happens with a snake and camel body parts. The cool thing is, Bear can communicate with the Berbers since the Berbers speak French. That made me glad I’m taking French, but at the same time I felt bad for not knowing it all that well haha.

Timestamp – 1:46AM

I’m missing birthday parties left and right here…

So my plan for Saturday was, go to Tully Library for volunteer work with my friends and my goddess(inside joke), then afterwards hit up my friend Dustin’s party. The same Dustin I went bowling with last week. But the bad news is, on Saturday we had a family thing to go to. An Do(pronounced roughly: “anh” like the first syllable of onion and a high pitched “yo”) where the family got together and we had a large, typical Vietnamese meal in memorance of relatives now passed. All day affair, so I couldn’t go anywhere <.< My apologies to those whom were offended by the lack of my presence.

This Sunday, I was randomly informed by my parents that I couldn’t go to another friend’s birthday party. Sorry Maggie! Happy Birthday anyways <.< This weekend did not turn out the way I had planned dang it. On the plus side, I did make this pretty nifty laptop stand for my laptop. Basically, it’s a piece of cardboard base, a water bottle for leverage, and a wooden dowel to keep the laptop from sliding off the edge, and ducktape to hold everything together. I based everything off of a helpful website, but I lost the URL haha. Here’s some pictures of the completed thing. I’m still waiting on those Gatsby pictures. (Hurry up Ed!)

Timestamp – 8:42PM

SORRY!

Sorry I couldn’t come to volunteering today! My parents (aka my ride) were busy setting up for a Vietnamese family culture thing. An Do, or something. Not entirely sure how to spell it.

Behold, the first two pictures of the Gatsby party day!

Getting the last bit of food is harsh..

Henry the waiter deals with a underdressed customer who refuses to leave…

Hey there, Old Sport

Today was most likely, the best day in my English 3AP class ever. We had a 1920s Great Gatsby themed party during 5th period today. Oh man, was it awesome. We had to dress up in typical 1920s upper class outfits and such and such. Beware my awesome side part! I’ll get pictures up once my friend feel like finishing doing whatever he’s doing and sending me the pictures. We had food: fruit cocktail(I brought it) cheese, meat, and cracker platters (although the guy who brought it ate more than half a platter himself) pineapple upside down cake, fancy chocolates, and oddly enough, Lays potato chips. The drinks were utterly sweet though. TWO kinds of cider! One apple and one cranberry. Oh man was it awesome to schmooze and act ritzy with those plastic campaign cups in our hands haha. There was orange juice, but eh it had pulp. (I don’t mind pulp, but I’m pretty sure as a 1920 kind-of-guy, I wouldn’t want pulp in my juice)

First of all,  the decorations that were set up somehow fell down during 3rd so it was a bit of a scramble to get the party back together. We got it done though, although I’m not entirely sure how since I was mainly taking pictures. I borrowed my friend Ed’s camera a took dozens of pictures. I must have taken maybe 10 shots of just setting up, almost got a picture of each and every person standing, and more. I love taking pictures by the way. Some memorable shots would be: David chugging the cider bottle, Roy opening a bottle with Matt’s belt buckle, George’s fake mustache, and Mrs. Mohr with the fake cigar. Oh man, I can’t wait for Ed to get those damned pictures to me haha! You need to see them!

One thing that kind of sucked though, while I was able to rally the class together for a huge group photo, since I was the one taking the photo, I wasn’t in it. T_T After taking the picture, the class sort of separated quickly, so I didn’t feel like gathering them up for my own chance at fame. I was able to get a cool picture of me imitating Owl Eyes, a memorable character of The Great Gatsby. Oh speaking of cool pictures, there’s an awesome shot I set up that puts my buddy Henry, a waiter for the party, in a strong light lol.

That’s right, we even had waiters for this party. The various committees were: food (including me), fashion consultants, beverages, after party clean-up crew, waiters, dance instructors, the main characters of the The Great Gatsby, music, and even a guy in charge of fake cigars haha. If that doesn’t say awesome, I’m not sure what does

We danced the Charleston mainly, seeing as how that’s about the easiest dance there is. We also learned the box step and this weird hopping dance, but our class had like a, 4:1 guy:girl ratio and not everyone wanted to dance the box step. No girl wanted to dance the hopping one since they all had heels on. Waiters didn’t have to dance, which was the main reason our three waiters took their jobs haha.

All day in our fancy suits and cool cat-hats, we attracted a lot of looks and questions, which only made it all more interesting. Even teachers were like, “So, why is everyone all dressed up?” which was funny.  By some strange twist of fate, my US AP teacher, Mr. Phipps also added to the day’s fun. First, at the beginning of 6th period, he sits down at his desk and says, “Alright, I didn’t get a chance to finish my lunch, which I am going to do down so just chat amongst yourselves.” Which we did. For about 5-10 mins. Then, although I’m not sure how it happened, but my friend Alex (same name lol) and a guy in my class (the one who tried to steal my joke) got into a tie tying competition. After about 2 or 3 rounds of it, Mr. Phipps finished his lunch and came over to see what it was we were doing. He then proceeded to teach us how to tie the double windsor knot. This took up another maybe, 5-10 mins? Fun day all around I have to say.

I promise I’ll get pictures up soon. :3

Timestamp – 10:30PM