Goodbye

This is it. The big cahuna; the final destination in this long journey of blogerdom. I’m done. Its over. I’ve never felt more relived in my entire life. I have thought long and hard about what this blog will be about, space suits or football player’s butts? I have thought about how long to make it, only to the requirement or a short novel? I have even considered not writing it at all, in which I would get a bad grade so I decided to X-nay that idea. But finally I think I have settled on a topic. I am so happy I’m finished with blogging because…
…now I have more time to spend doing other things. I can go to target, I can read a book, I can clean my room, I can spend more time with my boyfriend. There are so many doors opening in front of me I don’t even know what to think. All of these thirty-minute periods of time are going to add up and I could do something great! At a total of 90 blogs I am averaging at 2700 minutes and I am determined to get that time back!
…now I will not have to worry about cramming all thirty blogs into one weekend. Because of who I am I would always leave my thirty-blog requirement till the last weekend of the term. That stressful weekend of scheduling time periods and googleing for topics of interest is gone and out of mind. Now more sleep will be achieved, fewer wrinkles will form on my face, and I will be less likely to go blind from the light of the computer.
…now will no longer have to worry about reaching my 300 word requirement, no more fluffing till I reach the perfect 300. Goodbye

(300 words exactly!)

The Things We Do.

When kids are young there’s always times in a parents day-to-day life where they just sit back and see what their child will do next. There is always something you wouldn’t expect and things are always unplanned. Just as there will always be those proud memories of their first steps and the first time they ride a bike there are also the funny memories of things you just wish could happen over and over again. In my family there have been many of these moments and I just love to share them.
My oldest brother drew perhaps has the cutest story of the bunch. This is one I’m sure every parent will want to experience. One day my mom went up stairs real quick to do something on the computer and drew was down stirs playing. When my mom came back down stairs my brother was sitting in the time-out chair looking very very guilty. My mom thought he might be feeling sick or something so she asked him if he was alright my brother responded “I umm…I pulled the cats tail so I put myself in time-out”. My mom had to run to the bathroom because she didn’t want to laugh in front of my brother. Oh what kids will do!
For my sister it was harder to think of a childhood story. She was adopted so my parents didn’t get her until she was fifteen months old. It was her very first night in America so her sleep schedule was very different from that of my parents. When it was time for my parents to go to sleep she wasn’t tired so my mom brought her into their room and just laid her down on her own stomach. Eventually she did fall asleep but In the middle of the night my mom decided to flip over and the instant she did my sister was flung at high speed off the bed. She will never let my parents forget that one.
My other brother Ethan was also adopted but this story had nothing to do with that. When my brother was about three he was up stairs playing in his room. My parents were out doing yard work, like the rest of the neighborhood and so they eventually convened at a neighbor’s house for a glass of wine. Two hours later someone asked my mom where Ethan was. She instantly ran home and up to Ethan’s room. He was there playing with his Lagos and this is what he said. “Well a little bit ago I got kinda hungry so I went down stairs but I couldn’t find you so I came back up. But its ok I wasn’t scared because I have Otis and God with me.” My mother thought that was so cute and so she went out and bought him an ice cream.
Now I saved the best story for last. When I was about two we had just gotten two new kittens. One of them was very playful and so when my mom sprinted up the stairs to do something quick Otis leaped up and bite my mom right in the tush. My mom instantly turned around and hit Otis off of her bottom just on instinct. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs when this happened and I was so angry I said “Mommy you just hit Otis! We never hit Otis!” My mother replied very coolly “You don’t bite mommy’s bottom!” About a month later we at church and the children’s service was going on. The topic was about the Ten Commandments and so they were asking all the kids what kind of rules they have at home. I instantly raised my hand and said very loudly “you don’t bite mommy’s bottom!” The whole church when quiet and my mom just started sinking to the floor. Oh the things us kids say!
(651 words)

HOW TO… Make an English Baby’s Baby Formula

A little over a year ago my brother went over to Prague to teach English for a year. While he was there he met a man who was also teaching English though the same program. It turns out Rich and his wife were from Britain and they were moving to Prague for a year to be with Hannah’s parents, who were not doing well under the communist regime. My brother Drew became very good friends with Rich and Hannah and they planned to visit him back in America. However Right before their trip over Hannah got pregnant and so here they are one year later with a little English baby girl.
Once arriving at our house after a very long drive Ella, the baby, was ready for some food. Who knew there was an entire process to making an English baby a baby’s formula?
First you must wash the baby’s bottles. They must be very sterile so you have to boil them in very hot water. My mother got out a pot so Hannah could do this and fifteen minutes later all of the bottles were sterilized.
The Second step is, you have to sterilize the water being mixed in for the baby formula. When Hannah asked my mother for a Kettle none of knew how to respond. I had never seen a kettle before in my life, and when we told her we heat watch in a glass-measuring bowl in the microwave she was amazed! Who knew you could boil water without a kettle.
After the water is heated you have to put eight ounces of water in each baby bottle. We had enough water for three bottles so we filled them to the line. Another interesting thing is that a British fluid once and an American fluid ounce are slightly different. So we had to guess which line to fill the bottles up to.
Next you have to mix in the baby formula. Hanna told us we needed seven scoops of formula for each bottle. Now it was our turn to be amazed. Seven scoops is SO MUCH! As it turns out their scoop size was also much smaller than ours.
Now that the formula, the sterilized water, and the sterilized bottle have been all put together and mixed its time to cool the bottle down. You cant give a baby a bottle of boiling water so we had to put it in the fridge for a little while to cool it down.
And that’s how you make an English baby’s baby formula.

(425 words)

Junioritis

By means of the Merriam-Webster dictionary I have found that the definition of the word Senioritis is, “an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences, and lower grades”. Although many juniors seem to be diagnosing themselves with premature Senioritis I think it is something much different. I believe that because so many juniors have friends leaving for college next year, the “itis” we are all experiencing is caused by sadness and longing. We are sad they are leaving; we wish they would stay, and we long to start the journey they are about to begin.
I’m different. For me the signs aren’t bad grades and absences. I’m not blowing off the idea of school or working less hard at my work. I just wish that I could have a break. I want to start something new. I want to do what the seniors get to do. They have been out for a week already. Their break started much earlier than mine. They get to enjoy a last summer with their friends and then go off and be anything they want. They get to leave and spread their wings for the first time. I want to spread my wings.
Although I know I’m not quite ready for college, I can’t wait to start my own life. To get out of where I grew up and do something completely different from what I have been doing the past twelve years of my life. This is the feeling the juniors get. Its not that we want to go to college, Its just that we don’t want our life to remain the same any longer. We are ready for a change and yet we are forced to wait another long year and watch our best friends experience that change. So I think the juniors are special. We do not share the same “itis” as the seniors do. We are our own people and w e are very different from anyone who comes before or after us. So, we should not be called that of something completely different from us. We do not have senioritis. We have something much different and it deserves to be distinguished. We have Junioritis.

(370 words)

The Good O'l Days

Back in the old days my neighborhood was crawling with little kids. Every house on the street was either for sale or exploding with young couples just starting out a family. On warm summer days all of the dads would go off to work and the moms would congregate outside. All of the kids would be out in the back yards flitting from neighbor to neighbor. We could never not be moving around. We had children of all ages. We had high school kids, who were grate for babysitting on a Saturday night, we had middle school kids, who were running around with water guns, Elementary kids, who were always playing soccer, and toddlers in the sandbox. There was always an adult outside, so our parents never worried about their little tykes running loose through the yards.
Now all of that is changing. All of the big siblings, who were in high school way back when, are now off starting families and getting jobs. The big brothers that used to be in middle school are now off away at college. Eager young adults excited about life. And the rest of us elementary kids and toddlers are still stuck in middle school and high school. Just waiting for that day we all get to leave the nest and start our own life. But even with all the hope and excitement for the future I believe most of us wish we could be living in the past.
With all of the stress of school and work I wish I were back in preschool again. Running around in my swimming suit from the first day of summer all the way up to the last. Life was good back then. Carefree. I could wake up at seven o’clock in the morning and not come home until seven at night and no one would wonder where I was or what I was doing. I could sleep over at a friend’s house watching Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, wishing with all my might I would wake up and be a princess. Anything was possible, and anything that was possible, we would do.
Oh, what a life we had back then. I would do anything to go back, and live it over again.
(375 words)

I Hope I Make It

At the end of every school year all of the choir kids go through a series of auditions. We have auditions for concert choir, Happiness, chamber choir, moonlight, and all of the other none varsity choirs. There’s so much stress put on us right in the midst of finals and saying goodbye to the seniors, sometimes it hard to manage everything at once.
After we all found out which showchoir we were put in it was time for chamber choir and moonlight callbacks. I was very nervous for these auditions because these are the two hardest singing groups to get into. Last year I made it into chamber choir but this year it is a whole new playing field. More freshmen were called back than ever and there was some extraordinary talent at both auditions.
Moonlight is the jazz group at my high school. They do more rhythmic and harmonized songs. Also they are smaller than chamber choir. Moonlight has 16 people in it. Four to each singing part and when they perform all sixteen members have microphones and stand in a half circle and sing. Sometimes they use a band and sometimes they have a person in the group beat box or have multiple people singing the background music.
Chamber choir is very different. Chamber is our choir of choral singers. We do very traditional music and some fun young music also. Unlike moonlight there is no fixed number for chamber choir. Some times it’s as small as eighteen and sometimes its as big as thirty two. In the winter chamber choir does Christmas music and we get to go around and carol at old folks homes and at parties. Chamber choir is a very fun choir to be in.
The auditions for theses two choirs were also very much different. The moonlight auditions was much smaller than the chamber audition. Also we obviously sang very different music selections for both auditions.
At the moonlight audition we sang a very jazzy song and they would just grab about eight random people to pull up and see how they sounded together. You got to sing multiple times with multiple people and everyone did very well.
At the Chamber audition we sang a very traditional piece. It was very pretty but not very fun to sing. At this audition we only got to sing twice. Once with an octet and once when they split the students in half and had each half sing. Both are very different and I am so nervous to find out who will make up the two new groups.

(432 words)

G+P=FUN

During this time of the year the thought in all high school students minds is ‘How can I possibly get to all of my friends graduation parties!?’. Well, unfortunately, If you are anything like me, then there is no possible way to squeeze them all in. However there is a process that is guaranteed to make you more successful than you otherwise would be.

The first choice you must make before planning out your daily route is picking a grad party buddy! You can have one or three or five but make sure your group isn’t too big because you want to make sure you have chances to talk to everyone at every party and aren’t confined to a group. Also decide who the designated driver will be for you weekend(s) so you don’t have to worry about transportation when your trying to get from party to party.

Once you have found your party buddies it is time to start getting prepared for your all you can eat journey. Collect the date and time for all of your friends parties. Weather it’s by facebook or by mail the most important thing is to make sure you have an invite for all the parties you are planning on attending.

After you have gathered all of the dates and times for parties it is time to start organizing. On an Excel document or in a table on word make columns for Name, Time, Date, and Address. Depending on how many days you are attending grad parties is how many separate tables you will need. Have one for each day and order the parties by time within each table.

Now that you have established all of the dates and times and days you have to find out how to get to each house. Although GPS’s are good it always takes time to plug in the address. Depending on how many parties you are attending this time might be very important to your schedule. I would suggest either map questing or making sure ahead of time you know where all of the streets of the parties are.

Now that you have your days all planned out you are ready to go! Just make sure that your getting to all of your good friends parties and if time goes past too quickly don’t be afraid to make necessary cuts. Remember people wont die just because you couldn’t make it to their party.
(407 words)