The Real Deal with Pillow Pets

I'm sure you're all wonder, what on earth is a 13 year old doing writing about some weird product? Well, you wonderers, that is because I in fact own a pillow pet. That's right, you read me. I have a moose, just like the one right there. 

Why do I have a pillow pet? They looked fun a fluffy and big and cozy, and what girl doesn't love big ploofy stuffed animals? Honestly. For all you men raising your eyebrows right about now, you should know very well by now that girls are obsessed with stuffed animals from age 3 or 4 to whenever they get married. After the normal grown up stage, after about age 60, it slowly starts coming back, and when we're in the nursing home, we have a wonderful collection of stuffed animals so it feels like we have company. When the obsession is at rest during the grown up stage, that's the stage when we take care of kids and get them started with the obsession. 

Get it?

So I received one of these beautiful Pillow Pets for Christmas this year. I'm going to be totally honest, it's a little hard to find out how to sleep with it. I don't use it as a head pillow, just as a snuggle pillow. When I lay it flat like a pillow, it doesn't really work, because my arm slides everywhere and can't get a firm yet snug grip on it. When I fold it into a real moose, either the velcro will come undone, or I can't fit it on top of the covers. (You see, I usually sleep with the arm facing the ceiling outside the covers, not under. So whatever stuffed animal I have has to go on top of the sheets, making it more of a hassle.)

Bottom line, great for reading corners and all-nighters, but not exactly the best pal to be sleeping with. Almost too big. But I still love my moose; thanks mom. ;)

And no, I don't have an entire Pillow Pet family like some of my friends; I have just one. You've heard the commercials, and if not, here goes: It's a pillow, it's a pet, its a Pillow Pet! :D

Nick Vujicic: An Inspiration

Someone posted this on Facebook, and I saw it on my news feed. I watch this video almost every day, or more than once a day, just to remind myself how lucky I am. I really wanted to share this with you all, so maybe you can realize how lucky we all are.

Now, you better think twice before you complain that your hair is all messed up, or maybe you're so tired of running laps in gym. Nick Vujicic can't even do those things. He can't style his hair, he can't run, he can't even hug the ones he loves.

Hopefully, this will put things in perspective for you.

Go Ahead, Blame your Sleepiness for What Day It Is

I've been noticing something rather odd lately. Ever since people are so lazy, getting very few hours of sleep and flopping around all day, (everyone knows what that's like), and everyone's barely making it through the day, I've noticed something odd: People always blame the fact that they're tired on the fact that it's Monday, or any other day of the week.

Here, I'll do an example for you. It'll go something like this:

           "*yawn*..."
           "*yawn*..."
           "Geez, I'm SO tired."
           "Well, it is _______"

You'll fill in the blank with whatever day it just happens to be. I'm not saying I haven't been one of the characters in this dialogue. Everyone has. The thing I don't get is why do we constantly blame the fact that we didn't get enough sleep the night before on what day it is? It'll work with almost every day of the week, if you think pessimistically enough. 

See? This is me thinking in a very tired pessimistic attitude. I wrote this near midnight for that very reason.

Sunday: The end of the weekend, time to get all your homework done and maybe get away with sleeping in. That is, if you don't go to church or something. You're tired because: It was a late night last night and no matter how late you sleep in, you're still tired.

Monday: Ugh. It's the first day of the school/work week, and everybody hates Mondays. You've got the whole week ahead of you. You're tired because: You're used to sleeping in from the warm and cozy weekends, and now it's time to get back in routine and stop hitting the snooze button and hiding under the oh-so-cozy covers.

Tuesday: Tuesday is what I like to call an innocent day. I've never heard anything bad about Tuesday. It's just found it's perfect little spot in the week. It's also, according to my dad, the day that most people go on Facebook and Twitter. You should be wide awake today, and if not, don't blame it on the day.

Wednesday: It's the "longest day of the week," it's the middle of the week; you feel like this day is never ever going to end. You're tired because: you were up all last Tuesday night trying to come up with bad things to say about Tuesday.

Thursday: This one is also sort of an "innocent day," though I will mention this: I "liked" Victoria Justice's page on Facebook, and one Thursday, she posted asking about what good things are their to say about Thursday, besides the fact that it's before Friday. Most people said "it's the day before Friday" anyway. So I guess you're not tired today. And if you are, when you get home, you can focus on how close Friday is around the corner.

Friday: The school/work day won't go by fast enough, and when it does, you can't wait to fly out the doors and away from your desk for two whole days. You're tired because: you went to sleep very late the night before finishing up all your last-minute homework assignments that are due on Friday, and during class, you zone in and out with mini-naps. Hopefully, you won't get caught.

Saturday: Your only full day to be free, and not worry about it being a "school night." You can do whatever the heck you want. You're tired because: you drank too much soda while you were out with your buds (or some other liquid...) and you're drowsy, yet you can't wait for SNL to come on so you can have another drink of soda to boost you back up for another 10 minutes.

That's me thinking extraordinarily pessimistically. It's now 11:57, and I'm signing off so I'm not grumpy on Tuesday. After all, there is no excuse tomorrow of why I'll be so tired.

Dang it.

So next time you're tired, please don't blame it on what day it happens to be, even if it is just to make small talk. If you want to make small talk, talk about one of the following:
-Weather
-How much work you have to do
-Sports (My favorite line is, "So... how 'bout them Red Sox?")
-Glee, or any other weird and somehow popular TV show

Also, what I don't understand in my generation is apparently, the less hours you sleep, somehow it's more impressive. I'll walk in the lobby of the Junior High and have a conversation with a friend of mine. It'll go something like this:

           "*yawn*..."
           "I'm so tired..."
           "Yeah, I only got like 5 hours of sleep last night."
           "Oh, I got like 3 hours."
           "Woah there..."
         
I get the fact that you should feel more bad for the person who got less hours, but in my book, once you get less than 8 hours of sleep, everyone is treated equally as tired, with the exception of the all-nighter. That I have almost pulled off, with exactly half an hour of sleep from 5:30-6:00 AM, although I stayed home that following day, so I didn't suffer at school. I've never seen someone pull an all-nighter and come to school the next day.

If someone could really pull that off, they'd need lot's of coffee and a serious confidence boost/pep talk from their best friend to get through the day.

One last thing I need to say before I hit the hay, (hey that rhymed), try reading right before you go to sleep. You'll wake up with a book in your lap and you'll be very disoriented. Happy Tuesday!

Book Review: Forgotten by Cat Patrick

Voila, my book review for Forgotten. You might remember reading about this in my post about how I spent my holiday vacation.

A friend of mine told me, "Why do you do so many book reviews?" Well, I do them because 1. I think it's fun to read, and share what I think about books after I'm done. 2. The people deserve to know  and 3. Another one of my resolutions for this year is to read more often, which I haven't broken yet.

No one's making you read these, they're just here for those who want good book recommendations, or want to know what books to stay away from.

Now that I've ended my rant about that, let us begin. (Listen to me... I sound like some British person about to make some crumpets. An evil British women. Yes, she's strumming her fingers over her cheek, wondering where to begin without her precious cookbook.)


The story is about 14-year-old London Lane, who every morning at exactly 4:33 AM forgets everything she has done in the past day. She "remembers" things from the future the same way we remember things from our past. She relies on notes to herself from the day before to stay on track, but things get juicy when a boy comes into the picture. His name is Luke Henry, and he's pretty smooth around the ladies. You can imagine how difficult it would be to have a boyfriend, and then forget everything that happened after it happened. Now, she's getting disturbing flashes of "memory" from the future, as she tries to piece together what it all means and what's going to happen. She uncovers lies, and discovers what has really happened in the past.

That's my summary of the story right there; I don't want to spoil it for you. I give it 4.5 stars. Not very long, about 300 pages. I started on Christmas morning, and finished the next day. I normally don't read that fast, to be honest with you. It was just such a good book, and the house was so quiet since everyone was doing their own thing.

I'm trying to read faster, but I can't help but take my sweet time. I try reading at school before homeroom, but I realized it needs to be deadly quiet, and I need to really focus. I also get headaches if I don't stop reading after an hour, so that slows me down a bit.

Anyway, now that I've published exactly four times today, I'm going to take a break. I woke up around 11:00 this morning, had some pizza for breakfast, and got straight to blogging. It hasn't been exactly non-stop since then, but I've been on a pretty good roll today. You see, I just realized that I published exactly 10 times during the entire year of 2011. Being very disappointed in myself, I aimed to make the total number of posts higher than 54 posts, which is the highest number it's every been in a year. That year was in 2008.

When I looked back at all my posts, I'm honest here, I'm a little embarrassed. I wrote about the weirdest things back then. Plus, my grammar was awful, and I know I used a lot of parenthesis, but I don't do that nearly as much as I did. So here goes: me trying to get over 54 posts in a year. Shouldn't be that hard.

Of course, that's what they all say...

Flight of the Conchords ~ The Humans are Dead

For those of you who know me personally, you might have caught me mumbling the lyrics to this song to myself for no apparent reason. Actually, there is a reason: I'm obsessed with this song by the Flight of the Conchords. Actually,  I wouldn't use the word "obsessed." I would say, I really like this video and have memorized the part before the credits word-for-word. That's just how much I really like this video.

Flight of the Conchords is a TV show about two men from New Zealand who start a band. This was shown in the very first episode, except for the credits part you'll see in the video. I'm not sure if they still air episodes or not, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that all of you will understand my love for this video, and why I always mumble the lyrics to myself.

I love how they're wearing cheesy and cheap robot costumes, and how one of their head pieces is just a little too small for their big head.

I really wanted to share this with you, so I present to you: The Humans are Dead by Flight of the Conchords.

I think my favorite part that I always mumble to myself, and people think I'm talking to myself, is:
           "We no longer say.. yes.. instead, we say affirmative."
           "Yes, affirmative!!"

My (Already Broken) New Year's Resolution

If you've read my recent post, How I Spent My Holiday Vacation, you'll know that I've already broken my New Year's resolution of trying to have better sleep habits.

Just because I "broke" it, doesn't necessarily mean I'm off the hook for the rest of the year. I'm still trying to have better sleep habits, and it isn't working out so well. 

I found this picture of Garfield online, and I think many people can relate to him. :) Not many of us are morning people, and for those of you who are, you're going to have to comment below and tell me exactly what on Earth motivates you to pop out of bed like it's your birthday every single morning. 

I don't get it. I don't get it at all, how you early morning birds do it. Unless there's a fire, it's my birthday, it's Christmas, or if I have a sudden idea for a creative writing story that will go away soon if I don't write it down fast enough, I will never wake up the first time I hear my alarm go off. Never, I say, never! (I don't care what Justin Bieber says, I'm saying "never" anyway.) 

I will share with all of you, however, my little "trick" for waking up at a decent time every morning. I'm not talking about a secret that will make you pop out of bed first time you hear the alarm. Well, maybe I am. This might work very well for some of you. 

For those of you who have iPhones or iPod Touches (or even iPads,) there is an application called "Sleep Cycle." The symbol looks something like this:

Let me explain to you how this works. It uses the accelerometer in the iPhone/iPod/iPad to monitor your movement as you sleep. The app explains all about these different stages of sleep. Based on your movement, it can tell what sleep stage you're in. That, my friends, is the magic of science right there. 

So let's say you want to wake up at 6:00 AM at the latest. (That's usually what I set mine to.) Sleep Cycle sets a 30-minute period to wake you up, so it'll wake you up between 5:30 and 6:00 AM. You'll wake up and feel pretty amazing. You may think, though, "Great. I'm up 20 minutes before I wanted to get up. Now what?" Now, you have an extra twenty minutes to get ahead of the game and get ready! Maybe you'll sit down at your computer and blog your head off like I do, or maybe you'll take the extra time to make an omelette for breakfast. Who knows. 

I think it's pretty magical, and I'm sorry to talk about this for those of you who don't have iPhone/iPod/iPads. :( Just to let you all know, it can be helpful for those nights where you almost pull an all-nighter, but it doesn't totally replace a full nights sleep. It's just a more peaceful way to wake up.

It's made just for night owls like me who stay up just to blog for all of you. 

You're welcome.

  

My Official Opinion of Bieber

Before you read on, I'd like to make this clear: I am not a huge "belieber" fan, nor am I a total hater of Justin. I don't have posters of his face all over my two rooms, and I don't have a dartboard with his face on it either.

Got it?

I'd just like to throw my opinion out there, because, heck, that's what blogging is for. Now, what would I like to say about this kid? Well. Where do I begin? I'll go the classical way, starting with the things I do like about him, and what keeps me from being a hater of Justin Bieber.


1. He wasn't born into fame.

I consider stars like Miley Cyrus to be born into fame, because she had the major advantage of having a dad that was already very popular and had "connections" to music producers. Yes, I am a Miley fan, don't judge me. She's inspiring to me. Anyway, now Justin's a huge inspiration to many, and he started off as a "average kid" with a computer and hidden talent. He started just by posting a few videos on Youtube, and he was discovered and revealed to the world. That kind of miracle is just amazing.

2. He actually has talent.

Unlike half of the famous pop singers out there who are auto-tuned out of control, Justin actually is a pretty good singer in my opinion, and also a great dancer, and a drum, guitar, piano, and trumpet player. (That's right folks, I've done my research.)

Apparently, he's fluent in French as well. Now I have some respect for this kid, because I know how hard it is to learn an instrument, and I take French as well.

Back to the auto-tuned subject, I know all singers are auto-tuned when they're recorded, but it's a matter of how much. If you listen to a couple samples of Miley's album "Can't Be Tamed," you can here the very obvious and excessive auto-tuning. (Sorry for comparing to Miley, but she's the best example I can come up with for the subject.) I'm not saying I love all his music, trust me, I don't, but compared to all the crazy auto-tuned singers out there, this kid isn't bad at all.

~~

Now, here's a list of things that keep me from being a "belieber."

1. A Movie? Really?


I know, I know, I even said it myself, his story of how he became famous is pretty inspiring, but did they really have to make a movie about it? Honestly. I think that's just going a little too far. The movie makers were running out of ideas, so they came up with a two hour documentary film all about Justin, making him that much more famous. Come on.

2. Not a big fan of his music.


Sure, he's got talent as I mentioned above, but that doesn't mean I like his talent. Also, the names of his albums: My World, My World 2.0, etc. I don't know, maybe they were rushed to pick a name, but I think Bieber can do better. The only album of his I really enjoy the majority of the songs is his Acoustic album. I also listened to a few samples of his "Under the Mistletoe" album, and... all I'm going to say is that I don't think Christmas music is Justin's thing.

3. Tattoos?

Yep, Justin apparently has several tattoos. One of a bird on his hip, one meaning "Jesus" in hebrew under his left armpit, and now he has a picture of Jesus on his leg. Why am I not surprised? Regardless of what the tattoo is, it's a tattoo. Period. I'm a little shocked that this sensitive softy of a singer all of a sudden goes out and get's ink all over him.

~

So. That's all I have to say about Bieber. I'm a bit of a neutral fan, and yes, I do own a couple of his songs. Only the acoustic version though. I'm wondering if he's going to be one of those triple-threat stars like Jennifer Lopez. He can sing, dance, now all he has to do is go into acting.

That'll be interesting.

Answers

Just a quick one here tonight, I think this needs to be said.

First of all, when I ask someone a question, my absolute least favorite answer is the following:
           "*sigh*... It's complicated."
Here goes my rant of why I hate this answer so much, and why everyone needs to stop using it.

1. It doesn't answer the question at all. It's one thing if you start an answer like this, and then elaborate and sort of half-answer the question, while at the same time, you're just telling the person, "I really don't want to answer this question." That's one thing. It's completely another thing when you just state how complicated everything is, and just stop right there, that being the end of your answer. You're just shooing it away like it's a bee flying in your face, like the question just isn't worth your oh-so-precious time.

2. I have a bit of a psychological theory that when you say yourself, "It's complicated," you're stressing yourself out even more. I think you're almost convincing yourself that it is in fact complicated, which maybe it is, but saying "It's complicated" just makes it feel like that much heavier of a load on your back to deal with.  If people think about things with simplicity, it's a lot of mental stress off your back.

That's just my theory.

Another thing I'd like to say, is that "I don't know" is in fact an answer. Maybe you're saying it because you're still barely conscious from waking up this morning, or perhaps you don't actually know. That is a valid answer in my book, and it's an honest one.

And that's all I have to say about answers.

How I spent my Holiday Vacation

This is not your typical post. I'm not going to babble all along, saying "Ooh I went sledding... and then we went to so-and-so's house for a new years party... and OMG... and wow Dick Clark is still doing New Years..." Blah, blah, blah. No. Not your typical winter vacation. I like to think of myself as a rebel, even though in many people's eyes, I'm not. Too bad.

There are two parts to this post. Normally, I would publish in two separate posts, but because they're somewhat related, I decided to squnch them together. Squnch. I made up a word, that squishes together squish and crunch. What do you think? 

Part 1. Christmas 

Before I begin, I'd like to clear our very complicated schedule with you all, so you're on the same page.
Besides the church service at 4:00, my brothers and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my mom. Then, at exactly 2:00 on Christmas Day, my brothers and I went over to my dads house fore exactly twenty-four hours to have our second Christmas. Then, at 2:00 the following day, we returned back to Mom's house for the rest of the week, until Friday, when we switched to dad's house at 2:00. We've been staying with dad since then, during New Years and all, and I'll be switching back to my mom's house this Sunday, at 1:30.

Don't ask me why it's so complicated, it just is. 

Here's all I have to say about Christmas Eve. Let's just say that my brothers, Rebecca (my dad's lady friend), Rebeca's two kids (seven and five years old,) and I went to the 4:00 church service. Two words for all of you: total nightmare. This is exactly why I wanted to go to the 10:00 service.

Here's what goes on during the 4:00 service: No sermon, which is usually the best part. The lights go down low, you lean back as best as you can in the uncomfortable pew, and just listen. No singing, no staring at the bulletin, no lighting candles or anything for the worship assistants, just listen. Anyway, besides that, then there's the Christmas pageant. It's cute, but it looks like they didn't practice very much. I'm not expecting much, in fact, I don't even know what I'm expecting at all. It's a Christmas pageant.  Then, of course, they call all the kids up and give them little plastic angel ornaments to put on their trees when they get home. Freddy, Rebecca's five year old son, starts making a scene about how his angel won't light up, and how it feels like we've been here for five hours.

Then, at the very end, during Silent Night, I start having a major mental breakdown. I wanted to drop everything and just have my own space. I wanted to just screw this church service, go back to mom's house, snuggle with my moose pillow pet, and go to sleep until Christmas came. Everybody knows that Christmas comes faster if you go to sleep sooner.

You see, at the 10:00 service, people actually take the time to dress up, do their hair, and come with their close relatives. We sing real Christmas songs, not ones like "Hark the Herold Angels Sing." That, my friend, is not a Christmas song according to me. There's no pageant, there is a sermon, and it's peaceful.

Enough about Christmas eve. It's Christmas Day, and here's how it works with the Heels family and Christmas: all three kids wake up exactly at 7:00 AM, and go wake mom up. Not 8:00, not noon, but 7:00 AM bright and early. Just another reason why I wanted to go to sleep early the night before.

I'm not going to list everything I got, and babble on about how much I love them. That would just be snobbish. Pure snobbish. I will, however, tell you my top three favorite things that I received, to keep it simple.

1. My new swim bag. It's like a duffel bag, but it's blue with side pockets and a nice big compartment for my towels. Excellent. :) Perfect for meets.

2. My books. I won't list all of them, because they will all be future book reviews. So far I have finished "Forgotten" by Cat Patrick, and I'm currently working on "The Running Dream" and "Envy." Sorry, I don't have the authors names for those right now. There are about four more that I received, that will be reviewed in the near future.

3. Footie Pajamas. About four years ago, I received pink footy pajamas with ducks all over it. Just a week ago, I tried it on and it wouldn't fit. This Christmas, I received giant adult sized pink footie pajamas with ducks all over it, with a bonus flap in the back. Jackpot.

Everyone loves footie pajamas. My brothers have some too, but my dad says they won't truly appreciate them until college, when they realize that girls think they look cute instead of idiotic. (Or both, but the idiotic part is kept secret between the girls.)

Part 2. New Years

So, being who I am, I hadn't planned anything for New Years Eve at all this year until 7:30 that night. Talk about procrastination! My dad was hosting a small get-together at his house, and I was staying with him on New Years. No offense to my dad or anyone who attended, but I had no intentions to spend my New Years surrounded by old people. Nope, not gonna happen.

I was desperately calling friends to see if they could come and spend the night, but everyone had plans of their own, except my amazing friend, Amy. She was just going out rollerskating with her parents and her brother, so she said I could come along if I wanted. Yes, it's true, I spent my first half hour or so of 2012 roller skating to weird rap music. 

I had a really good time, though! I'm not the best roller skater, but I managed to have a good time, even with a few experts swinging by me, skating backwards. I applaud them for that. They're not trying to show off, and it must be really hard to do! There was even this little toddler on roller skates using this triangular thing she could lean on that had wheels to keep her balance. Adorable!

We played a few arcade games, and there was a lady behind the counter who was hanging around with the real guy who was supposed to be giving us our prizes. When I asked for some smiley face erasers, he had to stop and do the math of how many erasers I could get, based off of how many tickets I had. Then, the lady was like,
           "Oh, Alex, you're such a nerd! Just give them a handful, no one cares if she gets one too many!" Then she reaches out the box in front of me from behind the counter and tells Amy and I to each take a big handful. We did. She was nice.

The part that set this night apart from any other night out roller skating was the balloons and the number of people there. First of all, they dropped a bunch of balloons all over the place on the roller rink, and each had a prize inside. Something simple like "One free small soda" or "100 Bonus Tickets." Sweet little treats.

I got home around 1:30 AM, and went to bed around 2:00. Most of the time, I'll stay up later, but we had a very important breakfast to get to that same morning, so we needed our sleep. I was also in a mini food coma. You know, that feeling after you've eaten a few bites too many, and you feel like you can't move anywhere no matter how great you are at rollerskating? Yup, that's food coma.

If you all are wondering about said important breakfast, we just had reservations for a brunch at this hotel. All I'm gonna say, so I don't make you guys hungry as you read this, is this: The omelette guy changes every year! He makes omelettes and waffles. Great way to start 2012.

Huh. I already broke my resolution: Have good sleep habits.

Band/Classical Music VS Owl City

So I'm in 8th grade, and I play the flute in the school band. Fun stuff. I don't even know if that was sarcastic or not. I really looked forward to it in 5th and 6th grade, but when we got into Junior High, it went a little downhill from there. I don't really know why, honestly. More than one reason, I think. Here's why:

1. There's a different conductor/teacher. He takes his music pretty seriously, I suppose, but we get a good laugh every now and then, usually when one of the percussionists screw up and just lose it. I guess he has a pretty good sense of humor. But we're all still adjusting to him, I guess. That was mostly the issue in 7th grade, I think. Different atmosphere.

2. A LOT more people! Back in 6th grade, there was just three of us in sixth grade who played the flute. Now, there are maybe fourteen 8th grade flutists. It's worse for the clarinets, they take up a lot of room. In general, it's pretty squished in the band room. Actually, I wouldn't say squished, I guess I'd say snug. There isn't much room to scoot your chair in a different and more comfortable angle, let's say that.

3. Different music. But then again, there's always different music each year, so no surprises there.

Yet, the music is exactly why I'm writing this. You see, we're playing some pretty... interesting music. We're doing a song called "Avenger March" that when we play it slow enough, it sounds like music you would hear when riding a Merry-Go-Round. Honestly. In my opinion, it doesn't sound much better when we play it faster.

Another song we're doing is Fireflies, by Owl City. That's right. You read me. Can you imagine that popular song that was over played on the radio being played by a band? We're talking flutes, clarinets, alto saxophones, trumpets, trombones, percussion, and yes, everyone's favorite, tubas. For those of you who aren't familiar with the song, here is the music video to give you a little taste of what the vibe of the song is:

Listen to that little intro with the beepity boopity sounds. (Yea, I said beepity boopity.) Listen to that part. That's the flute part in band. I'm sorry to band members who could be reading this, but I just don't think we can pull off an electronic hip-hop kind of song like this! It certainly is a different version when we play it. We've got tubas playing this, when the guy in the video is using fancy-shmancey electronic sounds. He uses those fancy-shmancey sounds for a reason! What's the reason you may ask? Because it sounds spunky and cool that way.

Sorry, again, to any band members who could be reading this. It's just my opinion. I'm not exactly saying I'd rather be playing a Merry-Go-Round marching song, but it's just not a song meant to be played for a band. The only thing I really like about playing fireflies is that when I'm not playing, I can sing the lyrics in my head and bob my head along to the beat with my good friend Ally, who is very obsessed with this song. :)

This being said, I don't know what would be good band music. NO, sorry, that's a lie. I do know what would be good band music. I'm a fan of some classical music, I have to admit. I listen to classical music when I'm studying. (You know what they say: Mozart makes people smart!) There is a series of songs written by Gustav Holst called The Planets. One song per planet. My favorite is Jupiter. Here's the audio for it:

You don't have to listen to the whole thing, because I know many of you who are reading this would find that absolute torture. Just listen to a minute of the beginning, then skip over to the 2:53 mark, and in a few seconds a church hymn starts up. I don't know if he wrote it or not, I'm assuming he did, and it's my favorite church hymn of all time. Please listen! Give classical music a chance!

Oh gosh, listen to me. I listen to weird pop songs like Fireflies, and now I'm supporting classical music. We all have different tastes in music, I suppose. I probably sound like a geek to many of you, but you know what, I'm a proud (band) geek. Boom. Take that, haters. Take that.

April Heels: Hipster Much?

You all know about my dream self, yes? Here's a little recap: I've always wanted auburn hair, have european style glasses, be a photographer, and I've always wanted to be named April. I just think it's a pretty name, regardless of the fact that my middle name is Winter.

Well, I got a new camera a while back and it's being well used, the european stye glasses came in around the middle of 6th grade, and I'll change my name when I'm 18. Maybe. That part I'm not so sure about. Some dreams are just meant to be left as dreams. The problem is, you don't know which one's are really meant to become a reality and which aren't.

The thing is, I can picture people going like, "How is April a nick name for Sonja??" People would get confused, I'll be known differently on the internet, and I'll probably have to change my email address. Oh, the hassle!

But, a couple weeks ago, I dyed my hair to be auburn! The pebbles costume this Halloween was sort of an excuse to dye it, and now it's red all day and all night, since October.  Now I'll dye my hair on Friday nights every 8 weeks, every time just a litte different shade to explore what's out there. I just re-dyed my hair last week, so now it's clearly red. See below for the picture.

So I was walking around my grandparents house, while we were visiting during the Holiday break. Picture if you will: I'm wearing a blue tanktop, yellow bra straps showing, grey fingerless gloves, skinny jeans, cow socks, and my hair looks just awesome. So much better than Justin Bieber, that's for sure. Also, I'm wearing home made jewelry, and if I had a hula hoop with me, I'd be hooping the whole night. It's one of my hobbies, a great stress reliever. Honestly, try it. You can't be sad while swinging your hips in a circle. Anyway, yeah, I know the yellow bra is a little out of place and odd, maybe a little with the tank top too, but I didn't see the big deal.

My brothers stare at me, tower over me, and Sam says,
           "You are such a hipster." ... I'm thinking, "Um... thank you? Should I be proud of this?" Sam asks me, "Wait. Bottom line: do you like big corporations?"
           "You mean like Wal-Mart? Nope. Not at all."
           "Yeah, you're a hipster."
Great. My new title. I guess I'm proud of it. He said it's because I'm weirdly unique, I wear home made jewelry, and especially because I write poetry and I blog. Huh.

So I looked up the definition of a hipster. From Urban Dictionary, here goes:

1.	hipster	60983 up, 14871 down
	Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter. The greatest concentrations of hipsters can be found living in the Williamsburg, Wicker Park, and Mission District neighborhoods of major cosmopolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco respectively. Although "hipsterism" is really a state of mind,it is also often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities. Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses. Both hipster men and women sport similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. Such styles are often associated with the work of creative stylists at urban salons, and are usually too "edgy" for the culturally-sheltered mainstream consumer. The "effortless cool" urban bohemian look of a hipster is exemplified in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel ads which cater towards the hipster demographic. Despite misconceptions based on their aesthetic tastes, hipsters tend to be well educated and often have liberal arts degrees, or degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities. Consequently many hipsters tend to have jobs in the music, art, and fashion industries. It is a myth that most hipsters are unemployed and live off of their parent's trust funds. Hipsters shun mainstream societal conventions that apply to dating preferences and traditional "rules" of physical attraction. It is part of the hipster central dogma not to be influenced by mainstream advertising and media, which tends to only promote ethnocentric ideals of beauty. The concepts of androgyny and feminism have influenced hipster culture, where hipster men are often as thin as the women they date.

It goes on and on, but I decided to cut it off. I won't make you suffer that much. Did you see how it said "messy shag cuts" and "side-swept bangs?" I'll show Urban Dictionary and the rest of the internet a messy shag cut and side swept bangs. Ladies and gentleman, April Heels, the hipster inside of me:

Ta-dah. Besides the age factor, I consider myself a bit of hipster. At least I consider April Heels a hipster. I've even gotten an e-mail for April Heels, for no reason whatsoever. I guess it just makes me feel that she's real.

This is probably confusing a lot of you, so I'm going to stop typing to save you even more confusion.

Also, just a shout out, check the short stories + poetry section of my blog. It's been updated big time.

Enjoy. Question for all of you: do you give yourself a title, such as hipster? Let me know in the comments, I'm curious.

Swimming, Drama, School, and Hugs

Well, Applewood Village, my neighborhood, looks like a war zone, and we've been in school for a couple months now. Lot's of drama.

First thing you should know is this: I've joined the swim team once again! You see, I used to be on the town swim team for a couple years, but I took my 6th and 7th grade years off from swimming.

Why did I take time off? Let's just say that 6th grade was a very emotional year for me. Both happy and sad, and also stuck with the teacher with the most homework, it was a lot of weight on my shoulders. Marianne was a great teacher, firm and nice at the same time, but she made the Jr. High School sound like boot camp. Compared to the amount of homework I have now, Marianne gave out MUCH more.
No joke, we actually had to answer 501 questions about the civil war in 6th grade. For the record, I was one of the only people in the class that actually took it seriously. Besides homework, there was also the adjustment of living in two homes.

Anyway, honestly, I don't have a very good reason for leaving out my 7th grade year from swimming. I guess it was a combination of adjusting to the new school system, and handling the new online AprilCards system, too. That took up a lot of time, too.

Next year, when I'll have to adjust to another new school system, I promise I will try out for the swim team. :) Now you guys get to hold that against me someday.

Now that I'm in 8th grade, we're the biggest kids in the school. Sevies are so tiny! I know, I was one of them one day, but seriously, were we THAT small??

Lot's of things have been going on. Like Halloween! :D I was the original Pebbles Flinstone. My mom made my costume, but let's just say, next year, I won't be so cute. I don't know what I'll be, but I don't wanna be cute. The plastic bone tied into my hair REALLY hurts. I wore it for a couple hours at the party, but it was just way too painful.

This year, I hosted a Halloween party at my mom's house. I know all the adults that are reading this are going to be rolling their eyes, because when they hear of a teen Halloween party, and a teen blogger is blogging about it, their has to be something juicy going on.

Well guess what grown-ups? You rolled your eyes for the right reason! I want to say it was your typical Halloween party, because in several ways, it was!! And being "one of them", I thought it was fantastic. You adults reading this translate my "fantastic" into "really noisy and annoying".  Sorry mom! Sorry Iiro! (Iiro is my mommy's boyfriend. He's also Finnish. He's one of US!)

My best friend Lenora planned the party with me, and I considered her to be my co-hostess. We planned a costume contest. The prizes were $5 to Dunkin' Donuts. Also, all the food was delish. My mom made her famous spicy chicken dip, which frankly looks disgusting, but it tastes amazing. Don't judge a food by it's looks!

We also planned a little scavenger hunt, where the prize was a weird Jester's Hat and a Starburst candy. The clues around the house were extremely vague, so watching everyone scram around the house scratching their little noggins was pretty entertaining for me.

The rest of the party consisted of a lot of wacky twister games, mofia games, and truth or dare. During most of the party, my iPod was playing a specially made playlist just for the party. When Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" came on, everyone at the party who was in chorus at school started singing along in precise harmony. I couldn't stop laughing.

All the juice I'm going to tell you about Truth or Dare is this: there was lot's of kissing, hugging, and dancing. I'm not allowed to tell you all about the details, because everyone made a deal that "what happens in Sonja's Mom's living room stays in Sonja's Mom's living room".

So that was a fun night. Not too many people. Somewhere around twelve or fifteen people at most.

Now that 8th grade has started, I feel pretty good about it all. What I've realized is that I've come to the hugging stage of a teenage girl's life. For all you non-teenage-girls, the hugging stage is when you can walk up to one of your girlfriends, hug them, and it won't be weird. You'll hug your friends all the time. It'll be casual, sometimes it's one of those hugs where both of you are screaming "eeeeeep!!!", sometimes it'll be a really long hug. Nonetheless, it's a hug. Every girl get's to this stage. For the record, boys will never understand this, especially the "eeeeeeeep!!!!" hug.

What's odd is that I can't stop thinking about my old house. The one I lived in for nine years of my lifetime. I can't stop dreaming of what life would be like if my parents still loved each other and what life would be like if I could still go into the treehouse, or swing on the tire swing. Dreaming of simplicity.

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene

I'm sure you all (or at least all of you on the east coast) have heard about hurricane Irene. Let's just say that yesterday was a pretty wacky Sunday. No, wait, it was a pretty wacky weekend all together.

Friday was the day that everyone on the news was all, "Don't wait until the last minute. Today is the day to prepare! Get your boats out of the water, bring all your outdoor furniture inside..." Guess what we did on Friday? If you thought we prepared for Irene on Friday, you're incorrect. Nope, we just hiked Mount Wachuset that day.

This was before Sam drove to the easy trail entrance, and before we had our "gear" on.  Rebecca and I had these pants where you can take off the bottom half of the pants if it gets hot. Kind of clever, but really not so comfy. 

For those of you who have hiked Wachuset, we did not go up the easy short way. Dad, Rebecca, and I hiked up the Balance Rock trail. (Rebecca is my daddy's lady friend, in case you haven't caught up yet.) Meanwhile, as a part of Sam's top 10 summer list, Sam jogged up the easy trail, timing himself. Sorry for lack of info, I don't know the easy trails name! Anyway, the plan was for Sam to get to the summit ASAP (he didn't jog the entire way, the boy's gotta breathe) and then start hiking down the Old Indian Trail and meet us. Balance Rock Trail doesn't go all the way up, so we change to the Old Indian Trail about halfway up.

Are you confused yet? :)

Turns out Rebecca and Dad had the same boots. I recommended this pose and angle so it would look cute and romantic. :) Score one for Sonja. 

Look closely and you'll see a toad. :)

Rebecca and I leaning on the balancing rocks on balance rock trail. 

Changing to Old Indian Trail...

Sam texting Dad. In case you're wondering what the heck "R" means, it's my dad's way of saying "K". Don't ask.
This was about 45 minutes before we met with him, approximately. 

This trail crosses the ski trails. This reminds me of the movie, "Frozen". What if you were up on one of those things??

After Sam met us about fifteen minutes from the summit on the Old Indian Trail, we went all together up to the summit for lunch. Sam's time was 25 minutes flat. Go Sam.

For lunch, we had Peanut Butter and Nutella/Jelly (our choice), honey roasted peanuts, grapes, raisins, water, and chocolate. Delish! We did some planking and horse manning. At the summit, down in a little corner, there's this stone thing with holes in it. Below that is where we eat lunch, and above it is absolutely great for pictures and tanning. :) We're only there for about an hour before we head back down.

Some construction going on at the summit... fenced off, so we couldn't explore. :(

This is me standing from the bottom part of the stone thing, sticking my head through one of the holes.  :) It's hard to describe what the structure of granite looks like....

Below the holes of the granite structure, having my lunch. :) Red rosie cheeks! 

It's supposed to look like I have no head, and Rebecca's head is supposedly my head. :) What do you think??

Sam's PLANK!! 

Relaxing... with hat hair, except for my bangs. 

There's a fish pond at the summit, and look who we found!
I think we scared him, which is why he was being so still. 

We left the house around one, and got back around six. Why did we leave at one? Because we didn't prepare things the night before and we don't take things too seriously. Plus, I slept in until ten, just like any other summer day when I'm not at camp or vacation.


Saturday morning around eleven, I was watching the news about Irene. NECN, "Tracking Irene".  Considering the broadcast was going out to all of New England, I didn't know what to expect. All I know is that people kept saying, "Prepare for the worst and pray for the best."



I was a mindless fool when it came to hurricane preparation. Why? When I think of hurricane, I think of the pictures I saw on the news after hurricane Katrina hit. According to my dad, Katrina was a category five, and the one headed for us was only a category one. Once I was in the loop, I knew just to expect power outages, maybe some trees or tree branches down. Also a possibility of flooding in the basement, but we got a sump pump. Problem solved.

Saturday was our preparation day. Here's what we did:
-Take pictures of the house from outside, including nearby trees in case any trees fell down. We could use the pictures for before/after pictures, if any serious damage occurred.

-Fill up buckets of water for flushing the toilets. You see, where I live, if the power is out, then everything's out, including water. Score one for thinking ahead!

-Grocery shopping. It actually wasn't because of the hurricane, we just sort of needed some more food in the house for the week. School starts on wednesday for us!

-Made several batches of my Aunt's famous macaroni and cheese casserole. :) Never gets old.

Sunday we had absolutely no agenda. We just played everything by ear. I woke up around ten in the morning, and the power was out. I only knew the time because of my phone. Sam and Ben were still asleep, so I went down to see if Dad and Rebecca were up.

According to them, the power went out sometime around eight. After they got themselves together, the three of us drove in the rain over to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. Honestly, that was a little embarrassing. How American was this? My dad went up to the counter, ordering for all of us, including the two brothers still at the house.
         "Ya I'll take 3 sausage egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, two small coffees, a blueberry muffin, ... what do you want?" Looking over at Rebecca and I. After we got the basics for breakfast, dad for some reason threw in an order of a dozen donuts. Oh geez.
         ''Oh, and a dozen donuts. Yup. Okay, two of the chocolate creams, four of the Boston Kremes, four chocolate glaze, and two vanilla frostings."
Good lord. Everyone got two and a half donuts throughout the powerless day, which was nice, but I hate being that big family ordering a ton from Dunkin' Donuts when all the guy behind us wants is a coffee so he can go home.

We stayed home for the rest of the day, enjoying our breakfast. Sam went over to his girlfriends house, and we played Scrabble etc.

The power came back on around six in the evening, which is when the first thing we did was turn on the TV and watch some "Baman Piderman" from youtube. Yeah, this is America.

Here's the link to the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7-TQdN40Dk&feature=relmfu

:) So that's what my weekend was like. If you live in New England, or anywhere from Virginia up to Maine, I hope everything is okay and nothing too bad happened!!

Summer 2011 Top 10 Lists

If you look at the majority of the posts on my homepage, even though they're in chronological order, newest at top, you'll notice that several of them are about vacations, breaks, etc. Yeah, it's fun for me to write up a lengthy post for you all, but this one's different, credit to my dad.


You see, he had each of the kids, (Sam, Ben, and I) create a list of ten goals for the summertime. Since there's approximately ten weeks durring the summer, the idea was to do one goal per week. He said it could be something like "Read ___" or "Learn ___". Anything.


I thought this was a clever way to keep us off our lazy butts all summer long and have something to commit to. Here goes, my list:


1. Start jogging around the neighborhood
2. Learn to play some chords or maybe a song on the ukulele 
3. Make more paper fashions!
4. Write 5 funky stories
5. Read "The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, and June"
6. Knit something that's not a scarf
7. Read "A Mango Shaped Space"
8. Write 5 funky poems
9. Take at least 1000 photos
10. Play tennis without a fit


Let me just go down the list again. Starting with number one, YES, in fact, I did start jogging around the neighborhood, with my new sneakers. Honestly, I prefer laps in the pool because I can't really sweat in the pool. If I'm scientifically wrong, then let's just say that I can't feel any sweat, which is great, because I absolutely hate that warm sticky feeling on my forehead. 


Speaking of swimming, in case you haven't heard the news, I'm back into swimming. In case you haven't heard the old news, several years ago, I quit the town swim team. This summer, my mom convinced me to rejoin, and now I'm going to the tryouts in October. 






As for chords and maybe a song on the ukulele, that is also off my list. Let me back up a tad. Around May, soon before school ended, I had this sudden obsession of ukulele's. I had an urge to play one one day, but to my disappointment, there was no ukulele in either of my two households. What a shame. The internet plays the good guy in this story, because I saved up about twenty dollars and went straight to Amazon.com to find me a cheap ukulele. Nothing fancy, plus, I got a couple of books. One with simple songs, and another for chords and all you need to know about the ukulele. Now I know several chords, thanks to the chord chart in the book. :)


Now, number three on the list might confuse you a bit. You see, several years ago for Christmas, I received this art kit called Paper Fashions by Klutz. Last Christmas, I got one very similar, only this time it was called Paper Fashions Fancy. It might sound like a wicked stupid hobby, but trust me, it's very fun. So, YES, I have made several new Paper Fashions outfits. 


Here are a couple of my favorites: (Keep in mind these are some of my old ones. The new ones I haven't taken photos of- yet. :)

As you can see, I'm a big fan of jeans. They go with everything!!

I'm all about writing, as number four and eight show on the list. These two are technically still a work in progress unfortunately, not because of procrastination, but many of my short story ideas still are in the thought process. I'm not one of those writers who writes by ear, and figures out the plot as he/she writes. Nope. I like to know what I'm going to write before I write it. Here's one promise, though: I promise to publish each and every funky story and poem on the "Short Stories, Poems, etc." page. Just give me some time. Well, give me until Friday. That's just about when my summer vibes are gone, and my times up. 


The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, and June was an excellent but quick read. For a summary, just in case any of you are interested, April, May, and June are sisters. April is the oldest, and can see glimpses of the future. May, the middle sis, can disappear. June, the youngest, can read minds. They're all in high school, and the difference in ages is only by a year. Let's just say it all starts with April seeing something in the future that scares her. 


Now, for knitting, I'm going to say this right now: I do not knit a lot. In fact, it's a rare occasion that I ever do. The closest I've gotten to knitting in the past few months is making some embroidery floss bracelets. I'm not some weirdo who sits at home on a Saturday night knitting socks for the winter. Nope. Mostly, I've knit socks, hence the specific details on the list. So I made a headband. I didn't think this through though. This was before my pixie cut. So now I have a green headband, and no hair for it. I'm a mess.


I'm sure at least some of you have heard of the book called "A Mango Shaped Space", right? If you haven't, it's about a girl with synesthesia and her orange cat, Mango, as a best friend. Well, not best friend, but she believes that after her grandfather died, part of his soul was still in Mango. She thinks that everyone is just like her, seeing colors when sounds arise, and every letter and number having it's very specific color. It's a very touching story. :) I highly recommend it. 


You guys have heard of my wacky photo crazes, correct? (If not, look below at the Spring Break for just a sample.) I recently bought an orange panasonic digital camera. Excellent! I've been reading several articles on www.DigitalPhotographySchool.com, which are very helpful. My favorite form of photography is food photography. Landscape is also a favorite of mine, but that takes travelling. 


So, YES, I have taken more than 1000 photos this summer. Some from my week in Maine with my best friend, some from camp, some from Finland/Spain (future post), and some just from home. Here are just a few I think you'll like:

This is a weird angle of this blue rock... Oooh Aaah

An old lamp and a cracked wall... pretty vintage, if you ask me.

Green tea! :)

Don't you just LOVE the contrast here??

An old piano and stool. Classic.

My grandma's cat, henriata. :) Just waking up from her nap.

My grandma's cat, Olivia, durring sunset. She's an indoor cat.

This one isn't very pretty... it's just Pudge. Our kitty cat! 

As for the last thing on my list, honestly, as of the second to last day of summer, I haven't played tennis without a fit yet. In fact, I haven't played tennis at all this summer. The reason I included the "without a fit" detail, is because I know myself. I know that there's something about tennis that is very aggravating about tennis when I play it, so there's a goal right there. I think I'll find a tennis partner in the next 48 hours. 




So, next summer, I recommend trying this top 10 list idea, because even if you're going on vacation or to work, it gives you something to do on the weekends. :)

Spring Break 2011 (Complete with College Tours)

Super crazy week, full of just barely enough comfort... most of it came from the Comfort Inn. Their conditioner they give you is great. So I'm going to start out on the Saturday before vacation, and I'll walk you through my life from there. Did I tell you that we're visiting 3 colleges in 3 days? Sam's a Junior in high school now, and dad wanted to bring us along for the experience. So, uh.. tah dah:


Saturday
I woke up at my dads house today. I was supposed to be at my moms, technically, but I was on babysitting duty at my dads, and it was a late night. They were finally in bed by around 9:30, so we watched Sleepless in Seattle. By the way, that's the most predictable movie ever. Look at the cover, read the back, you know how it's going to end. Whatever. I went home around 1PM.

I packed most of my bag today. Fact is, I didn't know we weren't checking any of our bags. We were carrying everything on... so before I knew that I was packing my full size shampoo, conditioner, facial cleanser, all that. I even planned my airport/church outfit: A spaghetti strap flurry shirt that was green/blue/brownish plaid. The cool thing was, there was a zipper going down the middle. Chic!! I don't think my mom liked that... but oh well. I had a little long-sleeve drape thing over it, and then jeans and my sneakers. Brilliant.

I'm a little obsessive of fashion... just a little self conscious about myself. It's a flaw in everyone, it just matters how much of a flaw it is.

We switched over to dads around 2, and chilled around for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone was packing but me, who was still unaware that we weren't checking anything.



Sunday
Wake up, breakfast, THEN dad tells me that we're bringing on everything, and I thought he was screwing with me. I'm a freaking girl! I gotta have all my cleansing junk because girls are in love with soap. It's who we are. So I throw out of my bag all my soap, and I'll just rely on the hotel stuff. I now understand why they include that stuff when you go to a hotel. We usually check our bags... Anyway...after that rush out the door, we had Church that had a SUPER long gospel... so that lasted longer then usual, plus I had to be acolyte. 3rd week in a row? Eh. Why can't I sleep?? After church we went directly to the airport.

Dad got pulled aside for his swiss army knife, so he was a little sad about that and he was mad at himself for being so stupid. ... I think he has another one at home, so it's not that bad. :/

Anyway, after that we went to Legal Sea Foods where I had the most delicious lobster roll. I do like the ones at Crossroads Cafe, but these were a pretty good competition. Complete with fries, and a shirley temple. (Thanks dad!) We were watching the Red Sox game and apparently the camera dudes screwed up and they didn't show the double play. Dad was like, "Wait! They're gonna show it in the replay! That's why we watch TV!" They never did. Oh, the disappointment.

If you've ever been to Logan Airport, there are a MILLION Hudson News's everywhere! There's always one in sight. It's crazy. ...They didn't even have Seventeen Magazine.

We waited a couple hours for our flight to New York (yes, New York, then we go to Roanoke from there. Roanoke, VA). I was kind of bored, but dad says that's my choice. That makes sense. I was playing with my brand new camera, which was orange and Panasonic brand. You'll find it on amazon- I highly recommend it. (You'll read about my photo craze later on Monday...)

I got a really nice picture of my brother sleeping in one of the chairs, shadows all over him. I will name it "Sleeping In The Shadows". Sounds like some sort of weird Piano album name.

The flight was maybe 45 minutes in between the takeoff tumbling and the landing procedures. I got some pretty cloudy shots of the outside. I sat next to my dad who slept the whole way. It was one of those small planes where there's a pair of seats on either side, and then an aisle down the middle of course. So tiny and so cute!

Not super pretty, but I love the landscape look. Well, then again, everyone does. That's why I'm the kid who's like, "Daddy I wanna get the window seat PLEEEEEEAAAASE?!?!"

We finally got to New York at... maybe, 6? 6:30 PM? Our plane to Roanoke VA was delayed by maybe 10 minutes, but that's okay. Things went quite swimmingly while waiting, except for the gross nachos we got. The pizza wasn't that bad, but the cheese on the nachos, and the grease, and the soggy chips, and.. ehh. Dad was reading about time in the Time Equinox or something, Ben was playing with his hair and reading, and Sam was doing crosswords.

...Plus there was a very cool sign telling us where we were. You know, just in case we forgot.

Why YES, in fact, this IS NY!! Thanks for the reminder. NY isn't the best place in the world ya know.... making it sound like all that.

Eventually, we got on the plane to Roanoke. We boarded around 7:30, and I'm sorry, but that was the smallest, most ancient, freakiest plane I've ever ridden. It sat exactly 37 passengers. It was like a small trolley, but the seats were gray cushions and everything had an ancient yellow tint to it. Again, I sat next to the window. Take a look:

The ancient gray seats and the old tray tables.

We got to sit in the back. Sam wasn't sitting with us though, he was sitting a couple rows up next to a middle aged man who apparently kept fiddling with the light. He thought it was broken, and Sam told me it was very annoying. It was a full flight, but they didn't come on until later after I took this picture. There was this loud squeaky noise that would go whenever we would take off or land. It was right by my dads ears, so that was pleasant.

The plane to NY had a buckle up sign and "Turn off electronics" sign. The No Smoking bit was just prohibited. Period. I felt bad for those people on these kinds of planes that were just staring at the no smoking light, just waiting for it to go out so they could light their cigarettes.

My glorious view of the outside. The window had lots of crud on it... I don't know what it was.

Little messages. Let me translate in case you can't read it: Fasten seat belt while seated, Seat does not recline, Stow tray table durring take off and landing, .... I can't read the last one. Oh, and there was a US Airways magazine. 

Picture this if you will, based off of the pictures above. I'm sitting in the back corner window seat of this ancient plane, cold air blowing on me, we're riding in lumpy bumpy air, as dad describes it, during take-off, and for most of the time, there's a squeaky noise that won't stop until we're pleasantly cruising in the air. Plus, it was creepy because I could here the "trunk" of the plane directly behind me. I could here them banging the door, locking it and all that, it was literally right behind me. The view of New York at night was pretty spectacular though. TONS of orange lights, I now know why the sky is orange at night. Orange light pollution. Oh, and it's really dark too. Night time, and they turn out the plane lights for the ride. The only light was coming from my over head light, and a couple other reading lights towards the front of the plane. That's it.

Creepy? Eh, maybe just a little.

We landed in Roanoke around 10:15 PM. The airport there was completely deserted. The Starbucks and other stores had their gates pulled down, all the waiting chairs are empty, the only people around are a couple of cops here and there. Airport security. You can't get enough of 'em.

I saw a shoe shining station at the airport. My brothers said those were everywhere in this area of the country. I thought it was cool.

(It didn't look like they were on duty. No one was around. At all.)

I couldn't quite piece together how this worked. Do you sit there with your shoes on? Or do you sit there and take them off and put them on the little metal thing? If you do that, why do you sit there? Oh well.

Our shuttle didn't arrive, so we had to call a yellow cab from the Yellow Cab Co. The cab was yellow. It took us to our luxurious Comfort Inn, and we had 2 rooms. I shared one with my dad, and my brothers got the other. As I said way above, the conditioner there is great. Shampoo... eh. Not bad. Lotion I didn't try. I have travel size lotion. :) Reminder, I'm a girl.

We got to bed no later than 11:30.



Monday

My dad is a neat freak. Or as he says, "I'm to lazy to look for things." MIT graduate, isn't everybody a neat freak from there? We woke up at 6, free continental breakfast at 6:30. Half an hour to shower, put on lotion and deodorant, get dressed, do your hair, throw your make-up on, throw some jewelry on, and get your shoes on. Maybe paint your nails if you have an extra 10 minutes. That's for girls. (Aka: moi) For men, it's 30 minutes to shower (shampoo only,) throw on deodorant, get dressed, throw shoes on. That's it. MAYBE comb your hair... only if you take that kind of stuff seriously. Or if you're with a lady friend. Then you kinda have to.

So that was a rush. I'm always last, and my brothers are like, "no one cares what you look like!!" I know that that doesn't exactly matter too much, I just like dressing it up and impressing myself. I am on vacation, so why not? Oh, I know why not, 'cause I only have 30 minutes to do the necessary. Too bad. I'm cramming it in anyway.

After the 6:30 free continental breakfast, complete with eggs, sausage and bacon on toast with a banana to go, we checked out and went back to the airport to rent a car. (Got there around 7. An hour early on schedule. Accomplishment? Sure... only because Dad thought it took a half hour to eat and a half hour to check out. Accomplishment in time management? Fine.)

We ended up getting a red toyota corolla. A little cramped in the back, even though no one was sitting in the middle, it's just we can be picky when it comes to elbow room. Whatever. We drove a couple hours to Virginia Tech.

Funny thing is, we show up maybe a half hour early to the information session, dad's got his bar codes and proof that he registered and all that. The auditorium there is HUGE. There's like, six different sections. Of course, there's right, middle, left, and all three of those are divided into front and back sections- and all those sections are pretty dang huge by themselves. Picture that, if you can.

A young graduate was very enthusiastic and presenting information, history, courses, majors, all that to us for maybe an hour. Sam, I could tell, wasn't too intimidated at all. I asked him, and he said he really wanted to apply. (Despite the fact that it takes maybe a day and a quarter to get there on a freakish plane.)

Beautiful campus, and it's in the middle of nowhere. If I saw a couple cows in the middle of the fields, I wouldn't freak and take a picture with me and the cow. But all of the buildings are just about the same. Made of all the same stone, all the same on the outside, but it's very modern inside. Very cool.

After going to the bookstore and getting a VT polo for Sam, and a few drinks for the car ride, we drove to Annapolis, Maryland. If you can picture the USA in your head, imagine that distance. Took us maybe 7 hours. 6 and a half? Before we braced ourselves for the long ride, we stopped for lunch at Lefty's Main Street Grill. It's not a chain restaurant, so you'll have to go there and see for yourself to see what great grilled turkey wraps they have. They put avocados with turkey! Genius! Dad thought it was too much for a small girl like me to eat, so I only had 3/4 of it. Good enough, I'd say. Especially with the almost-too-sweetened-to-be-ice-tea tea.  ;)

After Lefty's, that's when my photo craze began. Sorry, but it's just what happens when you have a 12 year old girl stuck in a car for 7 hours with an already-read book (finished it on the plane...) and a phone with maybe 30% of it's battery left. Plus no descent wi-fi, and, OH YEAH, I also had my week old brand new camera. I played around with that, and dad says that a photographer in training needs to take lots of pictures of lots of different things. So here I go... I spread my white fleece over my knees as my backdrop and started taking pictures of things- and playing around with the different settings.


Voila: (Let's just pretend there's an accent grave on the a... I don't know how to type accents.)

So... here's my hand. Kinda boring, so for the next picture I mixed it up a bit.

Here's my fat hand! I have this mode on my camera where you can extend or squish things. I didn't want to see my squished hand, 'cause I was freaked that it was going to look like some old bony witchy hand- but the witch had a tan. Eh!!

 

 This is me trying to make trash look appealing. We stopped at this gas station place that had a Dairy Queen, Dunkin Donuts, Subway, etc all in the same building. Ben got a Mt. Dew, Sam got the giant 32 fl oz frozen coke slushy, and I got the little mini blizard from Dairy Queen. Most of the trash is in the giant cup. Oh, and if you look closely up at the top of the picture you can see my brothers elbow. The elbow of a 32 fl oz frozen coke slushy drinker. Pretty exciting.

Then I switched my camera to black and white mode. In a small car on a highway, there was only so much I could do. 

My brother was thinking, but he doesn't like his picture taken. I'm a little sister in a car, stuck with a camera and a perfect shot right in front of me. How can I resist?!

I don't know how I got the background to be white. I guess I'm just magical. :)

I thought his hair flip looked like a forest, or a storm, or a storm occurring in a forest. Hmm..

This is the back of my older brother's head. I think it looks like a star exploding. 

Now we're of the highway, so I took it out of b/w for a couple of shots.
Plants on a wall. Tah da..

Ah, the breeze, the trees, the sky is blue, and STOP

No cars or clouds or anything besides trees in the way! 

I tried to take a picture of all the flags around it, but its sorta fuzzy. 

So those were some pictures of lots of different things, right? I like photo crazes. They are endless, sometimes. I think the longest one I've had is probably 15 hours ish long, but that's because I slept a couple hours in the middle. No joke, I would wake up, take a few pictures, and go back to sleep and think of more things to take pictures of in the house. Yup, that's me. 

We checked in to our Comfort Inn rooms, and then we crashed for real. We ordered pizza and cinna-sticks from the best pizza place on Earth, and we just watched TV for a while. 

I was still half on my photo craze. I even took a picture of the trash can. I am a strong believer of the saying, "You gotta take at least 1000 photos before you can get 1 excellent one." Which is what I was doing. I would pick an item, and explore how I could play with the shadow, and the lighting, and the angle. If I shoot it from a mouses eye, it looks like a sky scraper. If I shoot from a birds eye, it looks like a black hole. Sorta. I needed to play with the lighting some more to pull that one off. If I can pull that off, I'd like to show that picture and see if they can tell what I'm taking a picture of. 

My brothers kinda thought I was crazy, but my dad was supportive. I was lying on the bed, and I took a picture of my feet. My socks really stand out in this one, which I like. It sorta shows that your footsteps lead you... somewhere... eh. I'm kinda bad at deep thinking. But something like that.

Where will your feet take you?

Tuesday

Today we were visiting the Naval Academy. Hard core, man, hard core. The free continental breakfasts were all at slightly different times at each Comfort Inn, so I got to sleep in a half hour later. Sweet. I guess I did my usual. Jeans, shirt and a hoodie, and my hair up in a pony tail with a head band to keep it out of my face. I didn't feel like impressing myself today. 

For some reason we had to take a trolly to the college campus, which was interesting. I was still sort of in my craze, but not as crazy as Monday where I took pictures of my hand. It was all black and white this time, and I pointed my camera everywhere that I thought was either old fashioned and cool, or it had really cool contrast from black to white. Or both. Here goes:

A little weird of an angle, I know. The Stop sign to the left sorta ruins it, but I thought these windows were very interesting. 

Perfect angle, in my opinion. Not bad for contrast, but I could do better. My favorite thing in this one is the old fashioned railing leading up to the nice big door. 

This is inside the trolly, and to be honest I only had about three seconds to take this because someone was sitting there and I think they got off on our stop too, so I had to hurry. Not great contrast, but nice and old school. 

Not my favorite, because the truck in the street kinda kills it. But the pathway and the grass I sort of like.  Eh.

On the information session, there were two families there. Us, and some other family. Picture this if you will: We are in a small room, about the size of a kids bedroom, and there's pictures of sailboats all over the walls. A loud fan is blowing in the back, and the lights are off and the shades are down and closed. There are two overly squishy leather couches, and a couple chaires next to each. We're sitting in the back, watching a nicely organized power point. It's a little chilly in there, and let's just say the guy presenting the power point hadn't had his morning coffee yet. All I could here was mumbles of a very deep voice, but that was okay. I didn't really care what the Naval Academy had to offer. This was for my older brother, not for me. 

Apparently, Sam wasn't interested in doing the tour after the information session. He said he had heard enough, and was very intimidated. Poor guy. Oh well, I guess that's why we went on that trip, to get some more information and to see if he really wanted to apply, which now he's not going to. 

So that concludes the Maryland portion of our college tours trip, as we packed our bags once again, checked out once again, and hit the road. Once again. No photo craze, no black and whites. Zero, nothing, nada. I'm pretty sure I was just texting one of my friends the entire way, or for most of the way at least. So that kept me busy. At the time, I did not know of the game "Pocket Frogs" (which I am now addicted to,) that doesn't require wi-fi connection. Breeding neon frogs would have been awesome back then, but no. :)

So we got to our hotel around 2:00, 3:00 maybe? I can't remember. All I know is that apparently we were meeting Sam's girlfriend at some cafe for lunch. I did not know that Philadelphia is known for their cheese steak subs. Guess what we had for lunch?

It was a nice time, and I suppose it wasn't a bad steak and cheese. Very good, actually. Usually when it comes to subs though, I prefer meatball no matter how messy or cheesy or saucy they are. 

After lunch, Sam said his good byes. Dad wanted to go around and be a tourist, and I guess I don't blame him. We were right down the street from the liberty bell, and independence hall and all that. I know it sounds like I really don't care about all this historic stuff, which is half true because Social Studies is my least favorite subject, but being able to walk down the street and take a look was kind of neat, I have to say. 

So yes, we did see the liberty bell. Of course, dad did make us stand from shortest to tallest in front of it and take a picture of it. Bonus, we also spent maybe half an hour at the souvenir shop, admiring all the mugs and key chains and t-shirts and socks that had the liberty bell on them. I wonder who thought of the socks idea. 

No one really wanted to explore much more, and I kind of wanted to take a nap. After walking around the streets of Philadelphia full of warm steak and cheese, you get sleepy. Put that on your bucket list. 

After lot's of down time, and a few bridge pictures below, we went out to a cafe the hotel recommended for us down the road. It was a small cute place, well, not cute. More like cozy and warm. 

Here's a picture of the Benjamin Franklin bridge from below:

After dinner, I had another small, SMALL, photo craze. Again. This time it was dark outside, and there was a river or some body of water that went under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and it was interesting because all of the orange lights of Philadelphia reflected on the water. There were even greenish lights on the bridge. I played with the different night settings on my camera, and my dads camera, and here are a few of the pictures we took:

Remember when we crashed for a while, and I took a few pictures of the bridge then? Here you go, also:

I don't think the train is on the bridge in this picture, but I like the clouds.   I took it in black and white because the colors of the cars and the buildings were too ugly. 

Can you see the train? I'm pretty sure it's there. Look very closely...  Even if it's not, though I think it is,  I really like this view of the bridge. A nice close up of that... tower thing. I forget what it's called. 

I know the difference between boats and bridges, thank you very much. I just took this because
I like boats, and I liked the contrast it showed from the water. It's like la dee da..... BOATS!!

So here's my first night shot, where I forget to turn the flash off my camera. It was raining earlier, so there are all these streaks on our window. I think it looks really cool!!!!

Alright, I know the lights aren't that bright and astonishing,  but I tried my best to capture as much as I could.  Ain't it... pretty?

Philadelphia.... by night.

Wednesday

More free continental breakfast! Because of course, we stayed at the Comfort Inn. They've got nice cinnamon buns there. 

Today, we were visiting UPenn. Conveniently located right in the city. A nice, long information session which was intimidating Sam a lot. He didn't want to apply after listening to the woman talk for the past 2 hours, but we went on the tour anyway. I didn't mind. In fact, I was actually listening and getting inspired. Really. Usually I'd secretly be texting or something stupid, but it was really interesting to here her go on about something besides courses and stuff. 

I've never really been to a college campus before, but it's so cool!! Dad told me this was a Harvard campus, with an MIT location. Maybe the other way around, but I think that's it. It's like your own little city! People biking around, most people walking, every here and there you'll see some group of students promoting some event. There was a Jazz dance or something, and they were giving out flyers to everybody. Mitch Hedberg, "I don't like flyers. It's like, Here! You throw this away!" 

I now understand why the freshman 15 happens to every freshman. It might be more like the freshman 18 for me... being able to walk outside your dorm and away a few yards to au bon pain to get breakfast sounds amazing. 

After the tour, we actually did have lunch at Au Bon Pain. Nice and warm outside, and I was surprised to find that the chairs were attached to the tables. Clever, and yeah, I know there are bad people out there, but really? No offense, Au Bon Pain. I love your chocolate croissants, by the way. 

I liked how it was crawling up the wall. :)

We headed for 30th street station around 1:00 PM. I saved my croissant until I sat down and realized we were going to be here for a while, because our train left around 4 or 5. So, more "down" time. This, I don't think, really counts as down time. Down time is when you can sleep, or watch TV, or have a photo craze. If I slept on the benches, well, that would be obnoxious because there aren't many seats for people, and every now and then someone would sit next to us, and then leave after maybe 10 or 15 minutes. So I can't sleep. The only TV there was to watch was the safety video that was playing on repeat on a screen not far from where we were sitting. I glared at that for a while, because it repeated the same thing over and over and over again, and the video hasn't even ended yet. I didn't have anything on my iPod to watch, which was stupid of me to forget. Lastly, if I had a photo craze and took a picture of every bench from every angle and told people to move because their shadow was getting in the way, that would just be obnoxious as well. 

As soon as we got on the train, it took us forever to find 4 seats together. When I say forever, I half mean it. That's because it didn't take that long time wise, it was just the annoying fact that we had to keep changing seats. First, Dad sat us down individually so each kid was all alone, and he went back and forth between carts trying to find somewhere to sit. Then when he found four spots together, he came back to each and every one of us, which takes awhile because people can forget which car is which. Then, when we all come back to the seats, someone else is sitting there. So we all go back to our seats and wait for dad to find some more, and blah blah blah. You understand? I hope so. Because in the middle of all that, the train is stopping here and there, and people with a thousand bags from the over head are trying to get off, I got hit in the nose by someone's bag, and it was just inconvenient. 

Although, once we did get seated, I got some excellent sunset bridge shots. Don't ask me what bridge it was, but it was gorgeous. Thanks to Sam who pointed out the shot to me. I was too busy reading a book I forgot I had. 

We were headed for Boston. :) My home, sweet home. If I could add music into this post right here, it would be "Dirty Water". Don't ask me who plays that, I have no clue. 

I forget where I took this, but I know it was on this trip. Maryland, most likely.  If you look closely,
it says DO NOT SIT ON STEPS. I really wanted to sit on those steps, but I guess I couldn't. Dang.