Just Because

Once upon a time, there lived a woman named Julia Grover and a man named Rupert Follehomme. Julia was a computer scientist who had been raised by her loving grandparents after her parents died in a tragic incident involving a trumpeter swan and a jet-ski. Rupert was a madman who had once controlled an evil society. Through a chaotic and confusing series of events, Julia and Rupert met. They knew from the moment that they set eyes on one another that they were soul mates. Julia even forgave Rupert for murdering her grandfather.

Many years later...

Julia and Rupert have had a son. His name is Eugene. He is now eighteen.* Eugene is driving drunk and hits his parents as they frolic down the street hand in hand. Julia dies, and Rupert joins MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). He convinces Rick Astley to join MADD as well.

Then a meteor hits the earth and the dinosaurs return. Humans die by dino or meteor, go to live with Hitler in the center of the earth, or join Eugene in trying to repopulate the world. Eugene realizes the futility of his goal and instead plots to overthrow Hitler. Just in time, the Brigators show up from the past and help him defeat Hitler. After his victory, Eugene sets up a new order in the center of the earth, and everyone lives happily ever after, including the small clan of civilized sasquatches that they allow to take up residence in their subterranean world.


*Everything after this point is verbatim what I originally wrote down from our ramblings except for the fact that Julia and Rupert now have names.

Adventures in Rural Indiana

Once upon a time (by which I mean more than a month ago by now), four brave adventurers set out on what was destined to become a memorable journey filled with curious sights and experiences...

Here's what I remember about the Indiana trip that Anna/Betsy, Seth, Josh, and I took a few weeks ago. The events within each paragraph are probably not in the proper order, but all the events in one paragraph followed those in the preceding paragraph and came before the ones in the next.

This particular telling of the tales of that day will start with my brief exploration of the UC campus led by Josh. Among other things, I got to see the office of Mr. Man (I'm wanting to say his name was Man D. Kwon, but I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly), some telescopes atop the astronomy and physics buildings, interesting architecture, and the unnatural community of dorms in which my guide lives. The trees were unnaturally straight (even the redbud!) and still had an unusual percentage of their leaves, and the grass was eerily green. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the wizard's tower.

After we picked up Seth and Anna/Betsy, we left UC and got on the highway. The grass beside one of the earlier highways was strewn with garbage galore. It was depressing. I avoided looking at it. We passed one of those houses with horrible kitschy lawn ornaments covering the front yard. At one point, Seth spotted what appeared to be a real monkey sitting on a picnic table. Throughout the trip we played roadkill bingo. Or at least I did. I saw (and circled in red pen, incidentally) a squirrel, a rabbit, a tire, a groundhog, a dog, a raccoon, a cat, and several mysterious masses of mangled flesh in addition to smelling a dead skunk.

Once we got to downtown Anderson, the real adventures started. Downtown Anderson was a very shady place. It even has a Shadyside Memorial Park, which I will get to in a moment. The GPS led us astray, and told us to turn onto this ultra shady back street. It was mildly frightening. When we tried to get off of that street, we nearly had a nasty run-in with a huge pick-up truck. Apparently he didn't have a stop sign. We decided to stop to ask for directions, so we pulled into Shadyside Memorial Park. At the entrance there were these horrid little stone pillar things. They tried to look nice, but they failed miserably. It made me sad to look at them, so I turned away. Nobody was in the park... except for some guy sitting in his car in the parking lot near the playground. Drug dealer? Pedophile? Who knows. All I know is that he fit very well into the general mood of downtown Anderson. We were supposed to be going north, but evidently we were going south. I didn't know that. Normally, the GPS shows the car driving towards to top of the screen. At the top of the screen was North Anderson, so I assumed that we were going north. However, if I had looked at the little car, I would have realized that it was driving towards the bottom of the screen, meaning that we were going south. It took me a while to notice that, so I kept objecting every time Josh tried to turn around. I'm not sure how much time my confusion added to the trip. We didn't reset the GPS with the new directions, so it kept on telling us to make a u-turn.

The return trip provided even more excitement. We became lost again. The GPS's directions had us driving in the middle of nowhere for quite some time. Maybe it wanted revenge for all the times we refused to make a u-turn, despite its protests. Most of the time, we were on hilly roads barely wide enough for two cars to pass abreast. As we crested each hill, we feared that we would find another car about to collide with us. Fortunately, there were no accidents. In fact, we rarely saw any signs of real civilization whatsoever. It was kind of creepy. Due to excessive exhaustion combined with the most caffeine I've ever consumed in a day, I was slap-happy the entire time. It made the drive even more interesting for me. At one point, I burst out laughing and finally managed to communicate that I was amused by the fact that we hadn't driven on a lined road in a long time. Normally, that wouldn't have been that funny, but caffeine + fatigue = all sorts of interesting thoughts. Throughout the landscape dotted with lonely buildings and grotesque, leafless trees were little cement monoliths of mystery. They were all over the place, and we couldn't figure out what on earth they might be. There was also an old, mostly destroyed tower-ish structure. I don't remember what it was, or if we found out what it was at all. For part of the countryside ride, we listened to Captain Beefheart. I tried brainstorming for an essay while it was playing. That didn't go as well as it could have. Thank goodness Josh stopped it somewhere near track 13. I can only take so much Beefheart. We stopped for a bathroom break as soon as we saw signs of civilization. Raleigh, IN, was hardly civilization, but it was something. The greasy diner place we stopped at was interesting. They sold cans of beans. They sold other things too, but I only remember the cans of beans. There was a layer of grease on the countertop. Betsy/Anna was the only one brave enough to use the bathroom hidden away in the furnace room. As we left, we heard the locals chuckling. They were probably laughing at us city folk, and I don't blame them. We stopped again later in Metamora at the Hav-A-Bite, and that was a much nicer experience. Well, maybe not for Seth, but he said he felt much better after throwing up. Next to the bathrooms was a poster of the "little houses of Metamora." The distinguishing feature of the town was Mt. Metamora. Mt. Metamora was a large hill with a small building of mystery perching atop it. The building had a cross on the side, so maybe it was a church or a monastery of some sort. The hill was covered in dead grass with a few gnarled trees. Someone suggested that it may have been a landfill at one point. Relatively close to the time we finally made it back to the highway, there was a railroad along the road and a canal next to that. It made me smile. We were driving alongside the evolution of technology. After a while, we got on the highway. At some point during the trip back home, we saw a yard with live llamas in it. I have no idea where this fits in with the chronology of events. That's all.

Concert Week

Concert week technically started on Thursday the 4th and won't end until Thursday the 18th, but seven of the ten concerts fit between Monday the 8th and Friday the 12th, so I'm considering that week to be concert week.

The first concert was the elementary instrumental concert. Heather played in the fourth grade orchestra (the first group), and Allison played in the sixth grade band (the last group), so we got the joy of staying for the entire concert. Before the concert, I got to help tune the seventy-some stringed instruments in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade orchestras. I'll admit, I wasn't all that concerned with absolute perfection. Their instruments go out of tune quickly, and they can't play in tune to begin with, so I figured I wouldn't be adding a whole lot of pain to the listening experience by letting a few of the instruments remain slightly out of tune. The fourth-graders weren't supposed to get to use their bows, but my sister brought hers out anyway and had to be sent back to put it away. The fourth and fifth grade orchestras performed at the expected skill level, but the 9-member sixth grade orchestra should have been much better. The fifth grade band played as expected, but the sixth grade band played exceptionally well. They were actually pleasant to listen to for the most part.

On the Monday of the main concert week, we got to hear the fifth and sixth grade voices of Whitaker along with the Whitaker percussion ensemble. The songs were surprisingly un-hokey, considering the director. He's really quite a character. I don't know how else to describe him. You should see how high he crosses his lowercase t's (I'm not sure if I wrote that properly, but I'm sure that you all get the idea). As usual, the percussion ensemble played painfully repetitive songs that lasted somewhere between five and ten minutes each.

I guess it's typical for local churches and other groups to ask the high school's audition choir (Chorale) to come and sing around Christmastime. This year we're singing at two or three churches and an assisted living home, along with our annual concerts for the senior citizens of the community and the middle and high school students. Our first in a long series of concerts came on Tuesday during school. We drove over to St. Paul's Church of Christ in North College Hill to play for a group of elderly women. I called them the Widow Brigade in my head. Our first song didn't go so well, but the others went just fine. Our last song was a version of the "Ave Maria" that is evidently sung at many funerals. It actually caused several of the old women to cry. In the last song, my friend Eddie and I sing a tenor solo as a duet. He never wanted to sing it in the first place, but I think our conductor felt bad about giving both tenor solos to girls, so he had Eddie and I sing the lower one together. Since he had never intended to try out for the solo, he didn't know the words until today. The fact that he had no idea what he was singing would always make me a nervous wreck during rehearsals, so I'm glad he fixed it in time for our first concert. I felt that we did well, and several of the Chorale members told us that our balance and blend was excellent. Hurrah! I have one last thing to mention about the kind old ladies: one of them looked a little spacey and was wearing a pair of reindeer antlers tied on top of her head with a large bow under her chin. We had a hard time looking in her direction with a straight face.

Tuesday night was the high school and middle school instrumental concert. Before the concert, we did some last minute practicing. A week before, we had started looking at a variation of Greensleeves, and it wasn't coming together well at all. She told us to pull out the song, and I raised my hand and politely asked if she really thought we were prepared to perform the song. She completely blew up and yelled something about how we never listen to her or do anything she says. So we played through the last section of the song. The ending part is just the traditional Greensleeves. When we were done, she told us that we would just be playing the ending since that was the only part we could play even moderately well. I know that she's been under a lot of stress these past few weeks, but I don't still don't feel that she was justified in biting my head off. The concert started out with the jazz band, and they were excellent (as usual). They were followed by the middle school orchestra. They were not excellent. Between the middle and high school orchestras, I played a piece in a quintet with two violins, a cello, and a harp. It went pretty well...except for the fact that the first violin can't count to save her life. She came in a beat late on one of her entrances and bungled things up. She always misses that part. You'd think that she would hear that something wasn't fitting together correctly, but she never seems to notice. Until this year, she's been a soloist taking private lessons. She can't play with groups very well, but she doesn't seem to notice that. The high school orchestra did okay. We always do a lot better during actual performances than we do during practices. The high school band was wonderful like they always are. For the finale, we had the high school orchestra cram on stage with the full high school band to play a song together. The orchestra has 27 people, and the band has 70-something. And we were behind them. The cellos had a mic, but that was it. Evidently, it sounded fantastic, but I have to wonder if the strings were heard.


Wednesday evening we went to the third and fourth grade chorus concert at my old elementary school. The director has been rotating through the same set of songs since Dan was in third grade. This year she actually added a new one. We were shocked.


The final official concert was Thursday night's high school choir concert. Between choirs, we have solos or ensembles. For this concert, almost all of them were fantastic. The first one was horrible, but it just made the others look even better. Adam Weber sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," and he has the perfect voice and attitude for that song. It may have been my favorite of the solos. Chorale went last, and all of our songs went pretty well. The audience about died laughing during "Fruitcake," and we got a standing ovation after "Ave Maria." Both Sean and Dan (the opening soloists) and Eddie and I (the second set of soloists) blended better than we had for any previous rehearsal, and Victoria finally fixed the pronunciation on her solo. I love singing that song. I love singing in Latin in general. It fits my tone very well. If I sing a senior solo, it will probably be something in Latin.

On Friday during the day, the high school choruses sang a condensed version of Thursday's concert in the morning for the middle school and our community's senior citizens. We had to cut one of our songs, we never felt as comfortable with that one as we did with the others. In the afternoon, we sang for the high school, but the principal took away ten minutes of our concert time, so we had to skip "Ave Maria." It's somewhere between seven and eight minutes long, and our conductor didn't think that very many of the students would have the attention span to sit through it. He may have been right, but I still really wish that we could have sung it for everyone.

I have two more chorale concerts this week, but they aren't likely to be very eventful. If something exciting happens, I'll make a comment.

My Groovy Purse Pins

I was writing an article for my school's literary magazine (which is really just a collection of odd surveys, thoughts, lists, and articles written by myself and some friends of mine) when I realized that it would do just as well as a blog post. I know I've been silent for several weeks, but I've been rather busy. I currently have four other posts in progress, and I hope to publish them over winter break.

My Groovy Purse Pins
by: gwendolyn maple

Most people in our high school have seen my fabulous purse at least once. You may even have taken the time to look at the pins covering it. But you may find yourself wondering… what do they all mean? The time has come to answer that question.*

• pirate flag: Do any of you remember the boat project from seventh grade? I worked with Christina McGuire, Courtney Dennis, and Sara Crowell to make The Black Pearl. The Jolly Roger on my purse once flew proudly from the main mast of our little boat.
  
• “dots” label: I love Dots . I don’t actually like eating them all that much (they get stuck to one’s teeth), but I like some of the flavors and I like looking at them. They have nice colors and shapes.
  
• orange duct tape with writing: It says “Hey Band! Watch out for my flag!” and was given to me by Megan Menke during band camp 2006.
  
• blue-scale: There really is nothing more to this strip from a paint sample other than the fact that it looked lovely.
  
• Halloween doughnut: My youngest sister gave me a sticker with a Krispy Kreme doughnut dressed up as a cowboy saying “Howdy goblins!” The letters and parts of the doughnut glow in the dark.
  
• Purdue ticket stub: My family generally tries to go to a Purdue football game every year. Both my parents went there (along with countless other relatives), and I plan to go there as well. I feel the need to emphasize that I’m not planning to attend Purdue just because my relatives have. The school fits me very well.
  
• dutchman scrap: Dutchmanning is a set-building trick in which tape or glue-soaked canvas is laid over seams between flats to conceal the cracks between them. In Cinderella, the 2005 musical, we used canvas to dutchman, and I filched a piece that I had painted to look like wood.
  
• sparkly smiling clover pin: Hopefully that was self-explanatory. I am proud of my Irish heritage. Along with my German, British, Scottish, French, and Native American heritage. I’m a mutt, and this pin shows a part of my mixed ancestry.
  
• cutie tangerine sticker: There are these delicious little tangerines (or maybe they’re actually clementines) called “cuties.” They have little stickers on them that say things like “cutie” or “I’m a cutie” or “kiss a cutie.” The one on my purse says “I’m a cutie.”
  
• shapes sticker: I found my old purse from seventh and eighth grade, and – lo and behold – there were stickers all over the underside of the closing flap. I found where it all began. One of the stickers said “I learned my shapes.”
  
• Grool/Gruel: We never decided how to spell her name, but Grool/Gruel is a drawing created by myself and several others (I know I’ll miss some people if I try to remember everyone) in tenth grade English class. We were bored, so Megan Menke started to draw a girl, and she passed it to someone else to add something. They passed it to the next person and so on. She wound up being quite interesting, but I don’t have room to describe her here.
  
• security sticker: I save the stickers that come on the inside of watches and some other pieces of merchandise. I assume they’re supposed to set off an alarm if you steal them. I think they look nifty. The one that is currently on my purse is bright blue and transparent.
  
• tree-hugger pin: It says “hug a tree” and depicts a panda climbing some bamboo. It came to me from Target via a friend of mine. Hurrah for Target!
  
• no hunger: At the Community Service Leadership Conference this year, the Freestore Food Bank was handing out pins that had the word hunger encircled and crossed out in red.
  
• Dove chocolate wrapper: Whenever I’m having a crappy day, I find at my elbow a piece of Dove chocolate (courtesy of Courtney) with a pleasant word inside. My favorite wrapper yet is the one on my purse that reads “Go to your special place.”
  
• green rectangle: There is no significance to this green paint sample other than the fact that it’s a swell color.
  
• orange star: This puffy little star that I often refer to as a starfish is yet another decoration on my purse that has not deeper significance than its aesthetic appeal.
  
• leaf mask half: Once upon a time last year, Katie Schmidt (Le Phoque Volant de Neige) made me a leaf mask. She drew two leaves connected by a mutual petiole and made them rather colorful. However, the mask was not very useful as a mask, for it lacked eyeholes. I took the only logical alternative course of action: I taped the mask to my upper lip and wore it as an outrageously gorgeous moustache for the rest of the day.
  
• water cycle: Layla Owens used to bring these water bottles with nifty labels displaying an illustration of the water cycle. I cut out the illustration from one of the bottles, and it has lived on three different purses since then.
  
• Crush label: My Crush outfit has reached the level of notoriety. Not only do the shirt, earrings, bracelet, and shoes coordinate, but my purse also has a bit of Orange Crush spirit.
  
• Ireland triangle: And here we have some more Irish spirit. This groovy triangular sticker came from a Highlights magazine and has on it a Celtic knot and the word “Ireland.”
  
• tidbit from box of chucks: “This box deserves another chance to hold a pair of Converse shoes. Please recycle.” (and yes, I did recycle the rest of the box)
  
• “go green” button: It says “go green” and has a green viny background. It also hails from Targét.
  
• happy frog: This smiling amphibian actually belong to a Hello Kitty mobile one of my sisters got years ago, but she doesn’t know that.
  
• ninja penguin: Originally an ordinary penguin, this sticker deserved a little more pizzazz. I added shuriken, a headband, and some Japanese sandals. You may recall that I also have a pirate flag on my purse. I am in fact a pinja (a pirate-ninja hybrid). I can’t pick a side, so I choose both.
  
• tato: The technical name for the windmill-esque origami thing on my purse is “tato.” I have no idea what that means, but it the thing looks cool and it was fun to make.
  
• “support the separation of church and hate” button: It says what I just wrote (minus the word "button"), and my youngest three sisters got it for me in Chicago. I will proudly admit that I am a Christian, but I’m ashamed by the fact that the church sometimes attacks people before trying to love them.
  
• MS button: I got this button from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for participating in the MS Walk this spring.
  
• fortune cookie paper: It reads “You find beauty in ordinary things. Do no lose this ability.” Anybody who has known me for any length of time should be able to testify to the truth of this statement.
  
• photo booth picture: While on a mall-wandering adventure, Anna Worpenberg, Courtney Dennis, Emily Christenson, Sara Crowell, and myself all crammed into a photo booth. I love this picture.
  
• Germany sticker: As I mentioned before, I’m part German. I’m more German than anything else except Irish. This sticker also came from a Highlights magazine. It depicts a black eagle.
  
• evil smiley: This button provokes more inquiry than any other button on my purse. It was also the first button on my first hand-made purse. I found a plain red smiley face button in my basement three or four years ago and decided it needed a little personality… hence the fangs, crooked front teeth, and sharply angled eyebrows. People often believe that it is angry, but this is clearly not the case. Its broad smile should make that apparent. It is merely mildly deranged.
  
• R.I.P., my beloved art button: I would like to take a moment to recognize a dearly beloved pin that only lasted for a few months before disappearing. Life on the outside of my purse is hard indeed. This button came from my sisters along with the “separation of church and hate” pin and boldly called out “Doing strange things in the name of art.” I have been known to collect pine sap, wire a scarf to the wall while wearing it, create an abstraction of advice for reading poetry, search for lovely leaves, and write out literally hundreds of words by hand in meticulously straight lines in different sized fonts for the sake of art. And this only touches the tip of the iceberg. Rest in peace wherever you may be.

*The decorations on my purse are likely to change without notice. Do not consider this list to be by any means a comprehensive list of the various pins, buttons, and patches that have adorned or will adorn my purse throughout the years.

I Had a Dream...

I've had some really odd dreams. I'm pretty sure all of my readers have heard about at least a few of them, but I'm going to attempt to compile some of my strangest ones. I can come up with some sort of explanation for the first three, but I have no idea if the others have any relation to reality whatsoever.

Last night, my dream involved derivatives, an academic team meet, and presidential candidates. I was at an academic team meet, and we had to compare the derivatives of the presidential candidates' stances on certain topics. When I was rudely awoken up by my alarm clock, I continued to try to solve the problem for a minute or two before I woke up enough to realize that I didn't really have to find the derivatives of their stances and that such a task was a category mistake.


In a rather recent dream, Kari Buchheim had had a nightmare in which dogs were wearing glasses (in real life, I had seen these glasses on a friend of mine I ran into this weekend for the first time in over a year). We arrived at school, and everyone was wearing the same glasses the dogs in her nightmare had worn. For the rest of the day, we ran around the school trying to hide from the people wearing glasses. Hannah Irvine kept on creeping up on us and scaring the crap out of Kari. At one point I gave up (on escaping? I'm not sure exactly what I was giving up on) and laid down on the ramp between the locker area and the English hallway. The Jeremy Bell came up to me and startled me. He wasn't wearing glasses.

This is the only dream out of this collection that counts as a nightmare, but I can think of few people other than my eleven-year-old self who would be frightened by it as I was at the time. I freaked out quite a bit in the weeks leading up to the commencement of middle school. One night, I had a dream that someone had put my schedule in my locker, but I couldn't find my locker without a schedule. I ran all over the huge building (I can't believe I used to think it was so large) searching for someone to help me, but they were all in class where they were supposed to be. I ended up running away from a teacher who I assumed was trying to give me a detention, but I kept getting lost.

Another time, I was sitting in a sunlit cottage in a clearing in a forest late one morning. There were three doors and a window. The window faced the east (thus letting in the morning sun), the door to the outside faced the west and had a small window, and the other doors led to rooms. I was in the main room. It was a light greyish color and had no source of light other than the sun. The only pieces of furniture were a table covered in a white tablecloth and I chair I was sitting in. On top of the table was a basket containing many different types of apples. I was trying to cook apple pies for my friends, but I couldn't remember which apples each one liked best.

I was standing alone in a sunlit, circular tower made of stone in a clearing in a forest. There was nothing inside the tower, and it wasn't paved. The floor was grass. There were narrow, un-paned windows arranged so that they spiraled up the tower (I'm not sure that was a clear description, but I can't think of how to describe it in words), and they let in lots of sun. I was the only person in the tower, but there were several robins and cardinals clinging to the walls and singing.

This dream came from seven or eight years ago, but I still remember it well. I know this one will sound familiar to at least one of you. I was in an expansive white room. I couldn't see any walls or windows, but it was naturally lit. Tall, white, regularly-spaced columns held up the lofty ceiling. The floor was a black and white checkered pattern. Near where I stood, there was an orange goldfish in a bowl on a pedestal and a black cat trying to catch the fish.

Sir Cephelebrum Man and His Mighty Brain

For psychology class, we had to write a children's story explaining the functions of various parts of the brain. For my project, I created a super-hero. I can't stand my character. He was kind of fun to create at times, but he's like something my little brother would invent and love. I can't just change the entire personality of a character if it wants to be the way it is. Without further ado, here's my brain book.

Sir Cephelebrum Man and His Mighty Brain

Greetings, friends! My name is Sir Cephelebrum Man. I have learned that any real super-hero needs to use every part of his brain, from the cerebral cortex to the medulla. Allow me to introduce the parts of my brain and explain how they help me in my super-heroism.

My cerebral cortex is the outside layer of my cerebrum, the largest part of my brain. It is split into two halves called hemispheres. The corpus callosum is a bundle of neuron (nerve cell) fibers that connects the two hemispheres and lets them share information.

My cerebral cortex is divided into sections called lobes. Each lobe is responsible for different kinds of activities. The four types of lobes are the temporal lobes, occipital lobes, parietal lobes, and frontal lobes. The lobes come in pairs, one for each hemisphere.

My temporal lobes are found at the bottom the cerebral cortex around my ears. These lobes help me process information from my ears. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to hear calls for help. If I don’t know when the citizens of my fair city need my help, how can I be a hero?

My occipital lobes are at the back of my head. They let me process information from my eyes. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to see sinister villains, damsels in distress, stranded kittens, raging forest fires, or any other matters in need of my heroic attention.

In front of my occipital lobes are my parietal lobes. These lobes allow me to feel. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to feel whether I was walking on firm ground or flying through the air. Plus, I wouldn’t know when my admiring fans were timidly tapping my shoulder to ask for autographs.

My frontal lobes are at the front of my cerebral cortex. They let me move and make decisions. Without them, I couldn’t rush to the aid of helpless civilians or decide which superhero suit to wear each day. What on earth would I do without my frontal lobes?

Without the help of my thalamus, my cerebral cortex would have no information to work with. My thalamus sends messages from my eyes, ears, hands, and other body parts to my cerebral cortex so that I can see, hear, and feel. It also sends messages to my cerebellum and medulla, who we will meet later on.

My cerebral cortex isn’t the only part of the brain that helps me out when I save the day. I also rely on my limbic system. My limbic system is responsible for important things like emotions, memory, and hunger. My hippocampus, hypothalamus, and amygdala make up my limbic system.

My hippocampus helps me process memories. If it were damaged, I wouldn’t be able to remember who my enemies and allies are. Just think of the chaos that could cause! I also wouldn’t be able to remember my countless heroic deeds or the directions to my favorite pizza parlor.

My hypothalamus tells me when I need to eat and drink, and it keeps my body temperature stable. If I forgot to eat or drink, I would be too tired to accomplish my daring deeds. If my body couldn’t keep a healthy temperature, I would have a hard time travelling to the ends of the earth to fulfill me heroic duties.

Without my amygdala, Mondays would be unbearable. It has a lot of influence over my emotions, especially anger. On Monday mornings, it’s hard to muster the enthusiasm to fight evildoers if I don’t feel any righteous anger. I turn my anger into something productive, and it helps me save the world.

Outside of my cerebral cortex and my limbic system, I have additional helpful brain parts. My reticular formation keeps me awake. Imagine what would happen if I fell asleep while I was flying to save a woman from a burning building! Surely we would both perish in the flames!

My cerebellum is responsible for my impeccable balance and coordination. It allows me to scamper across power lines in pursuit of ne’er-do-wells in addition to helping me fasten my cape to my shoulders while I rush to save the day.

My medulla and my brain stem work hand in hand. Both of them take care of my body’s vital functions so I don’t have to. My medulla controls my heart rate and breathing rate, and my brain stem takes care of digestion and other tasks. If I had to think about all these things, I would never have time to leave my lair and fight evil.

My pons helps out my reticular formation, my medulla, and my frontal lobes. It helps keep me awake, regulate my breathing, and control voluntary movement. When my other brain parts are overloaded by the stress of controlling a superhero, my pons is there to lend a hand.

All of these brain parts combine forces to allow me to become the super hero that I am. Guess what? Your brain has each of these parts too! You, too, could one day become a super hero or super heroine. I look forward to seeing you working for the good of awesome!

Frustration and Music

Why? Why does the orchestra suck? Why don't the members of chorale care? Why am I still part of either?

This year in orchestra we have barely 30 members, and the total apathy and lack of skill is simply astounding. For starters, intonation is abominable. I can understand occasionally missing notes, but our degree of not-skilled-ness is inexcusable in a high school orchestra. For example, one of my fellow violas consistently plays a B flat rather than a B natural during a viola solo no matter how many times I remind him that he's wrong. I think the violins think they're playing the right notes, but they aren't even close to in tune with one another. It's hard to say much about the cellos. I'm so excited when they actually play that I'm willing to give them a bit of a break. The music we're playing right now isn't that great. I don't mean that I just don't like it: I mean that musically it isn't good. The harmonies are sub-par, and in one song they build chords that shouldn't fit into the key we're playing in. It's just bad. Even if we had decent music and we could play in tune, we still wouldn't be making music. There is minimal dynamic contrast, scarcely any phrasing, and a negligible amount of emotion. Add to all of this the fact that our teacher is unreliable and garners little (if any) respect from the orchestra. I come to school at 7:15 in the morning every day to participate in a group that I am thoroughly ashamed of. Why? I have a tremendous amount of love for my viola, but I have no time to plug into a group of devoted musicians outside of school. I can't wait to play in college. After all, it can't get much worse.

The chorale is the top audition chorus at Finneytown, so all of its members are talented. In this way it far surpasses the orchestra. Unfortunately the class is unbearable. People never stop talking. Literally. Some people talk while we're supposed to be singing, and more than half of the chorus bursts into chatter the second we pause in a song. It's ridiculous and irritating. Absurd, even. The director has to tell us to fix the same things day after day since few people pay any attention to him, so we can be stuck on a single passage for days with minimal improvement. Like the orchestra director, the chorus teacher doesn't demand much respect. He is generally liked (unlike the orchestra director), but nobody pays much attention to him. I despise that class so much that I'm considering dropping it and jumping into AP Art History (which I originally wanted to take, but rejected for the sake of chorale). I do love to sing, but I can always sing elsewhere. I'll probably audition for the vocal jazz ensemble (even though jazz isn't exactly my thing), and if I make it I'll give more serious thought to the idea of dropping chorale. I'm not going to go into all the reasons for and against taking art history instead of chorale, but it's going to be a more important decision than it may seem. The issue goes far deeper than chorus versus art, and my choice could have a major impact on how I make future decisions. I'm going to have to put a lot of thought into this.

Thank you, readers, for reading through my disorganized mental dump. Sometimes it's nice to vent a bit.

Saving Mystic Village

I was looking through my bookshelf today and I found a story I wrote back in fourth grade. It was called "Saving Mystic Village." Here it is, exactly as it was written, all errors and ambiguities included. The influence of C.S Lewis is clear, and I laugh to see that I was already an advocate for the environment at that age (although I have found poems from as early as second grade about saving the earth).

Saving Mystic Village

Cindy and Joe, two kids who are 10 and 12. Cindy is 12, has brown hair, brown eyes, is tall, and skinny. Joe is 10, has brownish blonde hair, blue eyes, is the normal height for his age, and is skinny. Their story started when they were going upstairs to see what was in the attic. When they reached the attic, they found themselves in a very strange forest.

The forest smelled of the ground, but had many other strange and wonderful smells. The plants in the forest were like none they had ever seen. One kind of plant was as tall as a two story house, had a navy blue bloom with sharp looking gold stamens sticking out of the middle, a turquoise stem, two turquoise diamond shaped leaves that were as big as bathtubs at the bottom, and two "spiraling" leaves that were a pearly light green ascending from the bottom of the plant and ending one third from the top. Another plant was four foot tall, had an orange trunk, sharp gold leaves on top with silver spirals on stems shooting out of them, and brown vine like leaves hanging over the sides. The last of the three main plants in the forest grew on the ground everywhere except for on the paths that wound throughout the forest. It was forest green with cube flowers that were green, blue, and purple marbled together.

As the two kids took in all of this, it stared to rain, so they quickly crawled under one of the trees, and sat against the trunk as they discussed their surroundings.

"This place is definitely not the attic." Stated Joe

"How long did it take you to figure that out?" asked Cindy sarcastically.

"A few minutes." Answered Joe.

Cindy sighed. She never expected Joe to answer those questions, but he always did anyway.

"So how do you like our new attic?" Questioned Cindy.

"I told you! It's not the attic!" exclaimed Joe, "I think it's some kind of magical forest like in the book I just read."

"Come on, Joe! You can't be serious." said Cindy.

"I'm serious!" exclaimed Joe.

"O.K., O.K. Maybe we are in some magical forest," admitted Cindy. "But what forest are we in?" questioned Cindy.

Joe couldn't answer that question so he just sat quietly. Then, Cindy, noticing how uncomfortable the shrubs they were sitting in were, suggested they walk along the path in the drizzle and see what they could find.

After about 10 minutes, the rain stopped and Cindy and Joe saw a strange creature coming towards them. It had two furry gold legs with three sharp light green claws on each foot, a tall yellow body with black spots, a magenta-purple-blue-green stomach, orange spikes down his back and tail, red ears, an olive green nose, reddish-brown thick unkempt hair, and two light green horns that curved outward from each other.

"What do you think it is, Cindy?" inquired Joe.

"I have no idea," responded an astounded Cindy.

As the "animal" got closer it was carrying what might have been a picnic basket on earth. It was a brownish-green color and seemed a lot like a bag because it was sagging with the weight of whatever was in it and had a brown napkin folded neatly over the top. When "it" reached the kids it began to speak to them.

"Hello humans, My tolone (we are a type of animal that live in this forest) friends and I have been waiting for you for four quams!" the strange creature exclaimed.

"What are quams?" asked Joe curiously.

"In your language, days." answered the tolone.

"Oh." Joe said as if the answer to his question was obvious.

"Excuse me, but will you mind telling us who you are, where we are, and why we're here?" Cindy asked.

"Of course. My name is Lizar and any minute now my sister Momecton will be here. We are now in the Mystic Village Territory of the Great Clafondon Forest. Which is where my village is and where you will be staying for the nest week or less (but don't worry about the time, each of our days only equal ten minutes, but it will feel like days have passed). Now for your last question. You are here because the vain Kind Duffler of Clafondon has a problem with all the tolones in the forest. We don't know what it is, but it must be pretty serious, because he is destroying these plants, which our lives depend upon. So we brought you here to help us." explained Lizar.

"So we're here to help you." summarized Cindy.

"Yes." agreed Lizar.

Just then, another Tolone (that looked like Lizar, except that it had lighter features) appeared on one of the paths.

"Hey Momecton!" shouted Lizar. "We've been waiting for you. Come enjoy the picnic lunch I've prepared with our human helpers who have just arrived!"

"Sure, I'd love to!" answered Momecton.

Then Lizar started to pull things out of the picnic bag, but first he put a blanket of weird colors that no human had ever seen on the ground. The food looked like some of the food on Earth, but it tasted much better and soon all four were full.

After lunch, they started off to Mystic Village. Along the way, they discussed ways they might defeat King Duffer.

"Do you know of any weak spots the king has?" asked Joe.

"Yes," answered Momecton. "He greatly cares for his possessions."

"Is there anything you can offer him as a bribe?" Joe inquired.

"Yes. We Tolones are very fine miners." Lizar answered.

"Could you spare some gems?" asked Cindy.

"Sure," replied Lizar.

As they finished their walk, they finished their plan. When they finally reached Mystic Village,

The sun was setting. So Momecton quickly found a family that would let them stay with them until they returned home. Meanwhile, Lizar told the village about the plan and they started to work on it right away. The next morning after a very good breakfast, Cindy and Joe found that a fairly sized pile of gems had been formed. They were very happy and after lunch, their two companions and themselves set out for King Duffer's castle with two wagonloads of jewels.

When they reached the King's castle, they were immediately lead to his throne room. There, they told the King why they were there, and after a little thought, refused. A sad group of four and their two wagons entered the village later that evening and told them that their plan had not worked.

By the next morning, a new plan was formed. The creatures of Mystic Village and of the forest (who wanted to) would form a large army and try to attack. In two days the army was formed and a week later, they left an expectant forest and went to the castle.

Then after three days of anxious waiting, the army returned to the village, and the news of their success traveled quickly through the forest. Shortly after the army returned a huge party was thrown in honor of Lizar, Momecton, Cindy, Joe, and the army. That night, news was passed that the King's army had retreated to another kingdom, and the King had gone with them. So, at the party a new King was chosen and he moved into the castle.

Later, around midnight, Lizar and Momecton awakened Joe and Cindy.

"Are you ready to go home?" asked Lizar.

"Yes." The kids both yawned.

"Then let's go." Momecton whispered, "Remember to be quiet, the whole village is sleeping."

They went to the end of the forest where the kids had come into the forest.

"There's a door behind the moss on that rock over there. It will be open. Go through the tunnel and enter the first door you see. It should be your attic. Good-bye my friends." explained Momecton.

"Good-bye." Said Lizar.

Our two heroes found the door with ease and followed the directions to their attic and found that the clock on the wall read ten minutes after they had left. Later they both promised never to tell anyone about their adventure in Mystic Village.

THE END

In Which I Become Hopelessly Lost (Again) and Attend Homecoming

Yesterday was the homecoming dance. I hate dances. I really do. But for some reason I decided to try one again this year. For the first time in five years I wore a dress in public. For the first time in my life I wore high heels. Most surprising of all, I actually liked my dress. It was about as Maria-ish as a dress can be. On more than one occasion, I was told that I looked like a woodland fairy or a nymph.

I wouldn't even have considered going if it hadn't been for the group I went with. It included eighteen delightful people. I was one of the many drivers getting us all to dinner, but if I had known what getting there would involve, I would never have agreed to drive. I didn't even read the directions I was given before we left. I entrusted them to my front seat passenger and planned on following the person who knew where she was going. We lost said person when we got on the highway. I did not know we were going to drive on a highway. As you already know, I hate highways. Then we got onto another highway. That other highway was I-71 (which fortunately was not as frightening as it was when I had my temps). Then we got onto a smallish highway-esque road. All three had plenty of traffic. I was not happy at all. Once we finally got off the highways, we caught back up to the front driver. We promptly lost her once more when she decided to speed through a yellow light. After this, we got completely lost. The people following us also got lost. We found ourselves about to get onto I-71 again, but just in time we turned onto a narrow side street and got back on track. Eventually we arrived at our dinner destination. Dinner was a lot of fun.

On the way back, we resolved to drive closer together, and the leader promised to drive as though she was being followed by clueless people. Before we even left the parking lot, we lost one of the four cars in our caravan. Once we were all on the highway, we got off at the wrong exit and were lost again. We pulled over at what turned out to be a school of some sort with an awesome playground. It was castle-themed and included a dragon and a ship. Most of us got out and played on the playground while the head of the caravan called her dad and asked for direction. I declared myself captain of the ship, but did not manage to enlist many crew members before we departed.

Once we left, we had to take a detour to find a bathroom. After we left the Gold Star where we stopped, I got separated from the other two cars and was lost again. Several roads later, we somehow ended up behind the other two cars without knowing it. When they stopped to wait for us, we passed them. We couldn't really turn around very easily, but at that point they discovered that we were on North Bend Road and we figured that we could get to the school easily enough from there.

We were wrong. We wound up being moderately lost and debating whether or not we should leave our path and pursue a new one that we thought we recognized. We turned around and returned to the place we thought we knew, and eventually one of my passengers recognized where we were even in the darkness. In the end, we found our way to the school. We arrived just in time to be admitted to the dance.

For the entire duration of the ride to and from Buca di Beppos or wherever we ate, I was quite angry and on the verge of panic. We were driving in the dark on highways, people kept cutting me off (I nearly cussed a few of these drivers out), I was forced to do some risky driving to keep up with everyone, and there were a few other things that made me less than happy. Surprisingly, the fact that we were lost wasn't as terrifying as it has been in the past; I've gotten so used to it that I enjoy it as an adventure, so long as I have passengers with me. When I get angry while driving I just become a source of amusement to my passengers which in turn calms me down. When I'm lost and alone, I just panic. It also helped that most of the songs that came up when I pushed shuffle on my ipod were perfect for the situation. During the long stretch of time we spent driving with uncertainty down what was supposed to be North Bend (I'm not confident that it really was North Bend), The Long and Winding Road played, and we all had to laugh at the correlation between the title and our current predicament.

Homecoming itself wasn't that great. In fact, it was decidedly not great. That's all I have to say on the matter. I left early, and for the ride home I rolled down all my windows and put one of my favorite songs on repeat (it fits pretty much every mood I have, and it was particularly fitting at the time). That final drive was wonderfully refreshing, especially in contrast to my driving adventures earlier in the day.

More Adventures in Driving

These two adventures are more like un-adventures in driving, but they mark what could be a turning point in my navigational skills.

Saturday, it was my task to get to West Chester to watch Ronda and some others perform at a concert. Not only had I never driven to West Chester before, but I had to get there via highway. And one of those highways was one I had never driven on before (I-75). However, wonder of wonders, I managed to get there without getting the least bit lost! I also managed to get home without getting lost, but that was only because I called my parents to see if I had in mind the correct way to get home. I did not have in mind the correct way to get home. That potential crisis was averted.

On Sunday, I got my senior pictures taken. The outside pictures were taken at Spring Grove Cemetery, and once we were finished there I was to follow Annette (my photographer) to her house for some inside pictures. The only thing I hate more than trying to drive to a new place is following someone to a new place. We got onto I-75 during rush hour and ended up getting split up. I just barely noticed in time when she got off on an exit and ended I-75 ordeal number three. The rest of the drive to her house was uneventful. But then I had to get back home. She gave me clear directions to I-75, but once I got on I realized that I had no idea where I was. I tried calling home, but my parents were gone. I decided to try it alone, even though I was on the verge of panic. I found an exit onto Ronald Reagan, and figured that I could find some way home once I was on a familiar highway, and I ended up at a spot that I knew well. I-75 ordeal number four had been successfully completed!

I may have finally begun to overcome my inability to drive to new places without getting hopelessly lost!

How It Really Went

As I've already said I would, I'm now posting what really happened during and after the windstorm. Also, as I said before, I'm actually typing this first so I don't confuse reality with fantasy.

As I drove home from church, the wind had already begun to blow steadily. The car didn't steer as well as it normally did (for all its issues, the red car does steer fairly well), trees and signs swayed in the wind, branches dropped to the ground, and some traffic lights were blinking while others had stopped working entirely. I narrowly avoided getting hit by a locust branch, and a moderately hefty oak stick thwocked my windshield, but it wasn't big enough to cause any damage.

And then came the glorious event I thought would never come to pass so long as I lived in my parents' house. I was permitted (along with the oldest two of my younger sisters) to climb up into the large white pine in front of my house. I'm not sure why. It probably wasn't exactly the safest thing we could have done. But it was fun. Rachel and I went somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the way up the tree. It was AWESOME! The wind caused the tree to sway and the branches to tremble. My time in the tree definitely ranks among my favorite experiences.

An hour or so later, as the wind continued to wail, the power went out. We weren't overly concerned. We had expected it. Eventually, we found out that it would be a while before the power came back on. At some point (it may have been Sunday night or Monday morning; I can't remember for sure), we learned that would could be electricity-less for up to a week. I was kind of hoping for a few days at least, but in the end we only went for just over 24 hours without it. Several of my friends still don't have it, and where the power lines or transformers are actually damaged or missing they aren't expecting to have electricity back until Friday at the earliest.

The Nichols and some of our other neighbors came over to our house. On our way to find other people to join us in a game of kick the can, I caught a squirrel. He was a frightened little fellow, so he didn't really try to run from me. When I picked him up, he curled into a little ball and put his paws over his head. I let him go after a moment. I couldn't bear to keep him captive any longer.

I liked the idea of living without electricity for a bit. It was nice in many ways. Maybe I'll try going Amish for a little bit. As night fell, I read by candle-light and wrote a letter to Sean McHone about Cincinnati happenings from a druid's perspective. I had already put a letter in the big package Ben sent to him, but it was a short and uninteresting letter. Plus, he wouldn't have to do any extra push-ups to get it.

Finneytown Schools announced that school would be canceled for the next day, so I stayed up late to finish an excellent book by the light of some scented candles. Contrary to my expectations, cinnamon roll and pear made a great smell combination.

Monday morning we packed necessary perishable food and drug items into coolers before they went bad in the powerless fridge. My mom's opinions on what had to be saved were unorthodox. Miracle Whip, ranch dressing, and Coke were at the top of her list, followed by her medications, with the more ordinary items trailing far behind.

After that we began to clean up our yard and our neighbor's yard. I got several scratches from some stubborn branches, but none of them were deep enough to bleed. My brother, Allison, and I created a stash of sticks that had high potential for becoming dueling weapons. Later, my mom found them and got rid of them before they were used. I was given the assignment of trying to dislodge a dead branch trapped up in a tree with no low-growing branches. I tried climbing the fence next to the tree, hanging onto the dead branch, and jumping, but all I managed to do was break off part of the branch. Most of it was still stuck. After several unsuccessful attempts, I was forced to give up. I could have just climbed the rough trunk, but I wasn't allowed to take off my shoes and there wasn't a safe path back out of the tree. Well, not a safe path for a shod person anyway. Toes can cling in ways that shoes cannot.

Jonathon and Rachel alerted me to the approach of a pair of our neighborhood LARPers and their captive. They agreed to let us take pictures of them. Please note that although we had collected branch weapons, we still have more dignity than LARPers. We were going to be duelers. Dueling is honorable and dignified. As we took some action shots, Alex/Stephanie Herbers, Logan Herbers, Daniel Wilson, Lauren Gifreda, and David Gifreda came up the street. Bruegger's Bagels still had power, so Jonathon and I joined them in a march to Bruegger's. Along the way, we found some plastic letters that had blown off of a sign, so I stuck them into my purse. You never know when you might need such things.

As we continued down Winton Road, we came upon two scenes that literally brought me to the verge of tears. My two favorite trees had been brought down by the storm. A majestic blue spruce had been uprooted, and the trunk of an ancient, giant black oak had snapped. It was devastating.

When we had almost reached Bruegger's, we were joined by Maddie Fessler, JP Muñoz, Alejandro something-or-another, and two people whose names I didn't know. McCall Dillon met us there. I had some of Bruegger's delicious chai tea. It was delicious, but I had forgotten how remarkably sugary it was. Too sugary.

From Brugger's we walked to Maddie's house. From there we drove to her great-grandma's house to help her clear her yard. We left JP, Alejandro, and their two friends behind. They aren't bright enough to be trusted with rakes. There wasn't much to do, so we drove to Maddie's grandma's house on Winton Road.

We had to take two carfuls to get there (Maddie's mom had helped us get from her mom's house to her great-grandma's house). Dan, Lauren, David, Jonathon, and I were dropped off first. We knocked on the door, but nobody answered. We remembered Maddie saying her grandparents actually owned the house next door as well, so we ventured to the next house. It was rather dilapidated, so we didn't even bother to knock. We called Maddie, and she told us that the door would be unlocked and we could just walk in. None of us were comfortable with that, so we sat on the hill facing their house. People gave us odd looks when they stopped at the stop light next to their house. I suppose they were justified. All of us except for Lauren and I were wearing all black, David looks emo, and Dan looks mildly goth at first glance. Even though Lauren and I weren’t wearing black, I was wearing a pirate shirt and Lauren’s hair looked emo.

Eventually the others arrived and told us that Maddie’s grandparents weren’t home. That would have been nice to know. They had a huge yard covered in debris. It took a while to clear. I got to be the official branch stomper. Whenever a trash can was full, I got to climb into it and compact its contents.

At then end of the day, we returned to our homes. We lit a fire in our backyard to cook hot dogs even though we had power back by that point.

An Epic Tale

Preface:
On Sunday, the tri-state area experienced a vicious wind-storm brought to us by hurricane Ike. The strength of the wind took down powerlines all over the place. This is the story of what happened during and after the winds blew.*

I started out for home as the wind began to pick up. I looked at my mode of transportation. It had seen better days. It hadn't completely failed on me yet, but a feeling of doom hung over me as I clambered into the red monstrosity I was forced to rely on.** With great trepidation, I swung out onto Winton Road into the wind's power. With the windows rolled down, I reveled in the rushing air and fought minor skirmishes with my not-so-streamlined vehicle as I made my way towards home. The traffic lights swayed eerily, blinking on and off, some dead altogether. I reached the traffic-light-free zone of the spiral I must follow to reach my humble abode. While I had escaped the dangers of unregulated traffic, I now faced a new trouble: falling tree limbs. The great giants of my neighborhood swayed and groaned and dropped their branches. I swerved wildly to escape certain death as a massive locust limb crashed to the ground mere inches from where I had been moments before. I was not so lucky only moments later when an oak branch swung from the skies to smack the windshield of the dilapidated red "car".


As I pulled into the driveway, I saw two intrepid adventurers making their way up through the treacherous branches of the monolithic white pine in front of my home. Despite the fact that the tree was a wounded war veteran who had survived an ice storm and was thus missing all limbs on one side of its massive trunk, my two oldest sisters clambered up into it to enjoy the wind's fury from a higher perch. After depositing my bag of holding and my unwanted foot-wear in my bedchamber, I rushed to join them in their adventure.

We crept to the highest reaches of the tree, far above the rooftops of our fiefdom. The branches swayed and creaked dangerously, but we had no fear. Stalwart adventurers never have fear. Instead we had breath-taking exhilaration. It was fantastic.

We had barely entered our home once more when a startling discovery was made: we had no power! How on earth was I to begin my music theory quest to transpose by ear the first 16 measures of Beethoven's 5th Symphony for all the instruments*** if I did not have that song on my ipod? Worse yet, my ipod had barely any battery left. How could I hope to survive without tunes? The power-restoring mages could only hope that we would have power again within a week. A week is too long for any hero to go without her tunes. Being the hardy fellow that I am, I readied myself for the ordeal to come.

Other adventurers from our local guild traveled many yards over asphalt and grass to reach our home and suggest that we go in search of other brave souls to join us in outdoors games not designed for those who are faint of heart. On the way, I saw a creature skitter through the fallen branches to my right (I think it was to my right. I'll just say it was to the east of me. I can be much more certain about that). I turned quickly and beheld a truly fearsome sight. A squirrel-beast of rare stature reared up on its powerfully muscled legs and prepared to attack my friends and me. I faced the monster fearlessly. It didn't take me long to send him away cowering.

Night was upon us earlier than usual. With ominous clouds filling the sky, the sun's weakened rays gave up on trying to reach us. I continued to study books of ancient lore far into the night and even sent a letter written in secret code to an agent in the army.

We received a call informing us that my Academy was also powerless. Powerless Academies are no Academies at all. Filled with shame, they informed their students that their presence would not be required the next day.

As dawn broke the next day, we still had no power. We stored only the most vitally important of out perishable victuals in insulated boxes of coldness and began to clear the wreckage of the storm from the lawn of our estate. The branches ripped and tore at our flesh and clothing, but we persevered despite these hardships. A few of my kin joined me in stock-piling weapons in the event that we would have to keep vicious villains away from our family. I made a daring attempt to save a faithful tree from the shame of a dead branch hanging limply from the tree's proud form, but I failed. The failure stung far more deeply than any wounds I had received, but I bore the emotional burden stoically.


It seemed as though my siblings and I had not stored up weapons in vain. Armed travellers approached our backyard near midday. We realized to our relief that these good people meant us no harm. They were true heroes and had fought many a brutal battle to rise to positions of fame amongst our people. As we basked in the aura of such accomplished champions of good, a motley crew of our friends approached us and invited us to join them on a long trek to the other side of the Hamlet of Finneytown. They had heard the the good baker Bruegger still had power, and they were on their way to seek fresh food from his ovens.


As we crossed bustling highways and climbed treacherous slopes, our ranks swelled as more comrades joined us in our quest. Although our group was light-hearted and hopeful, there were a few gruesome scenes that brought tears to the eyes of even the most reserved of our number. Several of our forest friends had fallen in the overpowering winds, including my two best dryad friends. May their pure souls rest in peace.


Once we had eaten our fill of goodly Bruegger's fine fare, we headed out in search of good deeds that needed doing. There were more than enough elderly citizens in need of our assistance to occupy us into the evening hours. As night drew nigh once more, we climbed into transport vehicles and returned to our homes. At my house, we lit a massive bonfire and satiated the hunger of the pagan gods. We cooked the entrails of our sacrifices over the flames and filled our stomachs once more.

By this time, power had returned to my estate. It is by this power that I now relate to you this tale. And yet possessing this power is bittersweet. How long must we wait ere we are presented with such grand adventures as we have faced these past two days?



*Before I wrote this, I wrote down what really happened over the past few days. I will post the true story in a few days.

**Soon and very soon I will no longer be driving the red car! I will be driving a little green car instead. Huzzah!

***That assignment is the only part of the story that has no hint of exaggeration. I really do have to transpose by ear the first 16 measures of Beethoven's 5th Symphony for all the instruments by Friday.

from the whole a part

i am from farmers and mechanics and boilermakers
loss of hearing and digits
carrot tops and ginger kids and little reds

i am from tea parties and tree climbing
nail polish and grass stains
barbies and legos
flower fairies and star wars

i am from michigan ice cream and indiana pizza
tchaikovsky and rich mullins
john dog and ria kitty
lewis and jacques and tolkein
our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name and you are my sunshine my only sunshine

i am quietly shouting my independence
identifying with those before
facing my future unafraid




In every year of high school thus far, one of the first english class assignments has been some sort of creative writing piece describing ourselves. This year we were to write poems about how our past has influenced who we are now. Mine opened up this post. I explained it and shared it with my english class, and so now I share it with and explain it to you, my readers. I believe there are four of you now. Hurrah!

The most obvious thing about my poem is probably the rejection of capital letters and punctuation. I really don't like capital letters all that much, and I generally skimp on punctuation in my poems, so Ms. Miller said I could just omit both altogether. She said it reminded her of e.e. cummings, so I decided to take after another one of his stylistic techniques. The title is purposefully ambiguous, especially when heard rather than seen. It says that I'm both a part of the whole and apart from the whole. While I love being a part of my family, I also seek to be something apart from them.

In the first stanza I talk about my parents and other older relatives. The first two parts of the first line are just as they appear (the farmer and mechanic parts), but the third (the boilermaker part) is not. Purdue's mascot is the boilermaker, and a lot of my family members have gone there. On my dad's side, my dad, his brother, both his parents, and his dad's dad all went there. On my mom's side, my mom, her dad, his brother (I think), and several of her first, second, and third cousins went to Purdue. If I go there as I'm planning to, I'll be the fourth generation there in a direct line on my dad's side and the third generation in a direct line on my mom's side. The second line refers to the fact that members of my dad's side of the family are prone to hearing loss and many members of my mom's side of the family are missing fingers or toes from various accidents. The third line is a reference to the fact that I've got red-heads sprinkled all over both sides of my family (including my parents, who both used to have red hair). That would explain why myself and four of my six other siblings have undeniably red hair.

The entire second stanza not only tells about things that I enjoyed as a younger child, but it also shows that I had a wide range of interests. While I liked girly things, I also loved getting dirty and doing some tom-boy-ish things. The third stanza is about memories and old traditions. Whenever we visited my mom's parents in Michigan, we used to go to the same ice cream parlor. They had all sorts of fun flavors. My mom's grandparents live in Indiana, and whenever we visit them we eat Pizza King pizza (it's delicious). For several years, my mom, my sisters, and I used to go see the Cincinnati Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker every winter. That tradition kindled within me a love for Tchaikovsky's music that continues to this day. My dad has several Rich Mullins tapes that we used to listen to on road trips. I can probably sing every single song by now. John Dog was the name of the dog that my older brother got for his fifth birthday. He died just two winters ago at the age of thirteen. We all miss him. Ria Kitty is a stuffed cat I got in Washington, D.C. when I was five. I had lost my Ria Baby and Oatmeal Bear on the subway, so I got Ria Kitty. C.S. Lewis, Brian Jacques, and J.R.R. Tolkein were three authors whose works I read often as I grew up. The last line of the third stanza got chopped in half, but it's still meant to be one line. The first half refers to a family tradition established longer ago than I can remember. Every night we all say the Lord's Prayer together. The second half is a line from a song that my dad and I sang every night when I was little. It had within it a line that we argued about every night as part of the tradition.

The final stanza is just some stuff about appreciating where I've come from, yet wanting to be something a little different that those before me. I pretty much already explained that part when I explained the title.

Shed Yool

The preferred pronunciation of schedule, in my opinion, is shed-YOOL. Yes, it's not the correct pronunciation, but it's more fun. I am now three days into my senior year of high school. Woohoo. Oh nine. Can't you sense that I'm brimming with senior spirit? Yes, I'm happy that it's my last year of high school, but I don't see a reason to be filled even unto overflowing with oh-nine exuberance. I enjoyed high school, but I'm ready to move on. Quietly.

Orchestra meets before school during x-period. The x stands for xtreme. This year's orchestra is rather small and 25-33% of them don't count. The people who don't count are either incompetent, lazy, or both. There were considerably more of them last year, and this year the people who do count care a lot more than last year's graduating seniors. This year could be a good one for the orchestra.

My first bell is AP Psychology. I signed up for the class because I needed it to graduate, and fortunately it looks like it will be much more interesting than I anticipated. Most of my classmates are ditzy junior girls, but I'm in the middle of a small rectangle of truly wonderful people.

Next comes Music Theory. I love the class already. There are only twelve of us, and our teacher loves music theory like I love tree identification. We have a lot of fun, and we're bound to learn a lot. His goal is to cram the content of an AP Music Theory class into a single semester. It's going to be awesome.

AP Art Portfolio is my third bell. There are only two of us in the course, so we're combined with the senior seminar art class. By the time my portfolio is due in May I need to have ten to twelve pieces within my chosen concentration and twelve other pieces that show by ability with a variety of styles and media. Both my teacher and I are excited about my concentration. My first piece will be a view of a forest from a distance, and then each piece will zoom in a bit until I stop at a chlorophyll pigment molecule. Instead of going the traditional route of picking a single medium for my concentration to promote unity, I've picked a color scheme. I have plans for eleven pieces. I already have an abundance of fine works of art from previous years to use in the breadth portion of my portfolio, and I'll have a few more to work with that I make in my other art class, so I will probably only need to do eleven complete projects along with tweaking some old projects.

After that comes chorale. Chorale is our school's selective audition choir. Last year's chorale went to state competition in class AA and received a superior rating. This year's chorus may not accomplish such an impressive feat, but I feel honored to be a member of it. Honored and also intimidated. I haven't been in a choir since eighth grade, and I've never had to sight read vocal music. I harmonize all the time, but I get my harmonies from listening, not from reading. The first day was overwhelming. In the few days I've been in the class, my sight-reading has already improved and consequently I'm feeling much more comfortable with the whole thing.

English, english, english. I shake my head sadly and sigh at the thought of my AP English class. It has twenty-eight students, including several that I don't want in my class. They're immature enough by themselves, but when they're all together, they're so much worse. The majority of them were also in my english class last year, and things got rough. Fortunately my current teacher seems much more capable of controlling my unruly classmates than my last teacher. The aggravating fact is that all of these people are incredibly bright, so they deserve to be in the class on an intellectual basis, but they're astonishingly immature.

After the trials of english class comes the joys of another art class! Hurrah for Mixed Media! This class may appear to be a typical choice for a senior slacker, but I do plan to at least minor in studio art, and I may take it on as a second major. I want all the art experience I can get.

The day ends with AP Calculus presented by Mr. Rahn. The man is sometimes referred to as Mr. Yawn. His voice combined with the heat of his classroom can send unwary students to sleep in no time at all. He's an excellent teacher, and if you listen to him you'll find that he has a well-developed sense of humor, but it's hard to focus in his class. I could tell Mr. Rahn stories for an indefinite period of time, but I won't get into that at this time.

The only thing missing from my schedule is a science class. I'm managing to cope by assisting friends who are taking AP Biology this year (I don't know if I mentioned this, but I did get a 5 on that test). Sometimes I look for reasons to spout scientific facts, but I've been able to control myself for the most part. I'm just waiting for the day when some unwitting english class neighbor will ask about the significance of a chemical mentioned in a poem we read. They will wish they had never thought about carbon tetrachloride, and I will exhaust my mind of all the information I have about the chemical. I'll enjoy it even if they give up on listening after a few moments.

The Red Car

I drive the red car. Note that I do not call it my car. It is not mine. I would not have bought that car. It does not fit me personally at all, but I could live with that if it didn't have such a vast quantity of problems. I once gave Stephanie/Alex/Alephanie/Stephalex (take your pick) a ride home, and he made the following accurate observation: "It sounds like your car is falling apart as you drive it."

It is red. Red is, by far, my least favorite color. And the red car is, well, redder than the reddest red times infinity. All of my readers have seen the red exterior. Some of them have looked into the car and observed that every bit of the interior is also red, with a few bits of chrome and black.

The air conditioning does not work. Most of the time I can deal with this. My windows are pretty much perpetually rolled down. However, there are some days when the atmosphere is so vilely hot and humid that having the windows rolled down is not enough. Then there are the rainy days. I am more than happy to leave my windows down while I drive in the rain, but my passengers don't always share that sentiment. In addition, when I drive on the highway with my windows down my hair flies in my face and I can't hear my music.

It literally stinks. It's not bad when it's completely dry, but if too much rain gets inside, I'm doomed to endure a strange musty scent faintly reminiscent of stale pop-tarts. This can last for days or weeks, depending on how much water the seats and carpet absorbed. Closing the windows after it's already been raining for quite some time (my dad does this all the time) makes the smell nearly unbearable when the doors are opened again. I have an air freshener, but it's taking its time in doing what it does. My air is much fresher than it was a few days ago, but I still dread driving it after it has spent the day in the sunny school parking lot with the windows rolled up.

The stereo and radio are completely out of whack. The front passenger speakers don't work. Normally. On occasion they will roar to life when least expected. This isn't really a big issue for most songs, but there are some songs that have certain sounds coming from each side, so you don't get the full expreience unless all the speakers are working. Sometimes the radio flat out dies, only to rise once more anywhere between a few seconds and a few days later. The first time it happened, I had no clue what was going on. I tried turning the volume on the radio all the way up. I tried turning the volume on my ipod all the way up (I listen to my ipod rather than the radio). I tried skipping forward and backward on the playlist. About a minute after it had died, it came back. I had not yet turned down the radio or the ipod, and the song that came on started with a loud yell/scream noise. Jonathon and I jumped (maybe that's an understatement). Every time the song starts we laugh. Ask him about it sometime, and I'm sure you'll get some exciting and elaborate tale.

The seat does not come up very far. It comes up far enough that I have a perfectly safe view of the road, but it's low enough that people can barely see me over the steering wheel and low enough to render the sun blocking apparatus completely useless. Despite the sheer awesomeness of my sunglasses, they aren't dark enough to ward off much of the sun's mighty glare.

The hood will not open. Or at least I can't get it to open anymore. I've watched people open it, and I've opened it myself in the past, but it will no longer open for me. I kind of really need to refill on windshield wiper fluid. I can't completely blame the car for this until I ask someone else to try to open it, but I really do believe, based on how it's behaving, that something is jammed in the simple mechanism that normally allows one to open the hood.

From time to time, the rearview mirror will fall off of the windshield. This is obviously dangerous and unnerving.

The alternator recently gave up on life. Fortunately, it was easily repaired, but I don't know how long that will last. I like being able to start the red car.

It makes strange noises. We call it the cricket car, because the sound it constantly emits sounds somewhat like a herd of crickets (do crickets come in herds?). We've tried replacing all sorts of bands and belts, but nothing keeps the crickets quiet for long. It can get really annoying. When turning left, oftentimes it sounds like a turning podracer. I like this noise, but I have no idea why it happens and that makes me nervous.

The speedometer is off. However, once I figured out that I was really going 3-5 mph slower than it was telling me, I had no issue adjusting.

The gas gauge doesn't work. It normally tells me that my tank is either full or way below empty. I have to watch the odometer instead and reset it every time I fill the tank. This means that I can't fill the tank only partially, for I will have no idea when to refill it if I do so.

Now, the engine is unhappy. When I push the gas pedal, the engine wills to disbelieve that I am pushing it as hard as I am. Sometimes it disbelieves that I am pushing the pedal at all. Then it snaps back into reality and jerks forward. To anyone listening to the engine or monitoring my speed, it would sound and look like I was pumping the gas pedal. It normally only does this for the first several seconds after I stop or apply the brakes. Yesterday, it was so bad that I was surprised to have made it home.

Even though my mom and I know that the poor red car needs to be put out of its misery, my dad is in denial of that fact. He believes that it's not as bad as I say it is, or that it can easily be fixed. To be fair, all of our cars have been nicer to him than to anyone else (someday I might tell tales about my mother and the demented car), so he really isn't getting the full effect. But he also develops attachments to cars and hates to give up on them until they're completely dead. Or until they catch on fire. That happened once, after my mom had insisted that something was amiss with the car. My mom has decided that he will get to drive the red car for a day or two on his hilly ride to work. Then he can judge whether or not the car has issues. I the meantime, I get to drive the old blue truck. The old blue truck is a topic for another time. It is nowhere near as bad as the red car or some of our past vehicles, but it's got a few oddities of its own. I will look exponentially more ridiculous driving it than I do driving the red car. There will be no skimping on wearing the sunglasses as long as I drive the truck. The sight is sure to make people smile at the very least. I love to make people smile.

Summer Reading (in retrospect)

As usual (and as predicted), I spent a considerable amount of my summer reading. Some of the books were books I planned on reading, and others were not. Here's what I did read and my brief opinion of each.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
  I can only stand the even numbered books in this series. This was not an even numbered book, therefore I couldn't stand it. It was very melodramatic. Harry should have died. She could have just skipped the epilogue. It was pointless.
  
  
• the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn)
  The first book was okay, I developed an intense dislike for the heroine in the second and third books, and the last one was horrible, but at least the heroine made a much better vampire than she did a human.
  
  
• Heart of Darnkess by Joseph Conrad
  I was prepared for this to be a dull and depressing book. It was somewhat depressing, but I wouldn't describe it as dull. It was thick at times, but I enjoyed it. There was so much there to be drawn out. I loved the style in which it was written. I do think he could have ended the story sooner and skipped the part with Kurtz's wife. It seemed so out of place.



• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover
  I didn't know what to expect of this book, but it turned out to be a delightful book. I loved the narrator and all the other characters as well. Kingslover does an excellent job crafting characters that come to life.



• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  It's hard to see how this book made it onto Oprah's book list. I've never read a book with as much carnage and cannibalism as this one. Not to mention the pervading sense of despair. It was a good book though. It managed to communicate a lot more than was directly stated. I didn't exactly agree with all of it, however.



• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  This book was definitely not what I expected. In a bad way. Worked out the chronology of the whole thing quite excellently considering the fact that one of the main characters is a time traveler.



• The Legend of Drizzt: Books I-VIII by R.A. Salvatore
  I love this series. Out of all the books I've read, Drizzt Do'Urden ranks among my favorite characters. I started to try to summarize it, but I realized that that would take a lot of writing and probably wouldn't make complete sense without a good deal of further explanation, so I'll just skip my summary. Cattie-Brie, one of his companions, is another one of my favorite characters. She and I have a lot in common, and more often than not I find myself mentally integrated into the story from her point of view.



• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
  I read this book for the second time through this summer with three people from the college group at church. Unfortunately, we only got together to discuss our reading thrice. I'm really not sure why I'm writing even this much about our attempts to organize discussion, considering the fact that I think I'm down to one reader. And you, o reader, were also a reader of Mere Christianity. And you were always prepared to discuss it.



• Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce
  I love the first book, but not so much the second one. More specifically, I loved Nawat Crow in the first book, but not in the second. He was so adorable and innocent, and then he wasn't either anymore. I did like the heroine all the way through both books, for the most part. She made an excellent spymaster for the revolution on the Copper Isles.
  
  
• Mr. Bliss by J.R.R. Tolkein
  Technically, this is a children's book, but it's nearly fifty pages long and it provides fun for all ages. There is a man named Mr. Bliss who loves to wear tall hats. He has a blind girabbit (giraffe/rabbit) living in his yard from whom he gets his weather forecasts. It's absolutely delightful, and comes with watercolor illustrations drawn by Tolkein himself.
  
  
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
  I began looking for this book when I was in a Hemingway mood. It was not in the library until three weeks later, by which time I was no longer in a Hemingway mood. I checked the book out anyway. I couldn't really get into it, and I was in the middle of a book from a fantastic series (The Legend of Drizzt, to be exact), so I returned it a few weeks later without having finished it. The portion I did read was decent, but I had more interesting books to read and more pressing tasks to complete.

I'm not letting myself read anything else until school starts. I would never finish my summer artwork or keep on track with my other duties. Once school starts, I'll be reading The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Legend of Drizzt Book IX: Siege of Darkness.

New Art

I'm just going to comment on the ones that I didn't have pictures of last time. Most of them are the bi-weekly sketchbook assignments I did last year, which accounts for the over-whelming dominance of graphite as my medium. I can inconspicuously carry around all sorts of pencils, making it easy to work on my assignments in spare moments during class.

I believe I did this the summer between ninth and tenth grade based off of my second grade yearbook picture. It definitely has its issues, but I'm very proud of it considering when I drew it.

In the last batch of art pictures, I displayed the ink drawing I made from this graphite drawing. I think this one turned out better, but the medium of ink is much more interesting than the medium of graphite. I prefer to work in graphite - it's a much more familiar medium - but I like the way the ink drawing stands out a bit more.

I wrote a bit about the complexity of this project while I was working on it, but I never showed the finished product. My copy of the collage is virtually dead on, except for the fact that it's about two shades lighter. I wanted to fix that, but the more I worked into the paper, the more it started coming apart. It wasn't very good paper.

Here's a closer view of the collage...

...and here's a closer view of my colored pencil drawing. I think my favorite part of the collage is the bee-homes and my favorite part of the drawing is the fir bonsai in the lower left-hand corner.

This was my second-to-last project from this past year. I just now realized that I should've had Ronda take a picture of my final project. I wonder where I put it. Back to the point, this is my piece of social-political art. I did not like having to do social political art, but I didn't have a choice. I chose Christian persecution as my issue. The words were painstakingly hand-written headlines and scriptures relating to persecution. Contrary to the common assumption, the red streaks aren't supposed to symbolize the fires of hell. I just used red because it was an attention-grabbing and violent color.






Here is my second sketchbook assignment of the year. I stayed up until 3:30 am the day before it was due. It was after that that I decided to simplify my sketchbook assignments. This is somewhat based off of reality, but I took some artistic license. The gerbera daisies were actually red, the little pink flowers (I can't remember what kind they were) were actually yellow, and the pot was actually terra cotta. Plus, I was getting pretty tired by the time I started and the pink flowers and their leaves, so most of that part is completely made up. I was done caring way too much about how close to reality it was. The important thing is that the daisies are beautiful and the attract the eye.

This may have been my final assignment. I don't remember for sure and I don't feel like checking. Although I completely finished it in one evening, it's one of my most realistic pieces. I can see how much I learned over the year. Especially in regards to speed. I still draw at a snail's pace, but I've moved from the speed of a comatose snail to the speed of a robust snail.

For our sketchbook assignments, we were given a list of possible topics and were to choose a new one every two weeks. I liked to take the topic and twist it in a slightly unexpected way. The topic for this one was "mirrors". That can be a fun subject all by itself, but mirrors reflecting into one another is even more fun.

And this is just a close-up of a grasshopper. My teacher commented that it looked incomplete. It is incomplete. I decided at 1:30 AM the day before it was due that it looked good enough and that I'd probably get at least a B as it was, so I just left it unfinished. That decision took an awful lot of will-power. I have a major issue with leaving things unfinished.





I kind of rushed through this one, so it's less realistic than many of the others. Yet I can't be dissatisfied with it. It has such a fascinating perspective. I'll admit, this is one of the few assignments that I did based on a picture from the internet, but I did tweak it a bit to make it mine. I normally work from life, from pictures that I take myself, or from my head.

This is the inside of a water bottle. My teacher complained that there wasn't enough contrast. In my head, I replied that it's hard to push the darks when you're drawing a clear plastic bottle, but I decided I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I'm content with it even if it's not even close to the best I can do. I'm learning to appreciate the reduced stress I experience when I let things go and realize that I don't have to make everything perfect.

This is my shoe. I should have sprayed a sealer on it, but I didn't so now it's covered in smudges. I paid particular detail to texture on this assignment. The shoelaces are actually shaded using nothing but minute cross-hatching, and I tried to show the difference in reflection between the parts that were unpainted and painted canvas.

This picture is completely from my head and was done the day it was due during my other classes. It could use some work on contrast (more so than the rest of my work). I do like how the cup turned out.