10-4-2012 I miss the radio!

This morning when I woke up was one of the first days that it hasn't been absolutely gorgeous. It's truly fall. The leaves are blowing all over the place, the sky is a grey-ish blue, and I'm wearing a jacket. It's sad to see the beautiful colors fall from the trees, but there's no stopping it. Thinking with the glass half full, we now have  leaf piles to jump in!

This morning I threw for the first time in about 6 years. Turns out I had forgotten everything, but I really like the challenge. It definitely takes practice! I can center pretty well, but pulling the walls up is another story. Hopefully I can get my mug and center piece for my place setting thrown satisfactorily by Thanksgiving. The glazed pieces come out of the kiln tonight, and my favorite piece i in there. I'm scared to see whether the hairline cracks caused the piece to break. If it didn't my pushing my luck paid off, if not I still have my back up bowl.

I really like how here at conserve, all of the teachers and administrators can have really relaxed conversations with the students. They talk TO us not down to us. They tell us stories about their lives and what they have learned. We eat, laugh, and learn together.

Last night, as you all know was the presidential debate. It was refreshing to hear teenagers talking politics and how well they thought the candidates did. There was a water drinking game going on too though. There was an official sheet, and every time the candidates did certain things you had to drink a certain amount of water. I think that a lot of people were going to the bathroom last night. The debate was, in fact, optional is you didn't want/need to participate in study hours. 

In history Michael played us an NPR news report. Oh how I miss not waking up to NPR :( I miss radio in general, but mainly the news. The voices were really welcome and comforting, and since the report was about music it was even more welcome. I think that I shocked Michael by asking him what he thought the lifespan on the 8 tracks were. My whole class turned around and looked at me like I was a freak. Zeki and I were the only two people who owned record players. More looks... I, however am proud that I have an extensive music background! :) Thanks Mama and Mother!

I am currently in a musical war with Aaron. He is trying to come up with artists and music that I have never heard of before, but the trick is that if I come up with an artist he doesn't know, the point he got for tripping me up gets cancelled out. So far he is up by one. I have discovered the Piano Guys on Youtube because of him, and I now listen to them on Pandora! :D Check them out if you like the cello and lots of pianos!

PEACE!

10-3-2012 *sigh*

Well I obviously made it through all of yesterday! It was crazy. The value of the week is trust, and someone mentioned that they saw an example of trust when we trusted who ever was at the front of our cohort to know which class we were supposed to go to. I felt a bit like a sheep yesterday, but it was nice. I like having ceramics everyday this week.

Last night Maia was telling me about some of instances that she had learned about from the previous CS alumni, and why they led to the rules about knives, close toes water shoes, mattresses on desks, decorations,  etc. I don't mind the other rules, but I wish we were allowed to have Leathermans and other smaller knives.

I'm sure there are going to be new rules about bike jumps and a where/when  we can go for walks in the mornings from our semester. Hopefully nothing else though!

On top of all of the classes last night we also had a house meeting complete with this really gooey, but tasty pumpkin spice stuff and chores. It's funny how we are almost to the half way point in the samester, but we all still ask each other when check ins are, and which classes we are supposed to be in.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLYN! HOPE YOU HAD AN AWESOME DAY O YOUR DAY OF BIRTH ON THIS DAY OF THE 3RD OF OCTOBER!

Well it looks like all of my Friday dinner plans with Maeve have worked out and all of the Thanksgiving plans worked out with the Yates'! I'm so excited! :D Mattie have yet another similarity. We were both competitive swimmers! :D

10-3-2012 so let the day begin

54 views yesterday! Did I really tell that many people to view my blog? I can't believe it! Not much to say at the beginning of the of the day, but this week Conserve is supposed to get all the different types of weather, rain, thunderstorms, sun, wind, cold, hot, and that's right ya'll there a possibility of SNOW! It's only supposed to be about 30 degrees F on Friday! Shorts weather for sure! :P Nothing very exciting except for the fact that ALL of y classes are today...

SO LET THE DAY BEGIN!

PS pictures of me doing LED poi will be up soon-ish kudos Kaia.

10-2-2012 lots and lots!

Today has brought family just a tad closer for everyone here. There are definitely mixed feelings here. Some people can't wait to see their parents and siblings and others are not looking forward to it. Why I'm not sure. All the others who's parents aren't going to be attending are excited to meet each others families We have all had lots of time to talk about our home lives and siblings. I'm excited to meet everyone's siblings for sure! On Friday night the Yates' and I are going to eat dinner with Maeve's family! I'm excited to meet them because of all of the crazy stories that I have heard about them! I wish my family could come up ad meet everyone! I fell like Yi-Shan would be incredibly popular instantly.

On Saturday night there is supposed to be a talent show to show the parents what all of us can do. Maia has arranged a group performance of "Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show. Mattie, Maeve, and I are reading a poem I wrote. Kai is performing fire poi, and there are some rumblings that Kai, Aaron, Mattie, and I may join together and do a full flag+LED+fire poi demonstration. Dexter is going to do do a choreographed LARPing/fencing show. Ellie and Saige and Aaron are doing some awesomely talented guitar+vocals+flute performance. Kaia and Rachel are performing "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz! I'm excited for all of it, and I hope that everything gets recorded! :D

Tomorrow's schedule is going to be crazy! I have EVERY, I REPEAT EVERY class tomorrow in preparation for parent weekend. It's going to be crazy and confusing for sure!

My handwriting analysis of Lewis is slowly coming along, but I am quickly realizing that he hid his true emotions, and they were never reflected in his writing.

In history today we went out onto Little Don and row boated around. I discovered that it takes skill to go in a perfectly straight line for an extended period of time. Genna, Molly, Ana, and I weaved all over the lake!

We have begun to read "Into the Wild" by John Krakaur! I'm so excited. And I just learned he went to Emory University! Home sweet home! Makes me want to run away with my two other M's into the mountains and go backpacking. There also needs to be a blue station wagon.

Another night of nutella!

Birthday present from Laurel and Alex and Courtney

THANKS FOR ALL THE AWESOME PIECES OF BIRTHDAY COOLNESS! EVERYONE LOOKED AT THE SEEMINGLY RANDOM PRESENTS AND HAD TO EXPLAIN SOME OF THE REASONS WHY I HAD DOUBLE STUFF OREOS AND JOLLY RANCHERS!

10-1-2012 how time flies!

So according to the normal public-schooler, Mondays are not an appreciated day. It means the coming of homework, sitting in a classroom, and a monotonous routine. To me the Mondays bring everyone back on campus, awesome classes and homework in a hammock! I have come to the conclusion that Mondays and Tuesdays are my favorite school days and Friday nights are my favorite parts of the weekend. Today flew by in a whirlwind of autumn leaves and relaxation. The morning started out with Chinese where all the words are themed along emotions. I'm excited to learn the new ways to express feelings. On to pre-caculus which breezed right through. On to ceramics which involved spending an hour and a half sifting through the rocky red clay from Georgia. Aaron had even more dirt than I did, but then again he had a larger sieve. We only got a couple of inches out of all the dirt and it's sooo time consuming, but I'm excited to see what the glaze looks like! Lunch was a tasty affair, and then to science where we did one of my most favorite-est things. Mucking around in Little Don with waders on identifying invertebrates. I was so proud that I knew some of them already! :D We also did water sampling which I have also done at home, but I enjoyed it never the less. I felt right at home in the lab. Thanks Andy!

Field instruction was the star of the show today however. We got to help with the school bees for half the class and do archery for the second part! I am not scared of being stung by a bee,but of course it's not enjoyable. I think that some in our group were right at home while others were a littler nervous, but by the end of the session everyone was comfortable. If you stuck your glove into the hive, and scooped up a bunch of the bees you could feel the buzzing. The noise became a feeling and not just a sounds. It was a very interesting sensation. I really want to work more with the bees. Wish we had some at home! It would be a really cool project! The archery was very rusty for me too. i had never really learned about dominant eyes before,but I apparently have a VERY dominant left eye which is uncommon for a right-handed person. The problem was that even when I lined myself up with the 3rd target I still managed to hit close to the center of the 4th target! I even popped a balloon that they had set up for us. Just not mine! It was a nice surprise, but George was so confused as how I was able to pull off such a feet!

Quick shout out to Reilly who's 17th birthday was today! :D

The afternoon was spent doing homework outside. I'm doing a handwriting analysis of M. Lewis! I'm excited, but I'm quickly finding out that his writing patterns hide certain known facts about him! The rest of the night was on the swings with Dexter and Mattie. Oh how I love conversations about the complications of life.

The main even of the night was that of Kai's fire poi. The original plan was to give a private show to the admin could decide whether it was safe, but he did it in the commons. I am in awe of him now along with the fact that my fascination of fire had increased by 10000x times! Good on you Kai for awesome skills!

9-30-2012 Northern Lights! What a way to end September!

Well last night was highly eventful! When we first arrived, we were warned that Conserve follows the weather and they will wake us up, if there is something going on in the wee hours of the morning. Well last night during study hours there was a sudden commotion! Yells and screams! Mattie thought it was a fight, and i thought there was a fire. Nope! It was the NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!!! Can you believe it? Here's some pictures that our resident English teacher Jeff took with his fancy camera!

It was amazing! We couldn't see the bright green with our lowly human eyes, but we could see the haze in the sky.