My New Buddy

We spent the last 3 days in Connecticut.  Sophie wanted to visit the beach, and since I’m going to France and Ben is doing a lot of Scout trips and there is an oil spill going on–did you hear about that?—Mom decided that we would go to the beach.

This led me to say “The Beach” and point in the manner of Mr. Bean way too many times.

On the way back, we got hopelessly lost, so Mom stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought this:

It is impossible to buy maps in Connecticut, apparently, and even if we had found a map I cannot read them.

Ben (who is usually our geek: I routinely give him the computer or my ipod or a CD and go “fix it”)  had some trouble figuring it out. This is the only reason I got to play with it. No one really trusts me with navigation  ever since I found an incredibly straight road in New Jersey that would take us directly to our destination, but unfortunately turned out to be a line of latitude.

It was preset to Spanish and then somehow changed to what we think was Swedish, and wouldn’t tell us anything.  Then Mom made him hand it to me.

We got along great.

CONNECTICUT DRIVING RULES:

a) Drive extremely fast whenever possible and occasionally when not possible.

b) You must change lanes frequently.

c) It is not necessary to check your blind spot when changing lanes; everyone knows they’re in Connecticut and should expect that.

d) You must also use your blinkers frequently.

e) It is not necessary for your blinker usage and your lane changing to correlate to each other. Again, we’re in Connecticut; it’s perfectly acceptable to signal right and merge left simultaneously.

Our New Vicar

Next week is Pastor Dave’s last Sunday with our little church, and then we’ll have a new pastor. A woman pastor.

I have very high hopes for this lady.

I hope she will be exactly like Dawn French.

Because our congregation is very much like Saint Barnabas’.

For example:

Woman: I do the flowers.

Vicar: Excellent! What have we got this Sunday?

Woman: Well, we’re in mourning for the reverend Pottle….

Vicar: Carnations, then?

Woman: Yes…and I was thinking I might put a pineapple in the middle of them.

I can think of two examples very similar to this from our own church: the first one involved a man suggesting we do away with palm branches on Palm Sunday, because in Jerusalem they didn’t have palms and would have used acacia branches (which just begs to be taken further: Jesus wore sandals and didn’t shave, and He rode on an actual donkey. Also, He was actually crucified on an actual cross, as opposed to pretending to be while a crown of thorns made out of a wreath form slipped down around his neck. )

We only did a passion play one year, and it was a disaster.

The second example that springs to mind is the suggestion that, to conserve space, we have the florist cut up the Christmas tree and weave the branches around the cross on the wall.

Florist: You mean the cross? That’s there now? In the sanctuary?

Mhm, there’s nothing like cut-up greenery to symbolize crucifixion at Christmastime.

Anyway, I get to meet the Reverend Hale tomorrow—I imagine it will be very much like the video, only without the drinking because we’re unfortunately Methodist.

College Visits, by the numbers

To date I have visited 5 colleges.

4 of them have made Penn State jokes.

1 of them gave me a meal.

3 of them gave me snacks.

3 of them have red in their colors.

I can afford 0 of them.

Rutgers had a tour guide that reminded me of Ross the Intern…only not as funny.  Bloomsburg had a tour guide that told us to check our mailboxes fluently and asked if there were any prosperous nurses in our group.

Lycoming does not have special admissions requirements for me.  (WIN!)

Arcadia has a castle.

Arcadia, Lycoming, and Marist had the best campuses.

Marist is the closest…but Lycoming is located in the little league capital of America!

Number of independent snake and reptile houses passed on the way to visit colleges: 2

Number of AZA Accredited snake and reptile houses passed: 1

Number of American Indian Museums passed: 1

Number of times Dad let me stop at any of those attractions: 0

Number of times we stopped at a boulder field: 1

Number of boulders in the boulder field: a very large unrealistic number

Number of colleges I have yet to visit: at least 3

I’m BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Yes I know. I’m making a comeback, again. I decided to pattern my blogging activities after the political career  of a certain president from the 1960s…but eventually I’ll stop for good and you won’t have me to kick around any more.

I’m now a senior, with no summer job, and I will be blogging! I haven’t been writing so much this year because of various extremely exciting activities such as taking the SATs, and visiting colleges, and writing lots of papers, and and and…um yeah pretty boring. I may actually make it the whole year this year because according to my schedule I’m only doing 5 classes and never for more than 8 weeks at a time. But then again, I have to apply to college, so maybe not.

This video is excellent and so true. Also, Axis of Awesome is my new favorite band. (I’m not just a bird! I’m not just a plane! I’m a birdplane!)

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which is on my college visits to date.

Things I Should Be Doing

• Latin. Which I did not do today. Bleurgh.
• Math. The last 10 lessons in this book might kill me, but I am already finishing late because a) I did almost none over the summer, and b) I didn’t do enough last fall, between studying for the PSATs and SATs and trying to understand Physics
• Grading my logic homework
• Writing my research paper, which (somewhat like math) got pushed aside and forgotten over Christmas
• Going to sleep, because I don’t actually feel that well and my head hurts
• Investigating the possibility of gap year programs for next year
• Getting myself a summer job, to pay for the potential gap year program next year
• Practicing my violin, because tomorrow I have orchestra from 1-3, pit band from 3-6, and a lesson from 7-7:30.
• Working on parallel parking, because my driving test is APRIL FIRST!
• Finding my brother a birthday present for his birthday on Thursday.
• Exactly this, because my father told me I needed to blog more often =)

Gooo Saints?

What a weird name…”The Saints”.

I’m sure you’ve all heard how they won the Super Bowl (their first ever) through downs, ups, running great distances, lateral maneuvers, offside outside inside upside down split kicks that made history, throwing the ball, and wearing shiny gold pants, so I won’t explain that part.

Instead I will regale you with my knowledgeable opinions on commercials and the halftime show.

First of all, how exactly does it help sell your product if watchers can’t figure out what the ad is supposed to be for? This afternoon we were discussing the one where the men are in their pickup truck with the giant whale, and none of us could remember what it was trying to sell.

The commercial where the beaver becomes a concert violinist was cute. Nonsensical, but cute.

I always find the talking babies a little creepy, but my mom likes them, so I guess they’re effective.

This year’s Budweiser commercials were all kind of blah. Particularly the one where the people build a bridge from their bodies.

The Denny’s screaming chickens were disturbing.

The Doritos commericals were awful: one had to do with a funeral, one with a disrespectful kid, one with some kind of Aztec god of Doritos, and one where a dog makes his owner wear a collar.

Why is it that one of the sportscasters always has on a pink shirt with a purple tie, and one is always fake-tan orange?

Pete Townsend. Mom has shown us video of Pete Townsend in his prime when he would jump around doing splits and smash his guitars on things; last night he pretty much shuffled back and forth. He did swing his arm in vigorous circles, which I thought was going to lead to a joint malfunction. He also only buttoned 2 of his shirt buttons.

Since the wardrobe malfunction they only hire elderly people, preferably British ones.

I thought it looked like The Who were trying to dress “youthfully”; either that or they dressed in the dark. It reminded me of how in Harry Potter the wizards try to dress to blend in with the muggles and fail miserably.

The Coke commercials were ok, but not as good as the ones where they’re at the Olympics or something and the different countries start snowball fighting.

I have this interesting vision of myself at my parents age, watching Lady Gaga perform from her wheelchair.

Traveling

My friend Meagan recently wrote about places she would like to travel to.

I would like to travel as well…or even just going on a vacation would be nice. My new plan is to look at schools located in fun vacation spots such as the beach and go vacationing under the guise of college visiting. Right now the extent of my travel experience is: a lot of states, Canada, and France. This summer I plan to add Switzerland

Here Olivia compares car vs. plane travel

• Car pro: more space. (Unless it’s a five person car with five people, one carseat, and all the luggage inside.)
• Airplane pro: cooler bathrooms. (Cooler, not necessarily nicer.)
• Car pro: you can stop whenever you want.
• Car con: often there is nowhere to stop except Arby’s or the World’s Largest Prairie Dog Statue.
• Car AND airplane con: you might get stuck next to someone you don’t like.
• Car and airplane con: you have to come up with your own entertainment
• Airplane pro: the entertainment is new to you. Those horrible long magazines, the inflatable seat cushions, and if you’re lucky the TVs on the seats!
• Car pro: better food.

 

Next, I am sharing a bulleted list of places I would like to go:

• WALES. I have wanted to visit Wales since I read A String in the Harp. Plus how can you not love a country that uses a leek as its symbol?
• Scotland. They have Ben Nevis and excellent folk music if nothing else.
• Greece
• Italy…I bet writing songs and poetry in Italian is easy, all the words end in vowels. No  wonder Dante was so prolific
• Cyprus
• Norway/Sweden/Finland
• Luxembourg
• Germany
• Peru (MACHU PICHU!)

And HERE is a list of my previous posts on travel! Click on any one to access.

• Getting a Passport
• My issues with our last vacation
• We try to cross the Canadian border
• Visiting the Kansas State Lake
• Ethel the cow goes to Paris
• Ben’s method of packing for trips

Moby-Dickulous

For some bizarre reason, Sonlight American Lit spends 5 weeks on Moby-Dick.

I actually like this book. It’s a bit of a slow read, I can’t read more than a few chapters at a time before I get distracted, but it is well written and interesting.

Honestly though. If you saw a whale would you really name it “Moby-Dick”?

Moreover, if you got your leg chewed off by a whale, a giant scary albino whale, and then made it your life goal to kill this whale because you had a twisted god-complex type thing going on, would you name it Moby-Dick? Really?

I recently asked on my Facebook what people would named whales if they had them. The results were: Humphrey, Willy, Phil, Oswald, Astrid, Morgan, Danielle, Obie, Woody, and Sparkles. Ben informed me that he would have two whales: Yesterday’s Lunch, his food whale, and Money Money Money, his cash whale.

I would name my whale Snowball.

Auld Lang Syne

Looking back over the past year, I realize that I did a “New Year’s Resolutions” post on the third.

I was really on top of my game.

This year I am ignoring all the great stuff that happened in the past two months…maybe I will get around to catching up on it, probably not…but anyway here’s a review of last year and some of my goals for next year.

• Do everything I am asked to do with a cheerful heart, smiling and obedient. (Ummm…idk…maybe)
• Get decent seat in orchestra again, or if silly orchestra bet made at party comes to pass and I end up playing viola, to totally pwn at that too. (I got first chair. Even though I only spent one afternoon practicing AND I also got a solo which I spent four minutes practicing. And I didn’t trip. So what more can you ask for?)
• Play more with Sophie when I have to babysit instead of just putting on a movie. (Sophie is ten and ridiculously grown up and no longer wants to cuddle . )
• View serving at church dinners as an act of service rather than hell on earth (Also not sure how well I did on this one)
• Do school. Keep up with school. Stop calling AP Brit Lit “stupid english which i hate” on daily lists. (I am doing SO GOOD this year. Except for physics.)
• Not sign up for insane programs such as spending every Sunday afternoon for three months rehearsing a cantata.  (Whoops I failed at this)
• Possibly actually excercise…but only enough so that I don’t fail PE
• Blog often! Like four times per week would be good (ho ho ho hee hee hee har har)
• Enter district competition again and get a better score (I improved my score by 12 points to 142/200 but a record number of talented people tried out this year so I only moved up one ranking.)

THIS YEAR!!! 2010!! Which is NOT the start of a new decade so don’t go there! I am going to try to:

1. Do well on the SATs. I studied really really hard. And I think I wrote the best essay I could in 25 minutes at 8:30 in the morning at a foreign high school in New Jersey.
2. Apply to colleges. Any suggestions or helpful tips on this front are welcome, but I do reserve the right to ignore them no  matter how good they are.
3. Get a driver’s license. I would like to have a license…so I can take myself places. I am not a natural driver so this is really a struggle.
4. Raise a lot of money to go back to Taize this summer through brilliant and easy to coordinate fundraisers
5. Get no lower than third chair in orchestra.

By making resolutions on February 1st, I have already avoided breaking mine on January 17th  like the average person, and they will therefore have more staying power.

Hopefully.

Cars.

Cars the movie was sort of overrated, wasn’t it? I don’t think I even got a laugh out of it.

Then again, I usually read through movies, which really annoys my family because I only catch bits of the action and often end up going “Wait. So he was the UNCLE?” and “Why were there pruning shears?” and “Hang on how come they went to Italy, I thought they were going to Portugal”, which apparently makes me frustrating company.

Today my boyfriend called me from a parking lot. He is a guy; he does not multitask. We discovered this when he tried to get into someone else’s car.

When I shared this story with my mother, she laughed and said that men do not multitask well.

A few years ago, while we were on the Secret Garden tour, she not only tried to get into someone else’s car, she made remarks about how dirty it was and how we needed to wash it ASAP. Just hours prior to that, she locked herself out of our real car.

I firmly believe I need a SmartCar. They are adorable, easy to park, and eco-friendly, in that order. After parallel parking in both a van and a station wagon (not to mention my helicopter), I think whatever car I eventually own needs to have a very small wheelbase and…um…chassis…and…be small. Just generally.

If the computer was behaving, I would show you a picture of a SmartCar. Since it’s not, just picture Inspector Clouseau.

On another note, I learned how to cook ham today!