1 Day Down, 179 To Go

I got a call from our superintendent yesterday.  I had to listen to his whiney voice for no reward.  "School in our district," he drawls, "will continue as scheduled."  That is, no cancellations due to the hurricane like some other schools.  So I listened to this guy's voice for nothing.  Arggh.

So, school.  I'm a junior now!  Honestly, it doesn't feel much different to be an upperclassman.  What's the significance?  Bragging rights, I guess.

Before Homeroom: Meet up in the library.  Discuss the new giant signs, similar to an airport, that tell you where things are.  Make fun of my friend's younger siblings who are frosh.

Homeroom: Get schedule.  Color-code schedule, because I'm OCD like that.

First Period - Romanticism: My teacher is young and extremely socially awkward.  He has no stage presence and can't make eye contact.  It's amusing and a good, easy class for first period.  My friends and I visited our old APUSH teacher right before class, and the new APUSH students have it first period.  Sucks for them.

Second Period - Pre-Calc: I need a $100 graphing calculator by tomorrow.  Plus, we played a name game that involved eating Skittles.  I think that was the highlight.  On the way to class, a frosh asked me where the history hallway was, while we were standing under one of the giant signs that directed you.

Third Period - Creative Writing: We basically spent the  class discussing (read: dissing)the summer reading book, Feed.  The author's going to come talk about it, and the whole school basically hated it.  My friend's sister is planning on heckling him.  Should be entertaining.

Fourth Period - AP World: It's so different from APUSH!!  As in, the teacher didn't spend the first class period trying (and succeeding) to instill fear into your heart.

Lunch: It was fairly lunchy.  Not much else to say.  Frosh #2 asked me for directions.  I was tempted to send them to the farthest corner of the school, but I'm not that mean.

Fifth Period - AP Psych: Soon, I will learn enough psychobabble to confuse my way out of any situation.  Plus, I'll be able to psychoanalyze you all.  I can do that already.  You're awesome.

Sixth Period - Marketing: No friends in this class, I'm lonely.  Frosh #3 asked for directions to the hallway they were standing in.  Do I just look friendly enough not to send them the wrong way?  At least this means I'm tall enough not to look like a freshman to them.  Happy dance!

Seventh Period - Physics: It makes up for Marketing by having 7 of my group in the class.  It's incredible, and I feel really bad for the teacher.

So, conclusion?  I'd rather be sleeping.

The East Coast isn't supposed to have these issues

So what did we do to piss off Mother Nature.  First a freakin' earthquake, now a freakin' hurricane.
I'm sorry, I take it back, Mother Nature!!  I didn't mean to insult you!  Please don't smite me!

Though on the plus side, the "earthquake" spawned a funny meme:

I'm sure you've all seen it before, but I'll post it again so it looks like I had something to do with it.

However, on the negative side, the hurricane sucked.  I lost power for 36 hours.  My neighbors had a tree fall on their shed, and another one come this close to coming down on their house.  Yay, devastation!

The best part was the tree that fell on our street:

It was hilarious to watch all the other cars drive under it, but not as much when I myself had to drive under it.  And extremely reassuring that our town cares enough about our well-being to put a cone under it to warn us of danger.  Or perhaps let us know there was a hazardous tree over the road?  Whatever the reason, I applaud them, because it made the area a lot safer and made us feel like they were protecting us.

Or not.

Life without power is a sad thing.  No Facebook, SparkLife, anything.  Heck, no computer at all!  No phone, because it died and I couldn't recharge it.  No lights.  I took a shower in pitch black.  All our ice cream melted.  And, worst of all, I had no way to update my blog. *cue gasps and screams of horror*

I played Scrabble, Taboo, Trivial Pursuit (we think our is the Canadian edition - about 25% of questions were about Canadian provinces, Canadian politicians, Canadian geography.  Really, Trivial Pursuit?).  I spent 6 hours on a AP World collage.  I ate dinner by candlelight.  I tried to convince my mom to buy a year supply of canned food and a wood burning stove in case the apocalypse happens like in Life As We Knew It (good book, check it out), but she said no.  Sad face.

However, I did get my own phone in my bedroom!  Check it out:

A ROTARY PHONE!  What now?  Beat that, peeps.

All I can conclude from this powerless experience is that is must have sucked to live without electricity.  I mean, how did they go without email???

My blog recently caused a tree to be planted. What now?

What have you done today?

Oh, not much, I just saved the world, that's all.

Okay, maybe I didn't actually save the world, but it's one step closer than it was yesterday.  Because my blog has adopted the label of CARBON-NEUTRAL.  Check it out:

This beautiful icon is also on display in the sidebar, if you feel the need to gaze upon its beauty even more.  It also has mouseover text, like xkcd, which continues to amaze me.  My goal is to learn how to do that on normal pictures, and then my life will be complete.  Or, that is, more complete than helping to save the world.

I planted a tree today.  Can you say that?  I didn't think so.  So get out there and start saving the world, people!

UPDATE: Put your pointer on my image, peeps, and you will be delightfully surprised and awed at my Google search skills computing skills.

I Am SO Making an Amusement Park called "Seven Flags"

You know how Six Flag's motto is "More Flags, More Fun"?  Well, I'll make my amusement park called Seven Flags, and our motto will be "Yes, more flags ARE more fun. HA!"

I crack myself up sometimes.  I don't know if I crack anyone else up, but at least I'm having fun here.

So, in case you couldn't tell, I went to Six Flags (of the New England variety).  For my Sweet 16, which was actually a few months ago.  It got rained out.  So we went and had a blast.

My favorite ride was...drumroll....for once, not the biggest, coolest roller coaster.  Because I've been on far better coasters than those at Six Flags.  Great.  Now I'm a roller coaster snob.

It was the.....TEACUPS!  And no, they are so not lame.  When you spin them so fast that the centrifugal force barely lets you lean inward, and your arms start feeling like they'll fly off, it can get INTENSE.

Other great parts were when we went on this thing called the Buzzsaw.  It looked like this:

And it goes in circles.  It's not very exciting except it give you whiplash in your neck.  However, we felt the need to scream the entire time.  And scream we did.  I feel bad for the other passengers.  But we made friends.  There were these little girls who rode it the whole time we did.  We didn't know their names so we just called them, "Hi, friends!"  I think we probably terrified them.

Finally, we skipped in circles while holding hands when we were about to leave.  Some guy asked if he could join us.  It cracked me up.

This is Mainely about ME (both puns are intended)

I think that my excursion to Acadia National Park (in Maine) can be summarized by my Facebook status:

"Carefully scheduled our vacation. I also made sure to schedule time to be spontaneous."

My parents say I'm a control freak, but I've been trying to be more spontaneous lately, and this is a start, right?  I hope so.  My parents frequently deviated from my schedule, which made me unhappy, which is probably a bad sign (no pun intended), because soon I'll end up like one of those people who write to-do lists that look something like:


TO DO:

1. Hear alarm go off
2. Wake up
3. Turn off alarm clock
4. Sit up
5. Get out of bed
6. Walk to bathroom
7. Put in contacts
8. .....And so on

But anyways, my vacation was fun regardless.  It involved a lot of "light"* hiking and biking, and LOTS of rock climbing, which I'll get to in a second.

*On an island that is like a perpetual uphill, "hiking" is similar to skiing in Canada.  A black diamond on a mountain like Mt. Wachusett (teensy ski area in central MA) is the difficulty equivalent of a green circle on most Canadian mountains.  So Acadia trails are classified as "easy" or "moderate" but what they mean is "hard" and "intense".  And we hiked two, that, in Acadia-lingo, were classified as "strenuous".  I think that means "I hope you arranged for a helicopter to pick up your remains" in normal English.

The rock climbing was awesome (no pun intended).  All sorts of cliff faces everywhere to climb on.  We hiked the Precipice Trail, classified as the most difficult trail in the park, and its basically almost a mile up a sheer cliff face.  No climbing gear necessary, they have iron handholds and ladders in place.  It was ridiculous, but it offered plenty of opportunities to sing "Edge of Glory".

I also found a starfish the size of my head, a store that sells license plates (I decided one day when I actually have money I'll start a license plate collection) and ate the best popovers in existence.

This post has no picture.  Start complaining in the comments if you want more pictures because I'm starting to get lazy, but if you want 'em I'll supply 'em.  Or check the poll.

P.S. I feel like I should do one of these Blogger polls that are circulating around.  But I'm horrible at them because I always end up lying to make myself sound more awesome.  ("Greatest fear?"  Why, the zombie apocalypse, of course!)  Like those Facebook iPod things where you set it on shuffle and your answers are song titles?  I just cheated and put in the titles that answer the questions in the funniest manner.  This is a problem...

SC: "Summer Camp" or "Supreme Court"?

The camp I work at calls themselves [initials deleted due to stalkers who will try to hunt me down and roast my innards]SC.  Unfortunately, having spent a full year in APUSH, whenever I see the initials "SC" I think "Supreme Court."  It's just the way I'm wired.  Like when people were discussing ceramics and the first thing that came to mind was Henry Clay.  Is this a curse or a blessing?  I have yet to decide.

Anyway, today was the last day of Circus SC.  It was a sad, joyous day.  Sad because of all the campers I'll miss, joyous because, multiple times over the course of the summer, I had urges to hit my head against a wall.  With adequate force.  I can't decide whether I love or can't stand these kids.

"Why are the shirts blue?  I hate blue!"
"I CAN'T [insert circus art here that they refuse to do]"
"I'm not flexible, I shouldn't have to do stretching."
"I don't want to do an act with her!  She's bad at it!"
"When is [lunch, swimming, ect]?"
"Why do I have to listen to you?"

They don't understand what the words "straight legs" or "pointed toes" mean, despite repeated instruction.  They don't get that warm-ups mean actually trying, or you have to run laps.  They just don't get that you can't walk on the rolling globe (large ball to walk on) without a spot the first time.  I don't know why.  Was I this dense in elementary school?

But then again, I can't help but to love them.  Watch them learn to do cool things in just one week and get their full splits.  And connect with them.  Like the 7-year-old identical twins ho we just call Thing 1 and Thing 2, and whichever one is closer at the time is Thing 1.  Or the boy who started the summer with no experience and ended with a full straddle split.  And the girl who at first couldn't do a somersault and then was dive-rolling over other campers.

I wish I got paid more though, ya know?

Not to mention the 40-minute commute everyday.  Summer Camp is crazy stuff.  If you're looking for some peace and orderly quiet, check out the other SC.  I hear that our government is never crazy, and not one person has reported that it makes them want to bash their heads against a wall.
Sarcasm hand.
However, check out Secret Cauliflower and Sticky Cadillacs, because I hear they're quite entertaining.

Eveyrday Exercises

Here are some day-to-day stretches and conditioning exercises you can work into your daily routine.  You probably do most of them already anyways, so why not count it as exercise? "Don't worry, Mom, I can play video games today, I already exercised!"

The Cell Service Shoulder/Arm Exercise

Difficulty: Easy

Details: Whenever you need that pesky extra bar of service for your text to send, just raise your arm above your head for a stretch and better access to cell towers!  Alternate arms for even exercise.

The Paint-Your-Toenails Back Stretch

Difficulty: Medium

Details: Want an extra challenge while painting your toenails?  Keep your legs straight and stretch your back while at the same time adding some extra color to your feet?  If it hurts, that's good.  Remember, beauty is pain.

The Get-Off-My-Lawn Fist Shake

Difficulty: Easy

Details: You know how old people always get mad at the kids who trespass on their lawn?  Well, get your practice in early by doing this fist-shake exercise.  Vigorously shake your entire arm up and down whilst yelling obscenities and threats.  Switch arms.

The Messy-Room Obstacle Course

Difficulty: Easy to very hard, depending on how messy your room is.

Details: Open your door and get to your bed, without stepping on any of the multitudes of stuff on the floor. Can often be a very difficult feat.  Rearrange the mess to make it easier or more difficult as desired.

The Babysitting Weightlifting Exercise

Difficulty: Depends on how old + fat the kids are

Details: Crying babies?  Just hold 'em in the air above your head until they shut up.  Not just an easy problem-solving method but it strengthens your arms as well.  Just don't drop them.  Though that would make them stop crying too, I suppose.  Duct tape is good too, but it doesn't give you any exercise.

Movie Theaters and Airplanes: Who Gets the Armrest?

The above was the title of my thesis for Danny B**.  My subsequent nickname was the epic "The Dweller of Places Long Forgotten (TDOLF)."  I think I win because my nickname is longer than anyone else's.  Also, I did not get into Pottermore, so I will now live life as a sad and lonely hermit until October.

**By the way, the point I would argue for my thesis is that there are several options for movie theater/airplane etiquette.  You could either:
a) Let your seat-neighbor have the armrest
b) Hog the armrest
c) Weirdly share the armrest (ex. One person's elbow on the front half, one person's elbow on the back half)
d) Stack your arms awkwardly
e) No one gets the armrest
f) Write a petition to movie theaters to fix the problem.  Also, sit in first class
g) Move on and ignore the little annoyances in life

I spend my days at a summer camp wrangling small children, which doesn't make for interesting blog content.  I could talk about how we had to ban forks yesterday because the girls were combing their hair with them.  I could talk about how I got attacked by 8-year-old identical twins tickling me, which is a disconcerting experience because when I hold one back, another one that looks exactly the same comes at me.   And this is what every single day is like for me.  I think I deserve a higher pay rate.  I didn't know until now that counselors aren't even paid minimum wage.  Oh well.

To take breaks in between crazy AP World History work, I've been online.  So here's some pictures I found, copied and pasted here just for you!  Credit: iwastesomuchtime.com