Face, meet palm.

So...bad time to mention this, but...yeah, I failed NaNoWriMo.

Now, don't go saying to me:  "But but but Hannah, you've still got FOUR WHOLE DAYS!"  Oh, really?  And what do you suppose I do?  Write 10,000 words a day?  Riiight, I can see that working out for me.

Funnily enough, I recently discovered the rest of my plot.  All I need is inspiration to write...except that it only comes during the school day, and I hate writing by hand.  I know, excuses and more excuses.

I suppose you idealists may have a point.  I still have four days.  Who knows what might happen?

-Hannah

(btw, WATCH THIS MOVIE - IT'S GREAT:  Flynn Rider <3)

[Insert creatively-titled journal entry name]

(Quoting a journal thing my English teacher asked us to do for fun - being who I am, I went all out.)

G-d I’m tired.  Warning you now, Dr. Noskin, I tend to ramble.  The only person I know who seems to appreciate the meditative power of a good, long ramble is my best friend Rebecca Friedlander.

Anyway, what to talk about…oh, right.  You mentioned in class that you were interested in what we did with our four-day weekend.  If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just go day by day; a lot went on.

Thursday:  My dear mother sort of kind of forgot my brother Marc and I had school off, so she spent the day out doing errands and such while we stayed at home.  My friend Liz came over, which is something of a semi-miracle considering the love-hate relationship she and I have.  Marc, Liz, and I ate some magically delicious Lucky Charms (as I was too lazy to cook everyone lunch,) and we got in some quality writing time for NaNoWriMo.  Now, she’s not doing it this year, but my NaNoWriMo story idea inspired Liz to start writing, and we sat together for a few hours bouncing ideas off each other.

Now, as an English teacher, I would hope you know what NaNoWriMo is.  If you don’t…basically, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  From midnight November 1 to midnight November 30, I, and over 150,000 others from America and beyond, am attempting to write a 50,000 word novel.  If I manage to exceed 50k, the program gives me one month to edit my manuscript, and then for free they’ll publish one copy of my book in paperback.  I am, oh, about 16k words behind, but considering I’ve had the worst writer’s block for months, this is a major improvement.  With homework, extra-curriculars, and work (yeah, I work as a tutor for b’nei mitzvot students at my synagogue, Congregation Beth Judea,) I’ve got almost no time to write.  So, wish me luck!

Back to Liz.  So, Mom eventually came home, I ate dinner – homemade chicken parmesan; Mom’s a fantastic cook – and went to work.  As soon as I got home, I wrote another 1,000 words, so I felt incredibly accomplished.  That is, until I stayed up ridiculously late.  Who in their right mind stays up until 3:45?  I do, because I can.

Friday:  Marc didn’t have the day off, but I was comatose when he left for school, so I didn’t get to walk him over – we live five minutes away from Tripp Elementary, one of District 102’s schools.  I got up around 10:45 (again, because I could,) but Mom wasn’t up yet.  Rather, she had been up since 5:00, – possibly because my dad sometimes wakes up at weird hours to get work done – so she had every right to be still asleep.

My original plan had been for Rebecca and my other friend Danielle to come over around 2:00 to hang out and do homework, but Danielle cancelled unexpectedly, and Mom and I weren’t ready to go eat lunch until 2:00 anyway.  Instead, we took Rebecca out to California Pizza Kitchen (old tradition:  one half days in grammar school Mom always took Marc and me to CPK.)  We never got to doing homework because Rebecca had to get to fencing practice around 5:00, so instead I found How To Train Your Dragon, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen – on OnDemand.  We watched that until she had to leave, and by that time I was home alone and the sun had set.  I finished the movie and sat in a forty-five minute reverie in the darkness of my wonderfully empty house.

At 6:30, my parents drove into the garage in a large, silver van I didn’t entirely recognize.  Why didn’t I recognize it?  Last weekend, without originally planning to, we bought a new 2011 Honda Odyssey.  My parents had gone to pick it up.  We literally spent an hour playing in it until it was time to pick Marc up from this birthday party he was at.  Just like I did when I saw the car, my brother ran across the parking lot and attempted to tackle-hug the new car.  (We’ve never gotten a car at the start of the model year – this was an exciting event for all of us.)

We got dinner at this cool gyro place right by where I live, and we went next door to Kaleidoscoops, the famed ice cream shop.  It also just so happened to be their last day open.  They had been losing money for ages, with the economy and all, so it was to be expected…but, we may have been their last customers.  I know it’s just an ice cream store, but they’ve been great about donating to District 102, and it made Buffalo Grove a little less suck-ish.

Saturday:  I’m notorious for being anti-social.  So, another semi-miracle that occurred was my spending Saturday afternoon at my friend David’s house.  Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding him a bit, – he’s been having angsty teenage/girlfriend/grades drama, and as my group’s chief therapist, I was sort of getting sucked in – but it was actually quite fun to hang out with him.  We watched the somewhat-new martial arts flick Ninja Assassin.  I adore Japanese culture, but at the same time generally dislike purely action movies; even so, overall it wasn’t half bad.

Afterward, I agreed to helping my parents and brother babysit my fifteen-month-old “niece” Elayna.  While I have no older siblings, the three Weinstein girls, (Lorna, Abby, and Ariel; they don’t remember you, but you may have heard of them) who babysat me for the first ten years or so my life, are the closest thing I’ve got to sisters.  Elayna is Lorna’s daughter.

I love kids of any age, but this little girl…OY VEY.  She doesn’t have a set schedule, she had never had a babysitter before, and she doesn’t eat in a high chair.  In the insanity I missed while at David’s house, she was throwing tantrum after tantrum while all her relatives were bustling around to get ready for a cousin’s wedding.  By the time I got there, Elayna was eating dinner (read:  she would eat a small piece of apple and then go point at her mommy’s picture on the wall and cry.)  My dad and I had brought dinner for my mom and brother, but I really didn’t eat much.  Instead, I got Elayna to eat.  We were also looking after Lorna and Abby’s respective dogs (three large dogs in total,) so they kept trying to get at the food.  At that point, I just picked Elayna up and had her on my lap while she ate.  I got her to eat everything.  I’m a little biased, but she seemed to like me best.  :)  Marc did a great job keeping her from throwing any more tantrums, but for the few hours in between dinner and bedtime, it was me following her around.

We got her into bed after another tantrum, and after a neighbor came to walk the dogs, she woke up again.  My dad and brother left around 9:00 because Marc had Hebrew school the next morning, so I let Mom take care of the fussing baby.  She and I were fine until about 11:00, when we both laid down on opposite sides of the couch.  Mom was asleep until 1:00, but I forced myself to stay up, just in case.  By 1:30 all seven who went to the wedding were back…and drunk.  Not too drunk, but enough to make me feel as though a bit of childhood died.

Sunday:  As this journal entry is getting really long, I’ll try to keep this short.  I woke up at 10:30, and I got up in my pajamas to do homework.  Mom and I didn’t get dressed until 5:00 (I usually don’t get dressed on Sundays,) but we eventually had to because we were to meet Julianne (maiden name:  Weiss; she also went to Deerfield with you and my aunt) and her husband and son.  We were supposed to meet at the re-opened Claim Company, but it was far too crowded…so we ended up at California Pizza Kitchen again.

All in all, a busy weekend.  (See what I meant about rambling?  I’m a menace!)

As I have homework left, I’m gonna leave it at that. - Hannah

"Blaaaaargh!"

- Denis, a dear friend.  XD

I'm avoiding AP Euro catch up to do this.  Hey, it ain't due till fifth period on Wednesday; I'll be fiiiine.  (I'll just have Rebecca do the highlighting.  :P)

NaNoWriMo Update:  Just hit 5,062 words.  I'm 8,000 and change behind, but I'll manage.  The plot's turned in a way I wasn't expecting, but I'm glad it did.  I now have more material to work with, so much so that I probably won't be done at 50k words.  So hopefully I finish the story in time to have its complete form printed in the paperback copy I'm sure I'll be getting in December after I win.

Yeah.

I'm hungry.

K bye.

-Hannah