Oh hey, remember that trip I went on that I said I would blog about at some point? Well here I go. Finally. It's going to be short, but it's at least something!
I felt so grown up going through the airport alone and without my parents right by my side. It even helped that I didn’t even need help finding my terminals or anything. I mean, at 18 you’d think I’d be able to read signs that told you where to go. I probably shouldn’t have felt so proud of myself for that, but I really was proud.
I always get really sentimental on plane rides. Maybe it’s that little sense of freedom I get to feel knowing I’m leaving home, or maybe it’s the fact I’m flying, but I always realize on planes that there is so much more out there in the world that I haven’t been able to see yet. I really want to see it all. I want to be able to travel and see the world. This trip, as I looked down on the passing towns, I wanted more than anything to take a road trip of the Midwest. Just to travel and not be sure where I was going, but be going, would be a dream come true. Because, I’ll admit it, and it won’t be the first time I have, I’m not ready for college yet. I want to discover more before I settle down with a career and life.
But anywho, after not finding our group in LAX for about ten minutes, I connected with everyone, 15 other girls and three ATS instructors, later 4 and we played an epic game of Apples to Apples as we waited for everyone else. I was hoping that the first day we were going to be able to go into the city and see some sites, but instead we just went to our camp site outside Ventura and set up camp. Okay, so here’s the thing. It takes what? A half hour max to set up a tent? Now let’s factor in that we were Girl Scouts. Probably should take us less right? Yea right! It took us, us being three of us, two hours to get our tent up. Laugh now, go ahead. We just couldn’t figure out how it was suppose to go, although looking back, it was really, really easy. After that we were going to go to the beach right next to our camp, but it was blocked off for bird mating. YAY. So we just sat around for the night and ate pizza and chatted.
The cops showed up that night to the people camping next to us yelling “HEY you! Yeah, get over by the motorcycle!” When we woke up in the morning there were beer bottles and food everywhere. The best part the gulls were eating and drinking what was left over. I took pictures.
We got up early this morning to head out to the channel islands on the boat. Taking the tent down was a lot easier than putting it up. And we were ready to go in an hour, showered and all. Luckily we showered that morning because it was going to be our last shower for five days. The boat ride was fun, typical of most boat rides, and when we got to the island we had to hike 3/4ths of a mile to get to our site lugging all of our food and supplies. So after a few trips back and forth and some really nice guys offering us their dolly, we were able to get camp all set up, tents and all.
Every day was pretty much the same. Not that I’m complaining. We hiked a lot. About 33 miles total. The land was really pretty and although the wild life only consisted of earwigs, ravens (which by the second day stole all my snake food), island foxes (Which were the size of a puppy and just simply the cutest things ever), and the sea life, it was simply beautiful. I was always stuck in the back because although I love hiking, I am not fit and so I am really slow. It helped when one of the girls was afraid of heights and just needed a friend there to help her get through it, but it wasn’t so great when we got lost…twice. I mean we weren’t lost lost. Once we lost the path. And took another one that took us maybe an extra half mile past where we could have gone giving us an extra half hour to our hike, but we were still able to find our way back to where we were going. The other time we just were so far behind that we couldn’t see anyone around us at all. We were just hoping that the group was ahead of us. One of the days we actually got to the highest peak on the mountain (Mt. Mountain) which was 1200 above sea level. Every night we would come home, eat rather unsatisfying food, hang out (I would read), and then when it got dark we would play flashlight tag. Probably the worst part was that the ATS instructors were really good at hiding and weren’t afraid to go far off and go anywhere.
We went kayaking one day, which was really cool. We got to go through some sea caves and see some really cool sea creatures like whales and dolphins and even seals. Going through the caves was a lot of fun. I was scared a lot of the time. You couldn’t really get through the caves without cutting your hands on the rocks because you had to push your way through. It was so tight and so dark that sometimes I thought we were going to fall out of the kayak and basically die. Luckily we didn’t. After kayaking nine of us suited up for snorkeling, but despite the fact we were in California, the water was super cold and we just chilled on the beach for an hour before three of us actually went in. We made it over to a rock and waited for the boat leaving with people to head out before we started snorkeling. Too bad, it was about an hour that we waited and by the time we were actually ready to go we were all freezing and just trying to keep our body heat up. We went around the dock once saw some starfish and other cool creatures, and then we went back up to the beach.
We never spent much time in the city site seeing, so I definitely want to go back and check that out. But, after a week on an island where you couldn’t shower or properly brush our hair or use a flushable toilet, I don’t think I am ready to go back to the channel islands just yet. It was a great time, I met some of the most amazing girls in the world and I hope I get to see them again.
Okay, wow. Lame post. Oh well. That was a really quick idea of my trip.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
So...Can I rant about work for a few minutes??
I promise I will blog about my trip soon, but while I am on my lunch break I thought I would take the time to rant about how much I could quit my job. I know, I know: If I want to quit why don’t I? Because do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good job that will pay you more than minimum wage and work around your busy as hell college schedule? If you find one let me know, I want it.
So for a little background info, I have been working at the college in the food service area for two years now. I have been doing catering for that long and I have been working in one of the cafeterias, not the one I talked about that burned down, for a year. I really liked my job during the school year. Working 8 hours a week to pick up extra cash is a great sort of thing, but now that I am working full time in the summer, I have never regretted working somewhere so much. I should probably expect the bad treatment considering I am such an outcast there. I mean, one of the supervisors told me one day: “You can’t become a supervisor because you don’t really work here since you weren’t a college student when you did” or something that made more sense than that but was on similar lines. That should have been my first clue that work was going to be hell.
I don’t fit in at a college campus to be perfectly truthful. I’m just going to be a freshman whereas all the other student workers are going to be juniors or seniors. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t go to outrageous parties in my free time. I work hard for my grades and study nonstop. And really, although people say I’m smart- when it comes to work- I’m dumber than a brick. So maybe I am rightfully verbally abused at work, but it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes people shouldn’t say things like they do.
I get told on a daily basis, “Kaitlin, you fuck everything up,” by one of the boys I work with. He insists that he’s only joking, but he says it with no signs of remorse or caring. I sometimes give him crap right back with saying things like “Dan why are you always around? Or Dan you’re such a little girl. Why do you care so much?” But it doesn’t change the fact that he looks down on me mostly because I am so much younger than he is.
I tend to think I am the one getting bitched at for everything at work. If it goes wrong it’s always my fault. Sometimes it is, sometimes I wasn’t even around for it. Like today when there were dirty dishes in with the clean ones, my supervisor tried to blame it on me, but yesterday I hadn’t even stepped foot into the dish room. I got told on multiple accounts that I messed up the pizzas. Between not cutting them right, holding the cutter wrong, and not making enough (although I clearly told my supervisor that I was going to make 8 and she said that was good), I basically got thrown down a million levels. The worst part is that I also got bitched out by a girl who doesn’t even work there. She’s the catering student, not a café worker. Yet she honestly thinks she holds this high and mighty spot and every time she opens her mouth in my direction, she makes me feel less and less like a person. Even today she wasn’t going to let me go on lunch break because she wouldn’t go on hers at the right time. (that’s a sort of complicated situation in itself).
I don’t think it would be so bad if it wasn’t for two things. One is that I am constantly busting my chops to work hard so people can see that I deserve to be a student supervisor. I take 15 minute breaks (our assigned time) while everyone else takes 30-35 minute breaks, I am constantly working until the last minute, but none of it seems to really matter. The other bad thing is that my boss who actually really likes me and asked me to work there, isn’t my boss anymore and I am stuck with my old catering boss who for some reason never liked me quite as much as everyone else. So my chances of ever becoming a student supervisor are shot.
I wish life was simple and I could just quit. This obviously isn’t the right job for me. If it was I would be happy and wouldn’t want to break down halfway into every work day. It’s only a food service job, I definitely won’t be doing that for the rest of my life. I need the money though, every college kid should try to work. Luckily in the fall I am only work one shift, but even that one shift might drive me a little insane after this summer. Maybe a miracle job will come up soon and I will get out of here. Or maybe I just need to learn to grin and bear it. We can’t always be happy can we? All I know that I am physically exhausted and it isn’t from the lack of sleep I had last night, although that may be a factor, it has more to do with the fact that this job wears me out.
Moral of the story? Blogs really help when you want to vent your feelings and no one will listen because no one really cares. Yeah, I think that will be the moral of my story.
So for a little background info, I have been working at the college in the food service area for two years now. I have been doing catering for that long and I have been working in one of the cafeterias, not the one I talked about that burned down, for a year. I really liked my job during the school year. Working 8 hours a week to pick up extra cash is a great sort of thing, but now that I am working full time in the summer, I have never regretted working somewhere so much. I should probably expect the bad treatment considering I am such an outcast there. I mean, one of the supervisors told me one day: “You can’t become a supervisor because you don’t really work here since you weren’t a college student when you did” or something that made more sense than that but was on similar lines. That should have been my first clue that work was going to be hell.
I don’t fit in at a college campus to be perfectly truthful. I’m just going to be a freshman whereas all the other student workers are going to be juniors or seniors. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t go to outrageous parties in my free time. I work hard for my grades and study nonstop. And really, although people say I’m smart- when it comes to work- I’m dumber than a brick. So maybe I am rightfully verbally abused at work, but it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes people shouldn’t say things like they do.
I get told on a daily basis, “Kaitlin, you fuck everything up,” by one of the boys I work with. He insists that he’s only joking, but he says it with no signs of remorse or caring. I sometimes give him crap right back with saying things like “Dan why are you always around? Or Dan you’re such a little girl. Why do you care so much?” But it doesn’t change the fact that he looks down on me mostly because I am so much younger than he is.
I tend to think I am the one getting bitched at for everything at work. If it goes wrong it’s always my fault. Sometimes it is, sometimes I wasn’t even around for it. Like today when there were dirty dishes in with the clean ones, my supervisor tried to blame it on me, but yesterday I hadn’t even stepped foot into the dish room. I got told on multiple accounts that I messed up the pizzas. Between not cutting them right, holding the cutter wrong, and not making enough (although I clearly told my supervisor that I was going to make 8 and she said that was good), I basically got thrown down a million levels. The worst part is that I also got bitched out by a girl who doesn’t even work there. She’s the catering student, not a café worker. Yet she honestly thinks she holds this high and mighty spot and every time she opens her mouth in my direction, she makes me feel less and less like a person. Even today she wasn’t going to let me go on lunch break because she wouldn’t go on hers at the right time. (that’s a sort of complicated situation in itself).
I don’t think it would be so bad if it wasn’t for two things. One is that I am constantly busting my chops to work hard so people can see that I deserve to be a student supervisor. I take 15 minute breaks (our assigned time) while everyone else takes 30-35 minute breaks, I am constantly working until the last minute, but none of it seems to really matter. The other bad thing is that my boss who actually really likes me and asked me to work there, isn’t my boss anymore and I am stuck with my old catering boss who for some reason never liked me quite as much as everyone else. So my chances of ever becoming a student supervisor are shot.
I wish life was simple and I could just quit. This obviously isn’t the right job for me. If it was I would be happy and wouldn’t want to break down halfway into every work day. It’s only a food service job, I definitely won’t be doing that for the rest of my life. I need the money though, every college kid should try to work. Luckily in the fall I am only work one shift, but even that one shift might drive me a little insane after this summer. Maybe a miracle job will come up soon and I will get out of here. Or maybe I just need to learn to grin and bear it. We can’t always be happy can we? All I know that I am physically exhausted and it isn’t from the lack of sleep I had last night, although that may be a factor, it has more to do with the fact that this job wears me out.
Moral of the story? Blogs really help when you want to vent your feelings and no one will listen because no one really cares. Yeah, I think that will be the moral of my story.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Haiku's can be fun
Last Monday was my freshman orientation at my college. We went and listened to them drag on for hours about scheduling and the options we had for classes. Which might have been interesting for some, but for me having already knocked out my first semester thanks to dual enrollment, I had my class schedule already done and I actually really liked it. For that reason, I found the entire orientation rather boring.
For the most part my dad and I just sat around waiting for my meeting with my advisor who is actually going to be my biology teacher as well, but I actually did go to a few of the seminars such as the one where they explained to us about what classes needed to be in our schedules. It was rather pointless and I spent the entire time thinking of the haiku that went something like:
Which got me thinking that I could be just as witty and write something similar as well such as:
Yeah. That’s how bored I was. Which I guess wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if I would have stopped, but I didn’t. I spent the next 45 minutes writing Haikus while this councilor talked to the room of maybe fifty kids about scheduling classes. I thought I would take a little time to write out my process of thinking through the day.
For starters, I should tell you that since it was a generally cold day out Monday and I was in an air conditioned room for the day I didn’t make the best wardrobe choice. I was wearing a tee-shirt and shorts along with I think flip flops, so safe to say after twenty minutes, I was freezing my butt off. Thus this came about:
And
Then I started thinking about Harry Potter because life in general needs to revolve around Harry Potter. =]
First of all, this one can just count for the books, or it can count for the fact that my best friends and I call ourselves the Marauders. (I’m Prongs by the way)
Lame but really hilarious! And then I wrote this one:
If you haven’t realized that I was completely bored yet then let me point out now that I had never been so uninterested in something in my life. My schedule was done, I knew the school already. In fact, you could probably blind fold me and get me around the school. Just don’t give me a map, campus maps are more confusing than they are worth. Considering the tennis fields are marked as the old tennis fields that no one uses and confusing stuff like that, the map is pointless. Anyway, after awhile my foot fell asleep. And my foot never just falls asleep, it hurts when it falls asleep. Of course, a haiku had to come out of that.
I wrote a few more, but they aren’t funny or cute or anything, so the point of sharing those is 0.
Anyway, the day actually was useful for something. I hadn’t scheduled honors English for the fall semester because it was just too messy in my schedule. (Yes honors English. Even though I didn’t take AP English or anything in High School I still believe I was the best damn writer to hit that school, my college English Professor from that Short Stories class even told me I was good). Turns out that Honors English is only offered in the fall and not the spring, so thanks to my advisor being more knowledgeable than any advisor I have ever had before, I was able to fix my schedule so it would look unfun, unmanageable, but not busy.
Basically I go from Bio at eight in the morning right to Honor Chemistry right to Calculus 2 and then after an hour break to Honors English….and then I am done Mondays and Fridays. Wednesday my schedule is like that but I have a two hour bio lab/freshman seminar. Then Tuesday I don’t have class until 4 which is just a scholarship class where we have no work and just do “fun” activities. Thursdays I have one morning class and then chem lab basically all days and then Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Karate. It’s really not that bad, and congrats now you can stalk me everywhere I go. Ahahaha. I have to find time to throw work in there somewhere, but I am sure that won’t be too bad. Hey who knows, maybe there will actually be time for me to write blogs and maybe finally start that vloging channel I have been meaning to. (Funny story about that. I went to edit a vlog and it crashed my entire computer. Yea good times, good times). Then again, it’s summer, I’m supposed to have a lot of time to blog, but between working two jobs and having a crazy social life, things don’t ever seem to work out my way.
Well tomorrow morning bright and early I leave for my BYOF camping trip outside of L.A. I know that I wasn’t too excited before, and believe me, I still don’t want to wear a wetsuit, but I think that things are going to be great. It will be an awesome experience, and to be honest I have more to worry about with my trip than looking bad. (bonus points if you can figure out what this means “I am turning into a werewolf and can’t use wolfsbane” Awkward but totally true. Sorry). I should probably hit the hay because I need to be up at 5 in the morning to head two hours away to catch my flight. I will have lots of awesome things to blog about when I come back! YAY!
For the most part my dad and I just sat around waiting for my meeting with my advisor who is actually going to be my biology teacher as well, but I actually did go to a few of the seminars such as the one where they explained to us about what classes needed to be in our schedules. It was rather pointless and I spent the entire time thinking of the haiku that went something like:
Haiku’s can be fun
But sometimes are hard to write
Refrigerator
Which got me thinking that I could be just as witty and write something similar as well such as:
Haiku’s don’t make sense
And so they are hard to write
Refrigerator
Yeah. That’s how bored I was. Which I guess wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if I would have stopped, but I didn’t. I spent the next 45 minutes writing Haikus while this councilor talked to the room of maybe fifty kids about scheduling classes. I thought I would take a little time to write out my process of thinking through the day.
For starters, I should tell you that since it was a generally cold day out Monday and I was in an air conditioned room for the day I didn’t make the best wardrobe choice. I was wearing a tee-shirt and shorts along with I think flip flops, so safe to say after twenty minutes, I was freezing my butt off. Thus this came about:
My schedule is done
And now I am very cold
Get me out of here
And
I am very cold
Why didn’t I bring a jacket?
Stupid stupid me
Then I started thinking about Harry Potter because life in general needs to revolve around Harry Potter. =]
First of all, this one can just count for the books, or it can count for the fact that my best friends and I call ourselves the Marauders. (I’m Prongs by the way)
Padfoot, Prongs, Moony
They are the cool Marauders
Wormtail doesn’t count
Lame but really hilarious! And then I wrote this one:
Dear Luna Lovegood
I believe that you are weird
Love Harry Potter
If you haven’t realized that I was completely bored yet then let me point out now that I had never been so uninterested in something in my life. My schedule was done, I knew the school already. In fact, you could probably blind fold me and get me around the school. Just don’t give me a map, campus maps are more confusing than they are worth. Considering the tennis fields are marked as the old tennis fields that no one uses and confusing stuff like that, the map is pointless. Anyway, after awhile my foot fell asleep. And my foot never just falls asleep, it hurts when it falls asleep. Of course, a haiku had to come out of that.
My foot is asleep
so it must have been sleepy
it hurts, wake up please
I wrote a few more, but they aren’t funny or cute or anything, so the point of sharing those is 0.
Anyway, the day actually was useful for something. I hadn’t scheduled honors English for the fall semester because it was just too messy in my schedule. (Yes honors English. Even though I didn’t take AP English or anything in High School I still believe I was the best damn writer to hit that school, my college English Professor from that Short Stories class even told me I was good). Turns out that Honors English is only offered in the fall and not the spring, so thanks to my advisor being more knowledgeable than any advisor I have ever had before, I was able to fix my schedule so it would look unfun, unmanageable, but not busy.
Basically I go from Bio at eight in the morning right to Honor Chemistry right to Calculus 2 and then after an hour break to Honors English….and then I am done Mondays and Fridays. Wednesday my schedule is like that but I have a two hour bio lab/freshman seminar. Then Tuesday I don’t have class until 4 which is just a scholarship class where we have no work and just do “fun” activities. Thursdays I have one morning class and then chem lab basically all days and then Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Karate. It’s really not that bad, and congrats now you can stalk me everywhere I go. Ahahaha. I have to find time to throw work in there somewhere, but I am sure that won’t be too bad. Hey who knows, maybe there will actually be time for me to write blogs and maybe finally start that vloging channel I have been meaning to. (Funny story about that. I went to edit a vlog and it crashed my entire computer. Yea good times, good times). Then again, it’s summer, I’m supposed to have a lot of time to blog, but between working two jobs and having a crazy social life, things don’t ever seem to work out my way.
Well tomorrow morning bright and early I leave for my BYOF camping trip outside of L.A. I know that I wasn’t too excited before, and believe me, I still don’t want to wear a wetsuit, but I think that things are going to be great. It will be an awesome experience, and to be honest I have more to worry about with my trip than looking bad. (bonus points if you can figure out what this means “I am turning into a werewolf and can’t use wolfsbane” Awkward but totally true. Sorry). I should probably hit the hay because I need to be up at 5 in the morning to head two hours away to catch my flight. I will have lots of awesome things to blog about when I come back! YAY!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
When life becomes bipolar.
I could sit here and let you know all the deep thoughts that are going through my head at this graduation practice, but really, I'm not thinking of any of that stuff. I am thinking about how bipolar all things in life seem. My lineup for graduation has changed at least four times making being ranked second in my class worthless to be frank. It kind of depresses me instead of frustrating me like it should. It's really just dumb. But it seems like all of life is bipolar now.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Script Frenzy Done
That deserves a blog post of it's own.
Oh, and I passed my Senior Presentation. I had fun doing it, oddly enough, I have to write a memo about something or another, so fun.
Oh, and I passed my Senior Presentation. I had fun doing it, oddly enough, I have to write a memo about something or another, so fun.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The biggest Mistake of My Life
Taking the English class entitled The Short Story at the tender age of 18 was probably the biggest mistake of my life. No make that WAS the biggest mistake in my life, no probably about it. Not that I didn’t at points enjoy the class and at points do well, I mean I got a 93% on my last paper which was really awesome to be honest, but I realize now at the age of 18, I wasn’t ready for a class like that.
I’m still in high school. I’m still learning what’s right and wrong in the world, what’s good and bad, and what my limits are. I’m not a good writer, I know that from the start, yet something compelled me to take a 100 level English class without ever having taken Freshman English. I admit that I enjoyed the class at times. It was a different atmosphere from the normal lecture sort of class. We actually had open discussions about the short stories we would read and we would openly talk about what we thought. My Professor insisted that there was no such thing as a wrong interpretation of the story, and for the longest time, I believed him.
Things were going great at first, but as the class went on I came to realize that I was far too young and far too fragile hearted for such a class. I would read the stories, gather my opinions, and go to class excited about what I had to say. Yet it seemed that everything I had to say about these stories we would read got shot down by my Professor as meaningless and irrelevant. I seemed to be the one who misinterpreted the stories the naïve one who had no idea what she was really talking about.
I’m young. I’m still discovering the world, so being shot down isn’t what I would consider to be exactly pleasant. In fact, most of the time it sent me into a state of complete depression. I felt so dumb all the time. I was afraid to open my mouth in class because I was afraid that I would say something that my Professor disagreed with. For the first time in a college class I was in, I felt young. I still felt like a high school kid trying to fit into a college community. With my calc class I’m at the top of the class, I feel like a college student there. But in my English class, there I felt like a senior in high school. A girl who couldn’t gather her thoughts the right way, the girl who thought that there was a right way to gather thoughts. I felt small, smaller than I had ever felt before, and it was like that every Monday and Tuesday.
It took a toll after sometime and I really couldn’t think for myself. If I did I was wrong and if I didn’t I was safe because I knew that someone else somewhere felt the same way. I look all the stories up online to make sure that my ideas matched someone else’s, and only then did I open my mouth.
That’s why I am having such trouble with my final paper. There’s no help for me out there. I can’t find notes for the story my paper is on out there and we aren’t having a class discussion so I can’t steal anyone else’s ideas.
Basically, I feel like taking that class was the biggest mistake in my young high school career. I wasn’t ready for that world. I wasn’t ready to be thrown into a classroom with adults who knew what they were thinking and who know the world for what it is. I’m too young, and I’m too naïve.
In other news, I have nine pages of my script left to write by Friday. It’s the worst little script that I’ve written and I can’t wait to trash it and move back onto writing my NaNoWriMo which is still only 70,000 words and 93 pages and only about 2/3 the way done. It needs a lot of work and I just can’t wait to get back to it.
Tomorrow is my Senior Presentation which determines if I graduate High School. I’m more stressed out than words can say and I can’t wait to get it out of my way. I spent over an hour today trying to print out my power point because I couldn’t get a printer anywhere to work for me. My mother and I, who used to be really close but hardly get along any longer, are once again at each other’s throats because of this. I went to her office to print my power point but her printer wasn’t working. Thus I called to see if it was something I was doing and she proceeded to yell at me about it so I hung up on her. Okay, so yea, there’s another wonderful example of how I can’t seem to grow up, but that’s that.
Part of me wants to fail tomorrow. Just to fail. I don’t know, it would just ice the top of my wonderful cake so perfectly. I have to write a memo if I pass. I don’t know what the memo has to be about, and I don’t know how to write a memo. I think it’s more effort to pass than it is to just fail and represent some other time. Then again if I fail I have to write a memo too. What’s with the world and memos. Can’t I just write a blog about it instead? Oh wait, we’ve all seen how well I am at that.
Alright, well I was just complaining to my parents how stressed I was so I probably shouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog post. Guess I’ll be heading off to do some scripting before working on my presentation. The end.
I’m still in high school. I’m still learning what’s right and wrong in the world, what’s good and bad, and what my limits are. I’m not a good writer, I know that from the start, yet something compelled me to take a 100 level English class without ever having taken Freshman English. I admit that I enjoyed the class at times. It was a different atmosphere from the normal lecture sort of class. We actually had open discussions about the short stories we would read and we would openly talk about what we thought. My Professor insisted that there was no such thing as a wrong interpretation of the story, and for the longest time, I believed him.
Things were going great at first, but as the class went on I came to realize that I was far too young and far too fragile hearted for such a class. I would read the stories, gather my opinions, and go to class excited about what I had to say. Yet it seemed that everything I had to say about these stories we would read got shot down by my Professor as meaningless and irrelevant. I seemed to be the one who misinterpreted the stories the naïve one who had no idea what she was really talking about.
I’m young. I’m still discovering the world, so being shot down isn’t what I would consider to be exactly pleasant. In fact, most of the time it sent me into a state of complete depression. I felt so dumb all the time. I was afraid to open my mouth in class because I was afraid that I would say something that my Professor disagreed with. For the first time in a college class I was in, I felt young. I still felt like a high school kid trying to fit into a college community. With my calc class I’m at the top of the class, I feel like a college student there. But in my English class, there I felt like a senior in high school. A girl who couldn’t gather her thoughts the right way, the girl who thought that there was a right way to gather thoughts. I felt small, smaller than I had ever felt before, and it was like that every Monday and Tuesday.
It took a toll after sometime and I really couldn’t think for myself. If I did I was wrong and if I didn’t I was safe because I knew that someone else somewhere felt the same way. I look all the stories up online to make sure that my ideas matched someone else’s, and only then did I open my mouth.
That’s why I am having such trouble with my final paper. There’s no help for me out there. I can’t find notes for the story my paper is on out there and we aren’t having a class discussion so I can’t steal anyone else’s ideas.
Basically, I feel like taking that class was the biggest mistake in my young high school career. I wasn’t ready for that world. I wasn’t ready to be thrown into a classroom with adults who knew what they were thinking and who know the world for what it is. I’m too young, and I’m too naïve.
In other news, I have nine pages of my script left to write by Friday. It’s the worst little script that I’ve written and I can’t wait to trash it and move back onto writing my NaNoWriMo which is still only 70,000 words and 93 pages and only about 2/3 the way done. It needs a lot of work and I just can’t wait to get back to it.
Tomorrow is my Senior Presentation which determines if I graduate High School. I’m more stressed out than words can say and I can’t wait to get it out of my way. I spent over an hour today trying to print out my power point because I couldn’t get a printer anywhere to work for me. My mother and I, who used to be really close but hardly get along any longer, are once again at each other’s throats because of this. I went to her office to print my power point but her printer wasn’t working. Thus I called to see if it was something I was doing and she proceeded to yell at me about it so I hung up on her. Okay, so yea, there’s another wonderful example of how I can’t seem to grow up, but that’s that.
Part of me wants to fail tomorrow. Just to fail. I don’t know, it would just ice the top of my wonderful cake so perfectly. I have to write a memo if I pass. I don’t know what the memo has to be about, and I don’t know how to write a memo. I think it’s more effort to pass than it is to just fail and represent some other time. Then again if I fail I have to write a memo too. What’s with the world and memos. Can’t I just write a blog about it instead? Oh wait, we’ve all seen how well I am at that.
Alright, well I was just complaining to my parents how stressed I was so I probably shouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog post. Guess I’ll be heading off to do some scripting before working on my presentation. The end.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Interesting Omegle Chat. (Warning: Controversial topics)
Okay, so I spend a little bit of time pwning people on Omegle, but today I had a really interesting converstaion with someone.
You: Ask me any questions!
Stranger: why is the sky blue?
Stranger: is there a god?
You: well that is because of how the particles seperate and how light absorbs into those particles
Stranger: angelina jolie or jennifer aniston?
You: yes there is a god
You: Jennifer Aniston
Stranger: thank god! u passed!
Stranger: :)
You: good
Stranger: does 3 =6 equal 9?
You: no
You: it eqauls cat sticking out it's tongue
Stranger: how cuuuuute! i never even noticed that lol
You: hahahaha
Stranger: why do u think people are greedy?
You: because it has become human nature for people to want things that they cannot have or to want things that others want. It has become part of our evolution
Stranger: is it the teachers job to teach ur children sexual education
You: to a point
You: they should teach the anatomy of it and teh STD stuff, but that's it
You: birthing babies and stuff is the parents job
Stranger: should the teach abstinece ?
You: they should teach that the idea is out there. Other than that it should be up to the parents and the parents morals. Or it should be up to church youth groups and such
Stranger: should church be separated in school?
You: no. kids should have the right to read the bible, pray, and even hold religous groups in school
Stranger: would u be able to blackmail soomeone knowing u would never get caught?
You: sadly yes. as bad as that is I would be ABLE to.
Stranger: is abortion murder?
You: yes
You: hands down you are still killing somehting that is or has potential to be living. And it can't be proven when something is alive so we must assume it is
Stranger: wat about stem cell reseach?
You: i am iffy about that. I understand doing it but at the same time I don't think it's as needed as they say it is. That and I don't know all that much about it yet.
Stranger: wat is a girl was raped.. would abortion be acceptable?
You: no. it's still a live child. She could put it up for adaption. That would be much more acceptable and the baby would have a chance to live instead of being denied that chance.
You: (although I say this and i know how hypocritical i would be. if i got raped and was pregnent I would probably consider abortion)
You: it;s one of those things that is so hard to preach about because some of the aweful situations girls get put in. If they don't want their parents to know and they will get kicked out if they find out and such is what makes it such a hard thing to consider.
Stranger: is being gay a sin?
You: But as my viewpoint it is murder
You: According to the bible God does not look foundly on it and believes marriage should be between a male and a female. With that said, yes. But I personally do not mind it
Stranger: they should not be married?
You: right. Marraige should technically be between a male and a female.
Stranger: should gay people have the rites of a married couple without it being considered marriage
Stranger: ?
You: I think that legally they would need to be married to have the same rights as a married couple. They could live together just fine. Just leagally it would be only fair for the to have to be married to have the same rights
Stranger: wat if ur brother was gay? would u feel any different?
You: No. I would still think that he should not marry another man but if he was in love I would support him because he was my brother so long as he did not wed.
I just wanted to share this because it actually covered some topics that I am really intersted in. Sorry for spelling and grammar, I didn't go through and edit our conversation. I don't mean to offend ANYONE out there. These are my opinions and opinions are allowed to differ between people.
Let me know your views!
Page count- 13/100
You: Ask me any questions!
Stranger: why is the sky blue?
Stranger: is there a god?
You: well that is because of how the particles seperate and how light absorbs into those particles
Stranger: angelina jolie or jennifer aniston?
You: yes there is a god
You: Jennifer Aniston
Stranger: thank god! u passed!
Stranger: :)
You: good
Stranger: does 3 =6 equal 9?
You: no
You: it eqauls cat sticking out it's tongue
Stranger: how cuuuuute! i never even noticed that lol
You: hahahaha
Stranger: why do u think people are greedy?
You: because it has become human nature for people to want things that they cannot have or to want things that others want. It has become part of our evolution
Stranger: is it the teachers job to teach ur children sexual education
You: to a point
You: they should teach the anatomy of it and teh STD stuff, but that's it
You: birthing babies and stuff is the parents job
Stranger: should the teach abstinece ?
You: they should teach that the idea is out there. Other than that it should be up to the parents and the parents morals. Or it should be up to church youth groups and such
Stranger: should church be separated in school?
You: no. kids should have the right to read the bible, pray, and even hold religous groups in school
Stranger: would u be able to blackmail soomeone knowing u would never get caught?
You: sadly yes. as bad as that is I would be ABLE to.
Stranger: is abortion murder?
You: yes
You: hands down you are still killing somehting that is or has potential to be living. And it can't be proven when something is alive so we must assume it is
Stranger: wat about stem cell reseach?
You: i am iffy about that. I understand doing it but at the same time I don't think it's as needed as they say it is. That and I don't know all that much about it yet.
Stranger: wat is a girl was raped.. would abortion be acceptable?
You: no. it's still a live child. She could put it up for adaption. That would be much more acceptable and the baby would have a chance to live instead of being denied that chance.
You: (although I say this and i know how hypocritical i would be. if i got raped and was pregnent I would probably consider abortion)
You: it;s one of those things that is so hard to preach about because some of the aweful situations girls get put in. If they don't want their parents to know and they will get kicked out if they find out and such is what makes it such a hard thing to consider.
Stranger: is being gay a sin?
You: But as my viewpoint it is murder
You: According to the bible God does not look foundly on it and believes marriage should be between a male and a female. With that said, yes. But I personally do not mind it
Stranger: they should not be married?
You: right. Marraige should technically be between a male and a female.
Stranger: should gay people have the rites of a married couple without it being considered marriage
Stranger: ?
You: I think that legally they would need to be married to have the same rights as a married couple. They could live together just fine. Just leagally it would be only fair for the to have to be married to have the same rights
Stranger: wat if ur brother was gay? would u feel any different?
You: No. I would still think that he should not marry another man but if he was in love I would support him because he was my brother so long as he did not wed.
I just wanted to share this because it actually covered some topics that I am really intersted in. Sorry for spelling and grammar, I didn't go through and edit our conversation. I don't mean to offend ANYONE out there. These are my opinions and opinions are allowed to differ between people.
Let me know your views!
Page count- 13/100
Friday, April 2, 2010
BYOF
FINE! FINE! I’ll update! If you insist! I only say this because I now look to the right and see that thanks to script Frenzy I have two followers. I guess I will break this blog into a few parts.
1. I will finally tell you my dentist story
2. I will tell you about the Behrend Fire
3. The disaster with Kim
4. Update on my classes
5. Blog every day in April/Script Frenzy
6. My L.A. trip
It is currently ten thirty at night and I have SOOOO much crap I need to do so I will probably make all these real quick points.
So hurrah dentist story. As you possibly know, in December I went and had that lovely cavity that I didn’t believe to really exist filled. Well I had to go back a week later because it was extremely painful. I couldn’t even eat without excruciating pain shooting through my mouth. So I went back and they fixed the bite and said that it should feel better in a few days…as I already said though, dentists are decepticons. It didn’t stop hurting and in fact the pains were getting worse. This pain went on for months and my parents would not believe me that I was in pain, plus I really didn’t want to go back to the dentist and seem like a pansy for needing to get my teeth checked out again. After two months of this pain I came to think it may never go away. I thought that maybe they damaged a nerve when they drilled into my teeth and could only think of one possible answer, root canal. YUCK! Thankfully, the pain has gone away in the past week, or I have gotten extremely used to it, but either way, no more dentists for me.
The Behrend Fire. As you know my mother works at the local college where I take classes and will attend full time come fall. What you don’t know is that she is a manager at one of the dining halls. That same dining hall caught fire March 1st. Here check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBVzdPkNj3U I basically spent a lot of time at the dining hall growing it up and I never expected to hear the words “Dobbins is on fire!” But I did. Here’s the fun story. It was around midnight which is the time that I take showers at night. It was especially strange because both of the household showers at the time were broken and I had to use my parents’ shower which was the lesser of the leaking showers. I had just gotten out of the shower when my mother comes bounding in the bedroom and says to my sleeping dad, “I’m going to work. Behrend is on fire.” Being the naïve little girl I am I thought that it was just a small little fire that they were going to put out easy. Too bad I was wrong. Basically, the entire building is a mess and everything is useless. So construction is started and the dining hall is moved to another building. Even a month later it’s still affecting me. I don’t see my mother very much and things at work (I work at the other dining hall) are still really crazy because we have to make up for the lack of what not-dobbins has. UGH!
Kim. Monday morning by best friend Kim (the one from Butterbeer night) went into the hospital. She was having crazy stomach pains and cramps and hadn’t eaten for two or so weeks. Not good. She’s been in the hospital all week and it’s not looking like it’s going to let up any time soon. So I will probably be spending a lot of time visiting her in the hospital or just worrying about her. So that adds to my stress of life.
Speaking of stress. I have a huge English report due in two weeks. It’s on the story “You’re Ugly, Too” if you’ve ever read it PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I really want help with my essay because I need to get an A on it for my high school graduation’s sake. I have a calc test coming up in a few weeks as well. Curve sketching and max min problems are going to kill me. I hate calc. I have to tutor a lot of the kids in my calc class, and I’m not in college yet! CRAZY! Let’s see what else. I have AP tests coming up the same week of finals. Finals being the first week in May that is. If you haven’t taken an AP test you seriously have no idea how freaking stressful they are. It’s pure insanity. So school wise there is a lot going on. I don’t know how I am going to be able to handle it. Not to mention I have a handful of scholarships to do this month. April is the magical month of scholarship deadlines I guess!
Speaking of April’s magic. I AM NOT GOING TO DO BLOG EVERY DAY IN APRIL, so don’t ask. I have a hard enough time blogging to begin with. I am on the other hand doing Script Frenzy? Wait, what’s Script Frenzy? Well, person I do not know by name yet, Script Frenzy is a fun event that parallels NaNoWriMo. Basically, in all its glory, you have to write a one hundred page script in the month of April. That’s 100 pages in 30 days. I did it last year and I am going to do it again this year. Already I am far behind in my story. I am six pages in, haven’t introduced more than two of the character, don’t know how I am going to introduced the others, and hell, I don’t even know what I’m writing about. So far my plot goes something about this new ability for genetic testing to be done where patents can “splitz” their body parts. Basically you can have cat eyes, cat ears, bat ears, whatever you want. And then somewhere along the line kids get kidnapped and this reject government group turns them all into schizophrenics and they try to escape. No joke, that’s what I know of my plot. Um….well this month calls out epic fail. Anywho, my screenplay is called Schizotest check me out on ScriptFrenzy.org username Kathryn Cassand.
Least but not last, who wants to hear about the reason why today was notsome? As I have said before I am going on a trip to L.A. for a week this summer. Today I got some yummy information on said trip. Turns out that, I already knew I was going to the Channel Islands outside L.A., that we aren’t even stepping foot inside the actual city, or for that matter inside an actual hotel. We are going to be camping on a beach for an entire week. Okay okay, now you’re probably saying “What’s wrong with camping, Kat. You are a Girl Scout after all.” SURE okay, great, I’m a girl scout. That doesn’t mean that I have to LIKE camping. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that camping has to be in my repertoire. I don’t do camping, let alone camping for a week. Where am I going to take a shower, where am I going to wash my hair, where am I going to charge my phone, or my batteries for my camera so I can take pictures and shoot videos for my currently nonexistent vlog (www.youtube.com/thekatsout)? These are the reasons that I do not like camping. Now, I believe it wouldn’t be as big a deal if they had TOLD us before we applied for the trip that we were going to be camping. Those are the sort of things that make people not want to go on trips. I mean, come on, I have toughed through Alaska, and we got to stay in a super nice lodge with three meals. I have to bring tuberware to eat my meals in and my own fork. WTF? Why didn’t you warn us this was a BYOF event? (I think BYOF is going to be my new saying. When I get angry about something I am just going to scream BYOF!) I think the best part is though that I have to send them my measurement FOR A WETSUIT! We’re going kayaking, which I am pumped about because I love Kayaking, but we’re going kayaking in wetsuits. If someone could supply for me why I need a wetsuit for kayaking I would be really appreciative. I haven’t figured out the reasoning behind a wetsuit. Let me tell you though, this Kat will not wear a wetsuit. Nope, sorry, count me out. I don’t have the confidence in my body to be caught dead wearing a wetsuit, and no matter what I do, I can’t lose the weight that I would have to in order to even feel good about my body. So no wet suit for me I guess. So because of this lovely information I have been in a terrible mood all night and my parents have just been making it worse by trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Let me tell you, there is a lot wrong with me.
Okay, I’m going to end my rant. I need to work on my essay. Remember not just DFTBA but BYOF.
1. I will finally tell you my dentist story
2. I will tell you about the Behrend Fire
3. The disaster with Kim
4. Update on my classes
5. Blog every day in April/Script Frenzy
6. My L.A. trip
It is currently ten thirty at night and I have SOOOO much crap I need to do so I will probably make all these real quick points.
So hurrah dentist story. As you possibly know, in December I went and had that lovely cavity that I didn’t believe to really exist filled. Well I had to go back a week later because it was extremely painful. I couldn’t even eat without excruciating pain shooting through my mouth. So I went back and they fixed the bite and said that it should feel better in a few days…as I already said though, dentists are decepticons. It didn’t stop hurting and in fact the pains were getting worse. This pain went on for months and my parents would not believe me that I was in pain, plus I really didn’t want to go back to the dentist and seem like a pansy for needing to get my teeth checked out again. After two months of this pain I came to think it may never go away. I thought that maybe they damaged a nerve when they drilled into my teeth and could only think of one possible answer, root canal. YUCK! Thankfully, the pain has gone away in the past week, or I have gotten extremely used to it, but either way, no more dentists for me.
The Behrend Fire. As you know my mother works at the local college where I take classes and will attend full time come fall. What you don’t know is that she is a manager at one of the dining halls. That same dining hall caught fire March 1st. Here check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBVzdPkNj3U I basically spent a lot of time at the dining hall growing it up and I never expected to hear the words “Dobbins is on fire!” But I did. Here’s the fun story. It was around midnight which is the time that I take showers at night. It was especially strange because both of the household showers at the time were broken and I had to use my parents’ shower which was the lesser of the leaking showers. I had just gotten out of the shower when my mother comes bounding in the bedroom and says to my sleeping dad, “I’m going to work. Behrend is on fire.” Being the naïve little girl I am I thought that it was just a small little fire that they were going to put out easy. Too bad I was wrong. Basically, the entire building is a mess and everything is useless. So construction is started and the dining hall is moved to another building. Even a month later it’s still affecting me. I don’t see my mother very much and things at work (I work at the other dining hall) are still really crazy because we have to make up for the lack of what not-dobbins has. UGH!
Kim. Monday morning by best friend Kim (the one from Butterbeer night) went into the hospital. She was having crazy stomach pains and cramps and hadn’t eaten for two or so weeks. Not good. She’s been in the hospital all week and it’s not looking like it’s going to let up any time soon. So I will probably be spending a lot of time visiting her in the hospital or just worrying about her. So that adds to my stress of life.
Speaking of stress. I have a huge English report due in two weeks. It’s on the story “You’re Ugly, Too” if you’ve ever read it PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I really want help with my essay because I need to get an A on it for my high school graduation’s sake. I have a calc test coming up in a few weeks as well. Curve sketching and max min problems are going to kill me. I hate calc. I have to tutor a lot of the kids in my calc class, and I’m not in college yet! CRAZY! Let’s see what else. I have AP tests coming up the same week of finals. Finals being the first week in May that is. If you haven’t taken an AP test you seriously have no idea how freaking stressful they are. It’s pure insanity. So school wise there is a lot going on. I don’t know how I am going to be able to handle it. Not to mention I have a handful of scholarships to do this month. April is the magical month of scholarship deadlines I guess!
Speaking of April’s magic. I AM NOT GOING TO DO BLOG EVERY DAY IN APRIL, so don’t ask. I have a hard enough time blogging to begin with. I am on the other hand doing Script Frenzy? Wait, what’s Script Frenzy? Well, person I do not know by name yet, Script Frenzy is a fun event that parallels NaNoWriMo. Basically, in all its glory, you have to write a one hundred page script in the month of April. That’s 100 pages in 30 days. I did it last year and I am going to do it again this year. Already I am far behind in my story. I am six pages in, haven’t introduced more than two of the character, don’t know how I am going to introduced the others, and hell, I don’t even know what I’m writing about. So far my plot goes something about this new ability for genetic testing to be done where patents can “splitz” their body parts. Basically you can have cat eyes, cat ears, bat ears, whatever you want. And then somewhere along the line kids get kidnapped and this reject government group turns them all into schizophrenics and they try to escape. No joke, that’s what I know of my plot. Um….well this month calls out epic fail. Anywho, my screenplay is called Schizotest check me out on ScriptFrenzy.org username Kathryn Cassand.
Least but not last, who wants to hear about the reason why today was notsome? As I have said before I am going on a trip to L.A. for a week this summer. Today I got some yummy information on said trip. Turns out that, I already knew I was going to the Channel Islands outside L.A., that we aren’t even stepping foot inside the actual city, or for that matter inside an actual hotel. We are going to be camping on a beach for an entire week. Okay okay, now you’re probably saying “What’s wrong with camping, Kat. You are a Girl Scout after all.” SURE okay, great, I’m a girl scout. That doesn’t mean that I have to LIKE camping. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that camping has to be in my repertoire. I don’t do camping, let alone camping for a week. Where am I going to take a shower, where am I going to wash my hair, where am I going to charge my phone, or my batteries for my camera so I can take pictures and shoot videos for my currently nonexistent vlog (www.youtube.com/thekatsout)? These are the reasons that I do not like camping. Now, I believe it wouldn’t be as big a deal if they had TOLD us before we applied for the trip that we were going to be camping. Those are the sort of things that make people not want to go on trips. I mean, come on, I have toughed through Alaska, and we got to stay in a super nice lodge with three meals. I have to bring tuberware to eat my meals in and my own fork. WTF? Why didn’t you warn us this was a BYOF event? (I think BYOF is going to be my new saying. When I get angry about something I am just going to scream BYOF!) I think the best part is though that I have to send them my measurement FOR A WETSUIT! We’re going kayaking, which I am pumped about because I love Kayaking, but we’re going kayaking in wetsuits. If someone could supply for me why I need a wetsuit for kayaking I would be really appreciative. I haven’t figured out the reasoning behind a wetsuit. Let me tell you though, this Kat will not wear a wetsuit. Nope, sorry, count me out. I don’t have the confidence in my body to be caught dead wearing a wetsuit, and no matter what I do, I can’t lose the weight that I would have to in order to even feel good about my body. So no wet suit for me I guess. So because of this lovely information I have been in a terrible mood all night and my parents have just been making it worse by trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Let me tell you, there is a lot wrong with me.
Okay, I’m going to end my rant. I need to work on my essay. Remember not just DFTBA but BYOF.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Alice In Wonderland...full of so much Muchness
Prepare for some very poor writing below. =[
So similar to many other people across the globe, I went to the midnight showing of Alice in Wonderland. Contrary to many people, I have been waiting for this movie for over a year and the part I was most looking forward to was Mia Wasikowska’s acting. She is brilliant and it bothers me that the critics are ignoring that. For once it seems that Alice is an actual person, and that is entirely because of Mia’s acting. Last year when I had heard she was playing Alice I looked up her work in the show “In Treatment” all I can say is that it was brilliant as well! She brings the character of Sophie to a reality that I think would be nearly impossible for most actresses.
I had my tickets five days in advanced for Alice in Wonderland and although I had a terrible week, I was still looking forward to going and seeing the movie.
My friend Bre picked me up a little after nine thirty that night, after she got off of work, and we heading down town. We stopped to get coffee at Starbucks before heading over to the theatre, and I full regret doing so now. Upon getting to the theatre at ten thirty that night, we discovered that we missed the chance to stand in line with all the fun cosplayers and actually enjoy the light of the waiting area. Instead we got the overflow and had to wait inside the theatre where it was dark and we were separated from everyone else. There were only a maybe a dozen people there with us. It was dark making the video blog I was trying to make for the friends who were supposed to go with me (they are currently in Florida) impossible. Bre, and I hope to God she doesn’t see this, was a bore and did her homework for the half hour we waited. I definitely didn’t get as much enjoyment as I wanted to in waiting to be let into the viewing theatre.
There were a lot of people who dressed up. The same people who were there probably hours before waiting to get in. I had wanted to talk to them so badly, but because I was with Bre, we sat in the theatre texting our friends instead. I’m not saying I didn’t love spending time with Bre. She is seriously one of the greatest friends I have and I love spending time with her. It’s just that I had a different picture in my head, and I didn’t get that in reality. *Sad face* So after waiting for an hour in the actual viewing theatre we were ready for the movie to start.
As one of our pre previews, they showed Jewel’s new music video “Stay here forever.” Jewel is my favorite singer so I really enjoyed getting to listen to the song which is actually a really amazing song. I didn’t enjoy hearing the people sitting next to me bash not the song but Jewel. I really hate when people do that. Sure they didn’t know that they were sitting by a huge Jewel fan, but seriously, they were in their late twenties early thirties, shouldn’t you, at that age, be able to keep your mouth shut when it comes to talking about celebs and people you don’t even know. I think people just need to respect them for what they do because it takes gut and courage. For example as I have said before I dislike Twilight. Sure I don’t like S. Meyer much or her writing but I still admire the fact that she is doing what she is doing and she’s putting her work out there. I think the rest of the world needs to be a bit more open to things. Obviously our world really isn’t that advanced into maturity yet.
I won’t sit here and complain to long about that. I got up and went to get snakes for Bre and myself. I hadn’t realized how expensive it is to eat snakes at a theatre. Wow! The best part of going to get snakes though was the part when a couple who had been by us in line stepped away from me because I was talking into my camera for my video blog. I didn’t get it on camera but you can hear me saying something like “I recording this for my friends so they feel like they were here,” Pause, “Oh cool step away,” I couldn’t believe it. Did they honestly think I was that big of a freak? How do the YouTube vloggers get away with it? Haha. One of those great mysteries in life.
The movie started and it was everything I expected it to be. I still don’t like the layering effect of 3D animation. I don’t like fact that sometimes you can still tell that it’s layered, but the 3D glasses have come a long way. I still remember when they were paper strips with one blue eye and one red. If you’ve seen them now you have to able to agree that they almost could pass for those cool non prescription glasses like Meekakitty seems to love so much. But I really didn’t like wearing the 3D glasses. Once the movie started it wasn’t so bad because I felt sucked into the world of Wonderland, but during the previews it was just annoying to have the glasses on and have to watch the layering technique of 3D movie making.
Overall though Alice in Wonderland topped my favorite movie list. Tim Burton is a genius! I would be honored to work with him someday even it that was just fetching his coffee for him. I am in awe of his work and what he is capable of doing. Although I’m not a huge fan of Johnny Depp, I say this meaning that I don’t swoon over him like some, I have to admit that he is the most brilliant actor of his time (yes, I still agree that Mia’s acting was fabulous and should have been appreciated much more). It is rare to find a person as capable of being so many different characters. I mean he’s gone from being a pirate to Willy Wonka and now a mad hatter. And most of all they are all portrayed in the most fascinating ways. I can see now why Tim Burton is so keen on putting Johnny in all his movies. The Mad Hatter was such an interesting character in this movie. He went through stages of complete seriousness where he seemed so simply mad that he proved the point Hatter was truly mad. It’s hard to put into words honestly. Helena Carter also did a wonderful job playing the Red Queen. She was threatening yet at the same time with her giant head brought I slight amount of comic relief to the evil side of the movie.
This wasn’t at all Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass and What Alice found There. And for that I am very happy. It wasn’t supposed to be and I think that the world currently has enough renditions of Alice in Wonderland that we just need to give up and admit that they are never actually going to get the real idea of Alice’s first trip to Wonderland right. Although I am sure that if Tim Burton would be the one to make an Alice he would be the closest. But Burton didn’t go with the original idea of Alice’s first trip, and if he did I think the movie would have had a bit creepier of an edge. He might have focused on Alice’s distorted view of the people and things in Wonderland. Seeing how she was so young on her first trip there, there was no way that she could have seen things clearly. But Burton took a different approach to the idea of Wonderland. He had Alice at the age of 19 running away from a life she wasn’t happy with, a place where she felt repressed, to Wonderland where she found her old friends, of course she didn’t remember them, and a Wonderland that needed her help to be saved. In Wonderland Alice found herself faced with many journeys testing her each time and forcing her to grow (not physically in size, although that did sometimes happen) a little each time. Burton never forgot the idea that Alice was a story about a girl finding herself and growing up in the end. This is one of the first Alice movies where Alice is truly a different person coming out of the rabbit hole. In the end of this movie Alice has the courage to do what she needs to be able to do. In the end Alice has regained her Muchness.
This movie was a mix of wonder, excitement, comedy, and so much more. Throughout the entire movie Tim Burton kept a creepy kind of edge but not pushing his limit. This movie by no means is scary or frightening but at the same time the characters are certainly mad each in their own way. After all, all the best people are mad. Should you go and see Alice in Wonderland? Definitely! Go! Today!
Did I not cover a point that you thought I should? Leave a comment and I will answer whatever I can about the movie.
Hopefully my next blog will actually catch you up on what my life has been like lately. I can assure you it’s been hectic. I am on semi spring break this week so you can expect a blog by hopefully Wednesday. I can catch you guys up on the fire at my school, that lovely dentist trip that I had so many months ago but haven’t been able to forget, and whatever else I need to catch you up on.
So similar to many other people across the globe, I went to the midnight showing of Alice in Wonderland. Contrary to many people, I have been waiting for this movie for over a year and the part I was most looking forward to was Mia Wasikowska’s acting. She is brilliant and it bothers me that the critics are ignoring that. For once it seems that Alice is an actual person, and that is entirely because of Mia’s acting. Last year when I had heard she was playing Alice I looked up her work in the show “In Treatment” all I can say is that it was brilliant as well! She brings the character of Sophie to a reality that I think would be nearly impossible for most actresses.
I had my tickets five days in advanced for Alice in Wonderland and although I had a terrible week, I was still looking forward to going and seeing the movie.
My friend Bre picked me up a little after nine thirty that night, after she got off of work, and we heading down town. We stopped to get coffee at Starbucks before heading over to the theatre, and I full regret doing so now. Upon getting to the theatre at ten thirty that night, we discovered that we missed the chance to stand in line with all the fun cosplayers and actually enjoy the light of the waiting area. Instead we got the overflow and had to wait inside the theatre where it was dark and we were separated from everyone else. There were only a maybe a dozen people there with us. It was dark making the video blog I was trying to make for the friends who were supposed to go with me (they are currently in Florida) impossible. Bre, and I hope to God she doesn’t see this, was a bore and did her homework for the half hour we waited. I definitely didn’t get as much enjoyment as I wanted to in waiting to be let into the viewing theatre.
There were a lot of people who dressed up. The same people who were there probably hours before waiting to get in. I had wanted to talk to them so badly, but because I was with Bre, we sat in the theatre texting our friends instead. I’m not saying I didn’t love spending time with Bre. She is seriously one of the greatest friends I have and I love spending time with her. It’s just that I had a different picture in my head, and I didn’t get that in reality. *Sad face* So after waiting for an hour in the actual viewing theatre we were ready for the movie to start.
As one of our pre previews, they showed Jewel’s new music video “Stay here forever.” Jewel is my favorite singer so I really enjoyed getting to listen to the song which is actually a really amazing song. I didn’t enjoy hearing the people sitting next to me bash not the song but Jewel. I really hate when people do that. Sure they didn’t know that they were sitting by a huge Jewel fan, but seriously, they were in their late twenties early thirties, shouldn’t you, at that age, be able to keep your mouth shut when it comes to talking about celebs and people you don’t even know. I think people just need to respect them for what they do because it takes gut and courage. For example as I have said before I dislike Twilight. Sure I don’t like S. Meyer much or her writing but I still admire the fact that she is doing what she is doing and she’s putting her work out there. I think the rest of the world needs to be a bit more open to things. Obviously our world really isn’t that advanced into maturity yet.
I won’t sit here and complain to long about that. I got up and went to get snakes for Bre and myself. I hadn’t realized how expensive it is to eat snakes at a theatre. Wow! The best part of going to get snakes though was the part when a couple who had been by us in line stepped away from me because I was talking into my camera for my video blog. I didn’t get it on camera but you can hear me saying something like “I recording this for my friends so they feel like they were here,” Pause, “Oh cool step away,” I couldn’t believe it. Did they honestly think I was that big of a freak? How do the YouTube vloggers get away with it? Haha. One of those great mysteries in life.
The movie started and it was everything I expected it to be. I still don’t like the layering effect of 3D animation. I don’t like fact that sometimes you can still tell that it’s layered, but the 3D glasses have come a long way. I still remember when they were paper strips with one blue eye and one red. If you’ve seen them now you have to able to agree that they almost could pass for those cool non prescription glasses like Meekakitty seems to love so much. But I really didn’t like wearing the 3D glasses. Once the movie started it wasn’t so bad because I felt sucked into the world of Wonderland, but during the previews it was just annoying to have the glasses on and have to watch the layering technique of 3D movie making.
Overall though Alice in Wonderland topped my favorite movie list. Tim Burton is a genius! I would be honored to work with him someday even it that was just fetching his coffee for him. I am in awe of his work and what he is capable of doing. Although I’m not a huge fan of Johnny Depp, I say this meaning that I don’t swoon over him like some, I have to admit that he is the most brilliant actor of his time (yes, I still agree that Mia’s acting was fabulous and should have been appreciated much more). It is rare to find a person as capable of being so many different characters. I mean he’s gone from being a pirate to Willy Wonka and now a mad hatter. And most of all they are all portrayed in the most fascinating ways. I can see now why Tim Burton is so keen on putting Johnny in all his movies. The Mad Hatter was such an interesting character in this movie. He went through stages of complete seriousness where he seemed so simply mad that he proved the point Hatter was truly mad. It’s hard to put into words honestly. Helena Carter also did a wonderful job playing the Red Queen. She was threatening yet at the same time with her giant head brought I slight amount of comic relief to the evil side of the movie.
This wasn’t at all Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass and What Alice found There. And for that I am very happy. It wasn’t supposed to be and I think that the world currently has enough renditions of Alice in Wonderland that we just need to give up and admit that they are never actually going to get the real idea of Alice’s first trip to Wonderland right. Although I am sure that if Tim Burton would be the one to make an Alice he would be the closest. But Burton didn’t go with the original idea of Alice’s first trip, and if he did I think the movie would have had a bit creepier of an edge. He might have focused on Alice’s distorted view of the people and things in Wonderland. Seeing how she was so young on her first trip there, there was no way that she could have seen things clearly. But Burton took a different approach to the idea of Wonderland. He had Alice at the age of 19 running away from a life she wasn’t happy with, a place where she felt repressed, to Wonderland where she found her old friends, of course she didn’t remember them, and a Wonderland that needed her help to be saved. In Wonderland Alice found herself faced with many journeys testing her each time and forcing her to grow (not physically in size, although that did sometimes happen) a little each time. Burton never forgot the idea that Alice was a story about a girl finding herself and growing up in the end. This is one of the first Alice movies where Alice is truly a different person coming out of the rabbit hole. In the end of this movie Alice has the courage to do what she needs to be able to do. In the end Alice has regained her Muchness.
This movie was a mix of wonder, excitement, comedy, and so much more. Throughout the entire movie Tim Burton kept a creepy kind of edge but not pushing his limit. This movie by no means is scary or frightening but at the same time the characters are certainly mad each in their own way. After all, all the best people are mad. Should you go and see Alice in Wonderland? Definitely! Go! Today!
Did I not cover a point that you thought I should? Leave a comment and I will answer whatever I can about the movie.
Hopefully my next blog will actually catch you up on what my life has been like lately. I can assure you it’s been hectic. I am on semi spring break this week so you can expect a blog by hopefully Wednesday. I can catch you guys up on the fire at my school, that lovely dentist trip that I had so many months ago but haven’t been able to forget, and whatever else I need to catch you up on.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Butterbeer Experience
It would be so much easier to blog if I wasn’t so crazy tired and if I didn’t smell like smoke…maybe a shower is in order first?? Yea, I think so. Alright back in a flash.
That was nice. I don’t smell like smoke anymore and it’s amazing how much a shower can wake you up. Why do I smell like smoke? Glad to answer. First let me say: Happy Valentine’s Day! Second: I smell like smoke because I spent the evening at one of my best friend’s house pretty much having the most amazing Valentine’s Day that I’ve had in years.
I’m the anti-Valentine’s Day sort of girl, if I can forget that it’s couples day, the better, but this year my brother has a girlfriend and sadly I’m not all that fond of her. My brother was going to make her a nice fancy dinner (by fancy I mean steak and potatoes) and they were going to be all mushy gushy all night. Naturally, I wanted to get out of the house and let the couple (and my parents) have their V-day fun. Dilemma—where to go? That’s when one of my besties, Kim, said that I could come over to her place and we could play Harry Potter video games. Sounded good to me! Anything to get me out of the house.
But then it hit me. It had been something we had been discussing doing for a very long time, but we didn’t ever have the right time to do it. This seemed like the perfect time. We were going to make butterbeer! Butterbeer? Yeah, you know that drink from the Harry Potter books that they were always buying at the three broomsticks! We wanted to make some! So why not do it on our dateless Valentine’s Day?
So everything was ready to go. I took a trip to Giant Eagle, even though I was almost prevented by the snow, around five in the afternoon in order to get the ingredients that I needed. But I never realized that I knew so little about Giant Eagle and its layout. Seriously, I walked around that store for maybe twenty minutes without finding ANYTHING I was looking for. Who knew everything I was looking for was actually within four isles of each other. I finally gotten so fed up with walking around pointlessly not knowing where I was going, that I picked up my phone and called Km just so I could complain to her that I couldn’t find anything. I was actually on the other side of the store when I finally asked a man who was placing laundry detergent on the shelves, “Where can I find ice cream toppings?”
He didn’t even look up to me before answering sharply, “Isle 6.”
So, ice cream topping = isle six. Let me know if that’s true at your Giant Eagles too!
Anyway, I finally got the club soda and the butterscotch for the butterbeer, but I still had the dilemma of finding candy hearts. Where were they? It was Valentine’s Day, they had to be somewhere, but I just couldn’t find them. I couldn’t find them in the candy area. Turns out I was actually just blind and they were with the V-day candy. Sadly though we had to settle for very sour ones. But hey, candy is still candy.
So finally I got to Kim’s house. Our little ‘party’ consisted of her, me, her sister Nikki (who is also a very close friend of mine and who I am coincidently talking to on AIM right now), their mom, and their mom’s boyfriend. We spent the earlier part of the night watching Nikki sew clothes for poor children in Africa and listening to WizRock while dinner was cooking. Kim and I often dream about having our own wizrock band called “The Quibbler” which is one of the few good Harry Potter references yet taken. We decided our first song was going to be called “Polyjuice.” This decision can from the random lyric created by Kim picking out a candy heart that said “You & me” but her thinking it said “You are me” It resulted in me singing, “You are me, I am you, that’s what Polyjuice does to you.” And that’s as far as our song has gone. It will be a hit I promise. Our only musical hope though comes from Nikki who plays the flue. At least until I master the guitar, which could take years. So will you be hearing from “The Quibbler” anytime soon? Probably not. But we’ll keep you updated.
After dinner, and after a lot more Harry Potter based discussions one in which included looking up which house Luna Lovegood was from (I lost by the way thinking she was a Hufflepuff). And after many more candy hearts that we read completely wrong, (The writing on one was so messed up I thought it said Barty Crouch. And there were many that said DIVA but we thought said DNA.) we finally did get around to making butterbeer. I documented basically the entire thing in photos and it really wasn’t complicated to do. Butterbeer is simply butter and butterscotch heated up with club soda added to it. So it was actually rather quick and simple to make, it was just a lot of fun. No one has ever informed Nikki it seems that club soda is caffeinated because she was really surprised when it exploded on her. We pretty much spent a good portion of our butterbeer making, not making butterbeer, but dancing around to some radio station that I didn’t even know to Michael Jackson and other music that normally isn’t on the radio. You know, those songs you never hear, but you know nearly every word to anyway.
Butterbeer is great! It is supper fizzy and really sweet. Like they say in the HP books, it really does have a sort of warming effect, but I didn’t think it tasted very good cold. Eh, it could just be me. The rest of the night consisted of Harry Potter video games in which I just moved the control sticks around widely popping out random spells that I didn’t even know and in turn winning every duel. Not going to lie, winning gets boring after awhile and instead we opening the first Harry Potter book and I read to Kim and Nikki adding in my own little comments.
1. I had no idea that the first chapter took place BEFORE Harry’s parents were dead, so the entire first two pages I was like WTF is going on. (I would like to defend this by saying it has been maybe eight years since I have READ the first books proving the movies can really mess things up. Not that they aren’t great movies.)
2. I liked making comments on what things Mr. Dursley hated. Such as people walking around in cloaks because how dare people wear things that they want to.
3. I eventually skipped to the middle of the book to Draco and Harry’s first meeting (which I had totally forgotten WAS NOT at Hogwarts but in Diagon Alley) and read all of Draco’s lines with a southern accent. I must point out that it fits him well. Maybe not his overall character, but the way he talks just fits too well.
Basically, best V-day ever! I wish it wasn’t over. I had so much fun.
Conclusions from the night: Ice cream topping= isle 6....Butterbeer=awesome…Draco Malfoy= should be southern.
Hope you all had a great V-day as well!
That was nice. I don’t smell like smoke anymore and it’s amazing how much a shower can wake you up. Why do I smell like smoke? Glad to answer. First let me say: Happy Valentine’s Day! Second: I smell like smoke because I spent the evening at one of my best friend’s house pretty much having the most amazing Valentine’s Day that I’ve had in years.
I’m the anti-Valentine’s Day sort of girl, if I can forget that it’s couples day, the better, but this year my brother has a girlfriend and sadly I’m not all that fond of her. My brother was going to make her a nice fancy dinner (by fancy I mean steak and potatoes) and they were going to be all mushy gushy all night. Naturally, I wanted to get out of the house and let the couple (and my parents) have their V-day fun. Dilemma—where to go? That’s when one of my besties, Kim, said that I could come over to her place and we could play Harry Potter video games. Sounded good to me! Anything to get me out of the house.
But then it hit me. It had been something we had been discussing doing for a very long time, but we didn’t ever have the right time to do it. This seemed like the perfect time. We were going to make butterbeer! Butterbeer? Yeah, you know that drink from the Harry Potter books that they were always buying at the three broomsticks! We wanted to make some! So why not do it on our dateless Valentine’s Day?
So everything was ready to go. I took a trip to Giant Eagle, even though I was almost prevented by the snow, around five in the afternoon in order to get the ingredients that I needed. But I never realized that I knew so little about Giant Eagle and its layout. Seriously, I walked around that store for maybe twenty minutes without finding ANYTHING I was looking for. Who knew everything I was looking for was actually within four isles of each other. I finally gotten so fed up with walking around pointlessly not knowing where I was going, that I picked up my phone and called Km just so I could complain to her that I couldn’t find anything. I was actually on the other side of the store when I finally asked a man who was placing laundry detergent on the shelves, “Where can I find ice cream toppings?”
He didn’t even look up to me before answering sharply, “Isle 6.”
So, ice cream topping = isle six. Let me know if that’s true at your Giant Eagles too!
Anyway, I finally got the club soda and the butterscotch for the butterbeer, but I still had the dilemma of finding candy hearts. Where were they? It was Valentine’s Day, they had to be somewhere, but I just couldn’t find them. I couldn’t find them in the candy area. Turns out I was actually just blind and they were with the V-day candy. Sadly though we had to settle for very sour ones. But hey, candy is still candy.
So finally I got to Kim’s house. Our little ‘party’ consisted of her, me, her sister Nikki (who is also a very close friend of mine and who I am coincidently talking to on AIM right now), their mom, and their mom’s boyfriend. We spent the earlier part of the night watching Nikki sew clothes for poor children in Africa and listening to WizRock while dinner was cooking. Kim and I often dream about having our own wizrock band called “The Quibbler” which is one of the few good Harry Potter references yet taken. We decided our first song was going to be called “Polyjuice.” This decision can from the random lyric created by Kim picking out a candy heart that said “You & me” but her thinking it said “You are me” It resulted in me singing, “You are me, I am you, that’s what Polyjuice does to you.” And that’s as far as our song has gone. It will be a hit I promise. Our only musical hope though comes from Nikki who plays the flue. At least until I master the guitar, which could take years. So will you be hearing from “The Quibbler” anytime soon? Probably not. But we’ll keep you updated.
After dinner, and after a lot more Harry Potter based discussions one in which included looking up which house Luna Lovegood was from (I lost by the way thinking she was a Hufflepuff). And after many more candy hearts that we read completely wrong, (The writing on one was so messed up I thought it said Barty Crouch. And there were many that said DIVA but we thought said DNA.) we finally did get around to making butterbeer. I documented basically the entire thing in photos and it really wasn’t complicated to do. Butterbeer is simply butter and butterscotch heated up with club soda added to it. So it was actually rather quick and simple to make, it was just a lot of fun. No one has ever informed Nikki it seems that club soda is caffeinated because she was really surprised when it exploded on her. We pretty much spent a good portion of our butterbeer making, not making butterbeer, but dancing around to some radio station that I didn’t even know to Michael Jackson and other music that normally isn’t on the radio. You know, those songs you never hear, but you know nearly every word to anyway.
Butterbeer is great! It is supper fizzy and really sweet. Like they say in the HP books, it really does have a sort of warming effect, but I didn’t think it tasted very good cold. Eh, it could just be me. The rest of the night consisted of Harry Potter video games in which I just moved the control sticks around widely popping out random spells that I didn’t even know and in turn winning every duel. Not going to lie, winning gets boring after awhile and instead we opening the first Harry Potter book and I read to Kim and Nikki adding in my own little comments.
1. I had no idea that the first chapter took place BEFORE Harry’s parents were dead, so the entire first two pages I was like WTF is going on. (I would like to defend this by saying it has been maybe eight years since I have READ the first books proving the movies can really mess things up. Not that they aren’t great movies.)
2. I liked making comments on what things Mr. Dursley hated. Such as people walking around in cloaks because how dare people wear things that they want to.
3. I eventually skipped to the middle of the book to Draco and Harry’s first meeting (which I had totally forgotten WAS NOT at Hogwarts but in Diagon Alley) and read all of Draco’s lines with a southern accent. I must point out that it fits him well. Maybe not his overall character, but the way he talks just fits too well.
Basically, best V-day ever! I wish it wasn’t over. I had so much fun.
Conclusions from the night: Ice cream topping= isle 6....Butterbeer=awesome…Draco Malfoy= should be southern.
Hope you all had a great V-day as well!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Dentists are Decepticons
It seems like it’s been a lifetime since I’ve actually blogged. Life has just been so crazy. I figured I would actually blog though and let people know how my life has actually been comparative to my rants and raves about how shitty I think my life is when really there is nothing wrong.
I started my college classes two weeks ago. I can’t tell if I am going to do well in them or if they are going to have epic fail written all over them. I am taking a short story class and calc 1. So far I really, really enjoy the short story class. I love to read a story and then have the freedom of talking about OUR thoughts on it instead of some written out technical answers. The only thing I really don’t like about it so far is that we have quizzes every day we have class, and I have a huge test anxiety. Worst part? The entire class is based on those quiz scores. That might be the reason I drop the class. We have our first essay coming up this week. I have never written a formal paper for college before, so I am really afraid that I won’t be able to set it up the way the Professor wants us to and what not. I will be asking a lot of questions.
My calc class is calc class, what can I say? I took calc 1 last year in high school and I’m taking calc 2 there right now. Yet this calc class is a lot different. For starters I got one of those joyous teachers who don’t teach very well. He has this idea to assign homework BEFORE we learn the topic. Which is fine with me but for some of the kids in the class who never have done Calc before, not so good. We had our first quiz, didn’t do so well. I didn’t know how to find the domain of an inverse. I sort of understand it now, but that doesn’t help me anymore. We did these problems called Epsilon delta proofs which I had never heard of before. The Professor keeps explaining them to us, but we still don’t get it. I am still trying to figure out what he is talking about and how to do the problems.
I got a letter in the mail today from my dentist. I had gone in over Christmas break for a checkup and they had told me that I was clear of cavities. However, this letter says that upon looking at my x-rays they have needed to schedule me for a thirty minute filling. Now, sure I’m angry that I have been so dumb lately as to let my dental hygiene go poorly, but I am ever more upset that now I have to stress around to find a good hour and a half (considering the dentist is a good twenty minutes away from my area) in order to go get my teeth fixed. I don’t have time for that! Between high school, college, work, and homework, I don’t even have time to blog anymore let alone spend an hour and a half doing something I really hate—going to the dentist. I don’t understand dentists. They scrape at your mouth make you hurt and bleed and then put this extremely disgusting toothpaste in your mouth and tell you that is how your mouth is supposed to feel. You know that fresh out of the dentist feel? Well, let me tell you, I HATE THAT FEELING! I just don’t understand dentistry. Sure having pretty, straight teeth is nice and all, and I am really glad my parents put me through the punishment of having braces, but I can take it from here. I have a cavity? I don’t feel anything; if it gets too bad then I will go to the dentist, but before that I think I will live. I can take care of my own teeth and you know I really want to whiten mine. That’s why they have over the counter whiteners that work good. Maybe it’s just because I hate my buck teeth that I don’t care about the dentists, but then again I hate doctors too.
I am going to grow up to be one of those people who doesn’t go to the dentist or the doctor and just takes good care of themselves. This is really ironic because I want to be a veterinarian. Animal doctor who doesn’t go to the doctor herself? A bit contradictory isn’t it?
Eh, I’m just really stressed out right now.
I am finishing up things for my senior project which is a huge project you have to do at my school in order to graduate. It’s really pointless in the spectrum of things because it A. ruins a person’s senior year seeing as how no one enjoys their time doing it and b. they won’t fail you anyway because they want you to graduate. For this lovely project you can either A. Job shadow, B. Do a creative exhibition, or C. Do a leadership/community service project. I held a spoons tournament to raise money for the Humane Society. I had originally wanted to raise money for Project Clean Water a foundation that gave clean water to poor countries (for info go to www.giveadrop.com or www.jeweljk.com) That didn’t work out though and I had to go with a plan B, the Human Society. If you don’t know what the game Spoons is I suggest you look it up, it’s fun but I don’t really want to explain it, I’m too tired and don’t have enough time for it. Basically the night (last Wednesday) was a disaster. I had thirty people sign up to play, but only maybe 10 of them came. Three other people, one being my mentor, another being a kid I had asked last minute to come, and the last being a brother of some of the competitors came as well, so basically there were thirteen people there. I had eight refs. Do the math. We only raised $150 dollars, which when you think of how much it costs to take care of animals, it’s not much at all. I have been forcing myself to look at the bright side of all this and say that at least people had fun and we raised over one hundred dollars. But, come on, you know me. I am a huge pessimist.
My phone just went off. My ringtone is Maurader’s Map by the Ministry of Magic. That made me smile a little. I didn’t answer though. I don’t answer when I don’t know that number that is calling me. That’s how I function. Plus when they don’t leave a voice message I don’t have to worry about caring who it was or telling them that they had an incorrect number.
Ugh. I don’t know what else I really have to talk about. Just ended a semester at my High School. Finished with my terrible sociology class (yes I got my grade fixed). I get to move on to geography now. Yippee? We’ll see.
Well I am off to shower then work on thank you cards and short story reading. This week I get to read Pritchette and Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite writers to analyze so I am really excited to start that!
P.S. If you don't get the title I suggest you look up the vlogbrothers on youtube.
DFTBA!
I started my college classes two weeks ago. I can’t tell if I am going to do well in them or if they are going to have epic fail written all over them. I am taking a short story class and calc 1. So far I really, really enjoy the short story class. I love to read a story and then have the freedom of talking about OUR thoughts on it instead of some written out technical answers. The only thing I really don’t like about it so far is that we have quizzes every day we have class, and I have a huge test anxiety. Worst part? The entire class is based on those quiz scores. That might be the reason I drop the class. We have our first essay coming up this week. I have never written a formal paper for college before, so I am really afraid that I won’t be able to set it up the way the Professor wants us to and what not. I will be asking a lot of questions.
My calc class is calc class, what can I say? I took calc 1 last year in high school and I’m taking calc 2 there right now. Yet this calc class is a lot different. For starters I got one of those joyous teachers who don’t teach very well. He has this idea to assign homework BEFORE we learn the topic. Which is fine with me but for some of the kids in the class who never have done Calc before, not so good. We had our first quiz, didn’t do so well. I didn’t know how to find the domain of an inverse. I sort of understand it now, but that doesn’t help me anymore. We did these problems called Epsilon delta proofs which I had never heard of before. The Professor keeps explaining them to us, but we still don’t get it. I am still trying to figure out what he is talking about and how to do the problems.
I got a letter in the mail today from my dentist. I had gone in over Christmas break for a checkup and they had told me that I was clear of cavities. However, this letter says that upon looking at my x-rays they have needed to schedule me for a thirty minute filling. Now, sure I’m angry that I have been so dumb lately as to let my dental hygiene go poorly, but I am ever more upset that now I have to stress around to find a good hour and a half (considering the dentist is a good twenty minutes away from my area) in order to go get my teeth fixed. I don’t have time for that! Between high school, college, work, and homework, I don’t even have time to blog anymore let alone spend an hour and a half doing something I really hate—going to the dentist. I don’t understand dentists. They scrape at your mouth make you hurt and bleed and then put this extremely disgusting toothpaste in your mouth and tell you that is how your mouth is supposed to feel. You know that fresh out of the dentist feel? Well, let me tell you, I HATE THAT FEELING! I just don’t understand dentistry. Sure having pretty, straight teeth is nice and all, and I am really glad my parents put me through the punishment of having braces, but I can take it from here. I have a cavity? I don’t feel anything; if it gets too bad then I will go to the dentist, but before that I think I will live. I can take care of my own teeth and you know I really want to whiten mine. That’s why they have over the counter whiteners that work good. Maybe it’s just because I hate my buck teeth that I don’t care about the dentists, but then again I hate doctors too.
I am going to grow up to be one of those people who doesn’t go to the dentist or the doctor and just takes good care of themselves. This is really ironic because I want to be a veterinarian. Animal doctor who doesn’t go to the doctor herself? A bit contradictory isn’t it?
Eh, I’m just really stressed out right now.
I am finishing up things for my senior project which is a huge project you have to do at my school in order to graduate. It’s really pointless in the spectrum of things because it A. ruins a person’s senior year seeing as how no one enjoys their time doing it and b. they won’t fail you anyway because they want you to graduate. For this lovely project you can either A. Job shadow, B. Do a creative exhibition, or C. Do a leadership/community service project. I held a spoons tournament to raise money for the Humane Society. I had originally wanted to raise money for Project Clean Water a foundation that gave clean water to poor countries (for info go to www.giveadrop.com or www.jeweljk.com) That didn’t work out though and I had to go with a plan B, the Human Society. If you don’t know what the game Spoons is I suggest you look it up, it’s fun but I don’t really want to explain it, I’m too tired and don’t have enough time for it. Basically the night (last Wednesday) was a disaster. I had thirty people sign up to play, but only maybe 10 of them came. Three other people, one being my mentor, another being a kid I had asked last minute to come, and the last being a brother of some of the competitors came as well, so basically there were thirteen people there. I had eight refs. Do the math. We only raised $150 dollars, which when you think of how much it costs to take care of animals, it’s not much at all. I have been forcing myself to look at the bright side of all this and say that at least people had fun and we raised over one hundred dollars. But, come on, you know me. I am a huge pessimist.
My phone just went off. My ringtone is Maurader’s Map by the Ministry of Magic. That made me smile a little. I didn’t answer though. I don’t answer when I don’t know that number that is calling me. That’s how I function. Plus when they don’t leave a voice message I don’t have to worry about caring who it was or telling them that they had an incorrect number.
Ugh. I don’t know what else I really have to talk about. Just ended a semester at my High School. Finished with my terrible sociology class (yes I got my grade fixed). I get to move on to geography now. Yippee? We’ll see.
Well I am off to shower then work on thank you cards and short story reading. This week I get to read Pritchette and Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite writers to analyze so I am really excited to start that!
P.S. If you don't get the title I suggest you look up the vlogbrothers on youtube.
DFTBA!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Senior Excellence “The Experience”….
As a senior in high school I get the “honor” of filling out a Senior Superlative for the yearbook. You know, that list of who’s who. Class clown, biggest brain, most likely to suck egg. But I don’t get it. Superlative by definition means excellence, when we’re not talking about grammar at least. Thus, we are saying that those being elected as “Class Clown” “Best Eyes” “Most Holy Art Thou” and such are the school’s excellent senior students? So we are implicating the fact that by goofing off in class or by being pretty these people are excellent while others aren’t. Right?
Sure, it’s some high school rite of passage to do this for the yearbook, but can’t we do it without being stereotypical about it? Obviously looking at the list of Senior Superlatives in front of me “Biggest Brain” is going to go to that girl who’s been known as the brainiac all her life even though she doesn’t want to be considered that any longer. The “Most Spirited” is going to go to the head cheerleader and the football captain. “Prettiest Eyes” will go to the most popular girl in the school, not because her eyes are pretty, but because people want to compliment her. Then there are things like “Teachers pet” and “Most changed since freshman year” that can be offensive to people. Who really wants to be known as that person who could get whatever they wanted from their teachers…not me.
All eighteen years of my life, and my four years of high school, I have been told that we shouldn’t stereotype people. We shouldn’t judge people. We shouldn’t categorize people. Isn’t that what these “Senior Superlatives” are doing? We focus more on the popularity side of high school when we look to categorize people, but what about the average Joe? Categorization is one of the first stages of genocide. Not that I would ever expect for something this simple to start something THAT massive, but stranger things have happened. But maybe if we focused on the REAL definition of superlative instead of the one that will give the high school kids “kicks.”
I know this girl. She’s been a Girl Scout all her life, and she worked really hard and received her Gold Award which is I guess the highest ranking award girls can get through scouting. That’s forty hours of work she put into her community to improve it and herself. Looking at her she’s a normal girl. She’s not overly brainy. She has normal eyes and normal hair. She dresses as most high school kids do: jeans or sweatpants. She’s not particularly artsy, sporty, or spirited, but she’s put so much work into improving the things around her. She never got recognized for her excellence in that field. And here I am sitting and looking at my list of Senior Superlatives and there is no category of excellence for her and her work.
In my eyes being pretty, being sincere, and being smart, while all being nice things, aren’t excellence. They are more of gifts given to us by the good grace of God. And by abusing our democracy in America to tell people what they are and are not isn’t excellence either. As high school students, with our raging hormones and major cases of “Get me out of here I’m sick of this place,” we can get hurt by these categorizations of our classmates. Because what if you were that boy who was pushing harder than anyone you knew to get to your future. What if you stayed up until midnight every night working on scholarships, financial aid applications, that novel you have been working on in hopes to someday get published, but because you are a little shy people don’t know you, or because you don’t play football no one cares and you don’t get “Most Likely to Succeed?” Wouldn’t you be hurt? Wouldn’t you be put down so low that graduation almost, if even only for a second, felt pointless?
For now a week of my life I have had to sit and listen to groups of kids “plot” out their superlative lists.
“Hey let’s vote her for this category because she’ll hate it,” Or “Lisa is class flirt because I think she’s a slut. Put her down! Maybe she’ll cry when she gets it!”
Yes, I’m not joking around. Those are the things that I have heard this week while superlatives were out there. High school kids are brutal and mean.
Why am I sitting here, at my computer complaining about all this? No, it’s not because I already know I won’t get a spot on our list. But that is true. There is no category after all for, “Most likely to start a riot” or “Most likely to picket the White House,” although if there were THAT would be excellence. THAT takes courage! (I’m just joshing.) Anyway, I am saying this because I know there are a lot of senior out there who are getting ready for their yearbooks who agree that this senior list isn’t really all that fun and games. Some people don’t agree with it. I’m not saying “let’s take it out of our school systems.” NO! I understand that although maybe one percent of the population hates them, 99% of seniors really enjoy doing it. It’s part of “the experience.” I just think that maybe it’s about time more thought goes into these sort of things. Let’s take away the offensive material, and put the ones that matter most.
“Most community service”
“Most work for his/her school”
“High Honors”
“High Lettering”
Get rid of those Best this and best that and most likely to do this and most likely to do that. Those aren’t the things we should focus on. It’s about time we stopped with false excellence.
Sure, it’s some high school rite of passage to do this for the yearbook, but can’t we do it without being stereotypical about it? Obviously looking at the list of Senior Superlatives in front of me “Biggest Brain” is going to go to that girl who’s been known as the brainiac all her life even though she doesn’t want to be considered that any longer. The “Most Spirited” is going to go to the head cheerleader and the football captain. “Prettiest Eyes” will go to the most popular girl in the school, not because her eyes are pretty, but because people want to compliment her. Then there are things like “Teachers pet” and “Most changed since freshman year” that can be offensive to people. Who really wants to be known as that person who could get whatever they wanted from their teachers…not me.
All eighteen years of my life, and my four years of high school, I have been told that we shouldn’t stereotype people. We shouldn’t judge people. We shouldn’t categorize people. Isn’t that what these “Senior Superlatives” are doing? We focus more on the popularity side of high school when we look to categorize people, but what about the average Joe? Categorization is one of the first stages of genocide. Not that I would ever expect for something this simple to start something THAT massive, but stranger things have happened. But maybe if we focused on the REAL definition of superlative instead of the one that will give the high school kids “kicks.”
I know this girl. She’s been a Girl Scout all her life, and she worked really hard and received her Gold Award which is I guess the highest ranking award girls can get through scouting. That’s forty hours of work she put into her community to improve it and herself. Looking at her she’s a normal girl. She’s not overly brainy. She has normal eyes and normal hair. She dresses as most high school kids do: jeans or sweatpants. She’s not particularly artsy, sporty, or spirited, but she’s put so much work into improving the things around her. She never got recognized for her excellence in that field. And here I am sitting and looking at my list of Senior Superlatives and there is no category of excellence for her and her work.
In my eyes being pretty, being sincere, and being smart, while all being nice things, aren’t excellence. They are more of gifts given to us by the good grace of God. And by abusing our democracy in America to tell people what they are and are not isn’t excellence either. As high school students, with our raging hormones and major cases of “Get me out of here I’m sick of this place,” we can get hurt by these categorizations of our classmates. Because what if you were that boy who was pushing harder than anyone you knew to get to your future. What if you stayed up until midnight every night working on scholarships, financial aid applications, that novel you have been working on in hopes to someday get published, but because you are a little shy people don’t know you, or because you don’t play football no one cares and you don’t get “Most Likely to Succeed?” Wouldn’t you be hurt? Wouldn’t you be put down so low that graduation almost, if even only for a second, felt pointless?
For now a week of my life I have had to sit and listen to groups of kids “plot” out their superlative lists.
“Hey let’s vote her for this category because she’ll hate it,” Or “Lisa is class flirt because I think she’s a slut. Put her down! Maybe she’ll cry when she gets it!”
Yes, I’m not joking around. Those are the things that I have heard this week while superlatives were out there. High school kids are brutal and mean.
Why am I sitting here, at my computer complaining about all this? No, it’s not because I already know I won’t get a spot on our list. But that is true. There is no category after all for, “Most likely to start a riot” or “Most likely to picket the White House,” although if there were THAT would be excellence. THAT takes courage! (I’m just joshing.) Anyway, I am saying this because I know there are a lot of senior out there who are getting ready for their yearbooks who agree that this senior list isn’t really all that fun and games. Some people don’t agree with it. I’m not saying “let’s take it out of our school systems.” NO! I understand that although maybe one percent of the population hates them, 99% of seniors really enjoy doing it. It’s part of “the experience.” I just think that maybe it’s about time more thought goes into these sort of things. Let’s take away the offensive material, and put the ones that matter most.
“Most community service”
“Most work for his/her school”
“High Honors”
“High Lettering”
Get rid of those Best this and best that and most likely to do this and most likely to do that. Those aren’t the things we should focus on. It’s about time we stopped with false excellence.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Short and from my phone.
Do you ever feel like you are standing at the edge of everything? That no matter what you do you will never be what you want to be? You try and try but nothing ever makes the world seem better? Everything, even the good, is just too bad.
That is how I cirrently feel as I found out about 45 minutes ago that I have a C in my sociology class because of a missing assignment. That's the joy of being able to access grades from online. The only catch is if you dont't know what the assignment is you get to spend a wonderful night feeling like crap because your GPA is on the line and you can't pinpoint why. Yeah. what fun.
I know that it probably isnLt a big deal. It's my first missing assignment and I usually do really well in the class anyway. Besides it's High School sociology. They let you hand homework in late all the time-- I hope. Ugh. I hate this. I hate having bad grades. Yes, in my world anything that is not an A is a bad grade. How can I have over 100% in AP calc 2 but not in a gen. ed. sociology class?
Point being that I now feel like a load od crap because of this. I feel like I have fallen. Between the stress of my senior project (we will get into that on a later date), trying to mantain the last few days of my college holiday, and just attempting to survive I have learned one thing: I CAN'T DO IT! No way. No how.
Okay so maybe I can do it. I am just stumblingevery now and again. So over all something has to change. I can't go on feeling like this much longer. I can't let myself get down because of my disorganization and bad habits.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:
1. I will stay organized with everything. That is school and my senior project.
2. I will keep my room and my study clean.
3. I will blog about something BEFORE I start crying about it.
4. I will keep an eye on my mental health. If it gets out of hand, I WILL GO TO A DOCTOR!
5. I will try to be more positive about life. I have to keep my chin up.
If I think of more I will add them. Now if you read this let me know your resolutuions. (oh and sorry in advanced for all my spelling and grammar mistakes.)
That is how I cirrently feel as I found out about 45 minutes ago that I have a C in my sociology class because of a missing assignment. That's the joy of being able to access grades from online. The only catch is if you dont't know what the assignment is you get to spend a wonderful night feeling like crap because your GPA is on the line and you can't pinpoint why. Yeah. what fun.
I know that it probably isnLt a big deal. It's my first missing assignment and I usually do really well in the class anyway. Besides it's High School sociology. They let you hand homework in late all the time-- I hope. Ugh. I hate this. I hate having bad grades. Yes, in my world anything that is not an A is a bad grade. How can I have over 100% in AP calc 2 but not in a gen. ed. sociology class?
Point being that I now feel like a load od crap because of this. I feel like I have fallen. Between the stress of my senior project (we will get into that on a later date), trying to mantain the last few days of my college holiday, and just attempting to survive I have learned one thing: I CAN'T DO IT! No way. No how.
Okay so maybe I can do it. I am just stumblingevery now and again. So over all something has to change. I can't go on feeling like this much longer. I can't let myself get down because of my disorganization and bad habits.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:
1. I will stay organized with everything. That is school and my senior project.
2. I will keep my room and my study clean.
3. I will blog about something BEFORE I start crying about it.
4. I will keep an eye on my mental health. If it gets out of hand, I WILL GO TO A DOCTOR!
5. I will try to be more positive about life. I have to keep my chin up.
If I think of more I will add them. Now if you read this let me know your resolutuions. (oh and sorry in advanced for all my spelling and grammar mistakes.)
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