Red Green and Blue

Ok, I'm not going to drop any spoilers.

I picked it up on Saturday for $23.  Very smug about skipping the cost and the price tag :P

I'm not going to drop spoilers, but I'll say it is definitely the BEST of the books and is extremely well written.

I'll leave it at that ;)

So one of my mom's friends invited us over to her house.  She's really interesting.  She has all this original artwork around her house, and she knows the story to each and every pieces.  And she's a good cook :P


But when we went home, this is the suprise part.  Literally.





I walk in to use the washroom near our kitchen and hear that something's in our kitchen.


I round the corner, and it's my friends from youth.  They set up a suprise good bye party while we were at dinner.  Shari, Grace, Natalia, Abby and Angie, Sierra, Kayla and Grace were there.  Shari, Grace and Kayla had been planning the thing at Drama camp at church this week.  There were posters up for all the holidays I'd miss while I was in Africa.  Ben also presented some stuff like a book to read on the flight (a Robin-Hood redo which looks really interesting) and a Rubik's Cube.  I have the best friends in the world :)

I took the party as an excuse to write my first post on the blog I've had reserved for about six months:

www.outofafrica.wordpress.com

I also have more photos and even (gasp) a video on my Photobucket account:

Suprise Party subalbum

They also gave me this compilation CD with holiday songs (Well, my personal theme song (that being Weird Al's "White and Nerdy") isn't really a holiday song...) with lots of great stuff on it.



So the second purchase (After the Ratatouille soundtrack) I made with my credit card was one I didn't want to make... $200 laptop battery.  Mine only held a charge of 30-45 minutes.  I just got the new one (really quickly.  I ordered it on Sunday) in the mail, and at 75% I have 2 hours left.

But there's another purchase that's coming soon... HP7 is coming out tommorow.  My plan is to skip the midnight releases and stuff and go to Costco or Loblaws, which had them day of release for half the price of Chapters when Half Blood Prince came out.  I preordered and payed about $55, and then got it four days late.  Not doing that again...

Ok, so mom used to watch this TV show while she was growing up called Get Smart.  So one day mom and dad went down to the local video store and got a season on DVD.  It was hillarious, and we all love them :D


So we go to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which is the best, btw.  Left out some of the little good parts, but cinematography was excellent and the effects were the best I've ever seen.  But back on topic...) and the trailer for Get Smart comes up.  I didn't even know they were making a movie.

(trailer:  http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/07/10/get-smart-teaser-movie-trailer/ scroll down a bit)


So we have Steve Carell as Max (he did a great job as Evan in Evan Almighty, another great movie) and Ann Hathaway (who I've only faintly heard of, but is probably famous) as 99.  I can't wait for this movie.  It's set for Summer 2008, which is also when Narnia: Prince Caspian, The City of Ember, and Artemis Fowl are slated to come out.  Lets just say I'll be going to a lot of movies.



And how I'll pay for that, well, I just got my first paycheck!  A great job at Jankins Computers!  It's all going to sending me to China with the Model United Nations though.  The big one I want to see is Artemis Fowl though.  AF5: The Lost Colony was excellent, and I've heard there's another one on the way (as well as a new standalone book by Colfer.  Personally, I'm waiting for the sequel to Half-Moon Detective Agency).

So one of the members of my church owns a local computer store. I submitted my resume a few months back for a job there. Now they have a bunch of contracts they need to finish by the end of the month, and they've asked me to come work for them! :D Right now, I'm working 8:30-6 friday and 10-3 saturday. This is one of the great things about being flexible due to homeschooling :) It's great to get a job at a computer shop (even though I'll just be a minion :P )

Aunt Sue (as she now insists I call her) called up my Mom to say that she should give me a health course so that I can free up an elective for Africa.

She looked at the Ministry of Education site and it said that I would need a 110 hour course >.<

Of course, homeschooling is much more time efficient than the public system (there's a stat that we're 10x more efficient time wise than the average classroom), so mom put me in a Tennis camp, I'm (finally) going to get my Level 7 in swimming (it looks like a pretty good chance of that), and I have to write a paper. Definitely better than spending time in Africa doing a health course at the cost of an elective.

Speaking of electives, Aunt Sue got back to mom with the list of electives to choose from. I've chosen the Model United Nations and African History as my first choices for the first semester, and Arabic as my second choice. Then I'm trying to nab a spot in the Media Arts and Communication class during the second semester (which sounds really cool), with Economics and Geography as my second choices.

So yeah. At the end of this year, the Model UN kids are going to Bejing for a meeting, and IIRC next semester is either The Hauge or Barcelona. I really hope I get my choices.

But until then, back to the literature and trigonometry that is my life right now. And I have to finish a presentation on Panama by Saturday morning for a Missions Fest at our church (only part left is the fun part. I've done all my write ups)