I Hate Public Pools

Hello Blog Buddies!

I have finally returned after surviving a whole week without electricity due to Hurricane Irene. I hope you enjoyed my last BACTIA posts (thank goodness for Blogger's scheduled posting...), and I'd like to apologize for the fact that, because my power was out and I couldn't update it, my Book Counter has been inaccurate for the last 9 days. Anyway, here is a poem I wrote after I was forced to spend the day at the pool while we waited for our electricity to be restored...

Arriving, toting toys, towels, and coolers.

Seven dollars to bring a friend, what?!

People gaze up from a heat-induced stupor,

Watching us as we search for a seat.

Obnoxious kids splash at our ankles.

Why can't they just leave us alone?

Aromas sting our senses as we spread our towels

On cheap rubber lounge chairs sticky with sweat.

Smells of chlorine

And sunscreen

And crappy snackbar food.

The smells of vanity and overindulgence.

Constant discomfort as we try to tan,

The air is too hot, too humid.

The water is too cold, too crowded.

The feeling that everyone's watching you,

Even if they aren't.

Noticing your every self-conscious flaw.

"When can we leave?"

But we want to be tan.

We've joined in the fad of destroying skin cells.

So we lay there and sweat all our happiness out,

Wasting our freedom, our summer,

And the time we could be spending having fun.

Books Read: 24

I Am a Hopeless Fangirl

Ever since I officially joined Nerdfighteria last summer, I have wanted to go to a Nerdfighter gathering and meet John and Hank Green and see how nerdy they actually are off of the internet. Ever since I started watching Mythbusters back in middle school, I have wanted to watch Adam, Jamie, Kari, Grant, and Tory blow something up in person. Ever since I plunged into the young adult section of my local library and discovered Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, and David Levithan, I have wanted to tell them in real life how brilliant I think their books are.

Whenever I imaging these real-life scenarios, I imagine myself as being calm, cool, and collected, saying something witty and intelligent, impressing those incredible people and actually having them remember me, instead of just belonging to their endless seas of fans. I don't picture myself being clumsy, blushing, squealing, nearly crying, grinning for like three hours straight, and in general just plain embarrassing myself.

However, all of those embarrassing things happened anyway, simply as a result of these:

So I'm prettymuch doomed to embarrassment if I ever do get the chance to meet them. :D

Books Read: 19

I am a Hypocritical Blogger

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the incredible amount of poetry this past month. I had some of the poems sitting around from when I wrote them for Sophomore English Class, and others were just for fun. Either way, I decided to immortalize them here on my famously popular blog XD. I always said that I would never force my readers to read poetry, but then I found my own hypocritical little loophole: Just because the poems are on the blog, that doesn't mean people have to read them. So I posted them anyway.

Secondly, I'm very sorry for my occasional inability to maintain this blog. I used to look at other bloggers who said they'd post soon, and them wait three months, and I'd shake my head in disappointment. I told myself I'd come up with interesting and well-written blog posts all the time, and I'd have some sort of organized schedule by which to post them. Obviously, this has not happened. I also said that I would participate in BEDA, which quickly became BALA, which steadily declined to BACTIA level. Meanwhile, I previously sneered at the people who were '"too lazy to participate", which was extremely hypocritical of me, for which I apologize.

Finally, I fear that once school starts (JUNIORS, YEAH!!!!) I may fall ever farther behind in my blogging, due to my crazy strenuous classes. I'd promise to maintain this blog, but honestly, school, band, and teaching karate are far more important to me, and they come first. I wouldn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep. So here's to erratic and occasional blogging! I hope you enjoyed BACTIA!

Book Counter: 19

I Will Appreciate All of the Things

During one of my lovely long excursions to the River this past month, we had a number of thunderstorms, one of which knocked the power out. At first, I was extremely excited, because I love storms and watching the lightning blaze patterns into the rural sky. However, I then discovered that without electricity, out water pump didn't work, and therefore I couldn't take a shower. This became quite an issue, because I had just learned how to wakeboard that day, and my hair was all knotty and saturated with river water. I also couldn't open the fridge to get something to drink after an exhausting day of near dehydration, because we had no idea when the power would be back on, and we didn't want to let all of the cold air out. Finally, Bubbles the Nerdfighting (almost) iPod (aka my crappy Sansa mp3 player) was dead, and I couldn't waste my flashlight batteries to read and distract myself from my grimy thirstiness and sore muscles. Honestly, the electricity could not have picked a worse time to stop working.

Oh, and did I mention, it was SUPER HOT that day, which quickly became awful without air conditioning?

As I was laying on my floor, pretending I was cool, clean, and hydrated, it struck me how ridiculous my situation was. People survived for hundreds of years before me without electricity, and they were able to make do! The Amish voluntarily go without it, even today, and they are totally fine! And yet, I was struggling to make it through one measly night.

I also realized that having our modern world rely on something so easily damaged or lost is a rather stupid idea. Why are we so reliant on electricity, and so helpless when it is taken away? Why don't we have some form of back-up, besides environment-harming generators that run on gasoline? Wind-energy? Hydro-electric power? Anything?

Once the power flickered back to life around the middle of the next day, I was quite frazzled and running out of coping ideas. I immediately took a shower, turned on my fan, laid under the air-vent, turned on my light, and read a book. I definitely appreciated electricity more after having to survive without it for 15 hours. 

The same thing happened after our water pump burst in the garage. There were several times I tried to turn on the sink out of habit, and nothing came out of the faucet, which was both depressing and irritating. I never really realized how many times a day I used running water until I had to try and cope without it. And once again, I appreciated it more once it came back on.

I feel like the same thing will happen to all of us once summer jerks to a halt and we are all thrown back into the harsh school schedule. We may feel bored now, and we may miss our friends, but we have a certain blissful freedom now that you just don't have during the school year. And we don't take advantage of it after about the first week of summer, because we forget to appreciate not being stuck in a bland cinderblock room all the time. All of these occurrences make me wonder, why don't we appreciate things all the time, instead of only after we've lost them? This is my new goal. Don't take things for granted, and take advantage of the time and opportunities I have.

Books Read: 19

Who I Am

I am still crisp autumn leaves,

I’m sketchpads, novels, and Youtube.

I am still the sand on the riverside,

Mixed tan and gray,

Perfect for tanning and reading with Britt.

Now I am driving the boat

With my whole entire family

Watching a unique sunset every evening.

I am Lean Pockets and spaghetti,

Ghost Adventures and Mythbusters.

My room is my own small safe haven,

And Grace’s is a regular hangout.

We chill out whenever we can.

I am nerdfighting and wheat, ham, and swiss,

Trying to sing with my friends is a blast.

I am an artist with gels pens and pencils.

I like to read books that are fiction,

Things from other times and ways of life.

Bella and Edward’s forbidden romance,

Harry Potter’s Firebolt and his fight

With Lord Voldemort.

John Green’s Alaska makes friends with a dork,

And Katniss Everdeen survived the Hunger Games.

She made me want to save the world.

I am chemistry, karate, and band class,

Driver’s Ed, though I’m scared to drive.

I go to the mall with my friend after school,

Shopping for clothes and music

And wandering in circles.

I like to play fetch with my cat, her name’s Leia.

She sits on my lap and purrs like crazy.

I love her like she is my very own sister.

The most important thing in my life

Is my friends and family, and

Of course my schoolwork and band.

Stress levels are high, but life is still good,

I love being the person I am.

But I’m still growing up,

I’m still making memories.

Where I’m from is who I am.

Books Read: 19

Where I Come From

I am from crisp autumn leaves,          

From stuffed animals, hopscotch, and Waldo.

I am from the sand on the riverside,              

Mixed tan and gray,               

Perfect for sand-cakes and pies.        

I am from riding the golf-cart            

With my cousins, toting our buckets              

And shovels to the beach every summer.       

 I am from goldfish and pizza crust,

From Blue’s Clues and Winnie the Pooh.

The basement was always my playhouse,

And Meredith’s house was a second home.

We played together every day.

I am from dress-up and PB&J,

Hide-and-go-Seek and tag were my favorites.

I was an artist with sidewalk chalk.

I used to read books to my Build-a-Bears,

I wanted to be a librarian later in life.

Junie B. Jones and her zany adventures,

The Bauldelaire Orphans and their flight

from Count Olaf.

Eric Carle’s Brown Bear made friends with a Red Bird

And the Boxcar Children survived in the wild.

They made me want to go camping.

I am from recess and music and art,

From chorus, though I couldn’t sing.

I played PS1 with my friend after school,

Flaming Riptocs and Gnorcs with

A purple dragon named Spyro.

I used to play Neopets on my computer,

I bought them all toys and fed them each day.

I loved them as if they were really my pets.

The most important thing in my life

Was my friends, and whether we could

Go outside for recess and play.

Nothing was stressful or boring or sad

And school was just another fun thing.

But now I am grown up,

All those memories are past.

My life is different now.

Books Read: 19

I Don't Understand

I don't understand

why being weird is seen as a bad thing.

why opportunities are given, and people pass them up.

why we are expected to outgrow the things we once loved.

But most of all

why people fail to appreciate the beauty in life.

why people are afraid to express who they are.
why promises are made, but then always broken.

What I do understand is

why people wish to know the unknown.

why friends gather to celebrate their individuality.

why those who are less fortunate appreciate what they have.

Books Read: 19