In seven days, I will board a plane bound for Washington, DC. I and twenty-nine of my fellow students are representing Alabama in the Center for Civic Education's national finals for the "We the People" competition.

We have spent the past year learning the Constitution inside and out. Along the way, we have overcome many problems.

Our teacher and coach (who also happens to be a state representative) was forced to resign when the school refused to pay her for her services and threatened to take away her retirement benefits.

Our rival school's coach accused us of cheating because our scores at the regional competition were "too high."

Our team has been distracted time and again by fake cheerleaders and empty-headed jackasses.

We have spent hella hours -- nights, weekends, all the time -- studying like mofos, writing essays, meeting with college professors, running simulated competitions, anticipating follow-up questions, reading everything the library has to offer on modern political theory, to be prepared to face off against forty-nine other teams and come out on top (or at least place respectably).

The team also had to raise $29,000 to cover the cost of the trip on their own time and without the support of the school. Bitches.

Anyway, the culmination of what is probably the only productive thing I've done this year is next week, and you'll get to read all about it...hopefully.

So...the speeding ticket. I went down to the municipal building yesterday and cut the city a check for $132. Good Lord, that's a lot of money.

The lady tried to play it off like driving school actually cost that much, when I know it's $127 for the ticket and $5 for the class, which is four hours the night before I leave for Washington. This is going to go well. I can feel it already.

The upshot of driving school is that the ticket is technically dismissed, which totally rules. The insurance lady told me that a dismissed ticket will not affect my policy, so thank Jebus for that. Have I learned my lesson? Maybe, but probably not.

It's looking like it might be the last year for The Practice. I guess I can live with that. Rumor has it that Bobby quits the firm and leaves Lindsay in the season/series finale, so that should, um, completely suck, but I don't presume to understand what goes on in David E. Kelley's head. As long as we're talking television, it is my prediction that Ed will return for season four. Now that Ed and Carol are together, I'm sure season four will suck as much as season two did. And this Law & Order experiment tonight will be a defining moment for the long-term future of NBC. If L&O can outperform whatever the hell's on CBS, it may have a new home on Thursday nights in the not-so-distant future. Come on, we all know that ER is toast after Noah Wyle leaves following next season. Have you seen it lately? We thought it was bad after Doug left. We didn't know just how low it could go. That jackass Andy Beckman got his fifteen minutes yesterday in the Live with Regis and Kelly American Co-Host Search. He spent entirely too much time pretending Regis was funny. Of course, he shares an unfortunate surname with my freshman English teacher, whose ineptitude is matched only by my senior Earth & Space Science teacher, whose split personality Ashley becomes enraged if she doesn't refer to herself as "we" at least twelve times in every sentence, but I digress.

He's a sort of likable jackass that we haven't seen on television in quite a while. I'm sure he'll have his own court show or something by next season. I'll settle for having Kelly back on Monday. She's my girl. Hey, maybe Andy can get a job on her new sitcom. I love you, Kelly!

On Saturday, Moonshadow and I will celebrate our six-month anniversary. This absolutely astounds me. I didn't think we'd last six weeks, but here we are, half a year later. It was relatively painless, too, and there's something to be said for that. I haven't talked about it a whole lot because I'm still convinced that everything since October is a dream and I'm going to wake up and have to do it all over again.

What do you get for the six-month anniversary? Those newspaper hats? I never have been great at making those. Oragami isn't really my department. Mayhaps I'll take advantage of the fact that this weekend is Easter and do something festive involving pastel colors. They're easy on the eyes, right?

Speaking of Easter, I have CDs from REM and Talking Heads awaiting me amid the plastic grass and miscellaneous chocolate this year? How do I know this? My mom bought them for me when we visited my future college during spring break. The Wherehouse Music in the mall there is closing, which will render trips to the mall useless during the dawn of my college career. That's probably for the best, because now that I have the power of VISA, I tend to think I'm unstoppable.

I'm dreading my next bank statement. I can already tell you that I've spent way too much at various Subway locations throughout town (there are, like, two thousand), but that Subway Club and its free sandwiches are irresistable. Somehow I can rationalize the footlongs when I know it's earning me a complimentary sandwich. Some advice: avoid the Subway in the mall like the plague. The bread is all crumbly and gross. Eech.

Somehow, government team has helped to keep my senioritis at bay, but I think that probably won't be the case anymore once we return home. I may just stop caring altogether. I'm debating whether I should actually make a concerted stab at a quality research paper this year. My topic is Oscar Wilde, who is a fascinating man, but I don't have a whole lot of time to write the rough draft that's due Tuesday.

We have sort of a Rae Dawn Chong Challenge going for the class, in that everyone's writer invented Spam. I'm not sure how successful it will be, but I'm sure it will be somewhat amusing. And things that aren't funny tend to be when you reach that dreaded ninth circle of boredom.

Also, the weather is entirely too nice for us to be slaving away in some poorly lit building, phoning in our reading of Pygmalion (is the title going to make any kind of sense after I read it, or was Shaw just characteristically drunk when he chose the name?), pounding out opinion pieces like they were typing exercises, and wasting time DHAKing or Squishettes-ing or ragging on That Bitch Cynthia Tucker.

For the first time in recent memory, I have a desire to be outside during the daytime. I feel I should take advantage of this previously unexplored opportunity, but state law unfortunately prohibits me from doing so, at least to the extent that I would like.

Oh, and morning detention? Sucks. It's ridiculous, because we didn't even skip school, but whatever. One more day and it's over.

Well, that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment. If you actually read down this far, please e-mail and tell me why.