Electric Lib

Back to School

So today is the last day of vacation, and then tomorrow's back to school. I had a good vacation though. Except that I forgot all about reading for english seminar, so I'll have to do that today. Luckily for me it's not due until Thursday.

Last night I saw a movie at the Savoy called "Train Agent," (I think that's what it was called) and it was really good. It was really real too, the characters were really believable and seemed more like actual people than actors. Also it was really funny. So you should go see it.

So that's all for today, I need to go read now!

200

This is my 200th entry! Yay!

I just returned home from a lovely trip to the Boston area where I visited numerous family members and had Thanksgiving. Emmett, Myrto and family have moved into their house and it looks great! We (my mom and I) stayed there Wednesday night and I was very impressed. The last time I had seen the house was when it still had sawdust and plastic all over the place, so this was quite a change.

Dad called on Thanksgiving from Beardmore Glacier. He said it was very cold, but sunny. As my mom pointed out last night, I'm sure this is a welcome change from driving to Dartmouth and back every day.

Speaking of driving, on our way down to Massachusettes, we saw two very bad car accidents. Neither of the accidents were weather related, I believe they were both a case of speeding. But both cars were completely flipped over. Oh, and they were two totally seperate crashes, but pretty close to eachother. Well, that's all for today!

Thanksgiving

Well, I'm leaving at 1:00 today for the Boston area. I hope you all have good thanksgivings, be sure to give lots of thanks.

Ski Team Adventure

Well, as you can tell by my title, there was an adventure today during ski team! Alice, Megan and I were walking down the path behind the state house at Hubbard Park and we decided to take a little short cut. Well, our short cut didn't pan out as we had planned. After walking for a little bit, we ended up not finding the trail we were supposed to end up on (and this is a very small area of land we're talking about). Instead, we came to basically a cliff. We walked to the side for a while, but decided it was useless and had to walk down the cliff. By the way, we had ski poles the entire time. So anyways, part way down the cliff we wander into all these thorn bushes - just our luck. Anyways, we eventually got down, but it was pretty funny.

MARTHA

Happy birthday Martha! You're 18, yay! You know what this means!!! You can finally vote! Haha.

Oh, also last night we (my mom and I) recieved a phone call from dad way down in Antrctica! I think he was out in the cold on some really bad phone, so I only talked to him for a second. But, it's a good thing I was up late because he called at around 11:45 or so.

Regarding yesterdays entry, I agree with Kate when she says it's a rather short entry for such an eventful weekend. So I think I'll add onto that a little bit. So it was really fun going to the fantastic play and shopping, but it was the most fun remembering page stories. Like for example, the time we tried to have the copy lady make us about a 100 or so copies of this song we wrote for the representatives and she got mad and yelled at us. Haha, it was pretty fun. Since then, all the pages have been trying to get together, because we haven't been all together in two years. But so far it hasn't been too successful. We'll see though.

Well, I think this is all for now!

Burlington

Yesterday, I went with Abra and Kate to visit our friend Clara who was a page with us at the State House two years ago. It was a lot of fun, we went shopping and saw her school's play "Guys and Dolls," which was very good. Then we slept over and now I'm back in Montpelier! So I had a fun weekend.

Also, I am still looking for that website that can find your ecological footprint. If you go onto google you can type it in a come up with a bunch of sites that all do the same thing, but I'm trying to look for the one we used in class. So I'll keep you posted on that.

That's all for now! I have to get back to doing nothing, since it is vacation.

Footprint

I have to go right now, but I wanted to let you know that some time in the next few days I'm going to have a link to this site that can calculate your ecological footprint. It's really neat, you answer some questions and it calculates how many acres of land it would take to support your lifestyle. We did it in bio. It also can show the average footprints for each country. Of course you can imagine the U.S has the highest at 25 acres. So it is neat, and I will find the link.

"I" Before "E"

I just took Josh's little spelling quiz that was a link on his wedpage. Well, I'd rather not share how many I got wrong, haha, but I will say that of the ones that I got wrong I noticed that they were because of mixing up where the "i" and "e" go. It's all because of that stupid rhyme "I before E except after C." Well I'll have you know that I did not come before E even when there was no C in a lot of those words. So whoever made up that rhyme should be very ashamed.

Also, it's vacation! Yay!! And in a few days, I'll be all ready to give thanks.

Hour

I am very proud of myself, Alice and Megan because we ran for and entire hour straight today. Molly also ran with us for part of the way and encouraged us to go faster at some points. So I am very pleased.

Also, vacation starts tomorrow!!! But only after the bio test. AHH!!

Let it Be

I am at this moment listening to "Let It Be - Naked." This is the version of the Beatles Let It Be album except it's the way that Paul Mccartney wanted it originally. Basically without all the violins. I've never really listened to this album except for a few songs. But I am really enjoying it! Very good. Although, "The Long and Winding Road" is forever ruined for me ever since Martha referred to it as "The Long and Boring Song." Haha, it just makes so much sense.

In other news, it sounds like Dad is having fun visiting with the penguins. Although it does sound a little colder than I'm accustomed to. But I guess that (among other reasons) is why he's there and I'm not!

First Day

Today was the first day of cross country skiing. Initially I wasn't looking forward to running after school, which is what we're doing until there's some good snow on the ground. Although, once I started, I actually had a good time. I ran with Megan and Alice the whole way a little farther than the underpass near the high school along the bikepath. We maintained the same pace throughout and only stopped twice for water and a quick stretch. So basically it was a very good practice. We used the weight room afterwards which was fun enough. Now, after tap class, I'm finally home. I plan to finish this update and get going on some global reading. We're currently studying the Tudor dynasty in England. It's actually very interesting. Well, that's all for today!

Demian

I'm reading a book right now called "Demian" by Hermann Hesse (I still don't know how to underline things so sorry about that). It's a really interesting book about a teenage boy from a nice family who meets a kind of strange kid named Max Demian. It's a really odd book and I can't exactly describe it, but if you haven't read it, I suggest you do. It's only 109 pages so it doesn't take long to read.

Also, I'm getting very excited for vacation to start. One more week of school!

SNOW DAY!!

Yay, today is a snow day! What's really funny is that last night Molly was saying "Oh my god, I really hope there's a snow day!" and I was thinking that it was impossible. But, to my surprise it snowed a lot last night and continues to do so today! Later, I'm going to go out and shovel the driveway. I'm very excited, although I'm sure it won't be quite as much fun as I'm expecting, but ya never know!

School

I was very dismayed this morning when I picked up the Times Argus and began reading a story entitled "Dramatic Options Confront Schoolboard." The article was about the declining enrollment at Montpelier Public Schools. For example, the kindergarden class this year has only 40 students, whereas my grade has about 100. The main problem is that there isn't enough money to fund the school. So, they're considering merging with U32. I personally thinks that's a bad solution. I think they should look to other schools and see how they manage with a small budget or small number of students.

Then tonight, I was watching channel 3 news and they did a story on how Douglas is going to try and lower property taxes which fund education. I think it's really odd to see both these stories on the same day because who would lower taxes when schools are obviously suffering from not enough money? I wouldn't.

Ice

Well, Dad is now officially in Antarctica! And I have been informed that there is a giftshop down there. Yay!

Comments

I have just noticed something interesting, although I should have picked up on it a while ago. I think that by posting controversial things, such as making claims that Elizabeth is the best name ever (see yesterday's entry), gets the most comments. Also, reporting on real life interesting events, or relaying stories that actually have a point to them also recieve a good number of comments. And because reading the comments is half the fun of having a website at all (for me, the creater of this beloved website), I think I'll have to start investing more thought in my entries. Although, having learned from every great newspaper, tv show, and magazine, I'll be sure to include a lot of crappy entries too that are just there to fill space when I don't actually have anything to say.

Elizabeth

In global, we're wathing the movie "Elizabeth," which I saw in fourth grade, but don't really remember. It's a very good movie though, I like it. I also think it's cool that her name was Elizabeth, I don't think there's a better name out there. :)

So I guess this is all I really have for today. But I wrote so much yesterday, so that makes up for the short length of this entry.

Hike, Baptism, etc.

So, I find myself back at the computer to sum up a very eventful weekend. Flashback to Friday, November 7th.......

We stood around at school for a very long time, as usual, trying to decide where to spend our Friday afternoon. Emmett (FitzGerald) went off to the Bahamas if you can believe it. But I mean, who would want to go to the Bahamas when you can be in Vermont, where is just starting to really get cold, the air is dry, etc. Anyhow, we (myself and a group of my friends) finally decided to go to a friends house after getting Ben & Jerry's ice cream. So we hung out there for a while and then I went home. About as soon as I walked in the door I walked out again to hang out with more friends.

Then when I got back that night, I arranged all my stuff for hiking the next day. Emmett (Finocche) was in Vermont, but I hadn't seen him yet, because he went too hang out with one of his friends. Though the very next morning (at 8:30.. I know early for a weekend.... for a teenager) I was greeted my dad and Emmett in the kitchen. We had breakfast and got my stuff together for hiking some more. Emmett went off hiking that day too, to Mt. Abe. Then at 9:30, I said bye to my dad who is currently on his way to the other side of the earth. Then I went off hiking...

The hike was a lot of fun, but I thought it was tiring going up. Going down was nice though. It was pretty cold out and my boots had been great throughout the whole hike, except that I couldn't feel my pinkie toes (I know, bad sign). So, when I got home, I was surprised to find that the nail of my pinkie toe was half black! The first thing I thought was "eww," the second thing I thought was that maybe I had frostbite. Since then, the black has faded, but my toe still feels weird. Immediatly after showering from the hike I drove to Boston with my mom...

At Melissa and Aaron's house we had pizza and watched a movie. The next day was baby Alison's baptism. So we got up and went to the church (only after getting some Krispy Kreme donuts of course). Then, after the baptism we went back to Melissa's for food and then drove home. Once I got home I took a nap and then updated my website.

I have just been informed that Dad called from New Zealand. It's 12:30 on Monday there! And he was just heading off to lunch. He said (although I didn't talk to him) that he should be able to update his website in about two days. So thus concludes my busy weekend. Bye!

Antarctica

So Dad leaves tomorrow for Antarctica. I'm surprised it came up so fast. So now (to talk about myself, haha) not only am I an only child, but I'll have only one parent for about six or seven weeks! Deary me, whatever will I do?

So tomorrow, other than the fact that my Dad is leaving for Antarctica, I'm also going hiking! I'm going to Hunger Mountain with the MHS outing club. I'm actually relaly looking forward to it because I love the temparture this time of year, and I haven't been hiking in a really long time.

Then on Sunday (I know, busy weekend!) I'm going down to Boston for baby Alison's baptism, which should be fun. It's going to be the first non Greek baptism that I've ever been too, other than my own of course. So, thus concludes my entries for the day, you can expect a full report on my trek up Hunger Mt. tomorrow.

Population

This is going to be a short update beacuse I want to start working on this bio lab about populations. We have to copy a bunch of graphs for it, which I actually think is kind of fun, but it does get kind of old.

Then I'm off to possibly read some more in my book Map of the World (I still can't figure out how to underline) by Jane Hamilton. It's a pretty good book, kind of depressing, but it seems to be leading to a happy ending. It's about a lady who was falsely accused of child abuse. Although before I continue reading that, I just remebered I have a global test to study for. We're finishing up studying the Tudor period in England... Interesting stuff.

Reply

In reply to Martha's comment on my November 3rd entry "Catching Up": No, the Flintstone vitamins really don't taste good. They almost taste good, but there's just enough weirdness to them to make them not good. Although, I like to pretend they taste good, that way I'll keep taking them.

Muscle Memory

A few weeks ago in tap class, a bunch of people couldn't make it to the class due to various sporting events, etc. so we couldn't add anything new to our routien. Instead, one girl wanted to do a combination that we hadn't done yet this year, although we had done it many times in past years. At first Kathy (the teacher) had no idea what the combination was, but once she she the girl doing it, she picked it up and did it perfectly! She then commented on how cool muscle memory was.

Since then, I've also noticed muscle memory coming into play. I've been playing the piano a lot recently (I always play when I'm waiting for the computer to start up, and then when I'm bored). And there are songs that I know the tune of, but I don't remeber how to play them, but once I get the first note, my fingers just know exactly where to go. So I think that's pretty cool. Now I'm debating whether or not to take piano lessons again. Realisticly, I probably won't. The reason I would want to though is I can only teach myself so much, it really does help to have a teacher show you how to play pieces. Although, until I decided, I'll just keep the songs I know. And attempting to play songs from "Rent," (the broadway play, which is nearly impossible, but fun).

Catching Up

I'd like to apologize for my lack of updates recently, I've been sick or busy. I am recovering from my cold, although I still have a pretty annoying cough. I've started taking Flintstone vitamins because I've had two colds in only four months.

I also need to get healthy because ski season is approaching quickly. I've actually been getting really excited about it this year and plan to actually work a little harder. Of course it will still be the fun slacker sport, but I am going to try a little harder.

Also, on the topic of skiing, I think I want to take up downhill skiing again this year. If I did commit to downhill skiing this year though, I think I would want to start the year by taking a lesson at Mad River so that I could get some skill back. Then I'd just have to make sure I went regularly. Because downhill skiing is a lot of fun and I didn't go at all last year. So I'll have to look into that. Well, that's all for now!