more pictures!

Greg likes to stack cards, and can make whole castles.

Paige, Ana, Brooke, Kelsie, and Gwen at the 3on 3 basketball matching cheering o the teams!

Kevin, Aaron, julia, Kaia, Mattie, and Maeve also watching the game.

Picture by me taken with Ellie's underwater camera. This was the log that we jumped off of while canoeing in Slyvania.

This snake liked to hang out under the canoes. 

the leaves are already turning red guys!

8-29-2012 new shtuffs going on here

Hey people! Yesterday was a great day. I had a lot of fun. It was a day of many firsts.

Yesterday I sat down for the first time and played maybe 10 games of chess all in a row. I haven't really ever played and was good, or serious about it. But I'm slowly making my way up the social chess ladder. At the moment here are the rankings. One being the highest obviously.

1. Stefan Anderson (head of school)
2. Dexter
2a. Kai
3. Shawn
5. Kaia
6. Me
7. Danielle
8. everyone else

You will notice there are two twos. This is because at the moment it's quite complicated about the whole winning thing. Dexter can beat Kai every time, and Kai can beat Stefan, but Dexter can't beat Stefan. It's confusing I know, but I really want to get good at chess by the time I leave here. To make tings more confusing I learned ow to play bughouse, which a form of chess where you use 2 boards!

Yesterday was also the first day of "Stewardship in Action" and "Careers and Colleges". Both are actual classes. In careers and colleges was basically got to figure out the Student Intranet. That's right with an "a". it's this private system they have going on here. I will be writing an E-portfolio for this class.

Stewardship in action was really fun. I signed up for border post installation. Basically I got to bang giant pols into the ground that defined the border of Michigan and Wisconsin. Also known as the Sylvania wilderness border. I felt super proud :D I did it with Maeve, Nate, Zeki, Ian, Andy (the student not the teacher), Justin, and Dylan the gradfellow. we got to hike around a lot trying to find the border.

I forgot to mention that the lists for the Exploration Week went up. I am going backpacking in the Porkies! So excited. It's going to be a great group. the students are: Me, Shawn, Brooke, Zeki, Carolyn, Colin, and a few other people. Gradfellows: Rebecca (who knows plants and lived in GA for a while), Dylan (who did border posts, and Rob who led the canoe trip I mentioned a little while ago. And today i'm learning backpacking skills with them today and field instruction!

I've been having so much fun despite the fact that I'm covered in bruises, scratches, and bug bites. So far I'm having the time of my life! :D

Sidenote. W ehave some extremely talented people here, but we also have some serious Doctor Who nerds. Among them being Kaia (who just bought a ton of stuff related to Doc. Who stuff on Amazon), Maeve, and Shawn. I had quite the conversation about Schrodinger's Cat and dark matter yesterday.

Pictures in a few minutes.
 

I forgot to mention that there was a 3 on 3 basketball game today, so if you see any weird pictures of a gym that's what is going on! :D

8-28-2012 busy busy!

Hey! I'm about to post more pictures on facebook. Today the exciting thing was probably either having class in a 13 person canoe or just hanging out with everyone at the bell tower.

The canoeing was really cool. I've never really done the 13 person one before. we got to have our entire history class out on the lake. It was so peaceful and calm with just the sounds of the loons and our voices, and every now and then splash of a wave on the shore. I really enjoyed it, so Ellie and I decided to go on the 13 person canoe trip on Saturday! Super excited.

Other than that the classes were pretty regular. The precalculus graphing calculator is killing me! But thankfully we are doing A LOT of review of easy problems. The rest of the day went okay. I am going to try and get my powerspeak recording  program up and running  tomorrow.

I took a lot of pictures today of random stuff. Check my facebook. I can hear the wind whistling outside my window! How cool is that!?! Gotta run! Byeee

first installment of pictures! :D

The belltower.. one of my favorite places!

Alex at the waterfront :)

Sunset-ishhh

Mentioned a few blogs ago I talked about Aaron hopping into the fire ring and sticking his hands in. Here's the proof!

So calming to watched to hours on end.

Zeki, Luke, and Mattie with some true talent :D

8-27-2012 t rescues all the way!

Hey guys! Sorry for not blogging as much recently. I've been caught up with homework and tons of outdoor opportunities. I can't express HOW MUCH FUN IT IS HERE! I really love being here. The people here share many of my beliefs, and if they don't they accept who each person is individually and welcome them. This sounds really nerdy of me, but I like that everyone here genuinely wants to learn. They don't spend time talking about how much they hate school. But hey.. who could hate it here? :D That's enough philosophy for now. Just gonna give you a quick rundown on the exciting things that happened yesterday...

T rescues!! For all of yall who don't know what that is. It's a strategy to empty 2 or more swamped canoes. It's hilarious to see people flopping in and out of canoes, but once you try it you get quite a work out. First of all you can't touch the bottom, and second the canoes create this nasty suction effect that makes them hard to initially lift out of the water. I had so much fun. Lots of people pulled "Pirates of the Caribbean" or  "Pocahontas". If you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry. For those of you who do! congrats on getting my references! :D This was probably my highlight of the day.

Some negatives included that my right side of my body is incredibly bruised, I accidentally threw my green bracelet in the water when I skipped a rock, and my Chinese classes recording system isn't working so I had to resort to tech support (I dislike it with a true passion). And math. So far I haven't learned anything new, but I still need to learn how to use a graphing calculator correctly. Darn you technology. If it actually did what it's supposed to do my life would be a breeze!

Today in English/History we are supposed go out in canoes and read our stories on what exploration means to us. I'm super pumped, but I have to get back to my tree homework. Byeeee! :)

8-27-2012 the bestest canoe trip so far

Hey everyone! Sorry that I'm starting to fall behind. I've been SO busy. No joke! There are so many cool opportunities. Yesterday I had an incredibly memorable day!

I went into the Sylvania Wilderness. It was the most stunning thing I've seen so far. Thank goodness Ellie and Rob (the gradfellow leading the trip) were taking tons of pictures. Ellie graciously let me download all of here photos so there should be some coming soonish. :) I heard the sounds of a loon for the first time. It's so calm and what can I say.. AWESOME! There are a few pictures of it, but it dove underwater, and Aaron says that they can stay under for something like 20 minutes. I did a little research and it's not quite that long, but i still find it impressive. the canoeing trip (which involved a total of 4 portages) reminded me just how much I dislike portaging. It's just plain and simple, uncomfortable. Speaking of portaging, on the second portage with Ellie, we suddenly heard this horrible cracking and then a HUGE crash! A massive tree had fallen less than 100 feet away from us, thankfully not on the path. There were no injuries, but the rest of the group was under the impression that we had dropped the canoe and someone was injured!

For all of those who are thinking of that say: "If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there, does it make a sound?" Well I'm here to say that it does.. quite a loud sound in fact. :D

We got to swim around and jump off this log in the middle of Moon lake. It was so much fun, despite the fact that it took about 15 minutes for Ellie to maneuver her canoes back to the log. All in all it was incredibly fun!

Last night consisted of chores, studying and calling family! :) Dinner is starting soon. Pictures. I promise are coming when I have time. PEACE!

8-25-2012 bruises

It's another late night again, but hey I can sleep relatively late. Basically I spent today riding another, 12 miles to LOLville. We rode in in 3 different groups. We were joined by possibly 16 people today! This time we stopped at the famed Dari Maid. I got a Black Forest Flurry. That was delicious!!! Brownies and cherries! Yummy!

While in town we ran to the store where I realized that I can't use credit card gift cards here in LOLville. And sadly it's not cash-able. :( I did a little shopping for Alex, but beyond that nothing super exciting happened during the trip.

After we got back Megan and I decided to go swimming in the lake with Garrett and Carolyn. Mandy was life gaurding, and we had quite a.. ummm... interesting conversation about being a camp couseling and barfing.

After the nice cool swim it was dinner time. Dinner was an hour early today. So that means that I was eating dinner at 6 Atlanta time! That's really rare! After dinner I ran into Alex (the girl {there's a boy Alex here too}) and Kai. We headed down to the LRC where we proceeded to stalk each other's photo's and family members on our facebook pages. Later Alex and I headed down to the water front where it got these pictures :)


After much wandering and talking we head back up to the bell tower, aka the commons. Here we watched Aaron try and try again to start a friction fire. Finally he gave up and we decided to start a fire with a lighter. This is where is got a little crazy. He lit a ball of moss on fire, but when he saw that the tinder wasn't catching fast enough he climber INTO the fire ring and PICKED up the flaming pieces and stuck his hands into the center of the burning wood! This lovely fire put everyone into a musical mood which prompted Luke, Mattie, and Zeki to bring out their guitar, uke, and drum (respectively).

After the great musical pow wow someone started a good game of James Bond which as quite fun, and which we played for almost the rest of the night. I got decked in the middle of the sidewalk by Chase. I preformed some parkour moves that I didn't think were possible, and got a little banged up.

After the long James Bond games, he fire poi masters got their LED equipment out. It was really cool!! I got to try them again. On top of the James bond accidental parkour and the poi I have quite a few bruises!

I had my blog all written out, and then the internet crashed last night, so here we are. Last nights verision was probably better. :( until next time :D

8-25-2012 star tippers and dream analysis

Hi fellow night owls! Its been a long week but I'm so incredibly happy here! You have absolutely no idea. I got to know a few people much better today. I also learned a few new "skills".

Here we go! So I woke up and immediately raced over to the kitchen like a good serve crew member should! :P After that I had lovely classes. I spent most of my Chinese study hour trying to get the nonexistent internal microphone to work. The problem was resolved by the lovely Martha who got be a headset with a USB plug because for some VERY odd reason there was no microphone jack. Ahhh well...

I made a reasonably nice pinch pot today. I hope it dries evenly so it won't look like a collapsed mess. :O More fun classes after that. The English and history was combined into one awesome class where we split into groups and rewrote the Wilderness Act. It was really fun and we got to do a lot of debating. Probably one of my favoritest classes so far :)

After classes is where things got intense. So Kai, Colin, Eric, Russ, Brian and I decided to ride to LOLville. The problem was that I had to be back at 5:45pm to be at server crew. So off we went. We left the campus at 4:45pm to give you a time range. From campus to LOLville is 5 miles. We literally raced out of campus and successfully arrived in town at 5:10pm. We promptly bought the cake ingredients that Ella wanted (it's a red velvet cake for Laura's 17th bday tomorrow) and flew back. We arrived at 5:47pm. Must to my astonishment, because I thought I was going to get a tardy, we had NO duties. We had just raced 10 miles in less than an hours for what... why for everyone in the LAB to stare at you and say.. "What the heck happened to you? Did you get chased by something???"!

And on to a father stinky dinner of all the bikers. We deterred most people form sitting with us. I think we will be making another, more leisurely trip in tomorrow. It should be quite fun. A nice treat after measuring trees with a crew of people fro HW.

Tonight was slit into many awesome things. First was my LONG talk with Kai and Michelle about our love of different books. They explained to me that "The Princess Bride"  is a must read. Since Kai doesn't like romance like me, and he really loves it, I think I might give it a shot.

Next. On the way down to the LRC. I ran into Zeki, Paige, and Alex. We got into a long an deep conversation about physical contact that Zeki follows as a Muslim. I was quit fascinated and learned a few things. Th first being that he doesn't touch girls at all.

After our little pow wow in the middle of the path we moved on to the stargazing hill. A perfect place to see everything. From there we ran into Dexter (unbeaten chess player) who informed us that he had been beaten by both Kai and Ella and that it was really not his day. Luckily enough for him We had also run into Aaron who had brought his LED poi (glowing balls on strings that you spin on your fingers{and something that I'm learning about}). We had a bit of fun with that before actually getting to the top of the hill. There, Saige, gave a lesson on all the star constellations that she knew while telling us wonderful stories of Greek mythology. After the quick astronomy lesson the conversation started to move to weird dreams that people had had, or weird sleeping/waking experience. Very interesting and hilarious if I do say so myself.

Then after stargazing got to cold, some of us moved down to the football field and star tipped. For those of you who don't know. You look up at the sky, pick a star and start spinning while looking up. Then once you are good and dizzy someone flashes a bright light in your face and you fall over laughing like a crazy person. This is often followed by much stumbling around and running in tilted circles!

Then on to more poi practice by me. I'll definitely have a couple of bruises. But not as many as my great wingmate Mattie (sister of Aaron) apparently had! :O Then on to a quick peak into the boy's apartment to watch the end of Sherlock Holmes, and here I sit. I must get some sleep. Got plenty of time to sleep in tomorrow/today! :D  Peace!

8-22-2012 and a little of 8-23-12

So for not blogging yesterday yall! I got busy studying with my study group, and completely ran out of time. So yesterday, the only new things that I had were my history and english classes. 'm super psyched about both of them. They sound really good.

All of my classes have been really exciting. Well not math, we have been going over HW problems a lot and not learning anything new, but that's ok. Everything should pick up eventually.

My first new class was history. Micheal is super nice, and really relaxed. We went out to the spot where the opening ceremony happened, and read an article about exploration. The spot where we were sitting was so calming and nice, and the lake was absolutely beautiful. There was such a nice breeze, and it wasn't too hot. Basically a perfect class. The assignment was: "What does exploration mean to you?" I'm excited to write about it.

Next was Jeff's class. His opening presentation was quite fun. You walked in and the entire floor was covered in toys. You name it and it was there. The presentation was all about jumping into literature, and enjoying it. So after his presentation about the general overview of the class was over his line was "jump in". We got to sit on the floor and play for 15 minutes! We played some listening games one of which I failed miserably at. it was a word game where you took certain things out of the phrase "The United States Of America". You were supposed to get the word Holland. Lean on your keyboard and that's what I got. >.< After that we went out into the Slyvania forest (which by the way is a certified wilderness) and I sat half in Michigan and half in Wisconsin. Go me! We wrote what we thought wilderness meant to us, and suck the pieces of paper into a drybag, and we are going to go and read them at the end of the semester and see if our views on wilderness have changed.


Needless to say i'm psyched about my classes. I have a lot of math homework and a little science and of course the exploration essay. So I think that the homework load is pretty manageable. My only problem that I'm having is that I don't really know how to use a graphing calculator, so therefore I am trading helping Russ and Kai with Algebra II for graphing calculator instructions. I also think that Molly, Ella , and Rachel will be helping me along the way!

That night I went to the sLAB to study with Ellie for math, but the table we chose got really loud, so I moved to this cubicle thing with Dexter, Kai, Ellie, and Russ. It was a minor improvement, because as soon as we moved the fire alarm went off because Kaia attempted to leave the building through the emergency fire door. :P But I made good headway and am keeping up nicely.

This morning (8-23-2012) was ceramics where we wedged the clay. We are starting off by creating 3 pinch pots to get used to the clay. In addition, we are sketching pottery project ideas. Garret's drawings are a work of art by themselves. It was incredible!

I forgot to mention that yesterday there was a rock wall orientation class. The only weird rule is that you have to wear a helmet if you are climbing, and their belay rules are slightly different but, that was fun. Ton's of people showed up. Many of them having never put a harness on before. I like that people ere are willing to jump right in and try new and foreign things with you.

So that's all that has happened. I might not get another chance to blog till tomorrow because of studying. So stay cool and peace out! :D

8-21-12 first day of classes!

So today was the first day of classes! That's right my first day of high school at a "brick and mortar" school (even though two classes were held outside)! I'm very proud! Woohoo!
So the morning started off with really early kitchen duties! French toast ya'll! I'm definitely eating good if you say that the french toast was whole wheat. It was very tasty. From there I ran all over the LAB (who remembers what that is?) trying to find my online Chinese class of all things. And yes they do mark you tardy if you are 5 minutes late. kind of stinks, but the punishment is cleaning i think. So not too bad. But I don't plan to be late at all this year, but hey I'm human and I know it's gonna happen some time. Poor Zeki plain out missed breakfast cause he slept right through his morning prayer alarm :(

So in Chinese I immediately ran into a road block. First off the program I'm doing.. well it talks to me. Thank you Mr. Lowenstine you funded extra pair of headphone, but I have to say they are quite beat up! Anyways then the next thing I run into is typing in Chinese. I needed to do that immediately so I had to send my computer to tech cause I couldn't get through all their blocks. Consequently I didn't do Chinese 2. I just ended up poking around in the library. Get a short stories book... I really need to recommend "My Family and Other Animals" to the "librarian".

After that I headed to pre-calculus. You have no idea how excited I am about this class. Arjen is going to be giving us a lot of real world math problems that we can do. Hooray for a subject specific semester school :) And of course I get to use a graphing calculator kudos Josh! You are a life saver! I hope I learn quick. :O

After that I was off to ceramics. I'm super excited about this class to, because we are going to learn about glazes, and throw pots, and do sculptures. Needless to say i'm pumped for the class. We are getting out design notebook tomorrow so we can draw up what we want to make. We got to sit around this table that had tons of, mostly pots, sitting around it. Robert (my teacher) had gotten these from all around the world. We spent the entire class period talking about what we wanted to do, and how the pots on the table we made and all the unique styles and how they influenced other artists around the world. All this lovely chatting happened while drinking Chinese green tea out of cups that he had bought or made!

Next on the schedule was lunch. Mire prep for my group. We had mini pizza's on pita bread. That was all good. :)

Next was science class the star class at this school. We went out with Robert (same teacher as the art teacher).We went for a good hilly off road bike ride that was full of rocks and twigs to go and see a logging operation that's going on in campus. It was really cool to learn the whole science behind logging, and how the techniques differ in states all across the US! It was very fascinating. We got to see how one of the pieces of machinery worked. It was alarmingly powerful.

So here's the story about the bikes. I had a bit of bad luck. It was all going fine until BAM! I accidentally had gotten a branch caught in my spokes! well that worried me. Then on the way back I'm puffing up a hill, and I try to lower the gear one sprocket. BANG the chain drops all the way down to one, and I'm suddenly not moving! Well apparently the it did this for any gear you were on. So that wasn't such a fun ride back. At least I didn't ruin my bike like Russ. He managed to bend one of his gear sprockets at about 90 degrees along with busting his brake pads. Or like Zeki who got his pants got stuck in the chain and couldn't move!

 Needless to say science was very fun! I love it! Field study is basically preparing us for the exploration week. Which by the way should be backpacking for me! YAY! :D It was fun also, but by that time we were all exhausted and didn't want to get our PE credit :P

After all of classes I proceeded to follow Ana, Brooke, Ian, and George to their science HW spot. Our homework is to measure trees using estimation and some math. I'll either get Kai or Russ to help me since all the girls paired off. Ahh well. That was followed by swinging on swings with Kaia (different form Kai) and playing with one of the staff's Burnese Mountain dog! :D got my doggie fix for the day. Oliver (the dog) is such a huge puppy!

A delicious dinner followed the fun afternoon. Veggie and mango stew, seasoned potatoes, green beans, and tofu shnitzle. LOVE the cooks here! Round of applause for Judy and Dennis!  

Followed by a super fun evening at the commons which involved talking about licorice, fire spinning complete with demonstration thanks to Kai and a nice demonstration by Ana with this stick thing, but I can't remember what it's called. Followed by over analyzing a painting by Ella which looked quite depressing. Followed by a chat about fingernail lengths and why people take huge pains to paint flowers on their finger nails. Followed by talking about relationships with other people.

And then I got here. And am blogging! Yeah so peace out yall! (That's something EVERYONE here laughs at me about). No worries they still speak funny! Byeee

8/20/2012 woohoo!

So I passed the swim test if you were at all interested! I'm freezing though. Sitting here all bundled up! The lake was quite nasty believe it or not. The detritus was everywhere and got stuck in in my bathing suit.

I have kitchen duty today and for the next week. That means I have to show up for all the meals 15 minutes early to every meal!
So in chronological order here is an outline of my day! :D

Wake up 00 till 6 and go to the LRC with Kaia, Kasey, Russ, Kai, Brian, Colin, and me! I ran a mile.

Then we  we had computer orientation and library orientation. Both of which i was super excited about! Blogging and reading time! Wooohooo!

After the tech orientation we ate. Me and group f people attempted to go to Land O' Lakes. We biked a really fast 4 miles! My bike seat was covered in packing tape and it was super hard. The bike ride was good until we couldn't find the trail. We ended up riding along County B highway and it was quite scary but it was all good. We never found it. :P But it was really fun. Ella wants to bake, so when we go into Rhinelander once a month we will buy stuff.

That is all that happened so far, so I need to go to the kitchen so....

So long for now!

drum roll please...

today's post to come tonight!

8-19-2012 :D

So this day was one of my most favorite-est day! I expect that you will be hearing that from me quite often. So take that with a grain of salt. :P
So here at Conserve Phil (the director of the school) has a running shpeel of puns. No joke he speaks in puns and it's so easy for him! Also another thing that is a huge theme are all the acronyms. The LAB is the Lowenstine Academic Building. The LRC is the Lowenstine Recreation Center. If you have a question about the acronyms please do comment and ask. I'll try and keep up with it. 

So yesterday was filled with tons of different, highly confusing chore and kitchen duty schedules. My brain died, but after that the fun began for real!

After dinner we got to rush off and have tons of fun. First we headed to this giant sports place and I learned enthusiastically, but failed epically (spell check doesn't have that word). It's a lot like football, but you can't move while holding the Frisbee.
  
After that it was on to the LRC. We worked out and played around and took on physical challenges. I got to learn the crazy basic 6 step of break dancing. Watched some of the guys do some quite impressive things on the pull up bars. Dexter the chess master was also a parkour master. If you need an explanation Youtube. Maia had her iPone plugged in and we all sang horribly . That was followed by a conversation about Kai's love of music and our love of certain music. I'm quite impressed. That was also folled by a conversation about mechanical engineering and aeronautics! Aren't we a cool crew.:D

My resolution for this semester: leave all the craziness and drama of Atlanta behind. New page :)

This was decided while contemplating the universe and staring at the stars. I saw the northern lights and shooting stars. We all lay in one giant puddle. I lay across 4 people! Teahelahn, Chase, Andy and Katie! Go us! Go us!

Must go take my swim test! Later dudes and dudettes!:D

8-18-2012

Hello lovely people. sorry for the long wait! I have been swamped and have been without the greatest technology in the world! :D Yes that's right I am now the proud owner of an abnormally wide Conserve School computer! No joke the majority of people agree with me!

This post will be all about my first day.. all posted form the past will be dated for easy reading! Woohoo!

So part 1 on eof 3 for orientation! It was extremely overwhelming. I cleared with all my meds and I am reminded every time I brush my teeth by Maia my wonderful roommate. :) I was health checked, educated on all things conserve and tada!! I was in. After that we had quite different icebreakers which I enjoyed much more than name games to be honest. Dinner was quite a busy affair. I can't tell you what I ate that night but the food is pretty good here. Not home cooking, but good and VERY healthy!

After that I hung out with a wide variety of people and went to a community meeting that involved talking about the main rules and the core values of the school. That was very interesting, but as meetings go, I would have to say it was long.

After that the loveliest opening ceremony. They had candles lining the paths and we walked in complete silence contemplating the universe and thinking about what we hoped for in this upcoming semester. I decided that I wanted to really live everything up to the fullest and not miss  thing. (So far I've managed to do it!).

So basically that was the first day of orienteering! I fell into bed after that after quick phone chats. I LOVE this place! These are the kind of people that I enjoy. From all walks of life looking for generally the same thing.

continue on for the next installment! ;D

the Mythbusters said it all...

I forgot to mention a few things. I am too lazy to retype it but here is a post I made on facebook a little while ago:

So today I saw a girl who had two huge suitcases, and i over heard her talking about shipping boxes to herself at school. I regret not asking her if she was on her way to Conserve School! DX

Regretfully I didn't ask where she was going :( ahh well

The other thing that I wanted to mention was I was watching Mythbusters right before I left. Adam Savage says something about one of their myths that they are about to bust. They had put a ton of prep into setting everything up. He said something along the lines of: "After all this prep and anticipation. It's finally here! It's so close I can almost taste it!"

Well now I'm hours away! I'm closer than tasting I do believe.

It's happening people!!!!

so close :)

Hi everyone! So this is another short warning. I might not blog as much in the upcoming few days because A) I won't have a computer B) because I'm too busy being excited! Wooo hooo!

The flight was good. Departure was sad, but it was so rushed I barely had time to be sad, and besides I'm still super psyched (in case you haven't noticed!). I was in zone 6, and Mama was in zone 7 for the flight and we got totally separated. The plane (we flew AirTran) was SUPER small and narrow. I got some tea to cure a pressure headache and I got dehydrated lemon zest to put in my tea. I have never seen that before, but it was quite nice.

Right now I am at Mother' college room mate's house. Judy is super nice, and I will probably be staying with her for Thnksgiving (unless as she puts it "decide to stay with a galpal :)). I can now check off Minnesota on my list of states that I have been too! I have now moved west of Alabama! :D

We will be busy driving tomorrow and I have nothing to blog with so my apologies! Don't worry my brain will be filled with thinking about pond scum, waders, and Kathy Reichs' (the lady who created BONES the TV show for those of you who are missing out :P) new young adult novel about genetically altered doggies!

I saw a post on the Ormewood doggie park. I miss it already! :/

Oooo before I sign off. The advantage of being 1 hour ahead is super nice, because me waking up 7am my time is like waking up 6am here! :D

Until next time! Wish me safe travels! :)

12 hours till lift off!

WARNING: This is a shorter post due to the fact that lift off happens in almost exactly 12 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm super psyched and I just talked to Coach Charles! Great to talk to you if you are reading this! :D Can't wait to meet Judy, who is gratefully letting me stay with her during the Thanksgiving break (Judy is Mother's old college room-mate).

Today I basically lazed around and packed my suitcase. It's heavier than I thought it would be. I hope that there is someone tall and strong sitting close to us to help me life my suitcase! I repacked it 3 times. I know, I know... ridiculous.

Had an awesome dinner with my family at Doc Chey's, my last pseudo Chinese meal for what could be a VERY long time! Ahh well...

That's all folks. I gotta be bright and chipper by 7:00AM. Not my favorite thing. I used to be a morning person, and then it all fell apart. :P Good night lovely readers! :)

Crunch time :/ (though I'm quite skilled during these times)

Well it's down to the wire now! I have done pretty much everything I have wanted to do befor I leave. My list on the front of the front of my door has more checks than "x"'s. I had my peach smoothie with Laurel in addition to looking at colleges and deciding on her new hair color with her! A day well spent in my mind. In addition, to all of that fun-ness I managed to drive to the post office, library, bank and Value Village safely! Laurel is now in awe of value Village since I found a pair of high heeled boots that fit me perfectly and were only $4.99. Double score (she doesn't normally like thrift stores)!

I've been conversing with my new suite mate Maia Stack. We share a bathroom. I know you college people (and those who have already been)... Conserve is super generous with the space! Though when I roll out of bed I have to be sure not to bang my head on the other side of the room. Just kidding! But it is QUITE narrow!

Still have to cram all of my "under 3oz." liquids into a quart zip lock. That fun will be saved for tomorrow. I also have to pack all the stuff I've been trying to hold out on e.i. chargers, hairbrush, wallet, etc.

I just found out there are big fans of Mythbusters at Conserve :) Plants.. Slime.. Bugs... Animals.. ANNDDDD Mythbusters! My life people :) (hopefully not a true statement).

Must rest for tomorrow's great packing exploits! Thanks for reading!

PS 99 Views everyone. I'm super proud :)

crazy packing

Hello again, people who are reading this screen! Today I had a great evening with Henry, Lynne, Laurel Dana, Eddie, and Pepper (a dog for those of you who don't know!). As a very small bon voyage party! It was a nice treat having cleaned house all day. Cleaning reminded me just how close I am to leaving, and how much I hate airline liquid restrictions! I know some people say 3 oz is super small but you'd be surprised. The only glitch is that it all has to fit in a quart bag, which sadly enough I don't have. I have gallon, pint, snack, and all of the ones in between... just not the quart! :O

After all my procrastination and imaginary lists in my head I have finally made a list of all the random, and possibly strange things that need to be accomplished. Among them if you care to know are: figure out what music I want on my iPod, find quart size zip-lock baggies, pick out clothes for the next 3 days so I can SpaceBag the rest! Hooray for "as seen on TV." Personally I'm super skeptical but thanks to the  glowing recommendations from my friends Ruby and Alex, I have managed to use less boxes (though I do believe they are much heavier).

Word to the wise: don't be a crazy traveler (and don't over think stuff)! Relax! Trust me I know the true horrors thanks to the funny stories I've heard now! :D

Count down: 3 days people! :D

This concludes my post. Please direct your mouses (mousii?) to the upper left hand side of your screen and kindly click the red "X". :)

follow my blog

a side note... please follow me! :)

4 days till lift off!

Hello lovely people! So my mom has a facebook page now! :) I've been busy seeing people and getting last minute stuff sent off to Land O' Lakes which is apparently not in the UPS list of "places" :O Uh oh! Especially since the box was full of pillows and the irreplaceable Donnalynn (aka a duck pillow pet gifted to me by a group of special people). And the guy who was shipping my boxes off to had grown up in Wisconsin and he had never heard of it either! I am seriously downsizing in population I guess. It will definitely be a huge change.

Today I got a lovely bear beanie baby as a going away present. Her given name is Pecan, but I'm not satisfied so in the time not used thinking about how EXCITED I am about Conserve I have been trying to think up a cool creative name. :D

I'm so proud to see a whopping 30 page view to know that someone is actually listening to my craziness. So thank you a million times over.

Just a fun fact for the day. I saw Step Up Revolution today (it was really quite brilliant), but before that I had to tell someone that those crazy fish swimming around in the advertisement were Nemo and Dory! And yes it was a full length movie, yes he should see it, and yes I know that was an advertisement and not the actual movie! People these days!

Until next time... Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming! :)

The count down begins!

Oh wow! 20 views! I'm a proud blogger now! I will hopefully have tons of pictures as soon as I get up there. Last night I went to an ecology class called Exploring Nature With Your Child taught by my favoritest teacher Mr. Al Tate! Had a wonderful time and got to talk to some parents about Conserve School. They were all genuinely interested and maybe I helped inspire a whole new wave of budding ecologists.

So today I am driving 3 boxes over to the UPS people. I keep forgetting I packed certain things and can't get to them now. But hey, it means that Conserve is THAT much closer! In case you hadn't noticed my post is full of exclamation points. I hope it mirrors the fact that I am bursting from excitement! I am friends with a lot of the students of this coming semester on facebook. There are rumblings of good bye parties and bon voyages, but probably the best comment I've seen so far is by Rachel Fisher:

"my dad got a slushie machine for my going away party. he let me bask in my giddy excitement for about an hour before he told me that he would be putting booze in it. good on you, dad."

That should put a little smile on your face :) If you know of anyone who would like to see this blog invite them! I like to see my page views sky rocket :D

Countdown: 5 days till I fly out! :D

PS. I'm not sure how I should title these blogs. What would my lovely audience prefer? leave a comment on your personal preference!

well ello there!

Hey beautiful/awesome people reading this! If you are reading this blog then I most likely facebook messaged you or emailed you about this new blog I created. I am devoting this blog to my semester at Conserve School in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin! I actually applied to this school way back in the summer of 2011! I can't believe that in exactly 7 days I will be flying out of the world's largest airport to leave on one of the biggest adventures so far in my entire life. And low and behold I will be living in one of the smallest places I've ever been so far in my life! I'm excited beyond words, but I'm so not prepared! Can you believe it? Exactly one week and I have one bright orange suitcase (that meets Air Tran's "carry on" standards) and 1.5 boxes packed! Just to give you the scope of how unpacked I really am! There's still so many people to see and things that need to be done!

So here's how this blog will work. I'll start my page by telling you what's up and how I'm doing. The paragraphs could be super long or really short depending on what has been going on so don't freak out! :P At the end of each posting there will be a little medical run down on how I'm feeling. feel free to skim over it. It's for my medical consultants aka my parents! :)

More posts to come! :D