This past week has been my last week of summer; I will be returning to school on Monday to start my senior year. It’s taken a full summer, but I’ve finally adjusted to the fact that I’m actually going to be a senior–nevertheless, my first days as a freshman from three years ago still feels like just a few months ago. Interestingly enough, though, I’ve spent more time this past week doing school stuff than anything else.

On Monday afternoon, I arranged for this year’s new Peace Club officers to get together at Starbucks in order to discuss stuff for the new year–goals, procedures, etc. I was actually there as an outgoing officer because I’m no longer the president of the club (though I still hold claim to the title of founding the club almost three years ago, not to mention that I’ll continue to be a member). The club has a new president who has a lot of new ideas, and it’s my hope that the club will keep going even after I graduate.

I am, however, a member of my school’s Leadership class this year. I probably should have joined the class a year or two ago, but my busy class schedule kind of prevented that from happening. This year I’m in the class, and even though my run for the slot of Student Body President last spring was unsuccessful, I’m still in and have jobs to do. They’ve actually given me a few responsibilities: I’m their representative to Aragon’s parent organization (which is no longer a PTSA, but since I still know the people and am familiar with the territory, I’m probably the best pick), one of their representatives to UASB (a group of representatives from the student bodies of all seven high schools in our district), and also going to be in charge of maintaining the new website that they want to put together this year. Leadership met twice this week–first for a few hours on Tuesday morning when we found out our responsibilities and did some getting to know each other activities, etc., and then on Wednesday morning, which was our school’s Freshman Orientation. In addition to helping to put on the orientation, we all got to lead tour groups throughout the school and answer other questions from the freshmen.

Yesterday, Thursday, ended up having me more involved in planning for the school year than I would have anticipated. You see, at this point, I’ve pretty much completed all of the math offered at my school. I did my first year of Algebra in 7th grade, Geometry in 8th grade, second year of Algebra in 9th grade, Pre-Calculus and AP Statistics simultaneously in 10th grade, and AP Calculus BC in 11th grade. I’ve got 40 math credits already on my transcript and no more math available at my school, so I was planning to take Calculus III, a semester continuation of Calculus, at the College of San Mateo in the morning for first semester only, and then transit down to Aragon for the rest of my classes the rest of the day. My classes would be Orchestra, AP Government/Economics, English, Biotech, Law & Society/Psychology, and Leadership.
However, my counselor called me up yesterday morning to give me some bad news: my schedule was impossible to put together. This was mostly due to the fact that so many of my classes were only available during single periods: my CSM math class had to be first period, Orchestra has to be second period, Leadership has to be fifth period, and Law & Society/Psychology has to be sixth period. That left third, fourth, and seventh periods for the other three classes, and none of them were offered during seventh. And so, after doing a lot of debate with myself and my parents, I ended up dropping that math class at CSM (after confirming that I could return the $125 textbook to the CSM Bookstore for a full refund), since in terms of its importance to my grade, my graduating credits, and my personal interests, it was probably the lowest priority. After all, I’ve already got 40 credits worth of math stashed up from the past three years, more than enough to graduate. It does completely change my plans for this school year, but unfortunately, that’s what you have to take when life throws it at you.

So hopefully the fact that I’ve been going through all this school stuff this past week means that my first week of school, next week, will be better and more painless than it has been in prior years.

Tags: CSM, freshmen, Leadership, math, meeting, orientation, Peace Club, Personal, schedule, School, summer

2008 is going to be a year of travel for me, without a doubt. In fact (subject to change), I will be traveling away from home for at least one day, usually more, out of each the months of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and October. January’s trip happens this week (January 10-12) at my next State PTA Board Meeting in Riverside, California. Hopefully, it will be better than my last board meeting in Long Beach. The good thing is that there haven’t been any recent fires, and my allergic symptoms have been moot for a few weeks now (although I’ll bring some allergy meds JUST IN CASE). Also, given Riverside’s great distance from LAX, I will not be taking Virgin America this time; instead I will by flying with Southwest Airlines (Skoker’s favorite) to Los Angeles/Ontario Airport. As I have posted before, here’s my itinerary.
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Tags: AirPort, BART, Board of Managers, California State PTA, flight, itinerary, meeting, Oakland, Riverside, schedule, School, Southwest

It’s the last week of October, and that means I’m hitting the road again for another State PTA Board of Managers meeting. The October meeting is traditionally the Convention Orientation/Preparation meeting, where we go to the Convention Center to plan everything out, so we’re in Long Beach (off of Los Angeles) this time, the same place where the Convention will be in May. However, I won’t be at these meetings for as long as the July meeting was (since the July meeting was a longer meeting for orientation, etc.).

As I did in August, I will be traveling via the wonderful (and cheap) Virgin America from SFO to LAX and back. On Wednesday, right after school, I will be rushing to the airport to check in for flight VX 851, which leaves SFO at 4:15 PM and arrives at LAX at 5:40 PM. From there, I’ll be catching a Super Shuttle to get me to the Westin Long Beach (yeah, PTA puts us up in nice hotels).

Hopefully I’ll make it there in time to go to the Convention Management Committee meeting that night at 7:30 PM. As one of the two student representatives, we’re both in charge of the first-day Student Orientation at Convention, which is how we ended up on the committee. After that two-hour meeting ends, I can happily go off to sleep after a long day of both school and travel.

On Thursday morning, bright and early, will be the Student Involvement Committee meeting starting at 7 AM (with breakfast provided), and which will end at 8:45. That will then be followed by the Communications Commission, which will meet from 9 AM-3 PM, although that will be interrupted from Noon-1:30 PM with lunch and a Board of Managers group picture. However, I’ll have the rest of the day to myself after 3 PM, which should probably give me a good chance to catch up on homework.

Another early morning on Friday, with Breakfast provided at 7 AM, along with a Board Development activity. The Board of Managers meeting will then start at 9 AM, and I’m going to be responsible for opening the meeting with an inspiration. I’ve written kind of a “non-standard” inspiration which will still hopefully go all right. The meeting is expected to end by Noon. I’ll then have a chance to get myself some lunch before Super Shuttle picks me up to head back to the airport to catch Virgin America flight VX 852, which departs LAX at 4:00 PM and arrives at SFO at 5:20 PM.

I will not be going to the Leopard launch event at my local Apple Store on Friday, because as you can see, I get in a little bit late for that, and because I had a bit of an, erm, stressful experience at the iPhone launch event four months ago. However, I’ve pre-ordered Leopard from Apple.com, which means it should be here, waiting for me to install it when I get back home!

So anyway, there’s my itinerary, and I’m sure that within a few hours, Skoker will have commented with every single insignificant detail about the airplanes I’m going on, because that’s what he likes to do. Maybe by now all of Virgin America’s fancy computer stuff will be on, and I can post a more full review of it here on W87.info! We’ll see…

Tags: Apple Store, itinerary, Mac OS X Leopard, meeting, PTA, Super Shuttle, Virgin America