On The Shoulders of Giants

$710,000

2012-02-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

Did you know, if you have a scratch ticket and "win a million bucks," after taxes and all, it turns out to be $710,00? Yes. How do I know this? Not by winning a million bucks myself, sadly. But one of my physics lab partners came into class yesterday, and told us that his friend just won a million on some scratch ticket. I actually heard a commercial on the radio for it later, and the odds of winning the million are like one in six million something. So it would be extra dumb of anyone to go out and buy a ticket hoping to win, knowing that someone just won yesterday.

Anyway, we did some math, and if he put all his money into an account that pays 6% interest, he could live off of the interest happily for the next 10+ years.

And then we talked about what we would do with that kind of money. The other girl in my group said she would not be smart with her money and she would go blow it all on useless things. The two guys in the group would drop out of school.

I've actually thought about what I would do with a million bucks before, and it doesn't involve anything extravagant. I would buy a car that's actually worth something, but nothing too fancy. I just want it to go in reverse and not break down after 5 miles, be a stick shift, and have ABS (That's my current car's flaws ha). And then, I would put the rest of the money into a bank and just go to school for the rest of my life. I would probably still get a job somewhere down the line, and I wouldn't buy a ridiculous house or car or anything. I would just go to school forever. :) Always learning, always becoming better.

At some point, I would probably take a really nice vacation.

I would also like to give some of it to some charity or good cause, just so that way I'm not selfish. You know, help the needy, be a good person, blah blah blah.

Or-- if I decided that school's for fools (look at me!)-- I would instead put my grand 2-year traveling plan into motion. I haven't really looked at the cost of this, so a million might not be enough, but this is just a fantasy, so I can do whatever I want. It would involve: Live in France for about a year (perfecting my French-language skills), and then spend 3 months visiting the rest of Europe. Germany, Spain and Italy are specifically on my list. Maybe a month in each of those. Then I'd want to go to spend about 6 or 7 months in South America, visiting Chile and Argentina, and working my way up to Brazil, maybe Peru. Then for 1 and a half or 2 months, I'd go to Jamaica, and finish off the year with Quebec (which would be quite a climate change), and polish off my French a little more. Then I could come home and be thoroughly traveled, and then I would buy my car and go to school with whatever money (if any) I had left. That seems like the better option between the two, probably.

10 Things

2012-02-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

So, MJ. Ten things you probably don't know about me... I think this will actually be pretty hard.

1- While I was in China, we ALWAYS had free time. We only worked for 3-4 hours a day, and then we were done. Yet somehow, we still couldn't make it through the day without a nap.

2- Now that I'm back home, I rarely have free time because I have so many credits [16] at school. But I wouldn't want to take less than what I have (or more-- already made that mistake). I'm a hardcore nerd. I love learning. One of my favorite classes this semester is physics. And even with that class, I desperately miss my chem classes.

3- I love foreign languages. And I'm pretty good at them. In high school, I took French, and now in college, I'm taking Chinese. I hope to learn Chinese a little better when I go back to China next year, then when I come home, I want to take ASL at Metro. And eventually, just so I can get better at French, I'd like to buy Rosetta Stone.

Oh yeah. This doesn't count as another number, but I think about half of you probably don't know. I'm going back to China next year, if I get accepted back into the program. I'll leave late Jan/early Feb, and come home the 3rd week of June. Chances are very good I won't be in the country when I turn 21. I find this totally acceptable.

4- Sometimes, I really miss having super short hair that I can spike, but I don't want to cut it, because I want long hair for my wedding. I don't even have a boyfriend, but I'm growing my hair out for my wedding. Haha. Yes, I know I'm ridiculous.

5- I don't watch movies, apparently. It never fails to surprise someone that I haven't seen Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Or Elf. My roommates tried to get me to watch Elf, but when they downloaded it, it was too jumpy to watch (I think it's a sign). But I'm not opposed to watching these movies, just no one has ever sat me down to watch them.

6- I never thought I was a "typical college student" food-wise. You know, always eating ramen and nutella and frozen pizza. I mean, I know how to cook. Grilled chicken, Chinese food, tacos. All the awesome stuff. It wasn't until mom and dad were at Disney World for a week when I realized, despite KNOWING how to cook, it was days before I ate anything that I couldn't cook in less than 2 minutes.

7- I really love learning. I think, after I graduate, I'd like to continue going to school forever. Just taking a couple classes a semester. Again, I know, I'm a nerd.

8- When I watch movies with my friends, we dig into them and pull out really philosophical meanings. I don't necessarily think the directors intended for us to do that, but it's what we do. (Come to find out, Moulin Rouge is very deep ha.)

9- It actually makes me really sad when I let someone over (while driving) and they don't wave at me. Such a simple gesture.

10- All this new technology really freaks me out. I don't like feeling like I have to have my phone on me all the time. Some of my friends literally can't have a conversation with me without checking their phone, and that makes me sad for them. I wish I wrote to people more often. It's so much more awesome than emailing. Facebook literally steals souls from people. Except I think "steal" is too harsh. I'm pretty sure the souls it has were willingly given up.

And despite not liking all these advances, I still do find them really convenient. But their convenience is such a trap! Can't we just be independent?

And there's my 10 things. I tag everyone who hasn't done it yet.

Older than the Internet.

2012-01-31T23:45:00.000-08:00

For the record, I have no idea what I am still doing up. I have class tomorrow. A long, long day of class. In case you don't know, my day starts at 8:20-8:25 am when I have to leave for my 9:30 class, and doesn't end until about 8:50 pm, when I get home from my last class that ends at 7:45. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it. I'm currently choosing to be optimistic), I have a nice, big 3 hour break from 10:45-2. Anyway, it's later than I should still be awake, I just want to announce this properly, before I head off.

In 3 days, it will be my birthday, and I will officially no longer be a teenager. So far in my life, I've graduated high school, worked 1 or 2 jobs (depending on if you count ILP), lived on the other side of the world, totaled my car, started learning 2 foreign languages, held the lives of many living creatures in my hands, started writing a book (which has a solid plot, but only a couple physical pages. I think I'm too afraid it won't turn out to be as awesome as I once hoped it would be), and I've lived through a year that's divisible by 100, but was still a leap year. I think it's been a successful life so far, and I intend to keep it going in awesome level.

Mostly, though, I think I've hit this point where I don't really care that my birthday's on Saturday. It's just another day. To be fair, nothing exciting happens when you turn 20. Still can't book a room at picky hotels. Still considered an adult by society. And it doesn't really seem that far off since I turned 19.

Come to think of it-- something exciting is happening this Sat. Mom is going to Disney World! Not with me, though. I wasn't even invited. Ha, I'm kidding. Well, no I'm not. I wasn't invited. I just don't mind. I would've turned down the invite anyway. I have too many awesome classes this semester. Which reminds me... I should go to sleep ha. Night everyone! Happy February!

Which way to Neverland?

2012-01-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know how to start this post. I'm not sure what I want to say. I imagine it will turn out as a jumbled mess of thoughts, but I've been trying to write this blog post for a good hour and a half, and I doubt my ability to say anything more eloquent right now.

Things are changing. This is something that I'm both excited and scared for. Within the next year (and possibly in a time as short as the next 6 months), I'll have a job and be living on my own, paying my own way through college. If you had talked to me a month ago, I would have only been excited. Perhaps a little scared, but mostly just excited. But my parents are going to be moving as well, and in doing so, all my ties to the house that I've lived in for literally longer than I can remember will be cut. It's just a house, but it's the house where all my memories center. My childhood happened here, as well as my early adult life. And I won't lie-- I feel pretty dumb for being so shaken by my parents moving. I mean, regardless of if they stay here or not, I'll be living somewhere else, so it doesn't seem like this should be as big of a deal as I'm making out to be. It's not life if they move I lose my memories and childhood. All I lose is a house. Meh.

I miss China. At first, when I went out there, things were really different and it made me pretty nervous/scared/anxious, but it only took a couple months for me to get totally comfortable there, so that gives me hope that moving out and all that jazz will be as awesome as it's made out to be. I've never heard anyone complain about how they just wish they had stayed at home and not gained independence. And if I were to hear someone complain about that, I would surely not want to be their friend haha.

The question I get asked most often upon anyone hearing that I enjoyed my ILP experience-- "Will you go back?" I don't know. Maybe. I would consider it a possibility in my future. But not in the next couple years. I want to finish college first, and them I'm considering my possibilities. I might take somewhere between a semester and a year to go back as a head teacher. There are many countries that ILP visits that I haven't yet been to, and there's many different parts of China that I haven't been in. And it wouldn't get old. My roommates and I always compared our experiences with even the other schools in Zhongshan, and every single one of us had such a different experience. And we were all in the same city, so just imagine all the possibilities.

On the other hand, I might find something else to do with my life. I have a couple different ideas of where I might want to take my life, and I don't want to get too attached to any one of them, because I know that there is some force in the world that, as soon as I settle down and decide upon one path, will laugh in my face and throw me in another direction that I hadn't considered. And then this force will watch me struggling in unpreparedness and say "HAHAHAHAHA NOW WHAT." So I like to be one step ahead of this force by not having a rigid plan and staying on my feet so that I'll be able to take whatever situation I find myself in and have fun and be awesome in it.

All I really want to do is make a difference.

Promise me you'll never forget me...

2011-12-16T02:49:00.000-08:00

... because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.

-Winnie the Pooh

Today was our last day with the kids, so we had to say goodbye. We had our end-of-semester-performance for the parents, then we took pictures and said goodbye. Then 4 of the students' moms took us (and their kids) out for lunch, which was fantastic. We went back home after that, and then we went to the school again one last time to say goodbye to the kids at 4 (we usually do that every Mon-Thurs, then take Fridays off, but today is the last Friday, so we wanted to spend some more time with the kids).

So, as a tribute to my awesome students, I have one last blog post in China about each of them. I've got pictures, but I'm not using my proxy anymore, so they'll have to wait until I get home.

William

William is our youngest and he is definitely a baby. He's 3 years old and his mom spoils him like no other. But he's generally a very sweet kid and he's made so much progress with the program. Not only is he getting better at speaking English, but his Chinese skills are improving, too. He was my least favorite of the kids when we first got here. And now, he's not my favorite by a long shot, but he's definitely grown in my eyes, and I love him.

Peter

Peter is the smartest 3 year old I know. He is very gifted with languages. He runs around like crazy all the time, shouts my name just so I'll shout his back, and he never without some drool or snot coming down his face. Unless his nose/ mouth has just been wiped. I mean this literally. He's pretty protective and has a short temper, but he's a sweetheart and really just thinks he's being helpful. I'm sure someday he'll learn better. I love him.

John

John is the funniest little baby gorilla. I love watching him eat his food-- baby gorilla like no other. He is so loving and sweet. He LOVES teacher Mandy. Half the time he's off in his own world and can't be brought back to earth for anything. But he's so sweet and just loves to run around and play. I will miss him so much. Mandy might be his favorite, and he might be hers, but if I could take home a couple kids, he'd be one. I love him.

Jack

Jack is Crazy! With a captial C. He's recently picked up the habit of tickling us in awkward and inappropriate places... haha. He's got a good heart, though. He's really smart and he's good at Kung Fu. When he's doing anything-- cutting paper, building with blocks, eating-- he's very concentrated. He seems like a puzzle person to me. If Ender's Game were to ever happen in real life (don't judge me for thinking about this... I know I'm weird), I think he could be one of the kids sent to battle school. I love him.

Wendy

Wendy is such a funny girl! She loves to draw and dance (though she denies liking to dance), but what she really lives for is running around and being a crazy kid. She and April have had some fun times playing out on the playground after classes are over for the day. And it's hilarious to watch them. She's hilarious-- sometimes she repeats everything you say with surprising accuracy. Anna likes to take full advantage of that, and Wendy ended up singing Catdaddy. :) I love her. (Wendy I mean. Though I love Anna too, haha.)

Tony

Tony is awesome. He has the funniest laugh. We'll just be sitting there, talking, and something that he thinks is funny will happen and BAM. High pitched-make your ears bleed-screeching-laugh. But it only lasts for a second or two, and then he turns back into this calm, reserved little boy. Tony loves hardcore. He's so sweet, and he is always looking out for his little brother. He has such a big heart. I love him.

Lucy

Lucy always wants to be center stage, haha. She doesn't actually speak English very well, which is sad, but she comes to school late, so she misses one of our English classes. She's very smart and I have no doubt that her speaking skills would improve drastically and very quickly if she could be in more of my classes (mine is the one she usually misses). She's really sweet, and in the past couple weeks she's been make it to about 10 minutes of my class, and I've loved every minute of having her there. I love her.

Max

Max is special. He's such a simple boy, and he loves everyone. His favorite thing ever is Spongebob, and if he sees anything Spongebob-esque, he will not leave it alone. His other top interests that he talks about all the time are: baby chickens, his Chinese teacher-- Amy, and star charts. He's always hungry, and the two questions he asks about EVERYTHING-- "And Max eat it?" or "And put it in Max nose?" He has a strange thought process, but he's very pure. He's awesome and I love him.

Dave

Back at the beginning of the semester, Dave was my favorite student. My love for him has grown. Dave is genuinely smart (I suspect he'd be at Battle School, too. I also suspect he'd love Ender's Game). He grasps concepts well, he's very good at communicating, and he remembers his vocabulary. He is ALWAYS stylish. Dave is one of the best students I could have ever asked for. He's got the typical cool-kid personality that makes you want to talk to him, but he's good. He is very compassionate and is always the first to try to console the other kids if they are sad and crying. I love him.

Over the last four months, these kids stole pieces of my heart. We had to say goodbye to them today. And yesterday was out last day of teaching. That is easily the hardest thing I've had to do in China. I've used a squatter, I've eaten chicken feet, I even tried learning Kung Fu from someone who doesn't speak English... none of that compares to the past 48 hours. I have a headache from crying so much. I will miss these kids. My heart broke into 9 pieces when I had to say goodbye, and I wouldn't ever want to ask for those pieces back.

"People so seldom say I love you, and then it's either too late or love goes. So when I tell you I love you, it doesn't mean I know you'll never go. Only that I wish you didn't have to."

We have to go. I'm almost happy here.

2011-12-07T04:28:00.001-08:00

The other day, Mandy Anna and I were going to get our hair washed, and on the way, Anna and Mandy were talking. I wasn't really listening (sorry guys), but I heard Anna say something about how, although it didn't feel like it, this was one of the last times we would ever get out hair washed. Unless we come back to China, obviously.

(PS. Don't know if I mentioned it, but going to get your hair washed sounds super lame, right? I mean, just wash your own hair, how lazy are you. But no! It's comes with a half hour to forty five minute scalp massage, then they give you a back massage for 10-15 minutes! All this for only 10-15 rmb:: $1.50-2!)

And she really nailed it right on the head. I leave China in 12 days (and I leave Zhongshan in 10 or maybe 11), and I might not ever come back. Maybe I'll come back for a vacation sometime down the line, and maybe I'll come back with ILP as a head teacher, but even then I can pretty much guarantee I won't be in Nanlang. What she said really got me thinking about the things I want to make sure to do before we go. There's only three concrete things that are really essential on my list, so it's pretty much guaranteed I'll be able to do them, but it's still a really sobering thought to think, "I have to do this next [Thursday], or I'll never be able to again."

And that train of thought led me to (1-) one of the most sad thoughts I've ever had, and (2-) try to find what it is that I'll miss most about being in China.

1- You know how sometimes, you think about a conversation you might have with someone in your head? :) And it's usually either something you wish you would have said two hours ago when you actually had the conversation because, now that you've had a couple hours to consider what they said, you have a perfect comeback or response. Or, if that's not the case, it's a future conversation you'll probably never have, because the other person just won't follow the script you laid out for them. Well, call me crazy (no, really. You can probably call me crazy for this), but I had a one of the future conversations in my head with myself. It would happen in about two weeks and it goes like this: "Hey, wanna go get some noodles and dumplings down the street?" "Yeah!" "Well too bad! You can't! Because you're not in China anymore, you're in America!"

It was really sad to think of that. There are so many things that are awesome about China. It's a gorgeous country, and the people here are so kind. There's literally a little jungle right across the street from our apartment complex. In our little town, the crazy markets are only about 5 minutes from the quiet, serene landscapes. The trees everywhere are so beautiful. It's so green here. There's a giant pond/little lake right here in town (which we didn't find until about 2 or 3 weeks ago). Adventures are always waiting. And it's China. Come on. If you take a quick motorbike ride, you can visit some Chinese temples with incense, Buddha statues, statues of other important people, the classic Chinese architecture. Then, I can't even describe the beautiful views we've seen at parks on on vacation (but don't fear, I have pictures). I imagine this is why most people love China.

2- And I love China for those reasons, too. But I won't be sad to leave that. The stunning views that are everywhere are great, and I love being surrounded by them. It's always beautiful. But there's plenty of places back home that beautiful, too. I've seen many gorgeous scenes back in my hometown. And the classic Chinese look is something that, now that I've seen it personally, I feel like that's kinda the end. I don't need to be surrounded by it all the time. I can look back at my pictures and say, "I've seen that in person, and it was awesome." And that's it. What I'll really miss about China is the people.

They're loud. They won't hesitate to sneeze on you. They stare at you openly, sometimes stopping dead in their tracks so they can watch you walk down the street. They eat strangely. They freak out if it starts drizzling outside. They have some bizarre medical ideas and superstitions. But they're awesome. They're extremely friendly. They go far out of their way to make you feel welcome. They're honest. And they're usually pretty good about playing charades if you don't know how to say it in Chinese, and they don't know how to say it in English.

I love being here. Although the beauty and history of the country itself is wonderful, I'm not afraid to leave that behind. Been there before, already done that. But the kids at school (not just our own students) who get excited to see us and shout our names, the motorbike drivers who always know where we want to go, the lady in the back of the store who knows what I get every time, the noodle guy who doesn't ask what we want anymore but instead asks how many of this dish we want, the girls at the ghetto salon that try to teach us random words in Chinese, the teachers who always smile at us, that random couple with one of the only pet dogs I've ever seen... I recognize all of them. And somehow, even though there's a GIANT language barrier separating us, we've managed to dig deeper than words and become friends anyway. I love them.

The worst part is that I don't even know how to tell them that this is the last time I'll see them.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the three things I want to do before I leave. They're all pictures I want. I want a picture with the older kids at school (ages 5 and 6). I want a picture with the awesome noodle guy. I want a picture with all the people at this one ghetto salon.

Oh the holidays :)

2011-11-26T17:50:00.001-08:00

You know those people who are like, "I hate Christmas," and then proceed to give reasons why they hate it, such as:

You should have the Christmas Spirit all year, not for one day.
Christmas songs are annoying.
People only really care about getting presents, which is really selfish.
I'm only going to give you a present if I think you actually deserve a present. I don't want to feel pressure.

Blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the people who say "I hate Christmas"-- despite how genuine their reasons seem-- are just saying it because they want to hate something that most people love. I'm sure there's a term for that kind of person, but being around people who speak little-to-no-English for the past 3+ months has made me forget most of my English. It's pretty tragic, really. I'm not sure I'm still qualified to teach these little kids. Good thing I'm not taking an English class this spring.

Anyway, I just wanted to preface with that so that my next statement holds more weight.

I don't hate any of the holidays. But Thanksgiving is easily my least favorite. It's mostly about eating and being thankful for things. As far as being thankful for things goes, I really like to hope that I show thanks for my blessings all year, but it's nice to have a specific day set aside for that, because I probably don't actually show thanks every day all year. It would be fantastic if I did, but it doesn't happen. And the eating of food? You've got turkey, stuffing, pie, and then other side dishes and desserts that are filled in for each family. Turkey, stuffing and pie are pretty mandatory no matter what. The reason Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday is because I don't like turkey or stuffing. The two things that Thanksgiving is really built on. And I try them every year, but they just don't get better tasting. Haha. It's really sad.

This year, however, was one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had (and one of the lamest Halloweens I've ever had, which is sad because Halloween is one of my favorites). It all starts on Thursday. Obviously.

We had a special craft thing we did with the kids where they all made turkeys with their parents. It was cute and fun. But the real party comes that night. For dinner on Mon-Thurs, we go over to the Chinese teachers' apartment and eat with them. On Thanksgiving, they cooked us a particularly big dinner-- with turkey :) It was really delicious and very sweet of them to do. They even had dessert for us. Fruit salad! So good. It was so nice.

Then the next day we went to Xioulan and ate feast number 2 with the girls there. It was like a real Thanksgiving dinner (minus the turkey and stuffing ha). We had KFC, mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli dish with onions and carrots, rolls, stuffed peppers, and a couple Chinese dishes. I'm sure there were other things, but they escape my attention. For dessert, we had pumpkin pie, donuts, cookies (which Morgin baked from scratch. She's AWESOME.), and a baked apple crumble thing. It was so awesome. We went around the table and said something we're thankful for, just like back home (even though that's a pretty recently adopted tradition that my family's picked up).

It was awesome. I think the best part was that it was a real Thanksgiving. We were going to have the same group of ILP girls that went to Beijing. That's the Xioulan girls, us here in Nanlang, and the sisters (plus their one other roommate who couldn't make it to Beijing). But the sisters weren't able to make it for dinner. It was sad, but these things happen. We still had food for all of them, so the Xioulan girls went downstairs and invited some of their Chinese teacher friends up for dinner. So we had Americans sharing a tradition with the Chinese. It was awesome. :) I loved it. Easily the best Thanksgiving of my life.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful for the support you've all shown me while I've been on the other side of the world. :) Love you guys!

It's a DLSASTER. It's an incredible MBSS.

2011-11-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

You know how people in America get shirts or necklaces or tattoos or whatever of Chinese characters? And then they think they're all cool because they have something in Chinese, and it probably says something awesome?

Well the reverse is true in China. There's English everywhere, especially on shirts. And you know how, when you see those Chinese characters, you think, "I bet that actually says something really stupid"? Well, I've found that with the English, it usually either doesn't say anything (ehkdijflsldk), or it does say something, but has a typo.

For example, we were on the sky train the other day, and there was a guy wearing a shirt that said something about needing a green environment and then said on the back, regarding the current environment, "IT'S A DLSASTER." Aside from that, it was a totally normal shirt that I wouldn't be surprised to see anyone in America wear.

So I'm pretty sure that when shirt companies look at a batch of shirts, and find there's a typo on it, they think, "Oh no. It's a dlsaster. Let's just send it to Chlna. They'll never know."

And probably most of them won't ever know.

Hang on. Qualifier.

2011-11-19T00:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, so we've been back from vacation for about 5 days, and although I feel like I love it here more than I did before I went to Beijing, I don't think I love it as much as I did while in Beijing. And I don't think that actually has anything to do with me loving Beijing. I'm pretty sure I can pinpoint exactly what it is that made me love China so intensely.

Friends.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lonely little girl with no one to talk to. That's not it at all. I believe a couple months ago, when I got to China, I said I'd write an email about my awesome roommates. I think I'll now actually do that.

Annalisa. She's my head teacher, and she's a great one at that. I feel like I've learned a lot from here, and she's definitely helped me to become the teacher I am. More than that, she's helped me become the person I am. She's been a great influence on my life, and I love the example she sets for me. She's loud and funny. She has about twelve different voices she uses. She has the strangest dreams. And I know that she really cares about me. I think she's made the most effort out of all my roommates to become my friend. Which is very nice, because we have pretty ridiculously different personalities. She is a wonderful person. I love her :)

Mandy. She's so awesome, I love her. She and Anna have a LOT in common. She makes weird faces. She has a couple of her own weird voices. She's very nice, and she genuinely cares about the people in her life. Her laugh and smile is very contagious. We share a lot of interests when it comes to media-- How I Met Your Mother, Relient K, Friends... Other TV shows and bands. Haha. Aside from that, our interests are pretty different, but I love her :)

April. She's my literal roommate. We've had our fair share of late nights talking about nothing. We get along well. And man! Can that girl get crazy hyper! Our personalities mesh best when she's in a calmer state, or when I'm in a more excited state. She's loud. She laughs all the time. She's sweet. She's gets on my nerves occasionally (though nothing specific comes to mind), and I'm sure I've gotten on her nerves before. I mean, we live in the same room. I'm with her constantly, it's bound to happen. And I love her anyway :)

But (there's always a but, isn't there?), had I met any of these girls back home, I don't think we'd be the friends we are now. I think I'd see them at church, and we'd sit next to each other and talk and laugh, but I don't imagine we'd randomly decide to run to the store together really quick. I don't think we'd decide to go out to dinner. I don't think we'd go get our hair done. I could be wrong, but I think I'm so different from them that if I weren't forced to be close to them, I wouldn't be. It just wouldn't have happened naturally.

I'm not miserable, or even unhappy. In fact, I'm more than content. I love being here, and I love being with these people. But none of them are really people who I clicked with immediately. Even after 3 months of being here, I'm still the quietest one in the group. And it's not because I'm shy or anything, I just don't have a lot in common with all of them, personality-wise. Which isn't a bad thing! We have totally different personalities, and that happens. I'm not better than them, and they aren't better than me. We're just different.

However, we went to Beijing with 2 other schools. There were 12 of us total. 4 from our school, 6 from the school in Xioulan and 2 from another school, which name I do not know. Because there were so many people, there was a wide range of personalities. And there are 4 or 5 girls in the rest of the group that I do click with right away. So while I was in Beijing, I was able to be with people who I think I would naturally gravitate toward back home. And having that closeness with some of the other girls, PLUS being in an awesome country that I love with my entire heart, I realized how much I don't want to leave.

So yes. That about sums it up. I love my roommates, and I'll be so sad to have to leave them all in a month. It will be strange, to say the least, to not be with them 24/7. I just wish that my relationship with them was a little more natural, like their relationships with each other.

It's official. China has won my love.

2011-11-18T23:59:00.001-08:00

I love China. Really. I loved it the first 3 months I was here, but it was different. I loved being here, but I was also cool with the prospect of going home and getting back to the "real world." I used to describe it to people in terms of a percentage. I was split 60-40 for Staying In China-Going Home. There wasn't much that was keeping me tied to one place over the other. Don't get me wrong, though. Under no circumstances was I unhappy with being in China. I loved my kids, I loved teaching, I loved the food. I sometimes loved my roommates (HA. Sorry guys, I'm just kidding. I always love you). But I also loved my life back in Colorado. I loved going to school, I loved my family, I loved my friends, I loved the cold.

I'm not really sure what it was that changed, either. But something happened over the last weekend, when we were in Beijing, and it clicked. I was 100% contended to be in China. Honestly, I feel like I could stay here forever and be happy. But I can't. I have to go home in 4 weeks.

I love all you guys back home. I do. But I'm not excited to leave. I'm excited to come give everyone presents and to see everyone again and start up school (I'm really really excited for my classes this spring), but I have a life here in China, and I don't want it to end. Sad.

I <3 BJ!

2011-11-18T23:57:00.001-08:00

I loved Beijing. But sadly, I didn't get an I <3 BJ shirt. Maybe next time I'm there.

So for our last vacation, which was 4 days, we decided to go to Beijing. We left after teaching on Thursday to go get bus tickets to Guangzhou-- where our train was at-- but they didn't have anymore seats. So instead, we got tickets on the sky train (that were cheaper and less time consuming. Hmm. Wonder why that wasn't our first option. Meh, whatever). The train ride to Beijing was 21 hours, and that is quite a long time, so I didn't want to be stuck wearing jeans for all of that. So I wore my pajama pants, and packed a pair of jeans and a couple shirts, then I'd wear my pajama pants back home on another 21 hour train ride. Well as we're waiting for the sky train, I realized that I left my pants at home. Haha. Oops. So that's why in every picture of me in Beijing, I'm wearing pajama pants. Didn't have anything else.

So we got our train at like 6:30 or something on Thursday, made it to Beijing on Friday at 2 or so, then our group (which included the girls from 3 different schools) split into 2 groups. 4 of the girls went to the Pearl Market, and the other 8 of us went to get Mexican food. I know, I know. We're in China. Why would you get Mexican food? Well, because I live in China, so being able to get Chinese food isn't that big of a deal. I eat Chinese food for 3 meals every day, plus snacks in between. But there is no Mexican food anywhere in China that isn't a really big tourist hot spot. So yes. We were awesome and ate Mexican food. And it was fantastic. Friday night was their Ladies' Night, so they had burritos for only 15 yuan (or you could get their vegetarian burrito for 10 yuan). That was a nice surprise. I got a pollo asada burrito and then also split a carne asada chimichanga with Jessica. So much food, but it was so delicious.

After dinner, we met the other group at a Chinese Acrobat show. It was pretty sweet. Unfortunately, the traffic was really heavy, so our taxi took FOREVER to get there, and we only saw half the show. But you know, it was ok. Because the half of the show we saw was well work the 17 bucks I paid for the entire ticket (seriously. They had those motorcycles in the metal ball thing driving all fast and awesome. and then they kept adding motorcyclists. There were five. FIVE. It was insane), and the taxi ride was actually a lot of fun. It was nice to sit there and talk with Ashley and the sisters-- Courtney and Maddie. Those girls are awesome, and I miss them terribly now that I no longer see them every week at church. Boo for having to come home!

Anyway. After the acrobat show, we hit up a night market. Jessica, Caley, and Ashley tried scorpion. I thought about it, but seeing the scorpions move around kinda made me decide against it. Ha. I don't know, eating something that's alive and has a stinger isn't exactly on my bucket list. I know, I'm so unadventurous. I think I'll be ok though. I did eat some delicious fruit thing that was coated with melted sugar. Mmm. Once the night market closed, we headed back to our hostel and called it a night.

The next morning (Saturday) we were up and at it early early so we could see the Great Wall. So awesome haha. I don't really actually have much to say about it, actually. You know how it is. Get a van ride there, climb up a ton of steps to get to the actual wall, hike the wall for a little while, take awesome pictures, head back down, possibly do some shopping (I got some dried kiwis. Quite possibly the best fruit ever to be dried). Except that I did have an awkward moment with another tourist. So if you look way up the wall, there was a section where you could see some Chinese writing on the ground. I was just chilling there up on one of the guard posts, and a girl was taking a picture of it. She said, "[blah blah take a picture] even though I don't know what it says." She seemed nice and friendly and everything, so I chimed in with, "I hope it says, 'The Great Wall.'" Ha. I thought it was amusing. Not the funniest thing ever, not particularly clever, but an amusing thought none the less. She just looks at me, dead serious, and says, "No. It doesn't." Oh ha. My bad. What a crazy lady.

Side note-- before leaving the guard post I was sure to pretend to light a fire and say, "Now all of China knows you're here," and then I imagined someone looking at me saying, "Perfect." I rock. Also, I totally did some of my awesome Kung Fu moves on the guard post. I was probably fighting off some of the Huns.

After the Great Wall, we went to the Silk Market, and then we were going to go to the Pearl Market, but everyone was having so much fun at the Silk Market that we just stayed there. I got some pretty cool stuff. Some of it is touristy China stuff, but I also got 3 pairs of cons (for 45 yuan each:: about 7 bucks) and a Converse hoody. Oh, and a duffel bag. I was originally going to just get rid of the duffel bag I brought here but upon comparing the one I bought in Beijing to the one I have currently, I can't justify getting rid of it. It's too high quality. The only thing that's really wrong with it is that the strap is breaking (which is funny, because it's only breaking because I had too much heavy stuff in it when I came to China because I was over the weight limit of my checked bags by quite a lot, but wanted to bring everything I had packed anyway, so I just moved the heavy stuff from my checked back to my carry on). That's fortunate, though because the duffel bag I just bought came with 2-- check it, TWO-- shoulder straps. So now I've got two duffel bags, and I'm excited :) After the Silk Market extravaganza, we went to get dinner. Ha. Yeah... we got Mexican food again. Ashley and I were in kahoots this time, though, and we split some pollo asada nachos (quite likely the best nachos I've ever had. legit.) and another carne asada chimichanga (and I'd only actually had frozen chimichangas, so aside from the exact same one I had had the night before, it was probably the best I've ever had also). So goood!

Some of the girls went to see the Bird's Nest after dinner, but I've never really been an Olympic fan, and I was really tired, so I just went back to the hostel to sleep and prepare for another RIDICULOUSLY early morning.

Sunday Sunday SUNDAAAY. We went to see the Forbidden City/Tian'anmen Square. It was so awesome. I loved it. We only had a couple hours there, unfortunately, because we had to catch our train home at 1 that afternoon, so we had to be on our way back to the hostel for our stuff at 11. The Forbidden City opened at 8:30, and we were there well before that, so we still had 2 hours. We ended up splitting up into different groups so that people who wanted to spend more time in the Forbidden City could all hang out together, and people who wanted to be in Tian'anmen Square could go there earlier. Courtney, Maddie and I ended up staying in the Forbidden City the entire time. It was SO COOL. And we barely saw anything! It was really awesome, though. I loved it. We were there so early that the pictures we took are just of us. There aren't ridiculous crowds on every side of us. It's nice, I definitely wouldn't change that. It was fantastic.

Then we hit the train back home, and got back to our apartment at 2 on Monday. It was a good vacation. Beijing is so awesome, and I am definitely going to hit it up again in the future. But I'll spend more time there, that way I can see it all :)

Oh, and for the record, trains suck. Sitting for 21 hours is not fun. Some of the girls in our group actually slept on the floor haha. Which was convenient for me, because then I got to sleep over two chairs, and I could put my feet up.

Oh oh oh oh. Actually, I do have one more story. We were on the subway, and we met a guy who looks JUST LIKE Tony Stark. It was remarkable. Like, if you told me that Robert Downey Jr. is living undercover in Beijing, I would be 100% positive that I met him. I'M ON TO YOU, ROBERT DOWNEY JR. Ha, but really. It sounded like him, looked like him. I'm (partially) sure it wasn't, but it was still exciting.

Halloween

2011-11-18T23:53:00.001-08:00

Hello World! Ha. Sorry for the delay. For some reason blogger has stopped letting me post blogs... I don't know why. But before I left, Chaelomen helped me set up the email-blogging. I only just looked up what my email address for my blog is, but hopefully this works and you guys will be able to read the 4 blogs I've been saving in a draft in my email (that way I wouldn't forget what I wanted to say).

I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. Unfortunately, they don't celebrate it in China. Fortunately, I'm a foreign teacher and the schools that ILP works with are all about giving the kids a taste of American culture. So we got to dress up and decorate the classroom, and we even hosted a party with the kids and their parents, and that was fun.

The decorations were mostly made out of construction paper. We had a TON of pumpkins and ghosts and bats and the like. There was a little pumpkin patch with a construction paper scarecrow set up in it. It sounds super ghetto, but it actually looked pretty good. The school even splurged a little and got some Halloween decorations. We had some webs, spiders, and this skeleton thing that's motion-activated. For a country that doesn't celebrate Halloween, they had a curious amount of decorations and costumes available... Any idea why?

Our party was pretty awesome, too. The little kids sang Wheels on the Bus (not a Halloween song, I know, but it was the only English song they knew well at the time) and then did a little dance thing. Then the Chinese teachers performed a dance, and then Anna, April, Mandy and I all danced. We did the Monster Mash, with some Thriller moves thrown in there. We actually wanted to learn the entire Thriller dance, but we were too lazy. haha. These things happen. We started actually trying to learn it ON Halloween about 5 hours before the party. We're awesome.

It was a dark and stormy night.

2011-10-07T01:56:00.001-07:00

Which is a particularly bad thing if you're on a ferry. All the waves and excessive rocking... it's just too much for some people to handle.
Thankfully, (although I live in the middle of a continent, so this will never be one of my more useful traits) I don't get *seasick. However, lots of people on the ferry last night do. Haha.

So our 2nd (or technically 3rd if you count Hong Kong) vacation just ended. It was awesome. We went to Sanya. For some reason, my proxy site doesn't really like facebook right now, so I can't put pictures up there. But it likes blogger just fine, so I'll post some here :) And maybe a few more on G+ later.

This is the awesome view at one of the beaches we went to. I think it was Yalong Bay, I don't really know if that's how it's spelled, though. But there's a lovely forest thing to the right, and the pretty beach, plus the mountains in the background. It was quite nice. The waves were awesome, I enjoyed playing in them. And beginning to learn to swim (thanks Annalisa :) Oh Sanya. I miss you already.

It's just tequila and the beach; that's why it's salty when we kiss.

This is me and April, in contrast matching swimming outfits. And, even though you can't really tell, I'm wearing awesome new sunglasses that match my swim shorts. Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure no zebras were harmed in the making of our clothes.

Hopefully.

This is a pretty tree behind a pretty bush that was at the beach by our apartment/hostel. Funny thing there. We booked a hostel with Joe's Seaside Inn, and we get there and we go to the hostel, but that's not where we're staying. Instead, he put us in some apartments that he has which he then rents out to people when his hostel gets full. Or at least, I assume that's the reason. It was a little confusing talking to him, so I'm not sure.

This is the beach by our apartment-hostel. See? That's the ocean way in the background. There were a ton of boats everywhere with people carrying them from the shore to the... grassy area by the trees. It was really neat.

Here I am eating some delicious noodles for breakfast. We found this random little place in some back alley that said they had waffles, which was not true. We kept pointing to the picture of the waffles, and she kept saying, "Mayo! Mayo!" which is, "I don't have!" And then she pointed to some noodles she did have for 10 yuan. So I got those, and then April got some other hot (as in temperature) noodles which I have a picture of, but not on my blog :) I point out that April's noodles were hot because mine were cold. But they were supposed to be and they were delicious.

And thus concludes our vacation. It was nice. Just beaches and eating. We found this little alley that had the most delicious and cheapest food I've ever had. It was awesome. Just a TON of street food. I got way more food than I should have eaten in one sitting for probably less than 20 yuan. That includes a drink, 3 sandwich things (one spicy, two not), and some meat on a stick. Mmm. Thinking about it makes me sad that I'm not there anymore. :(

*According to Mom, it's not so much seasickness, but more motion sickness. So not getting airsick, seasick or carsick are all packaged together as one thing that's awesome about me.

If only it were so simple.

2011-09-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

So I started writing a story. Well, trying to at least.

I have 1 chapter (which is super short, more like a prologue), plus a couple paragraphs of chapter 2. I have a very rough shell of what I want to happen, but at this point, I'm not really sure where to take the story. So then I started wrting something else. Something that I don't have any real expectations for, so it's just a short story. Similar to a story I wrote last Christmas for my friends (it was a play off of A Christmas Carol).

Then I wondered who I write like (Chaelomen, I think that was one of my favorite blog posts you've done).

Beginning of book: Neil Gaiman.
Beginning of short story: Stephen King.

I like both of these authors, though let's not put too much stock into that (I typed up a couple paragraphs from Anansi Boys. Turns out Neil Gaiman writes like Arthur Clarke). If only I could actually finish writing something. Not that I think a lot of experienced writers read my blog, but any advice?

Yangshuo :)

2011-09-13T03:46:00.000-07:00

Yangshwhoa. Haha. That's how you pronounce it, with a whoa at the end there.
And that's where we just went on vacation. :) It was so much fun. I've got a few pictures, and my roommate is going to let me use her proxy website so I can put them up on facebook or maybe maybe the blog.

We'll see which. I feel like it would be easier to put them on facebook, because you can just upload all of them, and you can only put a few at a time on a blog. Not that I have a lot of pictures (my camera died before I even left the hotel. Lame lane), but it still seems more convenient to put pictures on facebook. Check there for updates, probably before the end of the week.

Anyway. Yangshuo.
We left for Yangshuo on Friday night, after teaching. We had a sleeper bus, which was pretty cool, I must say. I was on the top bunk next to April, and Mandy and Annalisa were below us. We stopped and picked up a TON of people. Like, we had more people than beds. Some people, we called them isle people (which sounds a lot like ILP people haha), and they were just stuck in between everyone on the bottom bunk awkwardly. Made me glad I was on top, and sorry for Mandy and Anna.
We got to Yangshuo on Sat morning, and April and I took pictures and then went shopping for a while. We did a boat ride, and then went shopping some more in the markets, and ate dinner around 8:30 or so, then went dancing. We finally got back home at 12, and I was out by 12:30. It was a long day, but so much fun.

On Sunday, we were all go go go. We were up and out by 9, biking. We rode up to the Buddha Mud Caves and did a tour there. I went down one of the slides in the mud cave and scraped up my leg a bit, but nothing too serious. It was SO much fun, and then there were hot water springs at the end. It was lovely. But the mud. Oh my. I'm still wringing mud out of my swimsuit. It was worth it, of course, but goodness. After that, we had lunch and then climbed Moon Hill (MJ- idk where I got Moon Crest Mountain from haha) and that was a lot of fun, but so tiring. It's not like a regular mountain, they have steps all the way to the summit. 839 steps, one way, to be exact. And they're steep steps. I sweat a lot. I don't even want to think about a physical amount, but it was nasty nasty. After that, just more shopping. We were going to go out for KTV (karaoke) that night which I was totally up for, but it got switched last minute to dancing. Which I was just too tired for. They said they'd only be gone for an hour, but it was probably only 10 or 15 minutes that they were gone before I fell asleep.

Monday morning! We rented mo-peds for the day. 60 rmb for one bike all day, with two people on it, so only 30 rmb each. And that's like 5 American. We had it from 10:30 to 6, and the girl I rode with and I lent our bike to another couple girls who went rock climbing in the morning, and we just shopped around the markets. I love the markets. They're awesome. Best thing to ever happen to the shopping world. But I spent a lot of money there. Around like 7 or 8 hundred rmb. But that includes the hostel (which was really really nice. We painted on the walls), and food, and the boat and bikes and mo-ped, and all my souvenirs. And besides all that, many of the souvenirs were for my friends, and a couple for family (Audrey- greater than or equal to a coconut, but I haven't found anything yet). And 7-800 rmb is only like 100-150 American, so that's not too bad, right? For 4 days... Right? D:

And then, we came home. Sleeper bus left at 8pm or so, and it was much nicer than the first sleeper bus, and more empty... and cheaper, too actually. And then we got home at like 4:30 this morning, but by "home," I mean to McDonald's. We got home home at 5:30 or so. It was a lovely vacation, but I'm excited to get back to my kids.

I don't think I told everyone-- Dave is staying the program. :) Donny's mom doesn't think he's learning enough or something, so he ended up getting pulled, but that's a story for a different day.

Also, and this is the last thing, I'M SO EXCITED! We're starting Kung Fu lessons haha :D Two days a week, Mon/Wed, from 1:00-2:30. It's going to be sweet. The instructor doesn't have an English name (most of the adults here don't) so we named him Jet. And as soon as Freda gets lessons ready, we're starting Chinese lessons, too :) I can't wait.

And now, I'm off to finish my laundry. It's all been out hanging to dry, and I think it's probably good to come in now. (Mom- bleached worked wonders for the smell :) This is something I can happily put on in the morning. Thank you so much!)

Remember that time...

2011-09-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

when I said, and I quote, "When we [get internet], I'll post a blog about our apartment and my awesome roommates"?

Right? Right?

Well, turns out, I won't. haha.

Fortunately, I emailed mom a tour of my apartment. (Wizard, I was going to email it to you, too, but I didn't realize that your name wasn't in the send box until after I sent it.) This tour is complete with cheesy tour-guide dialogue and pictures :) And a potty break.

I asked her to forward it to anyone who's interested, so if you haven't gotten the forward of it already, let her know you want a copy. :) Because it won't be posted here, that's for sure.

Life.

2011-09-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

It stresses me out.

Sometimes, both before I left and occasionally now, I stop and I think about going to/ living in China, and I wonder how I got myself into this mess. Let's look at the factors.

Kids. They stress me out. I don't have fond memories of most of the kids I babysit. There's a couple *exceptions, sure. But mostly, I don't like being around kids. All the girls here, as we're walking through the school, keep going on and on, "Look at him/her! He/she is SO CUTE!" and I look at them, and if they're lucky, then whatever they were doing was mildly amusing. But mostly, it's just another kid. Nothing particularly cute about it, it's just a smaller version of a person. A needy person. Who won't pay attention to me unless I'm being unnaturally animated. Which brings me to the next point.

Teaching. It stresses me out. I'm not very good at thinking on my feet, apparently. I can't think of a dozen different things to say about a fork without notice. I can't think of outdoor activities to do on the spot. When you plan your lesson, you're supposed to plan activities to do. Like, we'll cut up the paper, and we'll tear the paper, and we'll organize the paper into big pieces and little pieces. Then while you teach, you're supposed to focus on what you'll say. And that "what I'll say" part is really hard for me. There are long pauses in my teaching of silence. Which is bad for having the kids learn/practicing speaking. And it's also bad for keeping their attention. Apparently kids zone out if I'm quiet too long, and once they've gone off in their head, it's hard to get their attention back.

Distractions. They stress me out. Like, when I'm teaching a lesson, and the kids get distracted by something else in the book. I'm trying to focus on the Belle's horse, but they keep pointing at the wolves' eyes. What are they doing? They're messing with my lesson plan! I already had something going I wanted to say about the horse, but I didn't prepare for anything regarding the wolves. Or we have these tokens we give them when they say something we want them to say, but those tokens spill out of the token bags, and they all have to stop to pick up the tokens, and then class hasn't gone according to plan. Wah!!

It's mostly just the ILP program that stresses me out. And only sometimes. Sometimes I'm really excited for my lessons, and I do think several of the kids are really awesome, but it would appear that I like the trouble makers best. I'm just a backwards person. There's this one kid- Dave- I think he's one of the coolest kids in the group (unfortunately, he's just a trial student for now, so we might not get to keep him all semester). The other teachers think he's smart and everything, but they think he's a trouble maker and therefore they have a hard time with him. The other teachers all like William the best. They think he's adorable, and they love the way he mumbles when he repeats you. And he actually bothers me a bit. I don't know what they think is so cute about him, besides the fact that he's Chinese. Because he never pays attention when we're outside, and he doesn't seem to be making a real effort to learn English. But he's here all semester, and Dave, who actually appears interested in what's going on, might be gone after this week. Lame.

Also. Laundry here sucks. A lot. I'll do a load, and I know it's clean because I put in a TON of soap, and I'll hang it up to dry (we don't have dryers, we line-dry everything) and when I take it all down the next day or whatever, it still smells bad. Not in the same way as before I put it in the washer, but bad none the less. :(

These moments of doubt about "How did I get myself into this mess?" tend to go by pretty quick. I have an easy teaching life, and I love living here China. It's been a lot of fun, and I LOVE the markets. My roommates are all pretty cool. It's been fun. Generally, we can ignore the rantings of this post, because I love being here. But when I get stressed out, I get stressed out hardcore.

*of course, MJ+Chaelomen's kids, Frik+Carebear's kids (except Squirt sometimes), Berserk's kids, and probably Shinobi+Guildylock's kids all don't stress me out. I like them :) And the girls who used to live across the street. They were good. But I babysit a lot, and most of the kids drive me insane.

Skype

2011-09-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

Turns out, I don't know how Skype works. I barely know my user name. I don't even think I know my password, although it wouldn't be hard to get it emailed to me again. I went to their website and everything, but since I'm in China, I can only find their Chinese website. Which wants me to pay to Skype. And I'm not interested in doing that, at all.

But I do know how google works. And if you were planning on Skyping with me, it would be infinitely easier for me if you wanted to google video with me. My most available times are weekdays between 10 pm and like 3 am MST. Or also weeknights between like 7 am and 10 am.

I am aware, btw, that I just used the term weekday to describe the middle of the night and weeknight to describe early in the morning, but that's how it is in China, so.

If you can't google video with me, and you can only skype with me, then I'll try to look at skype again, but it just confused me and made me mad :( Dislike. Google is always better. Haha.

***UPDATE: I have figured out how Skype works. And it might cut out less than Google Chat does. So, hit me up if you want to test oout my new Skype abilities with me :) ***

Ni Hao!

2011-08-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hello from China, everyone! :) I love it over here (except for the hot weather AND hot humidity. One or the other would be fine, but what can you do)! Hong Kong was fun, but I was only there for 2 days and I accidentally left my camera in the apartment, except when we went to the Temple, so I've got some pictures of that. Plus a couple other random pictures of signs I saw in China that I liked :)

We don't currently have the internet in our apartment (which is gorgeous, btw) but we should get it today or tomorrow. When we do, I'll post a blog about our apartment and my awesome roommates. I took pictures, but I haven't transfered them to my computer yet.

Well. That's all I have. Ni hao! :)

*NOTE* It would appear that I can't upload pictures on blogger :( I don't know why. But if you want to see pictures, email me and I'll send some to you. Or you can just wait until I get back and look at all of them then.

It's what I was born for, isn't it?

2011-08-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

So I'm not going to call this a hiatus because I expect that I'll still have time to blog from time to time, at rates similar to during school. But blogger is blocked in China, so I have to go through another website to get to it, and it's set up differently on this website, making it kind of awkward to blog. So, unfortunately, the awesome blogs will mainly come once a month, after I've gone on vacation.

Fortunately, though, I have access to email! So if you want to keep in touch with me that way, I will make sure to do that. I'm going to email Mom daily (assuming she emails me back), so it'll be easy to keep up with everyone. Or you can mail me, and I'll respond to that, too. I have plenty of envelopes.

If you don't have either my email address or my physical address, I probably don't want you to have them. And if that's not the case, facebook me and I'll let you know.

That being said, goodbye! :) You will all hear from me again probably between the 28th of Aug and the 1st of Sep. Hooray Hong Kong!

One Fortnight.

2011-08-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

That's how long until I leave :)

So, originally I was going to Weihai. I'm sure we all remember the post, right? Really pretty? Well ILP gave me a call, which makes me very nervous. I'm quite worried they're going to call and tell me I can't go for some reason (substantial China disaster, had to cancel the program in my school and don't need me elsewhere). This isn't something I consciously worry about; I'm not paranoid about it. It's only when they call and right before I hit "answer" that I worry.

That's not the point. I'm still going to China. In a fortnight. They were calling me to ask if I'd be interested in switching schools/cities. So, as I said moments ago, I was going to Weihai, which only has one school in the city. But in Zhongshan (btw- Zh is pronounced like J, in case someone was curious how to say that) there's 4 schools. 3 schools? I don't know, multiple ones. And at the smallest one, they had a couple who was going and they just got married.
Unfortunately, there's no housing in Zhongshan to accomidate that kind of living situation.
Fortunately, there is in Weihai.

They told me about how it would be different. First off, there were 17 people (15 teachers, 2 headteachers) going to Weihai. I don't know how many people will be in Zhongshan in total, but in Nanlang (my new school) there will be 4 of us. 4. 3 teachers, 1 head teacher. The head teacher doesn't actually teach the kids, at least not on a regular basis, so that leaves 3 of us. We'll each be teaching 2 different classes a day.

Also different about Zhongshan- it's not right by the sea. It's more south (a little less than 50 miles east of Hong Kong). So it'll be hotter, but that's not too terrible. We won't be flying into Beijing, we'll be flying into Hong Kong. This is particularly important because our visas are not multiple entrance. So most of the people who go to China can't visit Hong Kong. But since that's where I'm flying into, and I won't have actually entered China yet, I get to take a 2-day vacation before going to work :)

I said yes, obviously. To switching cities. And I'm actually really excited to have a smaller group of teachers. I think it'll be harder, but definitely worth it. Plus, Weihai is kinda out there and alone, and there was only going to be one male there. So unless we were REALLY close to a branch, that would've made going to church really expensive (we would have had to pay for a bus every week if we wanted to go). But there will be more boys in Zhongshan, so even if the branch isn't close, we'll be able to still partake of the sacrament. Bonus!

I'm so excited :D It's going to be awesome.

When I get bored.

2011-08-02T13:54:00.001-07:00

Once during class a couple semesters ago, I was really bored. I had given a presentation in English on my paper, and now I had to sit through a ton of other presentations and so I started drawing on the backs of my note cards. Then when I was bored in other classes, I drew more pictures, (mostly) all on the backs of notecards. So now, after months, they've all been scanned onto the computer and here they are :) Enjoy.

This was the first one. I don't draw awesome dinosaurs, but I love him anyway.

Number four.

The last one I did (number nine). I think it's my favorite.

Number six. And those things were intended to be fighting over the key, but it looks more like they're just trying to get it to the lock. Either way.

Number three.

Number two.

Number five. This was actually part of a larger picture I drew during trig on regular notebook paper. But I'm not sure where that is, and I don't quite remember what the whole picture was.

Number eight. It's hard to see, but there's a whale in the background just to the right and down a touch of the boat.

Number seven.

So close.

2011-07-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

And yet so far.

I'm almost done with my summer classes :) I'm not really sure if everyone knew about those, but I took 3 this semester. Which is actually quite a lot for summer. I have Intro to Ethics, Language Logic and Persuasion, (both on Mon/Wed) and Abnormal Psychology (Tues/Thurs).

My MW classes are way easy. I love them. Ethics is really interesting and it mostly involves reading a couple pieces about a hot topic and writing a paper on them. It's a super interesting class, and I think my favorite topic we've discussed was euthanasia. I'm not going to go into details here because it would make my post far too long, but if anyone wants to talk about/debate it with me, I'm more than happy to. Logic is a really interesting class too. A lot of people think that it's not very logical, but it makes perfect sense to me. (For instance, this statement is true: If pigs can fly, then Denver is in Mexico. And that's not something that makes sense to a lot of people, apparently.)

Ab psych is pretty cool, too, but it's very involved. I watched the movie Shine and wrote a case analysis for it, and then I did 10 service hours at CHARG and am writing a paper for that. It's a lot of reading (at least 2 chapters a week) but it's really interesting.

the point of all this, though, is that finals are Wed and Thurs!
It's been a lot of fun, but I'm glad it's almost over.

Joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies.

2011-06-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

That's how well they go together.

You know those links on the side of facebook for a bunch of crap you don't really care about? Well sometimes, those links are for something I do care about. That's how I got involved with ILP. And that's how I found out:

American Gods is being turned into a TV show!

It's said to air on HBO in maybe 2013. 6 seasons! Neil Gaiman will be the writer and executive producer. How exciting! I think 6 seasons is a long time to spread it out, but hopefully it will be awesome.

On a related note, I'd really like to see the mini series for Neverwhere.

(Anyone confused about joy/sorrow and milk/cookies? It's a quote from American Gods. page 447)

Can I just say.

2011-06-16T20:38:00.001-07:00

I'M SO EXCITED!!

In less than 2 months, I will not be living in America! Hahaha!

:D

That's all I wanted to say. :)

(and I didn't actually want to say it, I wanted to shout it at the top of my lungs and jump up and down... I refrained, though. I'll save that level of excitement until later.)

Knowitall

2011-06-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

This is a story I wrote last year for the same class as my Do You Feel Safe Yet paper. It was a multi-genre assignment. There's clearly room for improvement, but I put a lot of effort into it, so please enjoy :)

[Cover Page]

Knowitall

[Billboard]

[Journal Entry]

Tuesday, December 17, 2115

I don't know what all the excitement is over. A chip that makes you know everything? I mean, it doesn't sound all that good. Something about it just seems so... I can't describe it. It just gives me a bad feeling. Maybe not bad, but certainly not good. I don't know. I just can't imagine why you'd really want to get one. Right, to know everything. Maybe I don't want to know everything. Is that so wrong? Is it really so hard to believe? And now I'm defending myself to myself. I need a vacation.

Taylor Jae Miller

[phone call]

-ring ring... ring ring... ring ring... ring-
Johnny- Hello?
Taylor- Hey, Johnny, it's me. How's it going?
Johnny- Good, good. How're you?
Taylor- I'm alright. I actually just called to check up on Mom and Dad.
Johnny- Umm they're fine. Why?
Taylor- Well they got those stupid Knowitall chips, right?
Johnny- Uh, yeah, I gue--but-- What do you mean stupid? These things are miracles. I--
Taylor- Johnny, you're kidding, right? Some doctor wants to cut open your head and put a computer chip in your brain and sew you back up. You call that a miracle?
Johnny- Tay, it's not that bad. It's a tiny surgery--
Taylor- It's brain surgery! How is that tiny?
Johnny- --it's a non-invasive surgery that the doctors do all the time. It's totally common place.
Taylor- Just because everyone does it doesn't make it a good idea. It's wrong! You can't just make everyone super smart!
Johnny- Why not? What's so wrong with making everyone equal?
Taylor- Johnny, it's not natural!
Johnny- But it's not harmful, either, Tay. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Maybe you should do your research for once in your life before you form an opinion about something.
(muffled through phone)
Mom- Who's on the phone, Johnny?
Johnny- It's Tay.
Mom-Oh, did you tell her you got your Knowitall?
Taylor- (whispered) Oh no. Not you too, Johnny.
Johnny- No, not yet. I tried to, but she freaked out about it. She thinks they're bad.
Mom- Bad? That's absurd. I've never heard of that before... Hang the phone up, Johnny.
Taylor- No, what? Johnny, don't ha--

--click.

[journal entry]

Wednesday, January 1, 2116

I can't believe this! Has the world gone completely insane? They've warped my own family! Johnny hung up on me, my baby brother. And why? My own mother told him to! I've tried calling again and they just reject my calls. My family and I have always been close. Now it's all gone. And for what? These stupid Knowitall chips. Those things are bad news, so why will no one believe me?

Haven't done my research, eh, Johnny? Well fine, then. I'll do it, and I'll show the world! Knowitalls need to be set aside. Once and for all.

Taylor Jae Miller

[FAQ web page]

[email conversation]

to:feedback@kiachip.gov
from:tjmill_techmaj@uofnj.edu
date:Jan 15, 2116
subject: I won't be stopped.

I hope this goes to the top. I hope Kyle Schwan, Brittney Jones, Amber Rye, and Damian Bock can see this. However, I find that improbable, so I'll tell whoever will read this.

These Knowitall chips are ridiculous. In no way can they possibly be a good idea. Cutting open someone's brain to insert a chip? Really? Then what? Turn us all into your robotic slaves? Well I won't fall for it. I will bring down this operation. I refuse to believe I'm the only one on the Earth against these chips, and whoever else is with me, we will take you down.

I tell you this so you know I'm not afraid of you. Take whatever precautions you think will help to stop me. It won't work, I'll tell you that. It won't work. You can tell the world what I'm saying and planning, because I will bring you down anyway. Without a chip, I will take you down. That is what the world will remember of me. That's what they'll see.

Forever against you,
Taylor Miller

to:tjmill_techmaj@uofju.edu
from:rye_amber%kiabc@kiachips.gov
date:Feb 4, 2116
subject: re Your unstoppability

Taylor Miller,

I would like to apologize for the length of time it took to return your email. Although, despite the three-week delay, you should consider yourself lucky. Your wish for your email to go to the top was granted. Being the only email received in the history of KIA chips to say anything negative, those answering the emails felt it important that the creators of the chips see the potential threat.

I regret to inform you that your plan to "bring this operation down" cannot work even under the best of circumstances. And seeing as you are one of one million eligible in the world who has not yet had the KIA chip inserted (most of which live in third world countries), it would seem unlikely for you to find others willing to join your cause.

Of course, we have notified the GRJ (Global Reinforcement Jurisdicment) of your intentions, which they will respond to as they see fit. What I mean to say is, don't be surprised when they show up at your house with a warrant or chase you with canines down the street as you run. But I must say, against my attorney's advice, that I appreciate your spunk. I think it's adorable that you think you can take us on.

Best of luck,
Amber Rye.
Also on behalf of
Brittney Jones
Damian Boch and
Kyle Schwan

[journal entry]
Monday, February 10, 2116

My email actually went to the top, which surprises me a little. But no GRJ interrogations or canine chases so far. I also noticed, however, that there were no denials in Amber's email about trying to turn the world into their robotic slaves. I mean, perhaps she just looked over it, but that is just not something I can make myself believe. That would be far too coincidental for me to buy.
Johnny,
Since you won't talk to me or communicate with me in any form, I will write you a letter. I don't do my research, eh? Well how do you like this? Amber, Kyle, Brittney and Damian all have their histories. Maybe not theirs, technically, but about three generations back, a huge history starts where their entire families belonged to the District 43 Black Company.
You heard me right, Johnny. That group we learned about in history. Worse than Hitler on WWII. They had their minions everywhere, stopping at nothing to take out everyone who either tried to stop them or who refused to join them. But you know the story and the tragic ending of how we barely had enough people left in the population to fit on the South American continent.
Until the All Creatures Belong ethics group finally stopped them. And I know-- that was generations ago. You probably think they changed. Well they haven't. On their web page they have a design for the chip. A picture, anyway. An encrypted picture to get really specific. This is where I wish I could get your help, Johnny. No one can solve an encrypted key like you can, and this one is particularly tricky. But I would bet that if you decode the message, it shows the real design of the Knowitall, revealing one major glitch. If only I could get my hands on one of the chips in real life, I could solve the problem. I could figure it out and District 43 Black

[warrant, and I've never seen one before, so don't judge]

GRJ WARRANT

This warrant issues the Global Reinforcement Jurisdicment the right to search Taylor Jae Miller, her apartment, car or any other personal properties for anything leading to the evidence of treason against the Knowitall Chip or its creators. In addition, upon finding said evidence, this warrant issues the Global Reinforcement Jurisdicment the right to arrest Taylor Jae Miller on the spot on the grounds of heresy toward Amber Rye, Brittney Jones, Damian Boch and Kyle Schwan. Any reluctance will further add to her fine and punishment.

[newspaper article- there are actually pictures that go with it, but I can't find out how to make it all fit together and not look retarded]

THE WEDNESDAY POST

February 5, 2116

TREASON: BRINGING DOWN KIA

Yesterday, an attack against Knowitall was brought to light. Taylor Miller (left) wrong conspiracies against Knowitall in her journal (below) which she was prepared to bring to public view to try to get more to join her cause in taking down Knowitall and its creators. So far, none have joined her in her mission.

Miller does not yet have a KIA chip, against her parent's and family's wishes.

GRJ came to her apartment yesterday after Miller had sent a threatening email to the KIA creators. They caught her in the act of adding more conspiracies to her journal. She was in the middle of writing a letter to her brother, which she claims was never going to be sent. The GRJ has charged her for treason and heresy. Her trial will be conducted this Saturday, February 8th at the KRP Courthouse. For more updates on Miller's status, visit emperornewsoftheeast.com.

[jury sentence]

We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of the crimes heresy and treason toward the Knowitall Chip creators and the world on all accounts.

[phone call]

-ring ring... ring ring... ring-

Amber- Amber Rye Speaking.

Damian- Hey, Amber. Did you read Taylor's journal?

Amber- Yeah, I did. Did you?

Damian- Yep. Kinda terrifying to know someone came so close to figuring out what were up to, isn't it?

Amber- Oh no kidding. Who's idea was it to encrypt the online chip with how the real chip is designed, anyway?

Damian- I have no clue. Good thing most people already have their chips and don't care about the design.

Amber- Amen. Especially the jury. Do you realize that if they had found enough people without chips to serve on the jury, we'd be the ones in prison right now?

Damian- Haha. I don't think they even looked for people without the chips.

Amber- Good thing, too. That's all I have to say.

Damian- Mm. So what do we do now?
Amber- you mean now that, in effect, we've taken over the world?

Damian- Exactly. We've got all these minions whose morals we can change to be whatever we want just by reprogramming the alpha chip.

Amber- I know. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Damian- It is, it. Total unity in the world. But is that all we're going to do?

Amber- For now. I think I'm just going to take a vacation and watch everyone work. See our minions doing whatever it is that they do best.

Damian- I guess. Have you found out what they sentenced Taylor to?
Amber- I heard the judge put her to death.

Damian- Wow. That's pretty impressive.

Amber- Yes, well, if you have as much power as we do, the law will go a long way to make sure you're protected.

Damian- Fantastic.

Amber- It is, isn't it?

-laughter-

Well, that's the end of it. I think if I were to change anything, I might go back to my original idea of having Taylor end up in a mental institution. Also, there's a couple of plot kinks I'd improve. Like try to make it a touch more believable, but I got a total for 77 out of 70 points, so it's good enough for a school assignment.

Although, if you're ever in my presence and remember, you should ask to see the physical copy I have of it. It's pretty sweet- I made the journal :) Plus then you can see the news article in all its glory.

And both of them have typos.

2011-06-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

I checked out a couple books from the library the other week, and today I finished the last of them. Supposedly they were both horror books, but I didn't think they were that scary. Maybe I'm just not easily scared? I never really thought that was the case. I wish I could just find a good book that scares the living daylights out of me.

The first one I read was Hide and Seek by Jack Ketchum (which is important to specify, because that's apparently a fairly common book title). Super quick read, only 164 pages. It's told in first person, and it's about this guy named Dave, I think. Maybe it was Dan. The first half is about how he meets these 3 kids (2 girls, one guy) who are staying in his town for the summer. They all become friends, but they're definitely a bad influence on him. Mostly it's just set up for the 2nd half of the book, which is where they decide to play a game of hide and seek in an abandoned and rumored to be haunted (although Dave/Dan starts a couple of those rumors himself) house at midnight.

The scariest it gets, imo, is when he's in the basement looking for one of the girls and he can't see anything. Obviously, since it's supposed to be a horror book, something bad happens to him, so most of the fright comes from trying to guess what's waiting down there for him. But eventually you find out what happened down there in the basement, and then the rest of the read isn't scary, it's just kinda vicious. Overall though, I liked it. I thought it had a good plot and it was written well enough.

My second book that I just finished this morning is called Last Days by Brian Evenson. It's also a pretty short book, though longer than Hide and Seek. It has a really nice writing style to it. The story is told very smoothly, and the beginning hooked me in very well. It's about a cop who gets his hand cut off and then a Brotherhood of Mutilation tries (and succeeds) to get him to temporarily join with them so he can solve a murder. It's really interesting, I imagine that Berserk would like it. Although, under no circumstances would I have called this book a horror. It's kinda creepy in the too-religious-and-cult-like way, since there are these two "brotherhoods" that think it's holy to remove a body part, and one of them thinks the more you remove, the holier you are, but I wouldn't call it scary. The ending gets kinda messed up in a psychotic way. There's a lot of killing and it's very bloody, but there's not a lot of detail in the description of the bodies or the actual act of killing. So the faint-of-stomach could still handle it. Probably.

Next I'm on to reading some of the books that were actually on my list before, instead of getting new ones :)

And congratulations to Maku and Missa. In 15 minutes, they should officially have a house.

Don't get the chips.

2011-06-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

Did everyone get a chance to read my story that I wrote last year about Knowitall Brain Chips?

If not, I'm working on finding a way to put it up on Blogger. That way everyone can read it because I put a lot of time into it, and only a couple of you got to actually read it.

Generally, it's about these brain chips that science has come up with to put on your brain (go figure) and it makes you smarter.

Well, today in Intro to Ethics, the professor was telling us about how science is actually coming out with these microchips (and this isn't the first I've heard of it) that you can get for different things. If you're bad at math, you can get one to make you better. They've got them for a ton of different things, apparently.

So, what I'm really trying to say is when they come out for the public to get implanted, everyone should not go for it. Soon (ish) I'll post my story, but until then, you'll just have to trust me, since I can apparently see the future.

Don't get the chips!

I have an addiction.

2011-05-25T21:20:00.001-07:00

Books. It's a serious problem. I've been buying quite a lot recently.

And by "quite a lot," I mean 4 in the course of a couple weeks. (And by "I've been buying," I mean I only bought two, my wonderful and awesome mom bought the other two.) Have I read them all? No. I have a rather large list of books that I've been meaning to read since the semester started.

And by "rather large," I mean between 15 and 20, depending on how you count them.

The four books I've gotten recently are:
-Black Water Rising by Attica Locke, which I haven't started yet
-*Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales, I read about 11 of the fairy tales before I got distracted
-*The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, I'm a little more than 1/3 through
-Secrets of the Freemasons by Michael Bradley, I skimmed in the bookstore but have been preoccupied with other books since

(The * means that I've been reading it recently enough that I would be able to continue from where I was in the story versus starting over. However, Bourne Identity is the only one I've read in the past few days.)

And here's the list of books that I've been wanting to read since February or so. Any that I can cut out?
-*A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
-*Arch Enemy by Frank Beddor, which is the last of the Looking Glass Wars trilogy. Really good.
-*Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
-Harry Potter 4, 5, 6 and 7 by JK Rowling
-Old Man's War by John Scalzi, which has a plot opposite to Ender's Game
-The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card
-The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper, though perhaps I wouldn't read this in one sitting
-Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
-Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, which is actually a short story collection
-Dancing Wu Li Maters, which I started in 10th grade and thought it was really interesting
-Sorcerers and Seers by Chris Heimerdinger, but I'm waiting until the last book for that series comes out to read it
-Plus a couple of trilogies that Berserk's mentioned that I want to read- His Dark Materials, and The First Law Trilogy.

On top of that, I can't stop recommending books to people, regardless of if they're readers or not. I lent 3 of the most awesome books I've ever read to one of my friends, plus the first Dean Koontz book I read which I liked a great deal.
-The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
-Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
-Velocity by Dean Koontz
-Life of Pi by Yann Martel

And then MJ's also borrowing my copy of The Looking Glass Wars (which is the "true story" of Alice in Wonderland. Or, more accurately, Alyss in Wonderland).

If anyone could find me a job where I can read books and then review them, that would be perfect. You would complete my life.

He's been born!

2011-04-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

And by "he," I'm of course referring to the actor who will play Ender.

I should be asleep. I know. But today I was looking at status updates on facebook, and I learned that Neil Gaiman is going to be making an adult version of The Graveyard Book (which I'm really excited for. The children's book was pretty good).

Now I know what you're thinking. Or at least I know what you should be thinking. Neil Gaiman didn't write Ender's Game, so what does he have to do with anything.

Well, the question's been brought up by pretty much everyone who's read it: Will there be a difference between the adult version of The Graveyard Book and the children's edition, or is it going to be the exact same story, just with a different cover. Of course, Gaiman hadn't answered the question (yet) on facebook, so I turned to google to find an answer.

What I found instead was about 4 or 5 minutes of Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book. I've always thought it was cool to hear how the author wanted the tone of the book to be read. So, with my intense love of Ender's Game, I tried finding a snippet of Orson Scott Card reading Ender's Game. I didn't find anything too promising on google, so I turned to youtube.

When I went to type "orson scott card reading ender's game," the suggested search came up for "orson scott card ender's game movie" and that seemed potentially more interesting. What I found was Card talking about the progress being made in the production of the movie, and I'm really excited now :D

Also, speaking of books being made into movies, I'm really excited for Hunger Games to be made into a movie. I approve of the actors chosen for the characters so far.

My Last Day of Work

2011-04-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was my last day of working at Target. It was wonderful. Well. It wasn't wonderful, it kinda sucked. Day before Easter is always super busy. But the not being there anymore was wonderful.

Target's not a bad place to work or anything, but Christmas is a really busy and awful time to work there, so everyone hates it. But that's just Christmas, and once Christmas is over, the people who work there can be divided into 2 groups: those who still hate it like it were Christmas, and those who go back to liking their job fine. Apparently I fall into the former, so I put my 2 weeks in. I'll go to school this summer (I'm taking Ethics, Logic Language and Persuasion, and Abnormal Psychology. Ethics is for my major, logic and persuasion is for my communications credit, and abnormal psychology is for my minor) and then I'll be in China this fall. When I get back, I'd like to try to get a job as a waitress. Which is a weird aspiration, I know, but I'd really like to work in a sit down restaurant until I can start my career. Don't judge.

Regardless, this post is actually (supposed to be) about some prom kids I met on my last day.

I was backup cashiering, and I was checking out a lady in my lane. She was talking to 3 boys who were in line behind her. Apparently they go to the same school as her son, and they all had prom that night. After I finish with her, I start checking out Prom Kid #1. He bought a bouquet and some gum, and paid with a card. While he's messing with the card reader, I look at the Prom Kid #2's stuff, and he only has one thing:
A box of condoms.

So I kinda laugh, then I smile and look at him, pointing to the condoms and say, "Classy." He just looks down kinda bashful and all embarrassed and just says, "Yeah..." Then after a few seconds he's like "I'm still a good kid!" I just laughed and said, "I'm not judging," then I scanned his stuff (and btw- he definitely wanted a bag. Said please and everything) and after he paid, Prom Kid #1 and#2 went off to stand with their dates. I checked out Prom Kid #3 (bought a bouquet) and told them to have fun at prom. Then I turned to Prom Kid #2 and said, "And you-- have fun at after prom."

Unfortunately, Prom Kid #1 and #2 were busy talking to their dates, so they didn't hear, but Prom Kid #3 thought it was funny, so he relayed the message for me.

I take joy in knowing that those kids will never forget me.

Just a teaser

2011-04-21T00:07:00.001-07:00

I got my teaching assignment!

I'll be in Weihai, China :)

I don't know the exact date I leave yet, but it will be

early August.

It looks really pretty. I'm very exctied :D

If I ever go on a road trip...

2011-03-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

This is my new favorite song.

And this is why it's my new favorite song.

If I ever go on a road trip, it will be the only song I listen to. I'll put it on a CD-- the only song on the CD-- and put it in my car and listen to it and it alone to wherever I'm going.

That can't get old, right?

For those of you who thought you could only be locked OUT.

2011-02-27T22:52:00.000-08:00

I work on the sales floor of Target. Usually, I close. This means that at the end of the night, around 11 or so, the LOD (Leader on Duty, aka manager) arms the building, that way if anyone breaks in, an alarm goes off and police are probably notified. I don't the specifics, but the point is that the building get armed, and you can't open the door until the LOD puts in his code, which will unarm the building for about a minute. Just enough time to get everyone outside so we can go home.

On Friday, Ally and I were working in softlines (all the clothes areas) and when everyone was done zoning, our LOD had everyone bring up all the abandon (merchandise that guests left lying around somewhere in the store where it doesn't belong. This gets sorted and then put back on the shelves later, except for perishables, which get defected out of the system) and then we were all leaving. However, in softlines, instead of bringing the abandon up to Guest Services, we take it back to the fitting room to be sorted out there into Infant's, Ready-to-Wear, Men's, etc. So we took our two carts of abandon back to the fitting room and put away all the empty hangers and then took up our empty carts back up to the front of the store. We put our equipment away and got ready to head out.

We were maybe-- MAYBE-- five minutes behind everyone else. As we got up to the TSC (break room/ employee entrance and exit/ locker room/ LODs offices), we paged the LOD overhead to ask him to come let us out. Nothing. We paged him one more time. Still nothing.

Ally went to go get a walkie and try to get him to come up from there, and I went off to see if he was in his office or anyone else's. His office was locked, so that wasn't really a good sign. He wasn't in anyone else's office, also not a good sign. He wasn't answering on the walkie, a pretty bad sign. Ally was a little concerned, but to be completely honest, I thought it was awesome. She was ready to just walk out and let the alarm go off, but I was pretty sure there was something else we could do.

I told her to call her mom (who also works at Target) and get the number of the softline's TLOD (Team-Lead on Duty, which is a step just under LOD) and maybe she could come let us out. And if she couldn't, then she might have the number of someone who could.

So while Ally is talking to her mom trying to figure this out, I remember that they have our numbers all on the system. They have to so that they can call us to ask us to come in early or to pick up an extra shift or whatever. So I go to the computer behind the desk in the TSC (which was already logged on) and I sit there looking at the icons on the desktop. None of them look promising to have a list of numbers. So I open up the start menu and see Excel, which would be a PERFECT place to have a bunch of phone numbers. The 2nd most recent open file there was filed as ETL's Numbers. (I don't really know what ETL stands for. But it consists of all the managers and the general store manager.)

At this point, Ally got off the phone with her mom (who had just given us the softlines TLOD's number) and we called the LOD that night.

"Hello?"
"Hey, this is Samara."
"Are you guys still in Target?"
"Yes, we are."
"Ok, I'm still close-- (he lives about a half hour away)-- I'll be right back."
"Sweet, thanks."

We waited there for a few minutes and he came to let us out, apologizing profusely. Apparently he had let the "last person" out and when everyone got into their car and drove away, he saw two excess cars in the parking lot. He waited around for a few minutes in the parking lot to see if anyone else came out of Target, and then left to go get gas and go home. Cue phone call. Although he was a little confused about how we got his number... Muahahaha!

And that's the story of how Ally and I got locked inside Target.

Can't I just be a bum?

2011-02-25T09:12:00.000-08:00

Follow up: I did pretty well on my chem test. Not as well as I'd have liked to, but still well enough to potentially get an A overall in the class.

But goodness. I hate work. Nothing personal against Target, I think they treat us fairly well. (Well, at MY Target they do.) It's just the whole concept of working at all. Going somewhere to labor, when I could be studying instead, for $8/hr. It's not the worst thing in the world, but I wish I either got paid more, or had a job I liked more. Or both. That would be pretty ideal.

I suppose that's why I'm going to college, though, right?

On a side note- I'd like to thank the Wizard for fixing the speakers on the computer :) It makes me happy to be able to listen to music again.

2 down, 4 to go. And then a final.

2011-02-21T07:33:00.001-08:00

I have my 2nd test in Gen Chem 2 today!

Wish me luck!

I put my calculator in my backpack, so I definitely won't forget it this time around, which is good because I will need to do a few natural logs...

I'm going to China!

2011-02-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

The title is just in case someone here didn't know. But yes, I'm going to China this fall to teach English. I have a feeling anyone who cares knows that, though.

So in my gen chem 2 class, when we first started, Dr. Wieder told all of us that if we didn't do our homework, we were guaranteed to not pass his tests. And if we did do our homework, we weren't guaranteed to pass his tests. When I heard this, I thought "Oh no! I need to start doing my homework!" It's not something he collects, it's just something we do so we know how to do Chemistry.

Well, as it would turn out, my first test in Chem was the same day as my first test in Criminal Justice. Awesome. My criminal justice teacher is pretty cool, I like him a lot, but he doesn't really teach us much. We definitely have to read and study our text book to do well on the test. And the material we covered in chem was something we had covered my first semester, although it definitely wasn't my strong suit (thermodynamics). Since I didn't know anything, really, about criminal justice, I spent a great deal of time studying that and absolutely no time doing Chem homework. It wasn't that I didn't want to do the homework, necessarily. It was just that I needed to study for criminal justice. And that was taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

So the day of my test came closer and closer. I was paying attention in chem and felt like I understood what was going on, but I still hadn't done any homework. So I turned my panic stricken "I need to do homework!" thoughts to more "Challenge Accepted" thoughts. I decided that I would make it my personal mission to pass one of Wieder's tests without doing the homework. Probably not the best idea ever, but it excited me.

The day of my tests, I did my Criminal Justice one and did awesome. So in my hour-and-forty-five-minute break before Chem, I decided to read up on thermodynamics in my text book and study a little before the test. I felt like I had it down comfortably, although I had only been reading and not actually doing any of the example problems in my book. (For the record, doing any of the problems in book doesn't count as doing my Chem homework because I have a different text book than Wieder uses.) It would probably be a good idea to go through a problem on my own to make sure that I could do it, so I reached into my backpack to get out my calculator and--

It's gone. No calculator in my backpack. I must have lost it somewhere. It belongs in THIS backpack. I have a Mon/Wed backpack and a Tues/Thurs backpack, and my calculator belongs in my Mon/Wed backpack because that's the day I have Chemistry. I thought back to the last time I had it. It was in Chem Lab. Did I leave it in the Lab room? No... No I definitely put it back in my backpack... And that was when I realized that my Chem Lab is on Thursday. Which means my calculator belongs in my Tues/Thurs backpack, which makes sense because my math classes are on Tues/Thursday.

So. My calculator is at home. Not only did I not study for my Chem test, but I also left my calculator at home. Looks like I'm going to be doing math by hand. Hopefully there's nothing too crazy...

I took the test, which went alright... Sorta. There were a lot of problems where I'd do all the math for it, get my answer, and the answer I had didn't correlate with any of the options on the test. So I'd go back and try to do it again. Still nothing. (Note to self: It's important to know the density of water.) So I'd give up and just pick an answer. But in general, I felt like I did alright. Everyone says Wieder's tests are impossible because he doesn't ask the question straight out, but it didn't seem that bad to me. Maybe that's because this class is just Gen Chem, and he usually teaches OChem, but the test itself didn't seem all that bad to me. If only I had a calculator...

The next class day, we got our tests back. I got a 69% on mine, which isn't just passing, but it's only 1 point away from getting a C! Not only that, but the class average was like a 62% or something. So, now that I've won the challenge, I can properly prepare for the rest of the tests and get A's on them all. That way, at the end of the semester, Wieder will drop my 69 test and it will be like it never happened.

Oh, and I went through and checked why I got certain questions wrong. For three of the questions, I got partial credit because I made dumb little mistakes that would've been easy to fix if I had read the questions correctly. I forgot to switch one answer from Kelvins to Celsius. I got my endothermic/exothermic terminology mixed up. And I forgot to add in part of the answer in the very last question. Had I gone through and fixed all of those, I would've had a 76% on this test. Oh well. Live and learn.

Grimm Fairy Tales

2010-11-20T14:24:00.001-08:00

I found a ton of the Brother's Grimm fairy tales online. I like them :) If anyone else is interested in reading some, they're here.

They're pretty short, but there's a lot of them. 210, to be specific.

Oh, and P.S. I got a seasonal job at Target :) I work on the Sales Floor, and it's been a pretty even mixture of working in Electronics and Clothes. And the people there are very nice. $8/hour, and I get a 10% discount. 15% if I get a red card.

This story has a happy ending.

2010-11-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

So about 2 or 3 weeks ago, now, I went online and I searched for all the classes I want to take next semester. I was being really prepared and I saw which classes I should take so that the time wouldn't overlap or anything. The classes I wanted were: Intro to the Criminal Justice System, Gen Chem II, Gen Chem Lab, Trig, Freshman English II, and Intro to Stats for Behavioral something (that's a psych class). After I got it all figured out I had a week until I registered for classes, which I mentioned earlier.

Then I learned that I had an Immunization Hold on my account. I went down to the Health Center and asked how I get it removed, and they told me. It was a really simple process, all that I really had to do was get a copy of my immunization records and give it to them.

But I had plenty of time to do that, so no rush. I was mostly worried about not getting certain classes. For instance, I want this one Gen Chem Lab class, and I want this one Gen Chem II class. The Lab teacher is my chem teacher now and he's really good. And Chealomen said that the Gen Chem II teacher was pretty good, so I kept checking the availability on those two classes to make sure I'd still be able to get them. They were getting pretty full, but I was going to be able to register soon, so the chances were still decent that I'd get all the classes I picked out.

So, being busy and a pretty bad procrastinator, I waited until the Monday I could sign up for classes to get that in. But that shouldn't have really been a problem. I had a hold on my account last semester, and it took all of 15 seconds to get cleared. I even turned in the papers a good hour before freshmen were allowed to register, just in case. I went to the Health Center and turned in the papers and the lady at the front desk there looked them over then told me I was good to go.

"Cool. How long until the hold is taken off my account?"
"The hold should be released within 72 hours."

Oh. Wow. 72 hours. That's quite a long time to have to wait. I went and looked at the availability of all my classes again. At that point, the trig class I wanted was full, as was the psych class and my gen chem lab. It was pretty upsetting, but I could probably go through and rearrange everything and get the classes I wanted still, even if I didn't have the specific teacher I wanted for lab. And then I spent the next couple days checking my account every couple hours to see if they released the hold yet. And everytime I saw that they hadn't released my account, I had to check to see if I'd still be able to get my classes.

It was Tuesday morning one time when I checked, right before chem was starting, and I looked at the gen chem labs. All full. Not just Ball's, the one I wanted, but every single one of them. There wasn't even one seat open. And I still couldn't register :( I had no idea what to do. It's kinda important to my major that I get into a lab class, since they're only offered in the spring.

I talked to my teacher and he said that I wasn't alone and that they'll probably open up another class because so many kids need to take it. Then he asked if they were to open up a seat for me in any of the classes, which teacher would I want to have it with? I told him that I was really hoping I could take his class, and he said he'd let me know if a new class or anything opened.

After class was over, I went to check and see if they had released my hold yet. They hadn't. So I checked on the Gen Chem Lab classes instead. They had opened a new class (which was at the same time as the gen chem ii class I wanted) and added 6 additional student to each existing class. I was so excited because I would be able to take the chem lab with Ball if they released my account soon enough. So I kept checking in on that.

Later that night, Ball emailed me to let me know that the opened a new class and had a few more students in his class. He said that he can't override my immunization hold, but he'll try to hang on to a seat in his class for me as long as he could. I kept checking in on his class and it was filling up pretty slowly, so that by Wednesday (I still had 24 hour to wait for my account to be released) there was only 1 seat yet.

Now, I'm getting really really anxious. It would make my semester so much easier if I could just get this class, and there's only one seat left. I decided that rather than wait the 24 hours, I would just go to the Health Center and ask them to clear my hold for me. So I went and talked to a different girl than I had talked to before.

"There's a hold on my account, I was just wondering if you could get it taken off for me."
"Did you turn in your paperwork?"
"Yes, I did."
"When?" Oh dear. I'm going to tell her, and she's going to tell me I have to wait another day and then come back if it's not released yet.
"On Monday." Wait for it.
"Oh, it should already be released." Well that was a pleasant surprise. She took my ID number and said she'd give it to her supervisor and get my account released by 5 pm. It was already 4 pm. :)

Then, as I was leaving campus, some guy stopped me and asked if I had a minute to talk. He was with a guy who had a camera. I said sure and he got my name, then showed me some pictures of dead people, or grave yards, or smoker's lungs that they're trying to push to be on cigarette boxes, and he asked if I thought they would be effective for teens and people in their 20's. I said no, because the smoker's don't really think that kinda thing will happen to them, or if they do think it'll happen to them, they don't care because that's pretty far ahead in the future, so no need to worry now. It was weird, but he got what he needed and let me go on my way.

I went home and signed up for classes. I got into Ball's class, and also the other chem class I wanted. My original schedule plan had me going to school every Mon Wed and Thurs from 9:30 to 3:50, and Tues from 9:30 to 10:45. My actual schedule has all the same classes, but instead on Mon and Wed I go from 9:30 to 3:50, on Tues I go 5:00 to 7:45, and on Thurs I go from 12:00 to 7:45. And I've got a break for lunch/ dinner Mon, Wed and Thurs. It'll be cool :)

And, if you were wondering what the little smoker interview has to do with anything, it was apparently a part of a thing they were doing for the Today Show. Guess who was on National TV? :D Although, they don't mention my name so I don't know why he asked, but it was still cool ha. I didn't even know this was for something real, I thought maybe it was for a class. But then my friend told me she saw me on TV. Sweet! If you want to see the clip, it's on my facebook. :)

For such a stressful week, it sure made for a happy ending.

I rock.

2010-10-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

Guess how much I rock.

I rock so much, that my grade in algebra up to this point in the semester is a 99.13% with only like 5 more weeks of class.

**Mom and Dad, look away**
(I'm missing the .87 percent because I don't always do all the homework since that only counts for 10% of our total grade and it's SO EASY.)

**Mom and Dad may join us again.**
So, I rock. College is easy haha. At least, math is easy.

Next semester I'm taking 18 credits. I already have my schedule all laid out, and it doesn't look too bad. Assuming the classes don't all fill up in the week I can't register and everyone else can, I'll go from 9:30-2:45 on Mon, Wed and Thursdays. On Tuesdays I'll only have trig from 9:30-10:45, but then I can take the rest of the time to study in the library or something. (HA.)

And, I'm going to start babysitting for the demon children again, but only for 2 1/2 hours in the morning from 5:00-7:30ish, most of which they'll be asleep for, and only 3 or 4 times a week. Shannon said she'd give me 15 per day, which is awesome. :)

Man. Life rocks.

To Understand Confusion

2010-10-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

I wrote this paper for my English class this year. It's the 2nd one that was due. I was going to have someone read it, but he got busy and couldn't get back to me in time. Instead, I asked Sara to read it and she liked it a lot. I was just curious what everyone else thought of it :) The prompt was to describe a concept that you've learned recently. I actually took "recently" to mean within the past 6 or 7 years, but whatever! It's a good concept! Haha. Enjoy!

Have you ever noticed how awful everyone is? I mean, think about it. They’re all dumb in everything they do. They try to sing along to songs they don’t know, which is just annoying. They’re all hopelessly slow when they drive, consistently making everyone who happens to be stuck behind them late. They’re inconsiderate and selfish, not taking two seconds to hold a door open and instead letting it slam in people’s faces. And worst of all, they think they’re perfect and they make snap judgments about others without even knowing them. Everyone is just a horrible person, to put it simply. There are a few exceptions: my family, my friends and me. We might do dumb or rude things sometimes, but at least we notice and then try to correct it in the future, unlike the rest of the earth’s people. For them, hope is lost.

I was at my peak of hatred for people in general when I took a leadership training course, and the instructor was a curious case. He was not rude or judgmental like the rest of the world. His name was Josh and he was young, maybe 26 or 27. He had light brown hair, and he was not particularly skinny, but he was understanding and kind. Without ever having met me before, he knew that I had been through experiences in my life that shaped me and made me who I am. He knew that my actions didn’t always necessarily reflect my personality, and that sometimes I offended others, but I never meant to.

That was the key: he understood and wasn't judgmental. He knew all 30 or so of us were good people, and that we didn't go through life trying to offend others. It piqued my curiosity and I just wanted to know how he could understand all of us without having met any of us before. So he explained.

It was only a few years earlier. Josh was in New York. He was on the subway one particular, but ordinary, day. The subway wasn't overly crowded, but there were a decent amount of people there, all silent, as usual. Many were staring off into space, like Josh was, just using the time to catch up with their thoughts. A few people read newspapers or finished their novels. It was quiet with proper subway etiquette being displayed by everyone, until they reached one specific stop.

A man-- let's call him Frank-- got on the subway with his three young children. Frank took a seat just two away from Josh. Then he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. Meanwhile, his children ran wild. They raced screaming up and down the isles. They climbed the handrails and empty seats like a jungle gym. They displayed absolutely no respect to the rest of the people. The monsters ran around disturbing the passengers. Everybody was ripped and dragged from their quiet solitude, forced to be present in a subway cart that seemed like Hell. The tranquility that had previously existed in this cart vanished. Instead, wild animals replaced it. And their dad just laid there! He dared to get onto a busy subway with such demons, and he lacked the decency to try to keep them in line for the rest of the passengers.

It was ridiculous. Josh was fed up with it, and he was in a convenient position to let Frank know exactly what he thought. He bitterly looked at Frank, oblivious and self-centered, and almost chewed him out for letting his children terrorize all the innocent victims on the subway. That was when Josh realized it. Frank was completely oblivious to everything. He didn't even realize that his kids were running around, let alone that they were angering the other people. Something seemed amiss. Josh took a deep breath and instead of yelling at Frank, he simpling and calmly said, "Sir, excuse me, but do you need help with your children?"

The man looked around, almost woken from a trance, and saw his children going postal and the contempt of all the others on the subway. He just sighed and replied, "Oh I'm really sorry. We're just heading home from the hospital. My wife just died, and I guess I'm having a hard time dealing with it."

Everyone's faces instantly melted with compassion for this poor man who they had misjudged. He was not a bad father or a bad human being, he was just in pain. They all had read him wrong. They didn't know what his situation was, and they judged him anyway. It hit Josh like a brick wall. You can't look at someone else and tell what's going on in their life, thus invalidating any judgment you might make about that person.

For some reason, the story hit home to me. I do dumb things all the time, and I constantly worry that other people are judging me for doing them. I once stopped at a green light. I was lost in an unfamiliar part of the state, and there was snow on the ground. As I came up to the light, I couldn't see where the line was to stop, so I sat there worrying about where I should stop and if I would be too far into the intersection. I was so preoccupied with focusing on where I should be stopped, that I didn't even realize that the light wasn't red. The lane next to me was open, thankfully, so when someone stopped behind me, they couldn't have been too mad, or else they would've gone around.

Now, were the situation reversed, I would have been pissed off at whoever was stopped at the green light. I'd yell at them, from the privacy of my own car, to stop being such an idiot and to get going. I wouldn't even consider that they were lost or confused about where the line was. I wouldn't think that maybe they weren't from that part of Denver. I would just be angry. That's probably why I'm so afraid someone else is angrily judging me when I do something stupid: because I would if I were them. After Josh told his story, it made it easier to realize that people are often very hard to read, and I often don't see the whole picture. I don't have the right to judge someone else since I don't know their story, and I will probably be wrong if I try to guess.

So now, when I come upon someone who seems to be a few fries short of a Happy Meal, all I really need to do is remember that I don't know them. Whatever they're doing on the surface doesn't even begin to show the complexity of their motivation for their actions. By incorporating this into my life, I find that I don't feel so judged when I do dumb things. I notice the people that aren't judging me more, and I feel more comfortable with myself.

That, in and of itself, is its own reward. However, it doesn't end there. My happier disposition will put others in a better mood, and their better mood will have a positive effect on the people they know. It creates a giant positive cycle, so that one person can affect everyone else. Knowing that you can have such a profound effect on all the people you know and come in contact with, would you make the effort to try to understand that others are just lost and confused, leading them to do something "stupid," or would you dare to judge them from just one glimpse?

Hunger Games

2010-09-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Has anyone heard of it? It's a book by Suzanne Collins, and I really like it. I was talking to my friend Wally about it, and he told me I should read it, so I went to the library to check it out. All their copies were checked out, though, so I requested it. Then I decided I didn't want to wait that long to read it, and after school the next day I went to the bookstore to start reading a copy there until the library got mine in. I read to chapter 4 and, ironically, had to go home because I was so hungry. Haha.

It was really good, though. I got some money (thanks Dad) and went back to the store and started reading again. This was on a Friday. I read another chapter, then bought it and went home to read it until I had to leave for a Branch Barbecue, then we had CJ's bachelorette party, and I got home around 10:30. I continued reading until I finished it at 4:30.

But it's a really good book. There's 2 more in the series, but they aren't on paperback yet, so I'm gonna wait before buying them. Maybe I'll stop by B&N tomorrow to start reading the 2nd one, though haha.

And, side note, I had a test today in math. It was pretty easy. I may have missed the question about distance, but I think I'm ok on that one. And I didn't get the bonus, but it doesn't matter because our grades can't go above 100%. I was the first done, and it only took me about 30, 35 minutes, and when I turned it in the teacher asked if she made it too easy. I just smiled and left.

A Monster in My Car.

2010-09-24T15:08:00.001-07:00

I went to the bank last week to try to figure out how to get them to stop charging me 3 dollars every month. Something about not having the correct account, because I'm a college student and I had an adult account or something. I don't really know, but I got it all taken care of. Hooray!

The funny thing happened when I was leaving. It was a fairly warm day, and so I had my windows cracked while I was inside. I usually do in the summer. Now, I don't actually know if everyone knows this about me, but I have an awful fear of bees/wasps.

I was trying to think of why I'm so terrified of them, and I'm pretty sure it comes from this one time when I was playing outside with my friends. I might have been in 3rd grade at this point. We had been riding our bikes around, and so we all had our helmets on and we were sitting in the shade. A wasp flew over to us, and Ashley and Tyler jump up out of the way, but I recalled Scooter telling me once that if a bee comes near you, you shouldn't run away, just hold still and it'll go away. So that's what I did. Which, for future reference, is not the thing to do with wasps. Anyway, the wasp was crawling around all over my face and by my mouth and eyes, it was truly one of the scariest experiences of my life. It would crawl into the holes in my helmet, and I've since decided that it was looking for a place to nest. I had to tell Ashley and Tyler what to do, too. I tried having them go get Scooter, but the doors to the house were locked. So Tyler got his mom, and she came out and got the wasp off me. To this day, I still have not been stung, and I do everything I can to ensure it stays that way. I have more scary stories, just ask if you ever want to hear any.

But back to the present. After I was done at the bank, I got into my car and put on my seat belt, and started to drive away. I had just breaked to exit the parking lot, and I heard a buzzing coming from right by where the driver's seat belt feeds into the car. Since I was already stopped, I looked over to see what it was, sorta assuming it was a fly. It wasn't, and you guessed it. It was a wasp.

I flipped out. I was kinda screaming in a hysterical way that wasn't very loud. But I'm proud to say that I had the presence of mind to put my car in park, I put the parking break on, and I took of my seat belt, probably hitting the wasp in that process, and then crawled over to the passenger seat. I turned on the hazard lights, because I was RIGHT THERE, blocking off the exit to the bank, and if someone needed to leave, I wanted them to go around. I tried opening the car door, but it was locked. So I hurried and unlocked it, nothing on my mind except trying to untrap myself and get away from this monster.

I finally made it outside, and I walked around to the driver side of the car. I can see the wasp, it's at the bottom of the window and trying to escape, but my window was only cracked like maybe 2 inches, so it was hopelessly confused. I tried helping by opening my door, but at that point, it had settled in nicely and didn't look like it was trying to leave anymore. So I started tapping the other side of the glass trying to get it to leave. I even yelled at it. "Get out of my car!"

I stopped, clearly that wasn't working, and I looked around. And there's this guy and this lady standing there, they were previously talking while he smoked before going in to the bank, but they had just sorta stopped and were staring at me. They're just staring openly, and I can't blame them when I think about how ridiculous I must have looked, and they don't even see anything in my car from there. So they're both just staring at me open mouthed and confused.

So I called over to them, being pretty friendly. "Hi."

The guy answered. "Are you ok?" haha.

"Yeah, I'm fine... There's just a bee in my car."

The lady starting laughing lightly, and I can't honestly say I blame her. But the guy asked if I wanted help. I told him that would be great, if he wanted to. So he came over and hit the wasp with his glasses until it flew away. I said thanks and told him that I'm just really scared of bees, and he said it was fine.

Let me tell you, that experience really restored my faith in the kindness of strangers. I would have probably stood there for hours waiting for the wasp to fly away on it's own if they hadn't been there.

And, needless to say, my car windows have since been completely rolled up. I'd rather deal with the heat.

Another Year

2010-09-05T20:05:00.000-07:00

Now that I've got a few weeks under my belt, so who wants to hear about school? (btw, what a strange expression-- under my belt. Where'd it come from?)

My schedule is really nice. My earliest day starts at 10, and my latest day gets out at 3:45. I'm taking 4 classes, 14 credits, and in between each of my classes, I've got at least an hour break for lunch. And, as a nice bonus, I know someone on the buses to school! On M/W I ride with my friend Jon, and on T/R I ride with my friend Luke! It's pretty awesome.

On Mondays and Wednesday, I have college algebra and then freshmen comp. I don't really like my algebra teacher. She doesn't really understand our questions when we try to ask them, and then she doesn't really know how to answer the questions. So one girl couldn't figure out how to factor something that had a coefficient before the x² (ie 2x²+3+1) and so the teacher tried to explain it a few times. None of the things helped this girl. I told her I would help. Which I did and she was grateful to understand.

But that's another thing. This is college algebra. I learned how to factor in 8th grade. What is the matter with my class?

The math teacher, though, she doesn't go through examples very well. She'll explain something, and we'll do a fairly easy example, so I'm pretty sure I've got it down. Then the next example is something way hard, so now I'm beyond confused. There's no transition. Bleh. I feel like I'll be reading much of the math book this year.

My English class is fine, though. Teacher's nice, a little crazy, and he sometimes seems to have trouble finding his words, which is not usually comforting with an English teacher, but he's nice enough and the class is pretty easy. We read short stories from this one book I have and then we seminar about it for 10 or 15 minutes. Nothing too deep, which is alright. And we write essays. No problem, so far.

And, against the odds, this kid Michael is in the exact same classes I am. We have the exact same schedule Mondays and Wednesdays. It's kinda cool, he's pretty nice.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have gen chem and intro to psychology. Man. These days are infinitely better than my other days. Gen chem is really interesting. SO much better than high school. I did not learn one thing in my high school chem class. I didn't actually fail that class, in fact I was only a few points away from an A, but I felt like I was failing, so it wasn't fun. The teacher could've said "ok, figure out how to do this on your own while I try my hardest to distract you and keep you from doing your work." He was interesting and a good guy, but not a good teacher.

So in my first day of gen chem, I learned more than I did all year in high school. It was really neat. I understand these things, so it's not totally overwhelming. It's really interesting, and I'm feeling much more confident with my major choice (chemistry with an emphasis in criminalistics). My teacher is really good. I sat in his lecture the first week, taking notes, and then I read chapter one. It was neat, because he had covered all the material in chapter 1 in class. There was just one thing that the book cleared up a little for me. This is my favorite class so far.

Psychology is pretty cool, too. On the first Tuesday, my friend Luke was telling me about his psychology teacher and how she's some crazy little Asian lady and he doesn't really like her teaching style. So when I get to class I'm just worried that I've got this crazy Asian lady teacher. Some guy walks in, and at this point, I'm just relieved it's not the same person haha. He starts writing on the board "PSY 3240" and I get a little confused, but it's a psychology class and it makes me really skeptical of what people do, so I think it's some kinda experiment to see how long we take to say something. He keeps writing "Adolescent Psychology" and everyone in class is whispering to each other, more than a little concerned-like. I turned around and some girl asks me if I was here for intro to psych, and I told her that I was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose.

He's kinda scanning us looking at our reactions, and some kid shouts out, "Isn't this intro to psychology?" And he looks at us. "Is everyone here for Intro?... Is anyone here for Adolescent?" No one says anything. "Well, we'll go with majority rules. I'll go see where I am, and if I'm here, I'm gonna come back to yell at you." It was pretty sweet. I'm glad students aren't the only ones who get lost. Anyway, so I'm back to worrying that I've got the crazy Asian teacher. But about 5 or 10 min after class was supposed to start, our real teacher walks in. (btw, a few kids were freaking out, wondering where the teacher was, and I thought this was another experiment to see how long it would be before we left.)

He was nice. Didn't really care much about getting the psychology book. There's a paper due in his class, originally it was about some article called "15 Reasons Not to Say 'Good Job'" and it was supposed to be 5 pages. He changed it to being about anything psychology related (ie a paper on Finding Nemo, exploring Nemo's daddy-issues and his gimp fin) and it should only be "a couple of pages." It's due the last day of class and you can turn it in whenever. He's pretty funny, too. I generally like that class.

So, that's how school is going. I love campus, I like hanging out in the Tivoli and watching TV between my classes. I get all caught up on American Chopper, and if I want to stay after class to watch more Discovery Channel, I can watch Dirty Jobs, and then Cash Cab. Awesome. Actually, I was almost late to freshmen comp because I was so into Dirty Jobs haha. Woo.

The Bus Beckoner

2010-08-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

My gift is to beckon buses.

I go to the Park-n-Ride to get to school, and for the past few days, I've noticed that whenever I take out my ID (which is my bus pass), the bus shows up. I'll be standing in line waiting for the bus to come, and I just decide to pull out my ID that way I'm prepared when the bus comes, and I look up, and it's coming down the street!

Now, I know this sounds ridiculous, because I'm probably just patient enough to wait the almost 10-15 minutes for a bus, and I know this, so I wanted to disprove this strange coincidence to myself today. As I parked at PnR, I got out my ID then, before I could even see the people waiting in line. Then I make the short walk down to the actual bus stop, and as soon as all the people are in view, I find them not there, and instead the bus is pulling away! The 120-X that I'm supposed to take to school!

At this point, I started freaking out a little in part because I just missed my bus, but also because as I tried to disprove a theory, it turned out being true anyway. I am all-powerful. When it comes to buses.

Don't be confused, though. It's not necessary that I pull out my ID for the bus to come, it can come on it's own anyway, but if I pull it out before it gets there, then it will come.

So I have a theory. On my ID, it has my name, it says STUDENT, and it has my ID number, like all previous IDs have. But the IDs this year have an addition, which is some random way long number underneath the ID number. I think that these number are some kind of secret codes that give the card owners special abilities. Mine obviously beckons buses, which is why I am The Bus Beckoner. I feel like there are probably a few other chosen individuals with this ability, but we are few.

It makes me wonder what everyone else can do... This calls for further inspection...

Oh. And P.S. I didn't miss my bus. I got at the PnR a little early and watched as the bus before the once I catch drove away. I was still on time to class, which is good because it's my favorite class this semester: Gen Chem haha.

They Grow Up So Fast

2010-08-18T10:09:00.001-07:00

Today, I told Jack Jack I loved him. He rolled his eyes at me. Haha.

They grow up so fast. It seems like only yesterday Chaelomen and MJ were changing his diapers... Sniff sniff.

Ha but yesterday a bunch of my friends and I were hanging out one last time before college starts, and we went to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World. It was pretty funny, I would recommend seeing it. But it has a weirdness to it, so that I spent much of the movie looking at the screen with a "wtf" face. I liked it, though. It was funny. I would probably buy it.

And if you do go see it, there's a fun little thing at the end of the credits. Not like a continuation of the movie, just a fun "the end" thing that made me happy I waited.

Do You Feel Safe Yet?

2010-08-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last year in one of my English classes, modern lit, we had to write about a "hot" issue. I wrote about the school IDs which they now make "mandatory" to wear. And last night or the night before, I was looking through all of my old homework on the computer, and I found it and am particularly proud of it (mostly), so I thought I would share. My dashes represent the school name, btw.

For the safety of the students? Yeah right.

As you walk through the halls of ------- High, what strikes you the most? The well-kept building? No. The school-spirited students? No. The amazing teachers? No again. How about campus security stopping students to demand, "Where's your ID?" Yes, yes I do believe that's it. The students being badgered all day about those little plastic cards with a picture. And why? To keep our school safe, of course.

Because those little IDs really cut down on school violence, don't they?

One Wednesday morning, actually, I was stopped by one of the deans. Where's your ID? In my pocket. Put it on.

Lesson number one: ------- wants you to be miserable. I was in a good mood that day, my morning had gone really well and I was just headed to hang out with friends, so apparently I agreed with a little too much enthusiasm. He immediately turned around, "That's it! Come to the dean's office right now!"

"But I'm putting it on..." Which was probably the first time I'd put it on since school started.

"I don't care, come on!" I went, because the fight wasn't worth it to me, but later when my parents found out, they were pissed. At the school. For punishing me while I was complying. They even came down to talk to the deans and try to fight it, but to avail.

Because according to district policy, students must display ID cards at all times on school grounds and at school activities. If they don't, warning first, then lunch detail, Wednesday school, and finally suspension. But anyone refusing to wear their ID won't care about having to pick up trash during their off hour. And a suspension would be welcomed for a chance to sleep in.

The main problem, however, is this: I wasn't caught for easily a month and a half into school. For that long I had been not wearing my ID. Aren't these supposed to make you safe by preventing strangers from roaming the halls? Granted, I'm not a stranger and I do attend -------, but that's a full month and a half that I would've been free to attack the school. And there are some students who still haven't been caught without IDs.

Do you feel safe yet?

It's not even just those not wearing IDs. Some students simply don't like their picture, so they cover it with stickers, effectively turning the ID to a random piece of plastic. Other students switch IDs with opposite sexes, even with other school's students. A complete stranger could come to the school with a lanyard and a random plastic card, and they're in.

Do you feel safe yet?

The problem doesn't even need to go outside our own school. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't Harris and Klebold students at Columbine? Couldn't they have shot up their school just as easily while wearing their IDs on a school-issued lanyard?

Do you feel safe yet?

If we all wear our IDs, does that honestly make the school a safer place? Maybe our time should be spent learning about not discriminating and accepting others' differences instead of being wasted by wondering where our IDs are. Maybe, for once, the school should focus on winning the war, not the battle.

Happy Friday the 13th

2010-08-13T22:20:00.001-07:00

This is me spilling salt on the ground to celebrate. We also broke a mirror, and stepped on many cracks. Unfortunately, we failed to find a ladder to walk under and a black cat to have cross our path. Oh well, there's always May 2011.

And no worries, we made sure we got the glass from the mirror all swept up.

Don't worry, we have a pocket knife. And an Indian.

2010-08-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

So, as I'm sitting here reading an awesome new blog, I really want to tell someone about it, but I got the awesome new blog off of MJ's blog, and so pretty much everyone already knows about it.

But then I realized that I've got a few of my own friends, (a whole 1 person comes to mind) and so everyone should check out this new blog :)

And since I stole that from MJ and the majority of the people reading this probably already know about it, I'll tell you about our hike we went on really quick. Last Tuesday, I wanted to hang out with some of my friends and do something awesome and free, so we went hiking in Boulder. It's this random little place, but it was really pretty. It's 3 miles up and 3 back, and it runs along a little river. And we saw a lady on a horse coming down the trail as we were going up. It was really pretty.

We didn't get a chance to get to the top, though, because Ally had to get back home by 2 or something, but we're gonna try to go up again sometime in September or maybe October, so I'll let you know how it turns out. :D

I gave Sara a pine cone, which she later threw into the river.

It looks kinda like we're standing on a green screen or something, but we're actually standing on a little ledge on the side of the mountain.

Looks like someone left an offering for the Gods.

We didn't actually see a mountain lion, no worries.

James Bond meets Matrix

2010-07-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

So Inception was really good. It blew my mind on many levels, and I think I wanna go see it again. Just so you all know.

I haven't heard anyone say that they didn't like it, either. Except for Alli, but it was a little over her head.

We went to see it for Sara's birthday, and her parents paid for all of us, which was really cool, but it was a really good movie. There weren't too many "slow parts" and the parts that were less action-y weren't boring. So, I recommend seeing it. There's nothing after the credits, though. So you don't have to wait there all sadly, hoping they'll throw in something else to blow your mind.
Haha.

Shadow of the Game

2010-06-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

In case anyone doesn't know, my favorite book ever is Ender's Game. I have read it 6 or 7 times in the past 4 and a half years. We read it for class earlier this year, actually, and I had read it more times that the teacher had. I know the story front to back, and I could probably tell you every detail about it, if you asked. I have a hard back copy of it which I've underlined things in it and boxed off passages of it. It's (probably more than) a little crazy of me.

Regardless, Ender's Game has a parallel novel- Ender's Shadow. And Ender's Shadow has it's own little series, which I've been reading for the past few weeks.

So, that being said, this post will make more sense if you've read the Shadow Series, and if you haven't, there are slight spoilers, because this post is about why I don't really like the series.

I mean, I think the story line is alright, but I wouldn't read any of these books again. I really didn't like how Bean will be sitting there thinking about possible solutions to a problem or something, and he'll get a random and stupid idea that he'll tell himself can't possibly be true, but deep down he knows it's right. And it is. And this all happens fairly instantaneously. I know he's a super-genius and whatever, but it still seems lame.

But I think the thing I like least about this story line is that it was written years after Ender's Game was, and when Card wrote Ender's Game, he didn't really plan to have a parallel novel and series to go with it. So in Ender's Game, Bean is just a little kid, who is also smart. And Peter didn't get into Battle school because he was too dangerous and aggressive. And Ender's parents didn't have any idea that Valentine and Peter were actually Demosthenes and Locke (although I think that's unlikely, that they'd have no idea).

[[these are my slight spoilers]]
That's how the story actually goes, the end. But in the parallel series, Bean is actually genetically altered, and his condition is going to make him a giant someday. And Peter didn't get accepted because he's not lovable. And the Wiggin parents knew everything all along, they just didn't want to hinder the progressions that Peter and Valentine were making with the world.

I think that if you want to write sequels to your books, that's fine and I hope they do well, but I firmly disagree with altering the original story so you can have your sequels still fit in well with the story. Maybe if you had to change it so much, you should've just written a different story.

And you could argue that there's premises that are vital enough to each story, that Card could've have written the both and not have them come from the same original story, so in effect, Ender's Shadow is the "different story" for Ender's Game. But if that's the case, then I think it was stretching it a little too far to say that Peter wasn't too aggressive for Battle school, since that's actually a really important detail in Ender's Game.

Mmm. Maybe it's just me.

Just because I have thoughts.

2010-05-23T22:56:00.001-07:00

I was looking at this girl's myspace profile, at her pictures. She probably has about 30, in all these different poses and in all these different clothes. One specifically in these lack of clothes. (Not naked, but wearing a swimming suit. Or maybe underwear. I don't really know.)

Anyway, so I'm just really glad that I don't need that. I don't want that. I don't want to have the attention of my body in all these provocative positions. I don't want the image of me with less and less clothes circling around the Internet, and that is something I'm grateful for.

I'm happy with who I am, and I'm glad that I'm interesting enough that people like me anyway.

As was once said by one of my friends from church, girls who do that to get boys attention are just stupid. At least I know when a guy's talking to me, it's because he actually wants to talk to me, not because he thinks I'm easy.

Hooray 2010!

2010-05-19T16:22:00.001-07:00

So graduation was this week. It totally rocked. Chaelomen's was on Sunday, then mine was on Monday.

Chaelomen gave me bunny ears. I didn't notice for the first picture, but I did for this one.

We all look the same, so I circled me. Within a 2-person radius.

I played cymbols for my last concert. Woo haha.

I got my Five Star Diploma :D

(Which means that I:

-earned 23 credits

-had at least a 3.5 GPA

-got proficient or advanced on all my CSAP scores

-got a 23 or more on my ACTs

-met CDHD requirements

-participated in all state-mandated assessments)

He refused to give me a kiss haha. But politely.

It was fun. Definitely a lot better than the ones I'd been to the past few years, playing in the band.

Dear Bishop,

2010-05-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

I have recently changed wards. My records were requested out of the Woodglen Ward and into the Single's Branch.

It was also been brought to my attention that last time I tried to change wards, my records were requested right back. Although I'm glad you don't want to lose such a precious gem as me, I would appreciate it if we didn't request my records back again.

I find it important that I actually end up in this directory, in case people need or want to contact me.

Yours Truly,
Samara

P.S. Tell Mom not to cry. I'll go to the Woodglen Ward at least one more time, just for her.

So close...

2010-05-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

I had my last band concert last night. :) It was fun haha. Usually mass band concerts are really boring, because they hand out all the awards and everything, which about doubles the time of the concert. But yesterday, everyone in percussion stood around telling jokes. It was fun.

And let me just say that I'm really glad that I don't have any more concerts ever. It's awesome. One of the girls yesterday was crying because she was sad to be leaving band, and that just blows me away. I didn't know anyone liked band that much. I mean, I'll miss all the kids in band and everything, but the joy of not having to be in band anymore totally outweighs all that. Well, actually. I'll miss a few of the kids in band and everything.

I was just never really good friends with most of the kids in band, and I'm glad I got to know all of them, but the only time I've ever defined myself as a band geek was freshman year, when I really enjoyed band a lot, but after that things went downhill. So I don't really mind losing contact with everyone. We still have facebook, too, if I still want to keep tabs on anyone, I can.

I'm really excited to graduate :D I'm getting all the announcements out this week.

Hooray Outdoor Ed!

2010-04-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

I know. It's long. I'm sorry. But it's a good one.

I went to Outdoor Ed on Monday, came back today. It was a lot of fun, because I was up there with 10 other High School Leaders, and we were all really close. Or more accurately, we became really close, compared to Outdoor Ed Training, where I didn't feel particularly welcome with most of the cliques that had formed. But this was different, all the Leaders were really cool and nice. I enjoyed be around any of them (except for one, but he wasn't someone I hated, or even particularly disliked, being around, so it was still cool).

Also, the Staff and Teachers were really cool. They treated us like peers and totally respected what we said and they were just really great, compared, again, to Outdoor Ed Training, which is more like Outdoor Ed for high schoolers, and random interjections of "When the 6th graders are here..." or "When you do this with the 6th graders..." They were really the leaders, just showing us what we'd be doing later as leaders ourselves. Which isn't bad, I thought training was fun, but I liked being a peer to the teachers and staff.

And there were, of course, 6th graders! They can be split off into 3 groups. There were the good kids, who never really acted out and followed directions. There were the bad kids who did some really stupid stuff that I had to call them out on, and they probably got in trouble for it. And there were the annoying kids who didn't do anything wrong, necessarily, but got on my nerves. A lot.

So at Outdoor Ed, the 6th graders get split up into 3-4 difficulty levels, based on the hike. We had the Alpine group, who take an 8 hour hike on the 2nd day. We had the Alpine-Light/ Montane-Heavy/ Montane Plus/ Montane 1 (which is the official name)/ Pategonia, who take the short Alpine hike. This is not a real group, but one that this particular group had to make up because they had so many kids who wanted to be in Alpine. The Pategonia group took the hike that usually the Alpine group takes when there's really really bad weather out. It's not as long as the regular hike, but it's steeper. We also had the Montane 2 group, who took a regular 2 hourish hike, and the Foothill group who took a hike that was 15 minutes shorter than Montane.

Usually the HSL's get split up, too, to watch over those kids the whole time they're up there. But while I was up there, I got to balay on the highropes the whole time :D It was more than a little awesome. The kids were really good (mostly. We'll get to the one who wasn't in a minute) and they all tried the high ropes. Most of them went all the way across, and only a few didn't make it past the ladder.

Yesterday, after all the 6th graders went, some of the HSL's wanted to go again, since the last time any of them went was during training. We had Leticia, Val and Nate go, and G balayed for Val and Nate, because they would've had me rise off the ground a little. But I got to balay Leticia, which was cool. She went all the way across, and then when she started going down, we gave her the chance to do a Spiderman, where you flip your legs upside down. She tried a little, and I had breaked her line so she could get it, but it was hard and she decided she didn't want to, so I start letting her come down again.

But, I'm actually going to back track about an hour to one group where there was this one particular kid. Let's call him Donovan. I never really liked that name, anyway. G had told all the kids not to stand on the platform unless you were the rope holder, because that's where the balayers walk and it's kinda annoying to dodge around other kids or to run into them all the time or to have them dodging out of your way. Now Donovan, he kept standing on the platform by where I was, obsessed with being the rope holder, which he had already been once, like all the other kids. "Can you get off please?" "Can you get off?" "Can you stay off?" "Get off." And there was one point where I was joking around a little with my rope holder, telling him I was going to fire him if he didn't pick up the slack (both idiomatically and literally haha). Donovan jumps up right away with "You're fired! Give me the rope!" me- "No. He's fine. Get off my platform."

Now. Back to Leticia. I was letting her down since she didn't want to do the Spiderman. Apparently, though, Donovan was pretty sure that she would have to do it, so he says "No. She has to" and he grabs my rope. Yep. Grabs. My. Rope. I turn to him. "That is not ok ever. I hope you do not think I won't tell your teacher about this." He lets go with an "ok" or a "sorry," I'm not really sure which, and a kinda shocked "oh crap" look on his face. I'm thinking he said "ok," though.

Ooh. That was bad. I told his teacher, and she had me go with him when they talked to him about it. They asked him why I might be upset with him. He knew the answer, as I had told him earlier that I would be telling his teachers, and he owned up to it, at least. "Because I grabbed the rope." They went on about Yeah, and he should know better, especially since he's a boy scout. That's right. A boy scout grabbed my rope while I was balaying. They told him that since that was his 2nd warning that day (he had been throwing pine needles at a girl earlier), he would have to call his parents and if anything else happened, he would be sent home.

Which actually leads me to a short story about one of the good kids, who thought he was in trouble. At night, there are 6 sections that the kids rotate around in. They were set in groups of about 20 and given a name and cycled through 3 stations a night. One of the staff would teach a station-- the Star Lab-- and 5 of the HSL's lead/supervised the rest-- cat eye hike, "Lost in Space," puzzle making, campfire, and group games. Then the remaining 6 HSL's had a specific group they stuck with the whole night to make sure they didn't get lost or anything.

One of the kids in my group, (I cycled with the wolves,) was hanging out with the kids who didn't really want to be participating and so they were sorta messing around, so that's what I figured this kid would do. But no, actually he surprised me and he was really participative (if that's a word) and really enthusiastic about it. He was very good. So I told one of his teachers the next day, that there was this kid named Brandon, but I didn't know his last name, so I just described him, and he was really good and he surprised me. There were other good kids, too, but he didn't look like he'd be good, and he was. She didn't know who I was talking about, so she asked me to point him out. I hadn't seen him all day, though, until we got in line for dinner, and then I saw him standing in line, wearing his name tag, and I was wrong. His name is not Brandon.

So as they all left, the teacher stayed behind until the last 6ish kids were walking off, and so I tagged behind, too, to let her know that his name was actually Dominic. Psh. Brandon, Dominic. They're practically the same.

She knew exactly who I was talking about. "Oh, yeah yeah yeah, Little Dominic! Long, brown hair! I know who you mean! Ok, thanks for letting me know." And then when we had our night groups again, we're walking to the puzzles (which were our first rotation for that night) and Dominic comes up to me "Hey, Bridget. Listen, I'm sorry that I was kinda a jerk last night." Oh yeah, no proble-- wait. He wasn't a jerk. What did the teacher say to him?

So here's what I'm thinking. I think one of the 6ish kids who was behind when I told the teacher that his name was Dominic, not Brandon, was one of his friends, and told him I just got him in trouble. Oops, haha. It was nice, in a sad way though, how he came back to apologize for something he didn't do.

Prom!

2010-04-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

So while I've had Elli in town, I haven't really been blogging. In case you couldn't tell. Nor have I been reading blogs. But I'm back, now!

We had a ton of fun with Elli, and she got to stay and extra few days which was fun. :D One day, we went to Barnes and Noble and I read little kid books to her and Alli and Ally, I was sitting on the book reading chair and they were on the benches around me. It was fun. Then we went to Cost Plus World Market and looked around there. We went to Michael's after that, so Alli could get some stuff for graduation (May 17th! 2 pm!) and then we went to Wendy's. We hung out with my friend Allen on his lunch break, and then we went to Ally's house after to play some card games. That night at 10:15 ish, we went to see Alice in Wonderland (again!), then we went back to Ally's house to stay the night. It was awesome.

Also, we had prom while she was here. It was cool.

We had a lot of people, some joined us after this picture was taken.

I went with Talon

We ate at Wendy's

We went mini golfing. I posed like a rockstar. Not on purpose, though. I wish I knew what I was doing here.

We didn't actually dance much, but we did take many pictures. (most are on facebook)

We did afterprom at boondocks

And we had breakfast at IHOP. It rocked :D

Just when you thought it couldn't get better.

2010-04-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

I was wrong about the attendance. The rule is that it has to be 95%, and Nora's was just under that.

I'm not really sure if I mentioned it, but the deans refused to look it up for her. They said that wasn't something they could do. Well guess what? Nora gets online the other day-- on scholar's mart-- and she checks out her attendance. Who knew it was that easy? Guess what it was? A 94.3%

That's just .2% away from being able to go to prom. And guess what still wasn't fixed? 5 absences! Who does that?! Who tells a student that they can't go to prom when they are .2% away and they have 5 absences just because they didn't get it fixed before the "deadline"?! Rude rude rude rude.

And as far as what her mom did to fix it-- she called in and excused the absences.

In other news, Elli is here and she's totally awesome. I feel bad for not taking her out to do more stuff. We just sorta sit around and watch a movie or play card games. But she's a lot of fun and doesn't really seem to mind. But we're going to see Alice in Wonderland, I believe, and then on Sunday morning we're going to Red Rocks to see some Easter ceremony thing. I'm not really sure, but it should be cool.

Lame.

2010-03-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

So to go to prom, you have to have at least 97% attendance. Nora went in to check her attendance, and she had a 95%, which was fine because there were still about a month until the list was finalized, so she'd have enough if she went to school everyday.

Then a few weeks ago, she went to check her attendance again and it was down to 92.5%, even though she hadn't missed any school. Apparently, while she was there, some of her teachers marked her as absent. So she had to get all of her teachers to sign a paper saying that she was there and everything. She got everyone to sign it, and then gave it to the attendance office.

They didn't get rid of all of her absences, though, because she went to check it again, and it wasn't high enough. She checked it out, and they still had her marked as absent for a few 1st hour classes. Which she wasn't. She was there. THE WHOLE TIME.

She talked to them more about it, they said they'd get it straightened out.

The final was posted yesterday, and guess who was on it? Not Nora. They still didn't fix it. She was still marked absent in her first hour classes when we went to check it out.

So now, Nora can't go to prom. The school screwed up her attendance, and she can't go now. Nora would fight more to be able to go, but the school school already screwed it up, made her do a bunch of work to get it fixed, and then didn't fix it. So, it seems kinda pointless now.

Adventures from French!

2010-03-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

So for the past month in French, we've had a sub because our real teacher was in Mexico and Quebec. Our sub was pretty cool because she tried to explain things really thoroughly and she didn't get mad if we didn't understand something, and she also had us do a lot of different things like act out the play we were reading (Le Malade Imaginaire) and some other stuff.

There was this one time that the sub was trying to teach us about pronouns. For the AP test we're taking at the end of the year, there's a section where a bunch of words will be left out, and we just have to know what word would go there. There's no word bank or anything, you just have to know. The possibilities are ALL of the pronouns. Out of the nine of us in that class, only 2 of them barely understand pronouns, and the rest of us are just completely lost.

So I was looking at the sub, trying to pay attention so that maybe I could understand this a little and not be totally screwed over for that part of the test. But everything she was saying was just completely lost on me, so I was zoning out a little. Not so much that I had the glazed-over-eyes thing going, and I was still looking at her, but I wasn't there mentally at all. Instead, I was thinking about roller blading through the school.

(I think about weird things. Once on the bus home from a college campus I was visiting with my friend Sara, we were both lost deep in thought. I had a very serious expression on my face, so when Sara asked what I was thinking about, I just laughed a little. "Really?" "Yes..." "I was thinking about how much it would suck to be able to feel a pea under 47 mattresses.")

Anyway, so I was thinking about roller blading through the school, and particularly into the band room. I was considering how fun it would be, then with my semi-morbid thought patterns, I though about "What if I skated into the band room and on my way in got impaled by a music stand?!" This thought terrified me. More than it should have, because the odds of that happening are slim to none, even under the best (or would you say worst in this case...) circumstances.

This is the best part-- the sub hadn't made eye contact with me since I drifted off. Not that she was avoiding me, but I am only one student who doesn't understand at all. So at the moment that I consider being impaled by a music stand and a look of pure terror fills my eyes, she makes eye contact.

It was really funny-- she gets this look in her eyes like she's concerned for and sorry about what she assumes to be my fear of pronouns.

My Ranting Post.

2010-03-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

So I don't really know what this is, but I got the user names and passwords I needed to log onto the site I need so I can write that paper for psychology and guess what? There's a "protocol error communicating with authentication server." It's like I'm not supposed to do this paper.

But on a different note, today for astronomy (which, if I haven't mentioned, is not all it's cracked up to be) we went to the library to do this worksheet. Our teacher told us to bring our stuff because we might not be coming back to the classroom between. So in the library, we were scheduled to be in this one part that only has maybe 20 computers, which is never enough for the whole class. So Nora and I, being the last to get there, decided to go use these computers over here.

We weren't too far off, so I thought she probably saw us, considering she wasn't concerned at all about us. She's over with the rest of the class giving them some answers and stuff, and we were barely in ear shot. You know, when you're just far enough away from someone to be able to hear what they're saying but only if you know they're talking? Otherwise you just write it off as background noise? Yeah, that explains our distance. So she gave the rest of the class another worksheet to do once we finished looking up the answers for the first one. And Nora, having heard this, told me to go get it.

So I went over, and she sees me walking and she's like "Oh there you guys are."

Wait. Hang on. She didn't know where we were? Let me explain the significance-- last week we went to the Meester lab to do something, and someone had gone to the bathroom along the way. Our teacher flipped out. This girl was probably gone for 4 or 5 minutes, and she freaked out because she couldn't find her anywhere. She wasn't in the class room or the Meester lab. For 5 minutes! It was like the world was ending! But with us, she apparently thought we were ditching didn't even care! Rude rude rude.

Anyway, so I got the worksheet, and she gave me enough for the 3 of us who were sitting over there. We did the worksheet. Astronomy is a blocked class, btw, so as the first passing period neared, Nora went to ask the teacher if she could go to the bathroom-- which is the 2nd reason we know she knew we were there. So we kept working, and it got toward the end of the 2nd period, and Nora and I had just finished our 2nd worksheet and I turned around to check out what the rest of the class was doing, and then look back to Nora.

"Uhh. Where's our class?"

Yeah! They left us! Like, without a word! Our teacher knew we were there and I swear, she probably told everyone "Be really quiet. We're going back to class, but I don't want to deal with those girls over there." Ha. Alright, maybe she didn't say that, but we didn't hear anything about going to class, and they did leave REALLY QUIETLY.

So there's only like 5 minutes left of class now, and the other girl who was over with us wasn't done, so she stayed to keep working and Nora and I went down to the classroom so we could at least turn in our papers. When we got there, we turned in our worksheets to the "in" box, and then stood there by the door waiting to go, because they weren't doing anything by the time we showed up. The teacher looks at us and says "Can I help you?"

What is that? Can you help us? Really? That's what you say to someone who isn't actually in your class and has passes or something to deliver! But here we are, YOUR STUDENTS, and you leave us in the library?! We sit right in front of her, so she can't have possibly noticed we didn't come back. RUDE. That's all I have to say.

Well, that and I'm glad there's only 3 more days of this class. Man.

Strike Two!

2010-02-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

I tried to do my homework, honest. But the search engine I was going to use is apparently only accessible from school, unless you have a password. Which I don't, so I'll do what I can now then finish really quick during intervention tomorrow morning.

So for the 2nd time, I tried baking macaroons. The first time they turned out way too watery because I had over beaten the eggs, and also I tried using fresh, fine chopped coconut instead of shredded coconut. They turned out... well, less than pretty.

Ha. They don't actually look too bad in this picture, but believe me, they were really runny and seemed to get worse the more I cooked them... mmm...

Anyway, so this time, instead of deciding that "fold the coconut with the egg whites" basically means the same as "beat the coconut in with the egg whites," I beat the eggs until they were stiff, and then beat the sugar in with that, just like the recipe said. But, unfortunately, the recipe is off. You should beat the eggs until they're almost stiff, then add sugar and stiffen them the rest of the way. So again, my batter was quite watery.

I hadn't actually added the coconut, though, so mom pulled up a different macaroon recipe and I tried that. They cookies still turned out less than perfect, but they tasted good. The only problem is that stuck to the wax paper really bad haha. Man. Everyone likes eating wax with their cookies, right?

Bonus, though, because (this being her recipe) Sara's mom said that next time I'm at their house, she'll show me how to make macaroons haha. Yay.

UCCS

2010-02-23T15:37:00.000-08:00

Has anyone heard of University of Colorado at Colorado Springs before? Is it like University of Colorado in Denver? Because apparently they want me to consider going there.

They even said-- in a letter to our family-- that "Bridget has goals and ambitions and we can help" and "We know that UCCS can challenge Bridget academically." Which is kinda cool, that they put my name into the letter.

However, I think I'm still going to Metro.

But hooray for noticing that I "scored well about the average" for my ACT scores :)

P.S. I think it's funny that "blogs are dying" and this is the most I've ever blogged before in my life. I'm like a real blogger!

Just because I want to put off my homework more...

2010-02-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I went to do med support on a Klondike. It was actually fun. I'm surprised about that, because I thought it would be awful. But everyone was very nice and welcoming, they all learned my name (although I only know the names of 1 or 2 of them) and we weren't very busy. We had a few cold hand, only 2 of which were seriously cold. Like, near frost-bite cold. And then we had an upset stomach after dinner and some kid who, in my humble opinion, just wanted to go home and so he had "chest pains."

I did accidentally steal one of the belt clips for the radios, though, so I'll have to give that back tomorrow.

Also, I got the name of my German exchange kid. For those of you who didn't know, I'm participating in GAPP (German-American Partnership Program) and we're having a girl named Elli come visit us from March 28th to April 18th. It will be fun, and I hope everyone will come visit her :) and be friendly, so she likes Colorado.

Then guess what I found out? This guy-- Tony Horton, inventor of P90X-- guess how old he is??

I was thinking something like... 28-32 ish.

Nope, I was watching a commercial, and he's 51! I was completely shocked. I mean, seriously, 51! In this picture!

I hope I look like that when I'm 51. Well, only more feminine...

Denied!

2010-02-16T20:07:00.000-08:00

Guess who got accepted to BYU?

Not me, haha!

Which upset me a little, because I did really well on my ACTs and I have a good GPA, and I can't even know why I wasn't accepted. Oh well, I guess.

But I'm ok with it, because I'm going to Metro which means I'll be more likely to see people I know from highschool since pretty much eveyone is going to Metro, and I want to major in chemisty or criminology, and I hear really good things about Metro's programs for both of those. Plus, now I don't have to deal with the whole "Metro or BYU" thing, so I think this worked out well enough.

Any words of wisdom for the new college student? :)

And its eyes glowed...

2010-02-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

Ha, the mechanical bull's eyes.

(And there's pictures that go with this post, but I'll have to upload them later.)

So as I said earlier, some of my friends from crew took me to the Grizzly Rose for my birthday to go mechanical bull riding! Which is so fun, let me just say. I've been once before, but it was at Relay for Life in Greeley. Ladies' Night starts at 8:00, which I'm not actually sure what that means because you could get in earlier than that, and also it wasn't like a "girls only" thing, so I'm not sure why it's "ladies' night," so if anyone wants to explain that to me.

Anyway, we got there at about 6:20ish so we could get a good parking spot, and we walk in and I forgot my stupid ID! You have to be 18 or older to get in, and I changed right before we left., so I forgot my driver's license in the pants I was wearing for most of the day. But it turned out to not be too bad, because apparently they only take cash... So we drove back home, and got my ID and got Dad to pick up 30 dollars for us, and then we left again, to get back there at about 7:20ish.

So while we sat there for a while waiting for the bull to open, and I asked some people who work there when it would open and they said by 8:30, so we waited for a while. It was kinda annoying because when K emailed them to ask what time the opened the mechanical bull riding because she wanted to take her friend for her birthday at 6:30, they said that they would be open when we got there.

It's probably important to mention that Mom and I hadn't eaten yet. Our food was at home waiting in the oven for us. We figured we'd leave at about 9 and have enough time to eat and everything.

Anyway, so at 8:30, I went back and asked some other people who work there what time they would open the bull riding, and they told me that depending on business, they would open anywhere between 8:30 and 9. Which would've been completely fine if that's what they had said in the email, but in the email they said that it would be going when we got there.

So, being hungry, I went back and asked Mom what she wanted to do, because I personally didn't want to wait that long, but I wanted to ride the bull, so I wasn't really sure. She said we could wait 15 more minutes and see what was going on then, and so K took me to go watch some people play pool, and then we danced for a little while. The dancing was fun because neither Anthony nor I can dance well, and so we just sort of stood there looking around trying to figure it out. But this old lady came over and started trying to teach us haha. It was pretty cool.

And at this point, it was 8:50, and they had just started to open up the bull! Hooray :D We were the first ones in line. Or, more correctly, I was the first in line. It's $5 to ride once, $10 to ride 3 times and $20 to ride unlimited until midnight. K and Anthony pitched in to get me 3 rides, which was really fun. Mom recorded me the first time I was on, and I think I stayed on for 30-35 seconds. Then I have no idea how long I stayed on for the other two times. It was a lot of fun, though. Sadly, it was the last two times (the ones not recorded) where I was epically thrown from the bull.

I guess you'll just have to imagine me flying through the air in a pretty little arch, landing so gracefully on my back. Ha. Or something similar to that.

But hey, I did a lot better than the drunk boys. :)

(and just to clarify, no Mom didn't ride the bull. She was just there for pictures)

I'm 18!

2010-02-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I'm an adult! Technically.

To celebrate that, some of my friends are going to take me to the Grizzly Rose to go mechanical bull riding :D I'm so excited. It's going to be really fun.

Then on my birthday, I had a few friends (20 or so) over and we played Bigger or Better.

If you've never heard of bigger or better, you break off into groups, we had 4 or 5 in each, and you each get something little, like a tooth pick or a paper clip, or we had clothes pins. Then each group goes around door to door and says, "Hi. We're playing Bigger or Better. Do you have anything bigger or better than this [clothes pin] that you'd be willing to trade us for?" The rules that we set were you have to be able to carry it back to my house and that you can't drive anywhere.

It was cool. There were only a few people who didn't want to trade us anything. And one house who we knocked at the door, and they didn't answer, so we left. Then as we were walking further up the street I see them looking through the window. I thought that they might have wanted to talk to us, but just got to the door too late, so I waved and started walking back up to the door. But no, they did not want to talk to us because everyone left the window except the lady who stares at me and closes the blinds. It was pretty funny actually. I thought that only happened on movies.

Anyway. We traded the clothes pin for a paper towel roll, which we traded for a giant pencil, which we traded for little shoe keychain, which we traded for a pad of paper (which is not bigger or better than the shoe keychain. I mean, come on, it was a little tiny converse!) and then we got to the next house. I'm pretty sure I found another Mormon family in our neighborhood, btw. But I asked if she had anything bigger or better to trade for our pad of paper. And then I suggested broken appliances or things she was planning on giving away to Good Will or something, and so she gave us an old fax machine! Which we traded for a MINI FRIDGE! It worked too! It was not broken!

Obviously, we won. haha It was a lot of fun. If no one has played Bigger or Better ever, I think you should. Right now.

Thanks to Scooter for telling me about it :)

TCH EMS LOL and more TLAs

2010-02-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

This past Thursday and Friday I ditched school to go to a TCH EMS Conference. The crew paid for me to go, and it was pretty cool. Basically the entire it was just a bunch of lectures. Most were an hour long, but some on Thursday were only a half hour. And a lot of the presenters had cool information, but were really REALLY boring. Like the lady who spoke about different drugs. I would be lying if I said I was awake the whole time.

But there were a couple of speaker in particular who did an amazing job. Jason Dush (which rhymes with "plush," but I can only imagine the teasing he got for that name) was one and he had a nice way of capturing the audience's attention. He gave personal stories, and had funny little comics or videos he would put up, and he didn't linger on one specific thing too long. He was pretty good at keeping the pace up. He gave 3 lectures. One about stress and 2 more about delivering babies.

Then the girl who was in charge of putting the conference together was really funny (although her name was not really funny, so I don't actually remember it) and very nice. She only had a half hour to go over an hour and a half's worth of material. So she was talking really fast and would freak out periodically about how much time she didn't have, which was kinda awesome. She gave a really cool lecture about special needs children.

It was a good way to spend a few days. I learned some really interesting things. We talked about robots and kids who get strokes or heart attacks and ALTE and autism and pharmacology and terrorists and a lot of NAT stuff and OB stuff and not backboarding patients who you regularly would, and I got presents, so what wouldn't be good about that? That's right, I am now the proud owner of a PEN LIGHT! It's awesome. I love it. And I have my very own pocket knife.

And in case you're wondering, because I was...
TCH- The Children's Hospital
EMS- Emergency Medical Service
NAT- Non Accidental Trauma
LOL- Laugh Out Loud
TLA- Three Letter Acronym
ATLE- Acute Life Threatening Events (although I'm disappointed that's not a TLA)

I think that's a record...

2009-12-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

It's been almost 3 months since I've blogged. Technically, 2 months and 22 days... I think.

Either way, it's getting late. And here's how I know.

Jack Jack was up here with me and we were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He was really cute and tired, and kept resituating himself to be comfortable. Eventually, (around 11:30) he fell asleep. And he stayed there, leaning on my shoulder and cutting off my arm circulation a little for about a half hour, at which point Chaelomen came to get him.

Now, before I came down, I was working on Alli's Christmas present, and I had to reprint some quotes, and then Jack Jack was just really cute so I decided we could watch a Mickey Mouse, but while he was asleep, I got online and started reading blogs. So then when Chaelomen took him away, I kept reading blogs. I can get to Alli's present again later.

Anyway, It's been about 3 months since I've updated, which means it's been about 2 since I've read any one else's blog. I was reading MJ's-- her rant, specifically-- and it mentions how her MIL and SsIL (that's "sisterS in law," because she's all about the grammar)... which is where I can start to tell it's late.

I sat there for a minute or two (no exaggeration, so it really was quite a while) thinking sisters in law... Who are MJ's sisters in law?! There's Carebear, that's one... I don't think she has any others!

Then I realized. Wait. Scooter's a SIL too. Oh, and me.

So I can tell it's late because I had to think about who Chaelomen's sisters are. I can tell it's even later, because I didn't even think of me first. I thought of Carebear, then had to realize I'm related to her.

And it's EVEN LATER, because until about 30 seconds ago, I didn't realize what SsIL had to do with grammar...

I get it now, though. Because it's SisterS In Law, not Sister In LawS.

Oh my. Time for bed. I think maybe I'll finish Alli's present... tomorrow. Or, technically, later today. :) Night, everyone.

Jay Walking... part 2

2009-09-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

While "Jaywalking" at school--

We told this kid to play dumb.
"Do you know what's at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?"
"The sky."
"... No, the bottom."
"Oh. Uhh..."
At least, I hope we told him.

haha or I also liked this answer...

"Do you know why we celebrate Thanksgiving?"
"Because of the turkeys."
"The turkeys?"
"Yeah, the turkeys killed some pilgrims."
"The turkeys killed the pilgrims?"
"Yeah."

It was a lot of fun doing this project. Media concepts is definitely a good class.

"Jay" walking

2009-09-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

So for one of my classes this semester, media concepts, we're going around the school and asking Jaywalking-type questions. You know, common-knowledge questions that some people don't know the answer to. Then laugh at their stupidity...

(4th, 6th, and 8th grade level questions) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQoB8HJjins

(fourth of July questions) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddtc4FypXzk&feature=related

We got to watch these two during class, which was pretty sweet. Anyway, I post this blog asking for help.

Our questions we've been asking the school are too easy. The hardest one we had-- How many planets are in the solar system? (8) Someone actually said 12. Uhh, can you name all those, sir?

We thought the questions were fine, but then we read another groups questions-- What four presidents do you see at Mount Rushmore?

So we're going to get some new questions, and so if you could, give me your ideas, so we can laugh at my school :)

a new blog?!

2009-07-30T13:59:00.003-07:00

So the other day... or month at the teacher appreciation dinner, I found out that two of the kids in my seminary class graduated early, and that probably 5 other kids are planning on graduating at semester. Which is cool for them and everything, and I know it shouldn't, but it really makes me feel inadequate. Like if they can do it, so can I and so should I.

I don't know. Just wanted to share that.

And then, about 2 weeks ago, Sara and I were watching Boy Meets World, and we watched the Chick Like Me episode, when a brilliant idea pops in our heads! why don't WE try to dress like boys! haha. It seemed so easy, and we borrowed some clothes from random friends, and the getting dressed part was easy. Believe it or not, the hard part was figuring out what do to with our hair.

Needless to say, we do not make very good boys. I would not date myself, especially with the high pitched voice I had. haha

FML

2009-05-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today, a cab driver had to sign me out of the emergency room because I didn't know who else to call. FML

today is the first day of summer break! :) woo but actually, I still have a project to do for great books so I can get an A in that class this semester. it's an art project based off of The Kite Runner and Song of Solomon, but I think I know what I want to do. I could probably be half way close to done, but it's not due until I get back to school in August, and a new web site has taken up my interests.

Today, I realized that my glade plug-in air freshner lasts longer than any of my relationships have. FML

http://www.fmylife.com/ people go there, and can post little things that happened to them that day, and everyone else laughs at their misery. so if you're having a bad day, go there and feel better about yourself. or go there anyway, just because it's that fun to read :)

Today, I am wearing a panda suit for the promotion of the restaurant I work at. FML

and just for the record, none of these FMLs are mine ha

Today, I graduated from college and my parents gave me an apple. Not the computer, the fruit. FML

not quite an update...

2009-04-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

wow it's been over a month. so I'm sitting here writing a paper for great books, or at least the rough draft, and also listening to the radio and Madeline by Tickle Me Pink comes on.

the story behind it is that one morning after a show they put on, they found I think it was their bassist dead. idk how he died or anything, but it was sudden and unexpected and not a suicide. anyway, they made a video kinda in remembrance of him, which came out recently.

they had a thing they were doing for a while were you could send in picture of loved ones who have passed away to be in the video, and it's kinda cool how the pictures are incorporated.

sorry, though, idk how to embed it haha FAIL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DlrBEQYnc

there's the link :)

I guess I'm in a blog mood

2009-03-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

To start off, sorry for the very long blog, but it's an intense story.

So I already watched the new episode of Bones and Grey's Anatomy, and I was bored so I went back to look at blogs again! also, to further put off my make up work in great books. haha

and then I remembered a great story I should tell! So Mom and I went to Disney World, which was totally awesome! lots of fun, those who aren't going to Disney 2010 or 2009 should try harder to be able to, b/c there are some freaking cool things there.

but this post is not about the trip. before I left, I made sure my rat (which is a different rat from the one w/ the phone charger over Christmas) had plenty of food and I filled up her water all the way, then made a mental note to text Chaelomen or MJ or maybe even The Wizard so that they might check up on her and make sure she still has food and water. her liter would be fine. all the way to the airport it felt like I was forgetting something, but the feeling either passed or I just got used to it b/c by the time we were in Florida, all was forgotten.

who thought of mental notes anyway? they're dumb and pretty much never work out, at least not for me.

it was a few hours after we got home like 2 days ago that I remembered I have a rat up in my room. so I go up to check on her, open the door and see her empty food dish! and empty water bottle! oh no! Regan (this is the rat, named after one of the daughters in King Lear) was on the bottom of her cage, still alive, and I grabbed her water bottle and went to the bathroom to fill it up. when I came back, she was on the top shelf of her cage. So then I fill up her food right away and she just sorta looks at it, and doesn't touch the water. not good.

She's usually a very bouncy and energetic little rat, she's only like 2 and maybe a half months old, and here she is pretty much not moving, trying to walk and she stumbles a lot. so I picked her up and I'm sitting there holding her trying to get her to take some food or water or anything really. something that'll give me a little hope that she lives. I think she took a piece of food and started to nibble on it, but nothing really. crap. I KNOW she's hungry. you don't go however many days w/o food and not be hungry. you also don't go however many days w/o water and not be thirsty, but she isn't drinking anything either. I even rubbed my finger across her water bottle to get some water on my finger and tried rubbing it around her mouth, but nothing. no interest at all.

so there I am, kinda freaking out a little trying to think of something to do, but I'm drawing a blank. she's a happy rat, just doesn't have any energy to drink or eat, so I went downstairs, got her a Nilla Wafer w/ whipped cream and went up to give that to her. something sweet, so a little burst of energy, and hopefully a little hydrating. she totally ate it all. not the nilla wafer, but all the whipped cream. which is a pretty good thing, and then she starts eating a little more, not drinking still, so it's still bad, but getting better.

I went downstairs to talk to MJ and Chaelomen about it and told them about how I forgot to ask them to check up on her, and Chaelomen asked if she had drank anything. Not that I know of... so then he came upstairs w/ me to try and get her to drink some water.

at this point she's eating. not normally, but enough that she's realized she's hungry or whatever, and Chaelomen held the bottle by her and was squeezing water into her mouth, then after a bit left me to take that over. so by the end of the hour she had enough energy to do her weird eating thing where she takes her food from the top shelf of her cage and carries it to the bottom shelf in the corner to eat. haha like a dog eating on carpet. that's when I decided she could drink water by herself and I could put it back.

by the next morning, several ounces of water were drained. woo! Regan lives!

ha also that morning, I realized I left my socks and underwear at the hotel in Florida. super. haha

I need...

2009-03-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

Samara needs to grow up a bunch here and let him go.
Samara needs some Richard in her life.
Samara needs a forever home.
Samara needs a lobotomy.
Samara needs to change.
Samara needs to stay away from Ridge's "illegitimate" son by Morgan!
Samara needs to have some children.
Samara needs to go away and ponder about her life.
Samara needs to get over the bitterness and grow up for the baby's sake.
Samara needs her spring haircut.

just btw, I used my real name in the search.

w/ Samara...

Samara needs a change.
Samara needs a middle name.
Samara needs love.
Samara needs sleep more
Samara needs to bite some chumps.
Samara needs someone who will be dedicated to care for and feed her properly.
Samara needs to do some shopping.
Samara needs a good pair of snow pants and some better hiking boots.
Samara needs to be sealed up in a well. (haha I knew one of these was coming!)
Samara needs to find Connor, Connor needs to find out who is trying to kill them, and they both have to figure out what to do about this whole baby. (haha)

So, just to explain really quick, I want to say the primary reason that I haven't blogged in SO long. I mean, Frik and David and Wudan have both posted more recently than I have. Chaelomen's posted twice!!

anyway, so the main reason is mostly b/c Scooter has me listed as Poopy Pants on her blog, and the longer I take to update, the less likely people will read that haha

there's links, I swear

2009-01-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

the links that go to other people's blogs are not showing up... if you missed it.

so any clue how I fix it? you can hover over of highlight them and see it, but...

broken up in two parts for your benefit! :D

2009-01-19T17:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead, I'm still here. just... preoccupied I suppose. let me say though, I love the setting that Guildylocks has for the order her blogs are listed in. it makes it really easy to check up on everyone :)

--pt 1 of my day--

so today I went babysitting. idk, I guess diapers are more complex than I give them credit for, b/c after I changed a VERY pee-y diaper, the kid does a number two. on my lap. maybe a third of it was actually in the diaper. gross... the rest is on my pants and on my shirt.

So I called home from their house phone. no answer. I called Chaelomen's cell. it was off. I used my cell phone to call MJ's cell. it was off. one more attempt at the house phone b/c I don't even love Jack Jack enough to sit there w/ his crap on my clothing, and Chaelomen answers. THANK YOU. haha

MJ brought over some new clothes for me to change into and the rest of the babysitting went totally smooth.

--pt 2 of my day--

So originally, being MLKJr Day and hence having no school, Sara and I were going to hang out. then, things happened and we couldn't so I was going babysitting. then things happened and she could again, so we decided to go to Taco Bell after I was done babysitting for a late lunch. yum.

We both drove down there, separately b/c you need your license for 6 months before you can have someone else in the car w/ you legally. so after Taco Bell, we have like 40 minutes more to hang out before she has to go home and so we're thinking Wendy's for a drink and some french fries. so the closer Wendy's, and the one I want a drink from, is on 120th and York. but since I hear 120th and CO together so frequently, they are very interchangable in my mind. so we're in the right lane to turn onto 120th and I'm leading the way when I think "crap, we need to be in the next lane" and there was plenty of room to get over, so I did. there was enough room for Sara, too, so we wouldn't lose each other.

but then there was a motorcycle and another car that pulled up behind me, forcing her in her lane and me in mine. so that's about the time I think a phone call would be good. too bad my phone was on it's last brink of life while I was babysitting so I just left it at home... haha

we kinda drove in a few circles around each other, not knowing for sure where the other would be but eventually met up just inside of my subdivision and decided that instead we want IntaJuice, if we still go anywhere. then decide that in the now 20 minutes we have before Sara had to leave, there wasn't enough time to get there and back. woo

it was a good day, over all though.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

So I think it was fun to have everyone over for Christmas. we should do it again sometime.

And thanks, XKorDave, for the phone charger.

I needed it, b/c this one day, I'm feeding my rat. I took out her dish and filled it w/ food, then put it back in the exact same spot it was in. I knew it was the same spot, b/c it was outlined by a black ring. After seeing the the strange black ring I sat there thinking "what is that?" so I traced it around her cage and followed it out and plugged into an outlet. I freaked out a little and pulled the cord out of her cage to discover what its true purpose is-- to charge my phone.

Then I took my rat out of her cage and she was kinda... spazzy... haha

but she's fine now.

Rats. what're you gonna do with them?

Rise Against! and blood. in my mouth.

2008-11-18T17:12:00.000-08:00

Chaelomen took me to a Rise Against concert on Thursday and I have to say, it was pretty awesome. haha

But by took me, I mean I drove to a Park-n-Ride and rode the bus to right near his school. [btw everyone, I have my license now] and [oh, and a car] then he and Amber met me at the bus stop and we went to Chipotle, where I paid in lots of loose change. woo haha. At which point Amber noticed that our tickets say the concert starts 6, not 7 like I had told everyone. We left right after that haha

In my defense, for the "the concert starts at 7" thing, no one started playing until 7. I think 6 is when they started letting people into the theater. The Filmore. And they didn't even pretend to pat me down like the rest of the concerts that I've gone to, but whatever.

Anyway, there was Gaslight Anthem, Thrice, Alkaline Trio and Rise Against. I had heard a few songs from all of them and I thought "wow. what a crappy line up. you can't mix Rise Against w/ mellow bands." Then at the concert, what do you know, they weren't actually all that mellow. Besides not being mellow, [because that should neither make nor brake a band] I personally think they all sounded kinda awesome and would not mind looking into them more. I've heard Alkaline Trio on the radio and stuff, so I bought one of their shirts and also a Rise Against hoody. It was pretty sick.

Lalala and then the next day, I went to school, played Jeopardy in anatomy [and did not win because Luke didn't think that pneumonia was the right Final Jeopardy answer. It was.] and then ditched the rest of the school day to go to the oral surgeon-- I now have 4 less teeth than I did a week ago. But I didn't swell up like a chipmunk, sorry.

In fact, at school on Monday, only a few people even remembered/noticed that I got my wisdom teeth out. On the plus side, today I went back to get my lower two teeth-cavity's stitches removed which is more comfortable, and now I have a cool syringe thing to get food out of my teeth-holes haha. And random tastes of blood in my mouth. mmmm...

I think that concludes the highlights of my life since I last blogged... on Sunday haha.

haha woo

2008-11-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

so I just wanted to let everyone know that I didn't forget about my blog!

haha actually I did... we got a new computer and I forgot about everything until a few weeks ago when MJ asked when I was gonna update it and I'm like "oh yeah. I have a blog."

then Chaelomen and MJ are talking about push ups and doing 100 in 6 weeks and I'm like "oh yeah. I was doing that, too." woo it was all gone haha. I'll have to start that again someday soon here.

anyway, I have like 2 or 3 stories I could and should tell, but not tonight b/c I need to go to bed.

but first, I'd like to share a cool Jack Handey quote with everyone that I don't think I've ever read before...

"Playing dead not only comes in handy when face to face with a bear, but also at important business meetings." I think that's a good lesson to remember. also

"One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one. I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn't know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me."

I hope you visit again soon to read some REAL blogs that hopefully Chaelomen and The Wizard haven't already said everything about. the end.

I'mma troublemaker, not a doubletaker

2008-09-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

a timpani is a drum

http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/music/orchestra/images/percussion/timpani.jpg

Anyway, so about not being a part of the Woodglen Ward anymore...

For Memorial weekend, we went to Utah and while we were there I stayed with Guildylocks and her roommate. Which started off being confusing, btw, because no one told me that I wasn't sleeping at Carebear and Frik's house until it happened. There I was sleeping, and then David wakes me up and we're leaving and he's like, "You know you're not sleeping here, right?" ha weird... anyway, so then we're driving and we're not at Guildylocks's apartment, I don't think... I had been there just the other week... and this wasn't the same place... ha apparently she moved.

Now, on to the good part of the story. I went to church with her and David the next day, and it was their first time meeting with all the new students in that ward and whatever so one of the announcements during the sacrament meeting was about how if you haven't had a picture taken already, go up to the bishop's office and they'd get that taken care of and also get your papers to fill out. I asked David if I could, to which he said yes, but I didn't. Being a good kid or something. But after church, before we left, there they were again taking pictures and handing out the papers, so I got my picture taken then and filled out the paper which had things like What year are you?... Junior. What year were you born?... 1992. What's your major?... undecided. School attending-- BYU UVU OTHER... other. haha

So then, I guess it doesn't click that 1992=16 year old and so they get my records from the Woodglen Ward and The Wizard brings home a printed version of the email they sent saying that my records were successfully transferred :)

Sad, though, because he doesn't want to play along and requested my records back today... Ideally I'll still be in the directory...

Don't get on the wrong bus.

2008-09-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Besides not ending up at the right school, if you get on the wrong bus at a football game, the people who are in charge of Pudre get very angry.

Yesterday we had our 2nd football game [which means we've lost two games, and I have all the cheerleader cheers stuck in my head] and it started raining. Now that's never stopped a performance as far as I know, unless you're in pit, because all the instruments need to be covered. What with them being not water proof.

Moments after it starts raining, Kelso comes over tells us all in the pit to go get our stadium jackets. Not to wear, but to put on the timpanies... timpanis... however you pluralize timpani and to also cover the mallet instruments. After that, he told us to all run to our trailer and get the blankets that actually go on and are made for the mallets. So we did. When we got back and covered everything, I looked over and a group of us are standing next to Kelso and some other guy, talking furiously.

Over I went to listen in. Apparently Anthony aka Asian [he thought of that name himself, btw. I'm not racist like that or anything] and Marcelo [our foreign exchange student] got on the wrong bus [and almost immediately got off] when they went to get their stadium jackets, and it wasn't even a Horizon bus. It was a Pudre bus. So this guy that Kelso was talking to is freaking out about how Asian and Marcelo are trying to steal stuff off the bus. Keslo- "I sent them to go get something and they got on the wrong bus because one of the buses we rode over got moved." Crazy-lifeless-bus-guy-- "I'm not buying that. The bus says PUDRE DISTRICT on the front and your trying to tell me that they didn't see that and just got on? I want the name and numbers of you and your boys' and your school so that if anything's missing, I know who to call." Kelso- "No, you know what? Why don't I have you come talk to our principal?" CLBG- "I'd like that very much." And off they went...

Too bad, because I wanted to hear the end of that. But after they left Marcelo says to us"I Brazilian! I don't read English well! I don't know!" and we all laugh and tell him he should have said that and that Asian should have done the same in his fake Vietnamese accent. Not that either of them were scared, CLBG is dumb and won't find anything missing. I hope he feels very silly after looking through all his stuff. Who wants Pudre football/ cheerleader stuff anyway?

In other non-band news, I am no longer in the Woodglen Ward. However that is a story for a different day, if anyone doesn't know the story.

One more day?

2008-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

School started on Wednesday which is kinda dumb. Just randomly in the middle of the week... and on a short day, but whatever. I like short days.

My schedule is:

First quarter: per 1/2 anatomy, 3rd off, 4th trig, 5/6 great books, 7/8 marching band
2nd quarter: per 1/2 anatomy, 3rd off, 4th trig, 5/6 great books, 7th off, 8th symphonic
2nd semester: 1st off, 2nd women's fitness, 3rd off, 4th trig, 5/6 great books, 7th off, 8th symphonic.

So far, anatomy is pretty fun. I mean, I've only been there two days but it's a good class that I'm liking. They have a lot of fun stuff planned like a CADAVER LAB! if my grades are good enough, so I'll be working hard on that :D haha

Trig is alright, but going over the review, it kinda seems like I didn't take the class last year. Yep, that's how much I retained over the summer. Which hasn't ever happened to me before, I've never forgotten math over summer break... hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come...

Great books is alright, there's a lot of work, but it's a pretty cool class so far. And by a lot of work, I mean I've had to read both last night and tonight for homework. haha but we had a seminar in class today. It was interesting. I'm not quite sure what I got out of it-- either society is in a repetitive but progressive cycle, or we've just been going in circles forever. And that came from a story about a guy who says man=no life, a short film about Joshua who escapes a box only to trap someone in a box, and a story about drunk boatmen who forgot to untie the knots on their stolen boat before setting sail... We're just deep like that.

Then band is... lame. haha I'm playing symbols in our parades this year. What's more exciting than that? Maybe also being in pit for our entire field show. I don't do much during practice, but it does make for an easy A.

That's my day in a wrap. I can't believe tomorrow is Friday, I totally thought it was Thursday tomorrow, but I didn't think it was Wednesday today... weird haha

Upside down!

2008-08-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm still at Jenny's house, and it's fun until about 9:30, sometimes 10. That's when everyone goes to bed, but I'm still awake for a few hours. Apparently when I'm bored, one of my favorite things to do is check blogs, so...

The difference about today is before Carcass went to bed, he did something to the computer to make the screen appear upside down, which idk how to fix, so I thought I'd post a blog about it... still upside down... I have to admit, it's kinda weird and totally throwing me off but yet very cool.

Jenny told me that Carebear knows how to fix this, so I tried calling her but I guess her phone is off or something. So then I tried calling Frik, but it has a different solution depending on what type of computer you have, so he couldn't give me a very good answer, and then he got a call. Oh well, Carson will fix it sooner or later. Or Carebear is coming down on Saturday.

As far as being bored goes, though, since tomorrow is Friday, Carson and Sienna are going to stay up with me! No school on Saturday and such. Which should be interesting for Carson b/c he's going to go see his dad for his birthday on Saturday... haha crazy...

Well... that's the end of that.

Why so serious?

2008-08-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

This week I'm visiting Jenny in Utah which, I've only been here for like 5 hours but it's so fun! We ate dinner then played Wii and talked for maybe an hour and a half then Jenny took Sienna and me to the movies. Sienna wanted to see The Dark Knight really bad but didn't have anyone to go w/ so since I haven't seen it...

Well, since I HADN'T seen it. haha

It is quite likely the best movie I've seen in at least a year. Maybe 2. Idk what the other best movie would be, but this one is SO AMAZING!

Everyone go watch it now. Stop reading and go to the theater!

But I'm thinking that maybe Berserk should not take Tiger and T-Rex to see it... as if it had to be said haha.

Sienna and I saw the 9:15 showing which got out at 11:46 [pm] and now she's downstairs "sleeping" b/c she has to go to school tomorrow... sucka haha

CRAWLSPACE!!!

2008-08-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Some of the Utah people are in town... Carebear, Guildylocks, David... Carebear's baby. And Guildylocks' family came to visit overnight on the way to Utah.

So yesterday we were cleaning up really quick before they got here and Mom asked me to put the dish soap down in our laundry room. I go down there, reading a few texts and turn into the laundry room when next thing I know, the floor is a little farther away than I thought...

Apparently, not minutes before, Chaelomen took the trapdoor out from the floor leaving a big hole in the middle laundry room, something you'd think I'd notice. He was just upstairs talking about how hard it is to get out of the crawlspace sometimes.

Anyway, I'm standing there in the crawlspace laughing and Carebear and Guildylocks look over [and laughing too, of course] and then are quickly joined by Mom and Chaelomen, who helped me out after mocking me a bit. I put the dish soap away and walk out over more toward the living room to do something, I forget what. But I'm still laughing quite a bit and tears are streaming from my eyes, a little more than what I would have expected from laughing, but whatever. In retrospect, I'm thinking they were also tears of pain.

So I go upstairs to put things away and my side hurts so I check to see if I'm bleeding. Probably not, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. So I look and, what would you know, there's a scratch about 6 inches long that's bleeding. As I was going down to Mom's bathroom to clean it up or something I run into Carebear and say, "I'm bleeding." She looked at me and her eyes got kinda wide because I guess it was worse than she was expecting. So we go into the bathroom and Carebear calls Chaelomen in to see this pretty cut. After standing there slightly at shock, Carebear tells him not to tell Mom, b/c we don't need a ride to the hospital or anything. Then she calls her up. There wasn't much freaking out on Mom's part, it could have definitely been worse, and we decided that the cut wasn't deep enough for stitches, so Chaelomen went to get gauze and tape and came back and dressed it.

What a great story... the only question left is what did I cut myself on? Something sharp, but not enough to tear either of the shirts I was wearing...

There went my great intentions of showering...

By the way, I make this sound very dramatic, but it wasn't actually that bad. We were laughing through all of this, b/c it was ridiculous haha

Just Kidding?

2008-07-01T12:31:00.001-07:00

Everyone might as well have missed that last post, because yesterday, since not everyone passed finals, we had practice practicals for trauma [being that that's the one everyone else failed]. We did them in groups, which I'm not liking so much. There was a scribe, a leader and a helper. I was the scribe for the first scenario which I think I could have passed, but I wasn't the leader, so. For the second one, I was the helper, and Krystie was in a car crash not wearing a seat belt, and we had to help her, but without the necessary supplies, we just gave her oxygen and left her in there until help arrived.

On the third one where I was a leader, Krystie was going rock climbing, but didn't even get started when a bolder fell on her head. Ouch. Things I did wrong: didn't take vitals because I thought we'd want to backboard her first and some other miscellaneous stuff. Someone said that it was done the best which doesn't seem like a big accomplishment because I wasn't always listened to. I'm sure that was a problem in the other scenarios, too, which is why I think single practicals are better than group. The people who you're telling to do stuff in single practicals aren't also trying to learn or make sure it's done right. They're just following orders.

But then after we had finished Nick was talking about how next week he's thinking we'll do one more set of practice practicals then real final practicals to see if we pass or not. When asked about last week and the finals that happened then, he said, "Well not eveyone passed them so."

If that means what I think it means in that since not everyone passed, neither did I, then I'm thinking this is where I say that I already passed once, and if that's not good enough, they can have one less first responder on their events. No snotty attitude intended.

Hopefully it means that the others get to do finals again, though.

In other news... Black Jack knocked $4 off the pizza price today because they were a half hour late delivering. That's always a bonus, and we still ate by 1.

Finals

2008-06-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

So, if we pretend this ISN'T a week old, I have some news.

We took our finals at the hospital, which I didn't think I'd do very good on. Sarah was my proctor on the first scenario I did-- medical. I did my head to toe, took some vitals, got "vomited" on, everything I could've hoped for, and when I got my paper back, I only missed 4 things. I didn't check Anthony's respiratory rate, I didn't reassess his vitals and two other things. Nothing major to make me fail.

Then in the hallway, I had to the Heimlich Maneuver. But there were no dummies--well, no PRACTICE dummies-- so we got the next best thing. Donovan was the choking victim who I almost actually tried to save, but Chris told me not to since he wasn't actually choking. So Donovan goes "unconscious" and I'm supposed to lead him slowly to the ground. Supposed to. Instead, he decides to make my life easy and just lay down, because he'll apparently crush me if he puts his weight on me. Not that a real unconcious person would care, but whatever. Then I start CPR, and since I've never knelt over a dummy and not actually have pressed down on its fake sturnum to start, it was hard to resist. I did, though, and passed that section, too.

The last scenario was in the stair well, and I was backboarding Krystie. I go in, and she's laying there on her stomach, choking on blood. I don't know what they expected of me, but no one else had her on her stomach. She was face up for everyone. Either way, the first thing I did was apparently screw up, because they asked me if I wanted to try again. Tina took me upstairs while they switched things around and she tried to give me a talk to make me pass. Something about how I know what to do and not to freak out, which would've been a cool and possibly helpful talk if I had been freaking out, but I wasn't. I didn't tell her that so I think she still is under the impression that she helped me quite a lot.

Back downstairs, Krystie moved onto her back, and things went smoothly from there. Brian said that I had done the best with the backboading, which either means everyone else sucked, or I did alright haha. Officially, now, I'm a first responder.

If they had done the enviornmental scenario, I probably would've failed, though, because when we practice, I always kill that person. For practice practicals, I left Krystie in the snow while I gave her the only pair of dry socks around, then she passes out and Anthony says, "Too bad there's no one around to help you." Yeah... calling for backup is probably helpful...

According to Chris, enviornmental is close enough to medical that we didn't need to test for it. Hooray

sssick...

2008-06-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

So tonight, we were down at the hospital and Bryce was practicing head-to-toe exams on Anthony. He starts with the head, as most people do, and Sarah and Glen stopped him to tell him that he needs to verbalize things because if he doesn't, then there's no guarantee that he'll get credit for having done something that went un-verbalized on our finals next week. So Bryce looked back down at Anthony to verbalize checking his head for DCAP-BTLS, and as he opens his mouth, the gum he was chewing falls out and hits Anthony in the eye! gross!

Bryce hurried to pick it up as Anthony sat up quicker than I thought he would, but then I don't what I was expecting, him to just lay there? So everyone in the hall cracks up because that was so sick, and I've never seen something quite like that happen.

Then earlier I was walking over to get a drink and some lady stops me and she's like, "Where's the second floor?" Uhh, upstairs? Maybe I'm just dumb, but I was pretty sure that's where they keep 2nd floors... above the 1st ones.

In other news regarding hospital-relating things, Daniel can woof haha. It makes me really believe Dr. Cox when he says that having a baby is like having a dog that slowly learns how to talk.

Oh, and if you want to go to Chipotle, it's kinda nice to go like 5 minutes to 10, because that's right before they close and they start giving away free chips, and loading up the burritos and tacos with more meat haha

Blog?

2008-06-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

I felt all out of the loop, so.

Here it is. And I'm really confused.