"Mercedes, BMW, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW, CHRYSLER!!!"

^ going through the parking lot at a restaurant in Montauk.  Guess who's car was the Chrysler?

People should not say, "Wow, that's a really good idea, someone should Photoshop it." in my vicinity.  Then I HAVE to do it.  It's a goddamn compulsion.

It is very fun, however.

"He's DEAD!....ish?"

"I got TWO, count 'em, TWO numbers that night!"

Originally, there was supposed to be all this written stuff.

But then I got stuck in Long Island with a dial-up connection and a temperamental 5-year-old Dell laptop.  Which broke, and then decided to work again about 10 minutes ago.  Yay.

So yeah, when I get back to semi-civilization, then there will be stuff.  Until then, I'll be pondering the mystery of why Nick's, the local bar which usually plays live rock music at top volume, is currently playing opera right now.

However, I do want to say that I kind of felt like a freak on Monday and Wednesday because I thought I would be incredibly sad and crying.  But I felt totally fine, except for several moments that were related directly to those events, and I just figured that I was in shock.  Then, going through town on Friday, it finally, FINALLY hit me that it was all over.  Wow.  I just... wow.

Happy 4th of July.  See you all soon.  Hopefully.

Where'd you go? I miss you so, Seems like it's been forever, That you've been gone,
Please come back home...

"topless duck inspector"

too lazy to do the sophomore/junior/senior thing right now.

I just wanted to point out that this is the last night of our lives as high school students.  Tomorrow, we'll be alumni. 

HOLY SHYTE.

Yearbooks today.  My god people, this is it.  This weekend, we're not cramming for tests or doing last-minute projects late Sunday night for the next day.  The next day, we're GRADUATING.  When we show up at Avery Fisher Hall (some of us earlier than others...argh), it's going to be for a ceremony that more or less celebrates the end of our youth.  Many of us are 18 now, most of us are leaving our parents to make some far-off (or not so far-off) place our new home, and we're finally going to be accountable for only ourselves.  While I appreciate all of this, I can't help but feel sadness at the end of this era.  Now, watching any teen movie/WB show/anything with characters in high school, we can be all, "been there, done that."  And that just feels weird. 

Stuy's been an... interesting place.  I've had definite downs, but there have been just as many and more ups where I was happy that I had forsaken sleep to go to the orange building in Tribeca.  I've made new friends, some of whom I'll never see again but some who I know are just going to keep sticking their heads into my life (whether I like it or not. :-p).  Stuyvesant is such a unique place, there is no high school experience like it, and I'm glad for that.

Because I'm too tired/lazy to remember/write everything, I'm just going to post by year.  Ready kids?  Here we go.

Freshman Year

It was a year of firsts.  First time I've ever been in Manhattan alone, first time I didn't have my best friend with me, first time I was in a class with guys since I was 4.  But I've grown, and I can now look back to all the things that made my freshman year so... unique? Interesting?  Weird?  ... yeah, that one works.  Things like Mr. Burrough's 2nd period Music Appreciation. I think back now on the people who chilled out in the back row with me, and I'm still or became friends with all of them since then.  Even if Burroughs was annoying with the whole "flamingo is the same as flamenco"/".25 =.25%" arguments.  There was Anything Goes, my first Stuy Theater production, where I met most of my future friends, and Macbeth, where in costuming I met the rest of them.  Vashti/Atrish and I can still belt out Bon Voyage at random points, while I don't think anyone will ever forget the costuming mishaps that kept occurring during the Scottish Play (various parts of Hecate's costume kept getting lost, the costume room flooded, we were working at the very literally last minute, there were never any sewing machine needles around, the chalk names got rubbed off of all the kilts.... ugh).  Though I learned valuable lessons in crowd control when the guys kept complaining about the kilts/skirts.  And I discovered my love of putting makeup on men.  Heh.  Other lessons include never piss off someone while they're holding a sword that they know very well how to use.  Because even if they don't use it then, they might hit you over the head with it while wandering around backstage in the dark and then run off laughing maniacally.  Not that that happened to me.  Stuy theater wasn't the only thing though, there are plenty of little quirks throughout freshman year in class too.  Like having to move my desk back to its original place for humanities every day, or Mr. Floersch in general with his pink clothes and weird documentaries with the strangely addictive theme music, or handing in my Siddhartha paper a month late.  I ate Oreos, popcorn and apple juice every day for lunch because I was too lazy/didn't know anyone with 4th period lunch I could hang out with.  I learned that one can fall asleep in Dr. Runcie's 1st period bio class on a daily basis if you sit right in front of her in the first row, and that if Mr. Mott likes your shoes, he will make you stand up on the desk while reading Minutes to show them off.  Art Appreciation is made so much better by discussions about the Daily Show with Andrew and Cindy.  And even though we suck at math, those of us in MQstupid have bonded over the years and gleefully wish for a time when the class was not dominated by fsking underclassmen.  Chilling out before Ms. Mathia's 9th/10th (because everyone always had a free right before it) was amazing, even if Lincoln's bag and my Oreos got stolen several times.  And Omar just kept losing his homework on his own, even if he did it five minutes before class. And Senora Mazzurco, despite being an English teacher... and Italian... taught us first year Spanish with great skill, even if we did stare in shock at the gigantic mofo tatoos she has on her lower back.  Despite what our final Spanish script said, Batool is not Shaft, Donna is not Sra Mazzurco, and Steve Siegelbaum is not Sra Mazzurco's future boss at McDonalds. Chicken soup and McFlurries are difficult to smuggle into school, and the back theater hallway is either the most quiet place in the building or the loudest with random people playing the various pianos.  In contrast, the foosball table was always lively, even when we didn't have a foosball and had to resort to a lock or a potato or quarters.  There was some moderate stalking.  But only a little.  Soph-Frosh SING! '03 was a failure with its hip-hopping nuns, but at least Gay Caesar and Max Ohsawa came in to save the day at the end of Saturday night.  While the end of the year was dominated by our first high school Regents and SATIIs, and we were challenged by questions such as "why shouldn't the pumas be taken out of their environment?" with answers like "because they are beautiful", there was at least You Can't Take It With You, which shall be remembered forever as the Spring Comedy when I went insane with a video camera, the Gullibility Bottle (tm) was born, Yellow Submarine was on repeat, four inches was added to the crotch, Jon Edelman sounded like Mickey Mouse, and Matt Russo almost got killed on stage by a falling light gel holder.  Freshman year then ended with a bang as Christina and I accidently ordered tons of sushi with no money and brought home a 6 foot PVC pipe spear from Macbeth on the Staten Island Ferry.  The ferry people were only slightly freaked out, I promise.  But most of all, what I remember most about freshman year are the people I met, even if they didn't become friends at first.  The Music Appreciation back row crew: Maryana, Alicia, Lincoln, Joey DiCo, Danny Vig, some members of which corssed over into the MQstupid group, mostly Lincoln, Joey, William, Allie, and Saman.  Homeroom 1Z was the chillest with Nameeta, Nicole, Saman, and Batool, while Stuy Theater for me would not be complete without Brooke, Elisa, Atrish, Deke, Ethan, Haitham, Lena, Marina, Will, and Debbie.  Dmitriy was a gigantic help in Bio since he woke me up at opportune times, though all he did in humanities was steal my food.  The foosball table group consisted of so many people that it's hard to remember everyone, but battles between Ilya, Hector, Dmitriy, Arkady, and Will occurred on a daily basis.  Dan was somewhere back there too, limping around on crutches for one reason or another.  And of course, my Staten Island/NDA homegirl/accomplice in mischief Christina S.  I've grown apart from some people, but it's strange how even now I get closer to others.  At the end of freshman year though, it seemed like we had all the time in the world.