Last one!

So I didn’t blog post last night because I completely forgot! Which is incredibly weird because we’ve done in every Sunday for fifteenish weeks! So that was an epic fail haha I wasn’t even doing anything at all last night except for knitting. This is our last blog post, which is kind of sad. I think I already wrote about this but I really enjoyed blogging a lot more than I thought I would. It’s a way to vent about anything I want and it’s nice knowing that someone else/ my entire group is reading it. With this I also got to know three of my other classmates really well and I know that I will continue to bug them for the rest of our four years here!

It’s almost Christmas, which is so exciting! The same as Thanksgiving, it’s weird how much more the holidays mean to me and I’m kind of assuming everyone else, now that we’re away from home. It’s weird to think that now one of the few times I’ll get to see my family during the year, from now through the rest of my life will be during holidays. It’s going to be especially strange when I stop coming home for the summers.

I now like going to school away from home a lot more than I did when I first got here. It’s nice to come home to an entirely new group of friends, now I just have double the friends, which is pretty cool. I still sit and think about how everything would be if I went to school in my hometown with all of my old friends. I sometimes get jealous hearing them all talking and laughing about the same experiences and wish that I too could have a stronger bond with them. Oh well, I think next semester is going to be ten times better because I won’t have that awkward first few weeks. I’ll know what I’m doing school work wise and know what to expect. I’m also going to try to get a lot more involved like I was back home, I think that will help a lot! I can’t believe I have yet to do an hour of community service since I got here, when it was the story of my life last year. That and theater took up more than half my life back home and I’m not participating in either.

I’m going to try to get into theater stuff here, I thought I had too much stuff going on at the beginning of this year to commit but I’ve realized the more stuff I do and the more time I spend doing other things, the more productive I in turn become. I think I might have an 8AM everyday next semester but I’ll be done at 11:30 every day, which in my mind is totally worth it. Right now I have an 8AM MWF and don’t finish with class until 4:00. Granted, I have a three-ish hour break between but, it just makes for a really long day.

I’m nervous for finals, even though I only have three left! Which is fantastic, I was so bitter over thanksgiving break that I would have to study but now I’m finished with three of my classes! Score! I have the project for this class left, and then a calc and chemistry exam. Chemistry blows my mind, how some of this stuff comes easily to people is beyonddddd me. I’m hoping though that at some point next semester we start hitting stuff that’s new to both me and everyone else so I feel more even with the chemistry team here. I hate how some people have already learned this stuff, it makes me feel like I’m worlds behind. I’m completely determined though to pass chemistry with flying colors just to prove some of the snotty, “how did you not know that kids” wrong. I will be done with everything by next Wednesday as 9:45 AM. Haha and there will be nothing else I can do about anything.

I didn’t study or do anything this last weekend. I had four exams and two quizzes last week, so I just chilled the entire weekend. I’m starting to regret that a little bit just because I could have done a little bit of something… especially like this post. I did knit a lot though. I’m knitting my mom a scarf for Christmas, typical. I’m going to attempt to make it look really cool though, so watch out! I don’t know what to do for my brother and my dad though, my parents said we weren’t going to do any presents this year for Christmas because we’re going to the Caribbean. I have no idea why my parents decided that we should go there, we’ve never done anything close to that before, but I’m excited! Except Christmas shopping for my family is one of my favorite things to do especially wrapping them. I live for wrapping Christmas presents. I stay up until three or four in the morning sitting in our basement hidden in a room watching hours of Christmas movies, tangled in ribbon. It’s ridiculous how much joy I get out of those hours of wrapping things.

I love how it snowed here this weekend and I hope we get some snow in Ohio for when I’m home. It makes winter and Christmas so much better. Winter’s my favorite season-in case you wondering. And I’m excited for break, I’m just going to work all the time, or try to work all the time! I’m trying to work four nights a week, because I adore all the people at my job, so I completely don’t mind going. My restaurant job only sucked during the school year because I would leave for school at 730 in the morning and get home from work at 11PM, because it was too long of a drive to go home between work and school/practice that woud end at 3:30 or practice until 5:00. Other than that it’s so much fun to go when you have no school work to worry about.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! Happy holidays and whatever’s appropriate! I’m going to continue demanding group meetings even after this class is over, so get ready! Seee YUH! <3

Hokie Bird Holiday!

I cannot wait for thanksgiving! !! ! I’m sure the same goes to you guys too! I just can’t wait to be home in my house for more than two nights with my family. And I’m so excited to live my old life with high school friends for a week. It’s going to be so comforting and I will be completely ecstatic to see my best friend Cate.

Cate and I have been going to school together since first grade and we became best friends in seventh grade. Everyone else that went to our school lived a good twenty minutes away, but Cate lived across the golf course fairway; a short five minute walk. Therefore we did everything together, we drove to school and sports practices together, watched tv together, and most of all ate lots and lots of ice cream and junk food together. One of us would go to the other’s house every day and now it’s been nearly four months since we’ve seen each other! Our reunion is going to be epic. It will be so nice to be around people that I can completely 100% be myself around, I have friends here I like a lot but, it’s just different.

With regards to my family though I miss them so much more than anything. It’s weird coming home from here though because, I feel like a guest in my own house. I guess I sort of am, it’s weird growing up yeah? It’s weird how much more thanksgiving means to me this year. I’ve never really been that excited for it-only thankful for the break from school. Now the holiday offers a time for me to spend time with my family something that wouldn’t happen if the holiday didn’t exist. I know from now on one of the few times I’ll get to see my family through the school year is Thanksgiving. I’m glad holidays like this exist because they truly do bring people together and I never understood that until this year.

There’s some quotation that says something to the extent of “absence makes the heart go fonder” or something like that and it truly does. I always got along really well with my parents and we’re all really close but toward the end of the year I couldn’t wait to leave them and go to school. Now I just feel like I’m away from two of my best friends, haha I know cheesy but my parents and I did everything together.

I also can’t wait to help my parents cook and bake pies and everything. I loved baking and cooking. I used to make dinner for my parents all the time and I was the head of baking club at school, so I’m excited to all that stuff again. Ah just being in my house! I’m so excited it!

The other thing is my mom and I are trying to plan a big birthday for my Dad. I had the idea when my parents came up for parents weekend. We went to the cascades and my Dad was taking pictures like he always does and somehow I just came up for a birthday idea. So my Dad is obsessed with photography and has been ever since he was little. As a result of this our entire house is filled with his photos, there are boxes of them in our basements, and thousands of them in our computers. So my idea was to create kind of a gallery opening style party for him. I want to find somewhere downtown to have it, I was looking for an empty gallery but so far I haven’t been able to find anywhere. But there are party venues downtown so I might try one of those. Anyway the game plan is to pick out a bunch of my dad’s photos and get them all printed, matted, and clustered and display them in this “gallery”. Then we want to invite a whole bunch of his friends and family to the gallery at night and have a cocktail and appetizer thing going on. So hopefully he’ll enjoy that but, I’ll be planning that over break. It’s going to be awesome planning it too because, that’s my dream job is to event plan and this will be my first stab at it! Hehehehe!

In other news though I think our holidays are going to be a little more mundane than usually because my great uncle just passed away last weekend. My mom just drove he mom up to Buffalo New York today to go to the funeral. She’s not coming back until Tuesday which is also sad because I won’t be able to see her right away when I see her. And then both my Dad’s parents went into the hospital two weeks ago and they’re still there and not doing so well, so my poor Dad is miserable. I’m trying to think of a lot of things to do to try and cheer him up but there isn’t that much I can do because they’ll still be in the hospital. I love my grandparents a lot but I feel much worse for my Dad, which is the saddest part. Hopefully they’ll get better though both of them are always like the little engine that could, they always seem to withstand everything.

Nonetheless I’m sure thanksgiving will be a great holiday as always. Just having my brother, my parents, and I all together always makes everything better. My brother too haha I almost forgot about him. It’s so weird how much better we get along now that I’m in college. He’s a junior in high school this year so he’s younger. I think just because we aren’t around each other all the time we’re not at each other’s throats. The main thing too is that we don’t have to drive to school together and that’s when we both wanted to kill each other. One of us was always late, when he wasn’t running late; I was running late, and vice a versa. We never got to school on time and which lead to detentions for the both of us. Basically the trip to school was tearing us apart haha. I don’t think he misses me that much though but, when we’re together now we can actually have a conversation. I also like taking him home with me, which I think he enjoys because he feels cool hanging out with all my older friends. So that will be fun.

I hope you guys all have or had a great thanksgiving! Get excited for our gmail CHAT! :D

The weekend update

So this weekend I went HOME! I know it makes no sense at all because we’re going home next weekend for thanksgiving. My high school theater department put on Jesus Christ Super Star and theater was practically my entire life for seven years in Ohio. So I came back for it! I also brought three of my friends from here. Austin the new boy toy (in case any of you creep on my relationship status), his best friend and my friend Erik, and my roommate Clara! Why they decided that they wanted to come along for the five and a half hour drive to Columbus Ohio, I don’t know, but they did and it was awesome.

We went to the play on Friday night, and it was okay, I feel like they’re always a lot better. That could just be though because I’m always in them and if you’re in it you probably think all of your hard work makes something brilliant. Then that night we went to OSU campus because, I live twenty minutes away from there. A lot of my friends go to OSU so that was fun and we went to one of my friends houses for a party. The people there are a lot different though, it was weird. I think it’s mostly just because of this kid’s personality, so all of friends were just awkwardly into themselves. What was really weird though was that I saw someone I went to school with in eighth grade and he recognized me. Him and I both had a little middle school crush on each other, then he left my school, and now he goes to OSU.

On Saturday I went to go visit my Grandma and everyone else slept all day, literally. We went to chipotle for lunch at 2:00Pm so I woke them up at 1:30 and then on the way home they fell asleep in my car, and then all crashed in their beds until 6:00PM. It was ridiculous but, then we went out to dinner at the restaurant I work at so it was fun to see everyone I work with. We had pancake breakfast with my parents on this morning and then left around 1:30. Now we just got back at 7:00.
So it was kind of awkward because so last week my relationship status changed on facebook right? (I’m sure you all are going to love reading about this but I don’t know what else to talk about and this is kind of a funny story) So Austin wanted to change our status within like 24 hours of us deciding we were going to date, which I thought was a little fast, but, whateverrr. He and Erik had already decided they wanted to come to Ohio with Clara and I probably four weeks ago before we had even thought about dating and so it wasn’t planned to be a meet-the-parents-trip. So I just wasn’t going to tell my parents because I didn’t want them to freak out. Especially since Austin is the first guy I have ever dated that they haven’t known his parents and him for at least five years, by my senior year twelve, so I thought they would panic. Plus the fact that he lives two floors below me in the same floor I also thought would freak them out, soooo I didn’t tell them.

And then, okay, I didn’t want to change my facebook status because I’m friends with a lot of family members and I thought that somehow it would get to them. Then I went against my better judgment and did it anyway because I decided that someone wouldn’t make the point to call my parents to tell them. Then my Grandpa happened to get sick last week and my Aunt and Uncle decided to come to Ohio to visit him. And thennnn my aunt started texting me asking me “which one Austin was in his profile picture”, she is the biggest facebook freak ever. And then I was like, “ohhh he’s this one, blah blah blah, please don’t tell my parents by the way.” And then I got the “ummmmmmm” text message, followed by the “please don’t hate me” text message. Before I could read these two text messages my phone was ringing and it was her and my mom. They were both really excited and giddy, and probably a little bit drunk, which was funny.

I went on a lunch date though with this other guy like three weeks earlier and my Mom was like “aww I’m so glad that lunch guy worked out.” And then it was like errrrr sorry Mom it’s someone else. That made me feel good about myself, haha. And then yeah, so the family was really excited to meet the new man. I also lied to my Grandma over the school year and told her I had a boyfriend and that it was this one kid that I worked with. This was because she always asks me if there’s anyone I think I could get married to and she’s also under the impression that if a girl doesn’t have a boyfriend there’s something wrong with her—this is all because she’s really old. So yeah to get her off my back I told her I had a boyfriend and then she found out that I brought my boyfriend home, and she thought I had brought home the kid I worked with, I guess because she thought that he went to Virginia Tech too. When I told her that it was someone else, she was like “Margaret! My lord! How many boys do you have?!” Once again, that made me feel good about myself haha.

Yeahh anyway the only thing is Austin slept literally the entire weekend and was only awake after 11:00PM, which is when my parents were asleep. So there impression of them is probably not fantastic, especially since my parents are morally against napping, but I think they might have understood more than I thought they would. Good story. Sorry this post is girly and I say like maybe 50 times. Hope your weekend was grand! <3

Work it Outtttttt biotchessss

By the way this is me doing my blog on Thursday, yep Thursday, look at me go! Moving on ….

Okay so during our first few weeks of English class we talked about discourse communities and the languages that exist between them, right? Yes, that happened. And I had seriously never ever thought about that before, or just in that way. I knew it happened I just never actually considered it concretely or how neat it is. I was seriously shocked when people introduced their own words and I had no idea what they meant, it was like listening to words of a foreign language. Then I felt like an idiot trying to explain what “story basket” was because, it’s one of those things that you never ever think of the real definition of what it means when you use it. Realizing that I always refer to an imaginary basket that people in my hometown pretend to wad up bad stories they’ve told and throw them into the basket is just ridiculous. It’s really cool though to realize how unique all of our little communities are.

Anyway so the other day I noticed an example of this whole discourse community language. One of my best friends I’ve actually only known for eight or so months, but something just instantly clicked between us, and he and I are better friends than some of the people I’ve known for years. But yeah so he left a wall post on my wall. Here you can read it:

"May I say hello to you as well?! hello. i did it. yay and STUFF. i am in such a weird/kinda bad mood. BUT IT'S ALL GOOD IN DA HOOD. caps lock is cruise control for cool. I have never hadthis busy of a week! for shiznets. i am sure you are have a crazy busy one as well :(."

Okay ignore the fact that it doesn't make any sense. ;)

And almost every other one of those words that he said are phrases that I say, which he had never used before I met him (well, I don't know about every other, more like but it's all good in the hood. and for shiznets). He went to a different high school than I did and so the things we said were completely different. And now I find myself saying things that he used to say also, it’s kind of neat, it’s like paying it forward with language. ;) There was something that I was going to go further with this idea but then I added this example and walked away from the computer and now I don’t remember…… I still don’t remember but I’ll go on a separate tangent.

I think it’s really crazy though that our communities are so different. I feel like the media influences a lot of the things we say and do and for the most part we all experience the same media. We can all watch Hannah Montana, can flip on Fox News, watch the Office, laugh at comedy central, and then there’s the Hills, Heroes, A Chance of Love, all of these things are probably familiar, at least through our same age groups. So when just talking about language I don’t know how we all say different things, and who invents all of these different sayings? How does one person in Connecticut begin to say something and then people start to follow it until the entire state starts to say it? Or is that not how it happens?

I distinctively remember when “Nasty” became intertwined into our slang and entered our school, as being a good thing. The first time I heard it I was seriously confused. And I mean completely unaware of what was going on, I felt like it was opposite day. My friend my senior year was like, “Yeah, it was nasty!” and I did not understand. Apparently “nasty” now meant awesome, like gnarly. And I just have no idea how that came to be. It’s not pronounced a different way, it’s not “nastay” or.. I don’t know how else you would say it, but you get the idea right? Do you all say nasty? As a good thing? All the sudden the word just started popping up all over my school. Soon it became “sick nasty” and it was out of control! I would seriously ask people what definition of the word they meant; the new adaptation of it or the old Webster version. How do things like this happen?! Except, what’s probably the most weird is now it’s completely natural and normal when I hear someone say it. I have yet to use it, but I can now clearly tell which version of the word they mean, without thinking twice. Odd.

Do people ever think of new words? Is noob a new word or an old one that has been recovered because, wasn’t n00b added into the dictionary a few years ago or something ridiculous? I think though that it would be sweet if we could just come up with a slew of words to fill in all the gaps of vocabulary. The word that I most want to exist is a word between best friend and friend. I feel like good friend basically implies best friend. I need a whole new word for that because, I have this major problem as referring to almost all of my friends as my best friends and some people call me out on it. Especially when referring to people I went to school with because I’ve been at school with them for twelve years so I’m incredibly close with them on a different level. Except with them, I almost wish I could seriously refer to them as my brothers and sisters. They actually mean that much to me, they’ve been that big a part of my life but that’s a different story. Anyway yeah word between friend and best friend, got to get on that.

In other news I used to be in love with Usher when I was in middle school more like in ninth grade. I have no shame though he’s awesome and romantic and sexy. I read an article about him when I was a freshman and it was an interview with him and he was just classy and collected and he talked nice about women and his mom. My mom even read it and decided he was just one swell man. That’s why I want to marry him, well almost; I would rather just be his best friend. Good Story bye Team! ! ! ! ! ! ! <3>

Everything from biology to picture taking to halloween... :)

I always forget that I have to do this blog until like five thirty in the late afternoon/early evening. This makes no sense because we have one due every week and we’ve had one due every week, for like the past eleven weeks. Eleven weeks seems like such a largeeeee number, but I also feel like it should be longer, I don’t know I can’t decide? I am legitimately counting down the days until Thanksgiving break. I need a break soooo badly, just to not worry about work for a bit, and to recover on some sleep, and to be in an environment that I know everything about so I’m not worried about always missing out on something. I kind of wish we had a long break like during the half way of the semester. I feel like then I would be completely rejuvenated, because I am crashingggg this week especially, or more like this weekend.

I have yet to complete any work. I started a biology lab report, started a chemistry lab report, and have been starring at the biology book on my bookshelf for like five days. I have seventy pages to read and take notes on by tomorrow. And three mind maps to do, and for all of you who have looked at me trying to cram them during English, they suckkk bananas. I’m about to kill myself and/or my professor. ALSO, because okay gettttt this! I’m so mad, my accumulative final exam is the Wednesday we get back from thanksgiving! Like fo realzzzzz, that means I have to hard core study during break, which just makes me so angryyy like why would you be such a jerk, because I’ll also still have all my other classes and such it’s not like it’s during exam week. The plus side though, tonight it my last biology mind map I will ever have to do until the end of my existence and I will never have to see this man again! And after that Wednesday final assessment I will never have to go to class again, so I’ll have like an extra week off of it. The only thing is though I don’t know if it’s worth it because I seriously feel like I’m on the verge of failing that class. I got a 38% on the first test, and 68% on the second… haha which averages out to be a fifty two, except we get fifteen percent for our mind maps and 10% for our attendance, and I’ve only missed one class. Holyyy Molyyyy this is an epiphany! I totally never thought about that! And he drops our lowest test grade! And lets all pray to the planets that I will not get lower than a 38%. So that’s 53+10+15ish (I haven’t gotten a hundred percent on all of them) so that’s PASSING. My goodness I feel like I can breathe.

So I actually really like this blogging thing, haha I kinda want to keep doing it even after the class is over, maybe not 1000 words a week, but it’s nice just to vent and talk about completely random things. And I really like how it kind of made us be friends! AWWWWWW. But yeah no it’s an awesome way to get to know you people. I’m really sad I won’t be able to take the class with you next semester, but it’s during my only mandatory one time offered class. Are any of you guys taking the same class next semester?

Oh yeah! How was Halloween last night everyone? Mine was sort of good? Except I’m kind of getting sick of going to really big parties all the time because it’s just a whole bunch of people that you don’t really talk to you and you’ll never see again probably. I miss like the small parties my group of friends used to have at home. But I was a fairy princess! Hehe like a noob, but it was fun. I’ve been some sort of winged fairy/butterfly thing for the past like six years, no joke! How ridiculous is that haha? I want to know Halloween costume details! Except okay my only problem is I didn’t take any pictures last night and no one took any pictures of me. Which like isn’t a huge issue, but it’s not because I’m craving cute facebook tags, but because I want to be able to look back and remember all this stuff. I think I get too stubborn about people just judging me or anyone for taking pictures for the sole purpose of facebook. I’m totally going to get over the fact that that happens and I’m going to start bringing my camera everywhere! Well not everywhere because that’s probably why people would think I was just looking for facebook pictures, but important things that people usually take pictures of. My new rule is anything that my parents would want pictures of is completely justified. And I feel like last night I just failed because I feel like Halloween is the college equivalent of prom. It’s the one time when like everyone gets all dressed up and takes pictures together, but I was too embarrassed/ afraid of looking like a facebook freak to take them. Haha maybe I only think that because curled my hair and looked incredibly girly. Oh well I’m officially going to get better at recording my life.

I wish I had time to do like a little bit of dairying, which I guess this is sort of like and if I took a lot of pictures, that would sort of be equivalent, but I just like I said earlier want to be able to easily look back at all this stuff. Especially because at home I find some of my old diaries from middle school and they’re so much fun to read! It just brings back all the really fun stuff from back in the dayyy haha. I also find that some of the stuff I thought was hilarious back then still really funny right now. That was a good story! Um but yes I hope you all have a splendid evening! Good luck with your work! See yaaaaa.

HOCKEY is cool

So this weekend my parents were in town for parents weekend, I’m sure like a lot of yours were, WOOO! We had fun I always like seeing them. We went to the Hokie Hockey game in Roanoke because my parents are die-hard hockey fanatics. My Mom, my dad, and my brother all play, and I was always peer-pressured to start. But my Dad’s from Canada and my Mom’s from Maine, so it’s probably completely normal. But the game was so bad, well actually it was great, but we lost in a shoot out after the other team scored a goal with 4 seconds left in the game. The weirdest thing ever though happened!

So we got to the game and we were looking at the program and my parents saw the name Travis Young. And they were like “Oh my gosh, Travis Young, he played on your brothers team!” And sure enough we turned around and there his mom was. My mom plays hockey with his mom and I grew up around this kid my whole life, because it was actually his younger brother that played on my brother’s hockey team for like six years. So he was always around. It’s so weird though, because he used to be this short completely round and roll-able red headed kid covered in freckles and now he’s the starting goalie for the Virginia Tech hockey team as a sophomore. It was really cool I wish that I could go to more of the games, and like I could probably because I have a car, but they are so far away! Roanoke was like a good forty minutes away, which is just a lot of time. I also need to find a group of people that would want to go with me! I have four seats in my car here people, haha you guys can all come/you should.

I love hockey so much and everything that has to do with it. I completely grew up around the sport. My parents always watched it on TV and then my mom and my brother and I would all go watch my Dad play hockey when we were little, almost every Sunday. I am instantly comforted as soon as I enter a hockey arena. When my brother started playing, that’s when my hockey life started. I was little and unable to stay at home and so I went to every practice, twice a week. Then my brother got really good at hockey, which just tripled the amount of time we had to go to the arena. He started playing on the travel team and then after that every single weekend, I kid you not, we had a tournament that could never be closer than two-three hours away. We went to different states; there were tournaments in Michigan all the time because they had the best sport complexes. So my life completely revolved around my brother and his practice times.

And then years after that, after I had finally breached the age that I was allowed to stay home by myself and miss all of his practices, the Columbus Blue Jackets came along; Columbus Ohio’s very own professional NHL hockey team. My dad had been dreaming about this since the day we moved here, when I was like four, since we used to live in Florida, less than twenty minutes away from the Tampa Bay Lightening arena. I was in sixth grade and my Dad had four season tickets; another layer of hockey was added onto my life. The NHL seasons lasts from the end of September to sometime around the middle of March. It is the longest season ever; which is something now I completely appreciate.

The Hokie game was really fun though, because they were obviously better than my brother’s team at home, but they were still a club team, which means they’re a lot more laid back. I like the college level hockey, and usually club more, or just differently than I like NHL hockey. Since they’re so much younger it seems like all they want to do is have fun. Hockey isn’t their job it’s just something they do because they love it. They seem to try a lot harder and their plays aren’t so structured. They dance down the ice with the puck passing it between they’re legs and spinning around players, it’s just a lot cooler to watch.

Sometimes with much larger schools, who have outstanding division I hockey programs, have a really intense coaching team. And yes, they win games, but they always seem so much less creative. I love when coaches just tell their team to go out there and have some fun. When my lacrosse and soccer coaches told me that I was just so much more relaxed and it was basically permission to do whatever I or we wanted to do to get the job done. And it really brings out the better player in you, for some reason everything just clicks better. After watching the Hokie game, it really seemed like that’s what the coaches told them to do—until they lost with four seconds left. I guess that’s when you have to draw the line, but I mostly believed that happened because they lost focus and got lazy, not because they were playing too much with the puck.

I think they should fund a bus to take students to the games and then maybe more people would go. I’m sure though since it’s only a club team, they don’t have the money to do that at all. All the players though, I believe really deserve the fan support, they seemed really good and they worked really hard. Then again, maybe they’ve just gotten over the fact that no one comes to their games. Oh yeah, if I didn’t mention this earlier, no one was at the game. There were maybeeeee two hundred people there, probably more like a hundred. Out of these hundred-ish people probably only like forty of them were students, or looked like they could be students, everyone else was just local Roanoke people and kids, or parents of players and there were fans from the other team too. Anyywyayyayayayayayayayyayayayyaay if you love hockey and want to a game hit me up son! PEACE!

For the Love of Biology

So I think I’m finally getting a hang of college, famous last words, but I feel like by my next exams I’ll be golden, not like A+ golden, but just a lot better than my first two exams were. My first exams for bio and chemistry I didn’t study enough, my second chemistry exam I studied a lot for, but now I know the only other thing I’ll need to do is practice more equations and math chemistry problems. Right now/this weekend I’ve been hard-core studying for biology, my next exam is Wednesday and I need to do a lot better on. Except I realized that I’m now spending all this time trying to understand the chapter, when that is something I should have done a lot sooner, and then I could actually study right now. It’s taken me about two-three hours to understand/summarize the important parts of one chapter, which is RIDICULOUS. But, now I know that next time I should type out my summaries, like I’m doing now, while I read the chapter for that day and seriously my life would be ninety five percent easier right now.

I’m going to blame my unsuccessfulness and need to reread every word of the chapter even though I took notes about terms the first time I read it on my biology professor, haha, just like you’re never supposed to blame someone else. But I just despise him. I’m counting down the days until winter break just so I know I don’t have to go back to his class again.

I know this whole life isn’t fair thing that everyone talks about, but I hate how much work I have in that class compared to my roommate, who is taking the same class with a different professor. Sometimes I just wish that all the homework and the exams across each course were standardized. They are in my math class and I feel like that just makes sense. My first biology test raped me, it was the hardest test I’ve ever taken, granted it was my second test in college and now I’m at a whole other level, but my roommate said hers was so easy. Hers was simple spitting out definitions and mine was about applying information, something I’ve been notoriously horrible at. And once your grades are published your grade isn’t curved according to how hard you professors are, or a grad school doesn’t look at it and say “oh, she got a C in biology, but oh it was with Buikema, he’s the hardest so we understand.”

Oh well I guess I only have six more weeks left with him and then the final exam, and like I said I’m getting used to his work load, and now I know how I need to prepare for tests earlier. Or I hope I now know how to prepare for tests earlier, me spending three hours per chapter could still be the wrong way to study and I still could just have no idea how to apply my newly acquired knowledge and then I would scream, literally.

Our student TA was talking to us on Friday during our little review session at Deets, that he’s one of the hardest teachers we’ll have, and he does it to weed out the other biology majors. I don’t understand though because, I’m NOT A BIOLOGY MAJOR here buddy, I’m just taking the class, so I would prefer to not be weeded out thank you. She also said that whatever biology class we take next year will be a piece of cake, but once again I’m not going to take biology next year and I think I’d much rather have my work load at a steady pace.

I was trying to figure out my schedule for next semester and I went to ratemyprofessor.com and searched every biology professor I could have. I picked the one with the best reviews after reading a good number of them and then planned my entire schedule around that one biology class. Whether this is a good idea or a bad idea I guess I won’t know yet, but all I know is that I was sick of dedicating so much of my life to it because, it wasn’t only the homework that was ridiculous, I went to class and learned absolutely nothing at all. He talks to fast for you to write anything down, he would add extra information to the slides that you would also try to speed write down, and then at the end of class he would just ask us some questions that were application questions, but wouldn’t show up on the test or help my brain apply it anywhere else.

I’m going to take Simmons next semester; I almost jumped for joy when my advisor told me that I didn’t have to have the same professor for the same class. People commented on how he was one of the best teachers they’d ever had, I guess all I have to do now is hope that I actually get into the class.

For the rest of my classes it took me a really long time to decide where I’m going to put things. There were just way too many decisions to make and variables to account for. I also need to pick a class that goes to the core curriculum to get some of those things knocked out of the way. I’ll have 18 credit hours after I do that, but I’m hoping that just a lecture class on psychology or something won’t be that hard. I could just be being completely naive though but really, my brain would gladly accept listening to something that wasn’t about chemicals or cellular respiration or calculus. Last Thursday I went to a seminar on public speaking just for the heck of it and even though it wasn’t that enlightening, it was the basic don’t mess with you hair or put your hands in your pockets, it was really nice to listen to something simple.

How are you schedules looking for next semester easier or harder? Or better or worse? Or more fun or less fun?

A crazyyyyy commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhA-TGkS64g&feature=player_embedded#

So I’ve never actually seen this ad before, but I was searching through for cool ads and I found this one. Now I thought this one was actually really clever and funny, but I don’t know if it was good at advertizing the product.

For one they actually pulled off the commercial. They pushed it so hard and made so much crap and bad things happen that it worked. And up until the end I had no idea why these things were happening. I thought that it was just because the couple had lots of bad luck. And I did sort of chuckle to myself midway through the commercial.

First they both wake up and you think they’re a happy couple. Then the look on their face makes you think that something might be up. The hair dryer in the shower seems like a complete accident. Except instead of dying or anything the girl is still alive, which lets us know that the commercial is supposed to be a joke. When the window falls down on his neck that also seems like it could be an accident. This could let the audience interpret the idea that the car is bad luck and is just causing all these bad things to happen. Then the bowling ball falls off the top shelf and lands on the woman’s head, which just makes me cringe. And she should also basically be dead, just to be a party pooper. Then the guy gets his hair blow torched. The fact that he dunked his head in the fish bowl is pretty funny though. When the guy trips down the stairs you think he might lose the race, then they start fighting. The man slyly tricks the girl and makes her think that he doesn’t have the keys but he really does. I don’t really understand what is happening in the microwave though. Like what was being blown up? In any case the wife gets blown up! Which is just like what the heck!? Then of course she ends up on the top of the car, OBVIOUSLY. And then he drives to work with her on the roof of the car.

I feel like this commercial appeals to a very specific type of couple or person. The more times I watched it the more and more I started hating it and the less appealing it became. I feel like this would just make you not want to buy the car at all. It just puts this nasty awful violent image in your mind anytime you think of the car. But actually come to think of it, I can’t even remember what type of car it was for, the violence was so distracting. That could be a good or a bad thing for the car company though.

But I don’t know why anyone would want to have a car that would make them want to torture they’re significant other. It doesn’t emote a calming feeling that convinces the audience that peace and happiness will come out of them purchasing this car. It actually advertizes the opposite. This commercial basically advertizes that once you have a car hell will come about your life.

I feel like car companies usually want to make you feel like if you had this car you would be classy, successful, and happy. For example Cadillac uses the actress from Desperate Housewives in its commercials which is just like “Oh hey , this actress has this car, and she loves it. She’s so successful and she still chooses a Cadillac, a car that you can buy. If you buy this car you can have the profile and mystery as a celebrity, type thing.” Or they always talk about “does your car turn you on? “ But I actually really like those commercials actually. Here I will include one and you can compare. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkEw1rsBUak) But for this other commercial it’s like here buy a car that will mark you as a crazy person. Crazy, psycho people apparently really really like this car. A LOT.

The Cadillac commercial actually talks about and shows features of the car, the other commercial does not. All we know is that the car can move and can we silver and can fit in a driveway. The Cadillac talks about all it’s luxury items and gives people a reason they would want this car over any other car. The other commercial is just like “hey this is a car, buy it because we made a commercial about it.”

But……. On the other hand, the commercial promotes that this car is worth all the hell you had to experience to drive it. I think that was obviously the point behind the design, script, and idea for the commercial. And it does kind of spread the idea that once you enter this car you will forget the madness of your surroundings. I still think though it’s beyond a little extreme.

Maybe if at the end of the commercial there was a happy ending or it was like “psyche! We drive to work together because we both love it so much,” then it would be better. Or if there was some hint in the commercial about how much happier and better their lives were after they bought this car, instead of this car ruined our marriage, the advertisement would be better.

The other thing too is there was no other car. So the idea could just be that they were racing to the car in general. Maybe they didn’t have another car and so if she didn’t get to the car she had to walk. And any car could be better than walking…..

This idea is kind of similar to the commercial I don’t know if you guys remember it, but it was for a shower head I think. And it was like the husband and the wife were racing home, and like taking their clothes off on the way back to their house, so they could get into the shower first. And like that makes a little more sense, because it’s a little more playful, and there is a calming reward for getting in the shower first. I don’t know, it’s a weird commercial!

Major problems (but like literally my major).

So I can’t wait to go back home this weekend, I am so excited it’s ridiculous! Like honestly, ridiculous. I called my friend last night and was giddy! Except I wish I was going to stay there longer. I’ll get there on Thursday night around midnight, then have all day Friday, all day Saturday, and then I’ll drive home around noon on Sunday. And honestly, I miss my old life, and two days at home won’t really be enough time to get back into it, which I guess just means I can get even more excited for Thanksgiving break.

For some reason this has been a bad missing home week. The first two or three weeks were awful, and then I was fine, but now it’s coming back. Last night I listened to my favorite song from last year, one that I played every night on my way home from work, Bold as Love, by Jimi Hendrix, and started crying! How pathetic is that?!

I think I might cry the first time I see my parents, when I come in the driveway and walk in the door of my house. Or drive home down Riverside Drive, my favorite road in the entire world; one that I spent driving eleven miles down twice a day, and sometimes more, on my way to school. When I see my cats or pull up to see my neighbors waving next door, I’m going to be a mess, because I miss them so much. I’ll want to cry when I see my two best friends, but I won’t let them see that or know at all.

I miss all the weird things, like my job, which was from 5:30PM to 11:00PM on school nights, of clearing and cleaning food off peoples’ tables. That was something I used to hate going to. Or the other day I thought about the bathrooms at my high school, and how they were like my second bathroom, I had been in the same ones for six years. I changed there for work, put on makeup there before school, changed there after school, escaped from my classes, washed my face, sometimes brushed my teeth, I’d even straightened my hair in there. I miss the long, twenty-five minute, drive to all my friends and my school. I miss the “Five points” intersection (which I’ve driven through red lights there numerous times, because there are too many lights to know which one’s yours). I miss staying out with my friends until two o’clock in the morning and then getting a angry calls from my parents. That’s weird because I have the complete ability to stay out until four and no one would know or care.

I’ve thought about transferring a lot, a lot, a lot. The only reason I came out here was because I was too stubborn to go to an in-state school. Between my own mentality and my little private school, who preached us on going out into the real world and throwing ourselves out of our comfort zone, I randomly ended up here. My parents wanted me to apply to OSU, which is about a thirty/forty minute drive from my house, but about a ten minute one from my high school. I didn’t like the campus at all, it’s spread randomly throughout the city, it’s sketchy, and it’s huge, but I think my parents thought I didn’t want to go there only because I wanted to get away from them. Now I would almost go back there in a heartbeat.

Then there was Miami of Ohio, my parents’ top choice, but it was a small preppy school filled with boys in plaid shorts and pink polos. I hated it, more like despised it, and refused to go, and I thought it was too much like my high school. My two best friends from my sophomore year go there, and I was convinced that I needed to be completely removed from everything that had to do with home, also. So I argued and finally got out of it, but now if I could just pack up my stuff and walk into their classes I would. Plus one of my really great friends went to school there, and he’s not the preppy type of person at all, and he loves it. And actually loves it, not just the “love” that I or we (I’m assuming one you has said it) tell the random people that ask us about college on our facebook walls.

I’m too embarrassed to tell my parents, or anyone I want to transfer. Especially at my old high school, we’re a family and everyone would know. There would be rumors and everything about how “Oh my gosh, Maggie couldn’t be away from her family, Maggie couldn’t stand being at a big public school, Maggie couldn’t make friends,” and I’m not exaggerating. Transferring back home, is like coming back pregnant practically, it’s like you failed in the “real world.”

I just haven’t found a group of people, or really any one person, that I’m really compatible with. No one here is a lot like my friends back home or finds the same things funny that I do or has the same sort of style or just isn’t always freaking out about school all the time. Haha, the other thing to is I feel like every single person here is at least as smart, and most definitely smarter than me, and it drives me nuts! I’m all for ignoring others, but sometimes the comments people make about how many credit hours I’m taking, or “seriously? You find this stuff hard? I didn’t even study,” is making me crazy, because it happens consistently. Which is starting to tear me down a little bit.

There are two people down here who I’ve actually become close with, and I like being around a lot. One of them, though, is from my hometown. We didn’t know each other before I got here, but it’s weird to think that I traveled all the way down here to find someone who lived ten minutes away from me my whole life. And the other person is my roommate, and I adore her! We’ve become so close and we’re a lot a like, and we laugh at the same stuff, but we can’t find anyone else we like or seems to like us. It’s really just her and I. Plus, the real downer is that she’s transferring to Penn State next semester. Well, she isn’t sure yet, completely, but she said she is ninety percent sure. She’s been accepted and she’s extensively talked to her parents about it. It might be that she’s transferring that I want to leave. Plus, since we agree so much, there’s no one telling us not to do and why.

So I can’t decide at all, obviously. I want to make a stand that I’m fine out here, but I’m really not. I feel like I don’t have a lot of time to do anything, my two best friends joined club lacrosse, and I could not even imagine having the time to do that, so I’m jealous. I think changing my major will help, but I haven’t even brought that up to my parents and I’m kind of ashamed. My dad always talks about how proud he is that I’m a chemistry major, and how smart and determined that makes me. It makes me feel like any other major (besides engineering) is easier and for unintelligent people.

I originally thought I wanted to go to medical school, to save people, because I loveeeee people. I love helping them, talking to them, being their friend, making them feel special, and keeping them healthy, but I think I need to find another way to do it. All this chemistry and biology stuff is depressing and not me. I always took art and English classes, and when I could pick my science classes I chose fun ones like weather and forensics, so I DON’T KNOW. I can’t decide if I should change my major (or is that chickening out and giving up?) and wait it out here another year, or if I should start filling out transfer applications, which will be due in December. I’m really just looking for people I can have lots of fun with, and maybe I’m just most compatible with the people in my hometown.

The Clouds on a Sunny Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2h0KOQLsW4 (Watch this! it's the song I talk about in the beginning, or don't watch it just, listen! I couldn't figure out how to get the video link thing to work on the blog, sorry!)

So I’m currently listening to the acoustic version of the song The Ocean by Sunny Day Real Estate, a band I had never heard of, nor have I yet to find anyone else who’s heard of it, since my friend told me he was going to their concert. Now this is particularly relevant, or should be, because I ‘m about to go meet him at this concert on Wednesday night, all the way in DC. This is really fascinating to me, because I have no idea why I’m going. Basically right now it’s because I want to do something that really makes absolutely no sense. These are the reasons that I should not go to this concert (and the very few reasons why I should go):

Con #1: Map quest says the journey will take four hours and forty-five minutes. My chemistry professor just went to some big science conference this weekend in Washington and she said it took her eight hours to get there because of all the traffic. I’m hoping she was deeper into the city than I am going and that was her main problem. I’m going to the 9:30 Club, a venue that holds a maximum capacity of 1200 people, just in case you were wondering. And this venue is supposed to be on the western side of the city, which hopefully means I won’t have to go through the city. In any case the concert starts at 7:00PM or at least that’s when the doors open, and if it takes five hours to get there, then I would have to leave at 2:00PM on Wednesday.

Con #2: I want to see my friends. And if I’m driving all the way out here for one concert of a band that I just started listening to yesterday, I should probably give myself sometime to see them. But I have yet to know when they are supposed to arrive in the city. It’s supposed to take them seven hours to get there from Columbus, Ohio. If they say they’re going to get there at five, then I will want to be there at five, which is, I know, dumb of me. This would consequently mean that I would be skipping both my English (this class) and my Biology class for that day.

Sub-con, 2a: I will miss an English in class writing assignment, thus losing points, and I would be ditching a class, well for this now known reason, which I kind of think is rude, especially since our class is so small.

Sub-con, 2b: I will miss biology, now nothing that I heard in seminar helped me on the test that I just took, but because of that it’s currently the class that I’m struggling most in. Especially since I naively believed that if I did the homework, read the chapter, and looked through lecture notes, I’d be set for the test, WRONG, by the way. Also in this class our professor, Professor Bikimeh (this is not the correct spelling), issues random attendance quizzes (because our class has around three hundred kids in it, so daily attendance would be a disaster), which can count up to ten percent of my grade, and I need that ten percent to be as high as it freakn’ can.

Con #3: The last time I talked to them they wanted to turn around and drive home immediately after the concert was over, because Ian, one of my friends, has classes on Thursday morning at 9:00AM. Now it’s one thing for them to turn around and drive back, because they have each other, there’s two of them, but I other hand will be driving solo. Which is completely starting to scare me, and might scare me out of doing it. I’m completely used to driving long distances, last month I drove the seven hours home from our Canadian family reunion, but I had my parents in the car the entire time, and it was all during the day. Wednesday night the concert will probably be over at 12:00AM or 1:00AM, and so I would be driving home until 5:30AMish or probably later.

Sub con, 3a: THIS IS PROBABLY REALLY DANGEROUS.

Pro #1: I don’t have class until 6:00PM on Thursday, and it’s my chemistry recitation.

Con #4: Wednesday night is the time of my chemistry class homework help session, which I have religiously gone to since the beginning of time, i.e. five weeks ago.

Pro #2: There is tutoring/homework help in the CLC (Chemistry Learning Center) from 12:00PM to 4:00PM everyday. So if and when I don’t understand a homework problem I can go to someone there.

Con #5: They go over every homework problem, practically step by step, in homework help session.

Pro #3: Maybe for the first time I will actually have to try and learn how to do the homework by myself, instead of just waiting for the help session and using my notes to walk myself through it.

Con #6: I will not my parents of my excursion. For obvious reasons they would do anything but approve of this plan. If it was the weekend and I was going to stay the night somewhere and come back, they wouldn’t care, but the whole driving home on the same night, on a school night, would totally not go over well. If for some reason something happens to me, I don’t want to look like an idiot, because this is clearly an idiot trip. And my parents would be incredibly angry and disappointed that I decided this was an okay idea.

Pro (more like advantage) #4: My car is my best friend and the best car in the entire world. It’s a manual, diesel, Volkswagen, Jetta, in cherry red. It’s my baby fire engine of a car, the engine sounds like a man (or a semi), because of its diesel engine, but it looks like a little bubble of big red. His name is Jerry, yep, Jerry the Jetta, and I love to drive him. He also just got 41 miles to the gallon on this past tank of gas; I just filled up this afternoon and calculated it. Which is out of this world. And also incredibly efficient for the 273 mile trip (each way) I have ahead of me, which is about six gallons of gas/diesel, which is currently priced at $2.50, an entire tank costing $28.00-the fourteen gallons would be able to get me there and back. So moral of this story, I wouldn’t be burning a ton of cash/gas.

Con #6: As previously mentioned, I don’t know the band! Except the more I’ve listened to them, I’m on about song four right now on a playlist I found on YouTube, the more I’m starting to really like them. My two friends on the other hand are obsessed! Hence them driving seven hours for one night to go see them. And everyone else ho goes this concert is probably equally as in love with them. This is the reunion tour, the bands been broken up for about four years,and they’re finally back together, so anyone who instantly got tickets has been stalking their existence. So I could feel a little, or a lot, out of place when I know maybe two songs, which I had to shove into my brain.

Pro #5 (the conclusion): I really like music and I love my two friends. They were my two favorite people back home. And I think once I’ve done it, it will be a cool, funny thing to look back on and say I did. Once my Dad drove from Nevada to North Carolina in like some crazy short amount of time (I completely don’t remember) and got three speeding tickets on the way. I want to be able to tell my family or just be able to remember crazy little things like this that no one in their right mind, or I in my right mind, would do. I want to do something spontaneous, just for the heck of it. Who knows I might have some life epiphany sometime during the ten or more hours I’ll be in the car alone. Plus I love music, and I’m seriously considering changing my major, so I can do some kind of something with music, whether it’s journalism or management, I haven’t quite thought it through yet. And this experience might open me up to whether I think this is a good career option, and something I’m completely passionate about.

So if I’m not in class on Wednesday, I completely and sincerely apologize, because I have no valid excuse, but I really want to go, against my better judgment. If someone seriously thinks I shouldn’t go, haha, please try to persuade me not to! You can be my “neo-parents”! <3

Growing up in a private school bubble…

This weekend I was “sexiled”. This isn’t a word that I can take credit for creating, but I heard it and it’s perfect. My roommate’s boyfriend came in town. And trust me I wanted to be out of our dorm this weekend as much as she wanted me gone. There was no way I was going to be the eternal third wheel from Thursday to Sunday. So I left. Orginally I wanted to just drive home, but my parents, of all people, dissuaded me. I guess they didn’t want me home that badly after all… Well according to them they were nervous about the five and a half hour trek through the mountains I would have to make in my car, by myself. So I couldn’t make the journey all the way back to Columbus, Ohio.

I ended up seeking shelter at my classmate’s dorm at Elon University, near Greensboro, North Carolina. Amanda and I had been friends from before high school and the drive was only about three hours, so it was the perfect escape. I wish it would have been a little bit closer, but she was my closest victim. It was really nice to see a familiar face for the first time in a month. Not one person I’ve ever met goes to Virginia Tech, so I’d been floating around. I’ve met a lot of cool people and I totally have a group of friends that I love to hang out with, but I miss being around people that I can share connections with. It’s kind of sad when I can’t turn to someone and be like, “Oh my gosh! This is the Virginia Tech version of Mr. Rabe,” which any of my classmates would have understood last year.

The question I’ve gotten asked most, once people know a little bit about me is if I enjoyed going to a small private school. If and when I was asked this question in eighth and ninth grade I would have rolled my eyes and groaned about how much I hated it, but now I realize how special it was. I started going to school at Wellington when I was in first grade, and stayed in the same building, with the same fifty-ish kids. There were only 800 kids in my school age PreK through 12^th. Some of my classmates left to go play football (a sport Wellington didn’t have) or any other sport that they were good at. Other students were added, usually because they had just moved to Columbus, or their parents thought Wellington could correct some attitude problems.

There are three other private schools in the Columbus area that weren’t religiously affiliated. There was an all girls school, CSG, an all guys school, Saint Charles, and the school that bred military school equivalent students, Columbus Academy. Wellington was the sloppy, happy, small version of all of these schools. It lacked funding, old money, and a good administration, but some how it molded great people. All the private schools were in competition to see who was smarter, and we would probably lose if we were tested analytically. Our ACT/SAT score averages looked like the other private schools’ PSAT scores.

We weren’t stupid or unintelligent we were just taught and tested on material in a very literary way. We always wrote papers, we nearly never took tests, and if we did take tests they were short answer. So this whole idea about not getting partial credit and there being only one right answer is startling for me. The introduction to scan-trons was a little intimidating, to say the least. But, instead of acing the SAT, something that most Wellington students seem to struggle with, we can carry on a conversation with any stranger we met. Definitions are scarier than length requirements. If it’s one thing that I learned which I can put to use here, it’s my ability to type like there’s no tomorrow. We were required to write a one-hundred twenty page novel, in my AP English class, last year, as an on-going background assignment, with other papers, projects, and books layered on top of it.

Most of us participated in community service like it was our job. We enjoyed helping out anyone with anything we could. Since we were in the same building as preschoolers, with their parents, our manners and awareness of the people around us, is out of control. We tried to get involved in as many things as we could, especially since we were able to (there were no try-outs for sports teams and tons of roles to fill in the school plays). And we could gain the respect and trust of any adult, sometimes like we were their own age. I was good friends, (and now Facebook friends) with a lot of my teachers. My eighth grade Spanish teacher text each other weekly. The school was great at creating strong bonds amongst us.

Wellington’s favorite thing to say was “we our a family and a community.” When I was little I didn’t believe or understand this, I just laughed at the idea condescendingly with the rest of my middle school peers to be cool, but now I seriously agree. The other day one of my classmates needed a place to stay at Virginia Tech, texted me at 4:30PM asking if he could spend the night, and by 9:00PM he was in my dorm with a pillow. We weren’t even close friends back at home, but we have a sibling relationship, without the bickering. If I ever needed anything at anytime in my life I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable asking someone who went to Wellington, no matter if we liked each other or not. There’s a mutual understanding and respect that we all share for each other.

The other thing it demanded of us, even if we weren’t aware of it, was to respect any type of person. We were around nerdy people, flirty people, gamers, chess club freaks, book worms, athletes, artists, and anime lovers. There were so few of us in our grade we had to be friends with all of them. We couldn’t just decide that we didn’t like any one type of person, because it would instantly cut out five people we could hang out with. Our options were limited. Because of this though we learned to appreciate any and every type of person. We now give everyone a chance, because we know from experience that we were friends with people that on paper we shouldn’t have been.

There are a few disadvantages I have found so far, now that I’m out of the “bubble”, as we liked to call it. One of them is the whole analytical testing problem, which I mentioned earlier. Another one is typically being completely judged as a rich snob or a preppy nerd, anytime you mention to people you went to private school. And for some reason Wellington was really bad at teaching handwriting and spelling, which are now both common skills I am inept in. Overall though it hasn’t hindered me as much as I thought it would. I was completely convinced that I would go into anaphylactic shock as soon as I was placed in a class size that was more than five times the size of my entire school. I was also under the impression that I would not be able to make friends with people that I didn’t grow up with or be able to trust anyone.

So far, I’ve kind of loved the total anonymity I had on campus the first few weeks here. I could do absolutely anything I wanted and I could completely start over, with no prior strings to my old life. That had the potential to be really awesome, if I wasn’t too lazy to create a new identity. Since being here I’ve just been searching for people who share characteristics of me and my friends back home. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or not…. I don’t know if I should take advantage of this opportunity to look for a different type of person in case I could get a long with them, or if I should stay true to my old identity.

I loved going to school at a small private school, even though it has to be clarified that it wasn’t a learning boot camp. We were inspired so much that we legitimately loved to learn and now have relationships that will completely last my entire life. I learned how to live my academic life a different way then is typically taught, and if that means I have to work a little harder now to get adapted to the “real educational world”, I’m completely okay with that. I adore the school bubble I was brought up in!

Here! send your kids to Wellington! move to Columbus, Ohio! look at the sweet website:

http://www.wellington.org/web/default.aspx

The Power of a Written Letter

~~~~From my own experience!!!~~~~

When I was scanning the news for some inspiration about something to blog about I noticed an article about a prison guard who had been smuggling letters out of jail for some of the inmates. And this reminded me about how much I love to write letters and send them to people via the US Postal Service, instead of email. This has jogged my memory about the letters I’ve written, my older English assignments, and the effects they have on people. And so here I go on the issue of talking with hard copies of words instead of just being another piece in someone’s inbox.

When David Myers, my best friend moved to Colorado my junior year of high school for rehab, I began writing him letters. He was only allowed to have one fifteen-minute phone call home every other week, which usually went to his parents-it was like we were going cold turkey. I used to talk to him for hours everyday and in an entire year I spoke to him for no more than forty-five minutes. I had to figure out someway to talk to him, so I wrote him letters.

At first the letters were more selfishly driven and not originally for him. They began as an online diary, where I mostly reported significant events that happened that week. I imagined that I was venting to him in an effort to make me feel like he was still here, like talking to an imaginary friend. But the more I wrote, the more personalized they were for David, and soon they became long letters. I explained events that related some how to us, whether it was something we used to think with funny that was still occurring here or something that reminded me of him. Once I had written about fifteen letters, one or two every month, he had come back to visit. I put each in its very own envelope, addressed them simply, and placed them all in a nice portfolio. I included in the portfolio an essay I had written about him last year for my English class and another essay from a different class that he had wanted to read. The day he was leaving to go back to Colorado I presented them to him. I never heard from him until it was my turn to receive the fifteen minute phone call, which he explained how thoughtful they were. I gushed about how poorly they were written and usually were just rants about myself, but he insisted that they were one of the best presents he has ever gotten. They were a record of all the instances and reasons I missed him, which reflected how important he was to me.

These were the first letters I had ever given someone, besides simple thank you cards, birthday wishes, or letters to Santa Claus. But then last year in my AP English class we were given the Gift to the World assignment. My crazy, ostentatious, English teacher had gotten the idea off of Oprah, and now insisted that we all participate, threatening us all with a pass/fail grade. The idea is that for a Christmas present you wrote a simple letter to the people who don’t know how much you appreciate them and explain to them why they are a “gift to the world”. Oprah (and therefore my English teacher as well) swore that they would cherish it more than the most expensive gift you could buy them.

I was not at all touched by the assignment. I was angry that we were forced to admit our feelings to someone and that they would be passed around for peer reviews. Plus there was no way I could get out of it. We were supposed to bring our three different letters, addressed and stamped, to class where he collected them to send out in our school mail. Except I did find a way to get out of it, I wrote three crappy letters, that had no real emotions expressed, passed them around the class for peer review, and addressed them all to a different member of my family. I then captured all the letters before my family could read them and find out I had cheated the system.

Then my conscience over ruled my timid feelings. I felt guilty that all my classmates’ significant members would know how special they were during Christmas, so I manned up and sent one to a new friend that always knew how to make me smile in school, like no one else had been able to since David left. I sent another one to my eighth grade Spanish teacher who had become my very good friend, as I grew older. And then lastly I sent one to David.

Mrs. Noviski sent me a text message, late the night she received it, saying she was almost crying while smiling, at the simple one page letter. Jack Ludlum, my friend who made me laugh, reacted similarly leaving me a voicemail saying that it was literally and sincerely the nicest thing anyone had ever given him. He also added that his mom had found it on the kitchen counter and gotten tears as she read it, she never understood what her son was like at school, and that he could affect someone so much-she was so proud of him. And the one I gave to David was a little lighter because he was used to the notes I had given him, but he was honored once again that out of all the people I could have chosen to write my third letter to I chose him.

I had no idea that I would get such emotional and nice reactions to these simple letters, but now I know how much people appreciate you taking time to recognize them. They also love hearing about what they’ve done specifically that makes you happy or specific memories that they wouldn’t have remembered else wise. When you take the time to sit down and record your feelings for someone on a sheet of paper they can always refer back to it. Even though verbally telling someone how much you care for them is incredibly special, the words you used get washed away. Also, letters can’t accidentally get deleted from an inbox on an email or be erased from your text messages. Since letters are now becoming a lost art people appreciate them so much more. So I guess Oprah was right!

I highly recommend at least writing one letter to a significant person in your life. As my English teacher said it can be anyone from a role model to the lady who makes your Starbucks every morning. It doesn’t have to be long and complicated, just simply delivering your feelings reminds people why they do the nice things they do, and allows them to know that someone is noticing. It’s a reward for being an excellent person, which all excellent people deserve. J

Why aren't we allowed to have food fights?

There has always been that one epic episode in every Disney or Nickelodeon series we watched when we were young that depicts a food fight. When I watched those specific episodes I remember literally being jealous of the actors, because they actually got to participate in the combat, even if they were supposed to be acting. Since then I have always wanted to be a player in one of these horribly messy battles. This didn’t end when I was young either, even last year, during my senior year, I daydreamed about how awesome it would be to have a food fight in our cafeteria on our last day of school.

Spaghetti would be the ideal meal, kind of like that book, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” The noodles would have elasticity and could be flung completely satisfyingly. The red sauce would stain and stick, making it look like a war zone reenactment. There would be yelling, screaming, laughing, and surprise. There wouldn’t be anything like chicken wings that would be disgusting and potentially painful. There would be soggy garlic toast, grapes used as squishy bullets, and milk cartons that would create blowholes of white water when they landed. The little buds that compose broccoli heads would make everyone green and speckled. And finally the pudding for desert would have incredible slinging capacity and velocity, and would land with a “slop”. It would be a perfectly balanced meal.

It would be completely spontaneous, there would be no permission slip needed, no thesis paper submitted to describe the emotional necessity. We would clean it up, or at least I would, it would be completely worth it. Just to have ten minutes where our childish habits could be completely freed without time to consider our actions, for once in our lives we would just do something for the kicks.

But people are too afraid to get messy and our teachers are too afraid of letting us get messy. The faculty, and some of the “mature” students would also take our perishable mess as a personal attack to both them and the school. We would get spoken to about how we represent the school and our community and this was against the posted morals. They would get disgusted and deeply offended, like we called their religion dumb or their lifestyle unmotivated. They would try to look at us in disgrace, but what they forget is that they, and the world around us, are human. We only have one life to live, so why not have a food fight? Who cares if we make a little mess that requires some Clorox, rags, and water? We’ll never have an opportunity to have one after we’re gone.

My dream would be that people who read this go out and do things which are against the “law”; whether it’s family law, school law, friend code, diet plan, or reading list. I understand if you’re afraid of heights and don’t want to sky dive, because I don’t either, or if you’re too ticklish to get a back massage. I’m not necessarily talking about utilizing the world and everything it has to offer, but I think you should do things you instinctively want to do. Even if you can’t find a reason you should do it, don’t try to debate whether it’s appropriate. In exchange, the outsiders who don’t believe in spontaneous joy, should not judge others who jump into a pool with their clothes on.

There are several things in our generation that are judged because they break social laws. You no longer should touch anything unhealthy at all; you shouldn’t eat ice cream for dinner because it’s not a balanced meal. You shouldn’t drink diet coke after you work out (I don’t even know why, people always just tell me that). Basically you should never ever be unproductive or even worse counterproductive. You should never sleep in until noon, or spend the whole day on the couch. It seems like now everything you want has to be justified; that’s why we fake sick. You would lose lots of respect from your boss or you coworkers, just because you wanted to stay home one day instead of bettering the company. Even if some people knew in the back of their heads that you weren’t coming to work because you didn’t want to come, it makes everyone feel better if you say you’re sick.

The reason that I chose to blog about this idea of pointless fun was because of this picture I came across this morning while looking at “The News in Pictures” at Yahoo.com. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and I highly recommend randomly going to it when you’re bored. It’s the picture book version of the news and then some. They always have pictures of the wacky fun things going on in the world, that don’t even make a sentence in the news broadcasts, because they aren’t important enough apparently. But, I believe this news event is plenty important enough. I wish there would have been videos of this all over CNN and Fox News just to show people that it’s okay to have fun sometimes.

It’s the world’s largest tomato fight! It’s been happening annually for 64 years in Bunyol Spain. People are not really sure exactly how this enormous red fight began, but the story says that when two rich men were going through the poor city on horses, some young boys pick up tomatoes off a stand and chucked them at the men. Apparently the boys came back on the same day a year later, the third Sunday in August, and started another tomato fight with their own basket of tomatoes. Now more than 20,000 people participate every year and they travel from afar to participate.

For La Tomatina the city ships in truck loads of the weapon; there are over 150,000 tomatoes, which is about 90,000 pounds! The tomatoes are specifically grown for the festival, they have no good taste, nor is there a lot of money spent on their supplies. The local stores and residence board up their homes and the fight is nationally televised throughout Spain. There is a week long festival that proceeds the fight, to bring the town together. The fun can officially start once an attendee can make it up a greased pole to retrieve the ham, which is tied to the top. Once the ham hits the ground, the festivities begin. The fight actually begins after the crowd is drenched with water from water cannons and then ends after sixty minutes, which is marked by more showering from the water cannons.

The rules are: You can’t rip opponents’ clothing, you can’t bring in bottles or cups which could easily injure others, and you should crush tomatoes in your hands first before throwing them so they aren’t painful. After the fight is over fire trucks sweep the town and direct all the water into the old aqueducts, and viola! The city is clean! When asked why they kept celebrating the holiday Spain replied, “There is no political or religious significance to La Tomatina, it's just good, messy fun.”

Resources:

*http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/spanish-festivals/la-tomatina-tomato-battle-bunyol.htm

*http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Spain-hosts-64th-annual-Tomatina-festival/ss/events/lf/082609tomatina/im:/090826/ids_photos_wl/r2341503942.jpg/#photoViewer=/090826/ids_photos_wl/r1536500472.jpg

*http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/fiestas/tomatina.asp