Biology is Amazing!

This year I decided to take the AP Biology course, and it's absolutely splendid! Although it is a ton of work (I outlined 10 chapters of the textbook already this summer, on the first day of school we had 6 extended response/short essay questions, we have 4 more over the weekend, and in a week in a half we'll have turned in our first project and taken a quiz over dozens and dozens of Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes), I love it. The class is small (only 10 people), eight of whom I'm on friendly terms with and the ninth is a person who I'm completely neutral towards, which is a major plus to me. It's in the morning, which means it's only like 90º instead of 105º. Best of all, the subject itself fascinates me, and I get to learn the most random, delightful facts in the world, such as how flies can walk on the ceiling (it's not due to any substance on their feet, you should ask me about it and I'd get super excited and happy and explain it to you) and countless other things.

I'm also excited about my art class, Advanced Drawing and Painting. So far all we've done is get our list of possible sketchbook assignments, but even that looks fun. Every two weeks we pick a subject from a sheet the teacher gives us and we turn in a fully developed drawing related to it. Some of the options are running water, your closet, people as a still life, a self portrait in harsh lighting, and potted plants. I started my first one (self portrait in harsh lighting) yesterday after the first day of school.

Junior year is going to bring a massive workload, but I'm definitely looking forward to all my classes.

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

It's what I do when I'm told I'll get at least a little storm, and all I get is some rain the next morning.

Around 7 pm I walked outside to feel the approach of the storm I had anticipated all day, but as I stepped out the door, I realized with a sense of disappointment that it didn't feel like it was going to storm anytime soon (there's normally a certain quality to the air and the sky before storms). But I've been wrong about such predictions before, so I decided to check the weather radar. The massive storm had started to dissolve, and looked like it would pass north of the little hamlet of Finneytown. I sat next to my open window later into the night than I should have, hoping to see some lightning or hear a bit of thunder at least. But there wasn't anything. We got some beautiful rain this morning which made me happy, but it was kind of a let-down after getting so excited about the storm. It passed just north of me, so some of you probably got part of it. I envy you.

A Storm Approacheth!

We've been guaranteed storms tonight! They will almost without doubt be severe with strong winds, buckets of rain, hail out the wazoo, lightning arcing across the sky every few seconds, and the crash of thunder resounding across the heavens! Hurray!

There are already flash flood warnings in effect until tomorrow morning at 6 am. The ground is so parched that the torrential rain won't get a chance to sink in, so it will flood. Even as I type, our weather alarm is going off. I'd better go see what it has to say.

We now have a severe thunderstorm watch until 10:00 pm! I can't wait!

All of this stuff from Indiana is headed our way.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=ind&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no

Even now, you can see the massive storm creeping into northwest Ohio.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=iln&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no

The Epic List of Random Names

Sorted alphabetically with definitions and the place where I found the name. There are 140+ of them and the list never stops growing.

A
-Abner (commander of Israelite armies who impaled a running man on the back of his spear, Bible)
-Acer Negundo (box-elder/ash-leaf maple, Latin name)
-Achor (trouble, Bible)
-Adanedhel (elf-man, Silmarillion)
-Adoni-Bezek (Canaanite king who defeated 70 other kings and had them put under his table to beg after having their thumbs and big toes cut off who had his own thumbs and big toes cut off when the Israelites defeated him, Bible)
-Aegnor (fell fire, Silmarillion)
-Aelin-Uial (meres of twilight, Silmarillion)
-Aerandir (sea-wanderer, Silmarillion)
-Agarwaen (blood-stained, Silmarillion)
-Aldaron (lord of trees, Silmarillion)
-Alearinquë (the glorious, Silmarillion)
-Allon Bacuth (oak of weeping, Bible)
-Aman (blessed, pure, Silmarillion)
-Aodh (fire, Celtic myth)
-Argetlámh (silver hand, Celtic myth)
-Ar-Pharazôn (the golden, Silmarillion)
-Arphaxad (son of Shem, father of the Chaldeans/Babylonians, Bible)
-Asahel (as fast as a gazelle, Bible)
-Asher (happy, Bible)
-Ashkenaz (person with a cool name who was a descendant of Japheth, Bible)
-Aufgeregt (excited, glossary of musical terms)
-Aven (wickedness, Bible)

B
-Baìs (death, Celtic myth)
-Banfíla (woman poet, Celtic myth)
-Beelzeboul (lord of the dung heap, Bible)
-Belegurth (great death, Silmarillion)
-Belthil (divine radiance, Silmarillion)
-Bragollach (sudden flame, Silmarillion)
-Brigantu (exalted one, Celtic myth)

C
-Celebros (silver rain, Silmarillion)
-Cian (enduring one, Celtic myth)
-Conn (wisdom, Celtic myth)
-Coup D'Archet (blow/strike from a bow, glossary of musical terms)
-Culfinwen (girl with golden red hair, The Silmarillion)
-Curunír (the one of the cunning devices, Silmarillion)
-Cúthalion (strong bow, Silmarillion)

D
-Danu (divine waters, Celtic myth)
-Deldúwath (horror of the night shadow, Silmarillion)
-Dian Cécht (deity of physicians, Celtic myth)
-Doulereux (sorrowful, glossary of musical terms)
-Draoi (oak, Celtic myth)

E
-Ebenezer (stone of help, Bible)
-Eclatante (brilliant, glossary of musical terms)
-Ehud (a left-handed judge of Israel who killed an enormously obese king)
-Eichhörnchen (squirrel, random German word that took me forever to pronounce right and I'm not sure if I spelled it right)
-Eire (Ireland, old Celtic language)
-Elentári (star queen, Silmarillion)
-Elerrína (crowned with stars, Silmarillion)
-Emeldir (a woman who was called the Man-Hearted, Silmrillion)
-Entschieden (determined, glossary of musical terms)
-Estel (hope, Silmarillion)

F
-Fáil (destiny, Celtic myth)
-Fastoso (pompous, glossary of musical terms)
-Fëantur (master of spirits, Silmarillion)
-Feirlich (solemn, glossary of musical terms)
-Fiero (bold, glossary of musical terms)
-Formica (ant, apparently also material that countertops can be made of, Latin for ant
-Frohlich (joyful, glossary of musical terms)
-Fuoco (fire, glossary of musical terms)

G
-Gad (attack, Bible)
-Garbato (graceful, glossary of musical terms)
-Gederothaim (town allotted to Judah, Bible)
-Geschwing (nimble, glossary of musical terms)
-Gilaspick Qualtrough (sailor with a reputation for exaggeration, Celtic myth)
-Giocoso (glossary of musical terms)
-Gonnhirran (master of stone, Silmarillion)
-Gorau (best, Celtic myth)
-Grazioso (graceful, glossary of musical terms)
-Griffbrett (sorry, I didn't write down the definition and I had to return the gloaary to its owner, glossary of musical terms)
-Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Iethoedd (knew the language of all living things, Celtic myth)

H
-Hazarmaveth (descendant of Shem with a cool name, Bible)
-Heftig (violent, glossary of musical terms)
-Helkah Hazzurim (field of daggers)
-Hormah (destruction, Bible)
-Hyrax (rock badger, Bible)

I
-Ichabod (no glory)
-Istari (wizard, Silmarillion)

J
-Jeshurun (the upright one, Bible)

K
-Kementári (queen of the earth, Silmarillion)
-Kraftig (strong/vigorous, glossary of musical terms)

L
-Lalaith (laughter, Silmarillion)
-Langsam (slow, glossary of musical terms)
-Liriodendron Tulipifera (tulip tree, Latin name)
-Lo-Ammi (disowned, Bible)
-Lo-Ruhamah (unloved, Bible)
-Lugh-chromain (early form of leprechaun, Celtic myth)

M
-Macha (personification of battles, Celtic myth)
-Magnolia Stellata (star magnolia, Latin name)
-Manna (what is it?, Bible)
-Marah (bitter, my name comes from this word, Bible)
-Massah (testing, Bible)
-Meddygon (physician, Celtic myth)
-Menelmacar (swordsman of the sky, Silmarillion)
-Mephibosheth (King Saul's crippled nephew, Bible)
-Meribah (quarreling, Bible)
-Mesto (sad, glossary of musical terms)
-Me-Zeha (grandmother of and Edomite king with a cool name, Bible)
-Mhaol (the bald, Celtic myth)
-Mongán (of the head of the abundant hair, Celtic myth)
-Mormegil (the black sword, Silmarillion)
-Mórrígán (great queen of battles, Celtic myth)
-Munter (cheerful, glossary of musical terms)

N
-Nachdruklich (expressive, glossary of musical terms)
-Neithan (the wronged, Silmarillion)
-Nemain (venomous, Celtic myth)
-Nienor (mourning, Silmarillion)
-Nimrod (son of Cush and a mighty warrior, Bible)
-Nóm (wisdom, Silmarillion)
-Nyssa Sylvatica (black sour gum, Latin name)

O
-Og (king of Bashan)
-Ohtar (warrior, Silmarillion)

P
-Peleg (descendant of Shem with a cool name, Bible)
-Perez (breaking out, Bible)

Q
-Quercus Palustrius (pin oak, Latin name)

R
-Racca (fool, Bible)
-Rána (wanderer, Silmarillion)
-Rana Pipiens (frog, Latin name)
-Rasch (quick, glossary of musical terms)

S
-Scherzhaft (playful, glossary of musical terms)
-Schwungvoll (spirited, glossary of musical terms)
-Sfoggiando (ostentatious, glossary of musical terms)
-Shello (agile, glossary of musical terms)
-Sheol (grave, Bible)
-Sihon (king of Heshbon of the Amorites, Bible)
-Slancio (dashing, glossary of musical terms)
-Sordino (mute, glossary of musical terms)
-Sreng (the name of a strong warrior of Firbolg, Celtic myth)
-Strepitoso (boisterous, glossary of musical terms)

T
-Taberah (burning, Bible)
-Terfysgwr (mischief, Celtic myth)
-Thalion (steadfast, Silmarillion)
-Thuja Occidentalis (white cedar, Latin name)
-Thuringwethil (woman of secret shadow, Silmarillion)
-Tirzah (daughter of Zelophehad, won the first court case for women's property rights in recorded history along with her two sisters, Bible)
-Togarmah (person with a cool name who was a descendant of Japheth, Bible)

U
-Uathach (spectre, Celtic myth)
-Ungoliant (Shelob's mother, the Silmarillion)
-Uzal (descendant of Shem with a cool name)

V
-Valarauko (demon of might, Silmarillion)

W
-Wuqaz (breaker of necks, Runelords saga)

Z
-Zalumna (Midianite king with a cool name, Bible)
-Zebulun (honor, Bible)
-Zelophehad (Israelite whose daughters won the first court case for women's property rights in recorded history)
-Zepho (descendant of Esau with a cool name, Bible)
-Zerah (brightness, Bible)

Teh Happy Mug

I have a happy mug. I mentioned it in the list I posted yesterday, and I said I would tell more about it. It's called that because the way I painted it makes me think happy and cheerful thoughts, especially on Mondays at 6:30 am during the school year when it's full of hot tea and I want to curl back up and sleep. The happy mug is bigger than most run-of-the-mill mugs, which only adds to its splendor.

I painted it 5 or 6 years ago when the Corbins took me to the Pottery Place, a little store/workshop thing where they let you glaze a piece of pottery, for my birthday.


Here's some pictures:

It looks happier in real life, but the real inside of the mug looks like I used the wrong paintbrush for the job, because I did, but it still turned out pretty well.

50 Little Things That Make Me Smile

I posted on the forums a while ago that I had a list of 100 little things that make my day, and yesterday that I would post at least part of it here, so here it is (and in alphabetical order!). I've narrowed it down to my top 50, because it takes an awful lot of time to read a list of 100 things, let alone type them.

-accents/funny voices ("e--mblemATic...")
-apples
-baby smiles
-bedsheets fresh from the dryer
-bees
-books (old books, new books, red books, blue books)
-cell biology (hooray for microtubules, or microtubizzles as Katie Siragusa and I call them)
-cloudy days
-confirming a critical hit (on a monster where it counts!)
-crickets singing
-dark, cool caves
-fire (best when somewhat controlled)
-fireflies
-fog
-foreign languages being spoken
-forests (the more undisturbed the better)
-getting letters in the mail
-going barefoot (especially outside, and even more especially in mud)
-"hidey holes"
-hot soup (best on chilly, cloudy days)
-ladybugs
-laughter
-lava lamps
-lonely places outside
-making music/listening to people make music
-meaningful prayer time (and I'm not just saying this because people from church read this, quality prayer really does brighten my day)
-mixing paint colors
-mossy rocks
-my happy mug (I'll post a picture of it later. It really does make me smile whenever I see it)
-peanut butter and jelly sammiches (that's right, sammich not sandwich)
-plant biology
-pranks (I feel less guilty for laughing if it's harmless too)
-puddles
-puzzles (jigsaw, sudoku, logic)
-raindrops (on roses)
-roasted marshmallows (I can make the best in the world)
-smell and taste of tea (chai, pekoe, herbal, green, whatever)
-sight, smell, and sound of autumn leaves
-storms (the wilder the better)
-strange earrings
-sunny days
-sunrises and sunsets
-the night-time sky
-toads/frogs
-trees (my favorites include smoke trees, blue spruces, Norway maples, and all kinds of birches)
-untouched snow
-unusual names (my massive random name list gets posted soon)
-water in nature (creeks, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc.)
-windy days

Surgeon in the Making

I have successfully completed my first splinter-removal on myself involving going deep enough to draw blood. I've dug splinters out of me before, but never ones that got pushed this deep and I've never had to use only a safety pin, blunt nail clippers, and a pair of flat-nose jewelry pliers to extract the foreign object. Good times...

But I don't intend to be a surgeon. At all. I intend to do what I've been doing this past week that got me the splinter in the first place.

I got to completely redesign a 30'x90' courtyard and help do the rebuilding too!

The courtyard is level on the long sides for about 15-20 feet into it, but then the rest is a fairly steep hill (we're talking like 20º-25º incline). A wooden stage at the bottom, wood bleachers on the hills, and a porch/platform thing at the top take up the middle 30 feet. On one side, there's a huge buckeye tree that shades the whole area and I'm turning that into a little forest ecosystem with forest flowers and shrubs native to the Ohio region. The other side has only a small dogwood tree, and so is very sunny. It gets a pond and waterfall at the bottom (that will most definitely not have water hyacinths, one of the most invasive alien plant species to invade North America, but the pond retailers still sell them) that will filter and treat itself naturally given the proper ratio of critters-to-plants. The rest of the hill will have native wildflower seed sown that will cover it in dense waist-high flowers of varied and beautiful colors, scents, and structures that will attract all sorts of bugs (including like 10 kinds of butterflies and who knows how many varieties of bees and wasps!) and birds (among those will be finches, hummingbirds, and orioles). The top level part of the courtyard is already divided into three parts by the bleachers and the porch thingy. One part will be a tree and bulb nursery, another part a cottage-style garden, and the third a perennial garden.

So far we've dug the pond, killed all the weeds covering the entire area, cut down somewhere between 20 and 30 bushes (which made me sad because some of them were gorgeous, but they were in stupid places and had to go), and put annual flowers in the top flowerbeds for an immediately noticeable effect. Unfortunately none of it will survive, but we can't start sowing seed and planting bulbs for perennial plants until fall or spring and the school wants to see something other than topsoil when they look at it (although it's very nice, rich topsoil that feels delightful under your feet).

I've gotten to spend the last three days getting streaked with mud and all sorts of stuff to do wildlife conservation and landscape designing all at once! I'm overjoyed by that because I want to do one of those two things for a living (The designing and conserving, not the sweating and getting mud-covered. As much as I love mud between my toes and fingers, I don't think I could make a living walking around in mud nor would I want to). That first part may not sound fun, but it's not bad except for the sweat part. It could've been a couple degrees cooler. But I don't mind doing heavy work outside and getting nice and dirty. Even though you feel tired and sometimes somewhat irritable after several hours of moving rock, dirt, plants, etc. you feel like you've accomplished something and like your time has been very well spent. And plus there's the long shower afterward to look forward to. On the whole, it's a gratifying experience.

The Results Are In...

...And my first summer of being a complete slacker was an ill-chosen one. to be sure it rarely pays to slack, but when your summer to-do list includes:

• painting a 3'x4' acrylic landscape for my mom in a style and color scheme I rarely use
• finishing a watercolor of part of my house which includes trying to remedy the mistakes I made when I wanted to finish it in two days and was unsuccessful
• reading a 50-page French comic book and doing a 10-page packet on it (I can understand the comic just fine, but I can't understand what half the questions the teacher is asking even mean)
• reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Grapes of Wrath, which would be fantastic if I didn't have to do so much writing for both of them
• completely redesigning a 30'x90' elementary school courtyard and planning how/when to tear it all down, carry-out the new plans, get the needed materials, and find enough workers
• helping get a girls' accountability group off the ground
• getting my DnD character ready for Red Hand of Doom
• coming up with a design for a class t-shirt when I really have no idea what to do considering how much my interests deviate from those of most of my classmates
• outlining as many chapters of my AP Biology book as possible because we have to have all 50-some outlined by the test in May
• and getting my drivers license which involves taking drivers' ed, in-car class hours, and finishing my 50 hours with my temps.
  

Add things such as CIY (even though it was fantastic), two family vacations, and various other commitments, and I chose the worst summer to try out being a slacker. Out of that entire list, I've finished all the reading a writing for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I've done 9 chapters of my biology book. I've at least started all of them except for finishing the watercolor painting, but I've still got a boatload of stuff to finish in 10 days. Let's hope I've learned my lesson.

I'm a Parable!

So yesterday morning, I wanted my favorite pair of brown earrings, but they were nowhere to be found. I ransacked my earring collection, but to no avail. So maybe I'm not the parable, because I never found the pair of earrings.

But I did discover that the missing pair was one out of exactly 100! (sorta) Well, at the beginning of the day I counted 92, but then I found four broken pairs that I have yet to fix, made two more, planned another (which I actually made before, but they were made of clay that dissolves in water, and I was enough of a dolt not to take them out before getting in the ocean), and then there's the missing one. Out of those 100 earring pairs, I made 80, 5 were made for me by other people, and only 15 came from stores. I have reached a new landmark in my earring geek-dom!

My favorites include...
-the bottle cap series (Crush soda, Jones soda, and IBC Root Beer)
-starburst wrapper cranes
-caution tape
-bulky green glass beads with glow-in-the-dark flecks inside
-cardboard donuts
-flat blue beads and glass cubes with swirls of primary colors
-black and silver stars
-hoops of hematite cube beads
-lego flames, swords, and heads
-green leaves
-a new pair I made yesterday that's hard to describe, but they're pretty much chains of alternating blue and green beads, each bead acting as a link with loops of wire at either end that attach to the other loops on the other beads
-and those missing brown ones that have fun loops of wire and beads that look like fudge rounds

Those are just my favorites of the top of my head, if I had them in front of me, I'd end up with like 50 favorites, so I'll spare you all that.

Yet another reason why being a nature freak is awesome

God's creation constantly amazes me and leaves me awestruck by his creativity and the beauty of what he's made. My family just returned from a trip to Richmond, VA and Virginia Beach, and I had plenty of opportunities to be in wonder over how gorgeous nature is.

We left at 6 a.m. on Saturday, meaning I woke up at 5:30, and that's early even for me. Despite the fact that I was awake far earlier than I would have liked, leaving at 6 meant we were out in the country to see the sunrise, and that was worth it. It wasn't a typical sunrise full of pink, purple, yellow, orange, gold, and all those purty colors; it had a unique beauty. The morning was very foggy and cloudy and the sky was a dull grey monotone when a clearly defined crimson disc rose above the tree line. The fog and clouds that shrouded the fields and forests took on a very slight rose tinge. The world was bathed in a pinkish-red mist as the blood-hued circle climbed up into the sky. It was amazing. I just stared at it for easily 40 minutes, thanking God for such a sight.

We were driving through the Appalachian mountains during late morning so there was still some fog up there and driving past the mist filled valleys, and seeing the huge tree-covered mountains instigated some more spontaneous prayer.

Two of the places we visited were the James River in Richmond and the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach. Both were demonstrations of the incredible power of water. The part of the river that we were in was filled with boulders and rock formations formed by water wearing away at granite for thousands of years to form these strange shapes and mounds of rock. It was cool to think how much power it had taken for a river to carve such a landscape. I saw this power at work when Amanda decided she was going to ride down some risky rapids solo in only a life jacket, but thank goodness my dad got to her before she got seriously injured. At the ocean, my siblings and I would stand near the shore where most of the waves ended up cresting and crashing back down and the water had the most force. Several times we were knocked over and dragged under by the strength of the waves (don't worry, it was too shallow and the waves were too small to actually hold us under long enough to drown us or cause serious injury or anything). And God can hold all these waters in his hand. That takes a mighty being. It definitely put into perspective how small humans are and how big God is.

Nature lovers never run out of delight over even the most minuscule things in creation. I also discovered a type of shrub I had never seen before on the trip that I thought was pretty neat, even though my brother poked fun at me for getting excited over a bush.