Awkard Amusement Park Moment

Well this is the first SOS I've done in a while. It's good to be back...

This SOS happened just this past week when I went to an amusement park with my family and a family of friends. The family of friends is one that we've known forever and ever.. They have five boys and two girls. The boys ages are 15, 13, 10, 8, and 5. The girls are 4 and 2-ish. So we went to Kings Dominion in VA which was super fun, but also ...(everybody say it with me) awkward. - This word basically describes my life right now-. So anyways, the 15 year old has always been my friend and we get along great together and blah blah blah blah. We went on this roller coaster together (both families were there too!) and decided that we wanted to ride in the same car together. It wasn't ooo la la or anything (i don't think.. unless it was for him.. eww). But when we got to the gate where we had to load into the car, I noticed how the car's seats were laid out. It was shaped like a tabogan (the ride was called Avalanche) and there was one wooden bench in the middle for both passengers to sit on. But there was no division. You step in and there is just a block of wood to share with the person behind you. I say behind you because you have to sit on this like you would a horse. So stradling this wood. **do you see where I'm going with this?**
I took in all of this information in the split second that he is putting himself in the car and I started to silently... hyperventilate. This is wierd. So, he being obviously larger than me sat in the back part of the seat and I sat in front of him. When the safety bar came down, it totally squished me into him in a wierdish AWKWARD way. Both of us with our legs spread apart straddling the wood bench shoved together by the safety bar. AGHHHHH! I could die. Honestly, it was so strange.

As the ride got going, he began talking to me and making me laugh. He was also making funny noises the whole way through the roller coaster. Funny "wooooh" noises and "aahhhh" noises. We were also mocking this poor girl in front of us who was screaming bloody murder. It was histerical.

So I guess my story ends up okay in the end, but awkward still is the word that I would describe that whole entire day with.

Beating the Summer Blues

It seems like during the last weeks of the school year all I ever said and all I ever heard said was "I'll just wait until summer to do that. Then I'll have plenty of time". Oh no. This summer has proved to me how completely filled with things to do our everyday lives are that we hardly have time for the things we said we would do. For essample, going on hikes. Hikes are amazing and I love them a lot. Especially up in the New English part of the US where there's tons of trees, wildlife, and easy trails to follow. I always said that the summertime would be the optimum time to go on such a hike because I could stay out all day and not have to worry about anything. By anything I mean school. So, part of my reasoning was valid... I don't have to worry about school. But it seems like other things keep getting in the way of all of that. Things that I never quite thought of during the school year as "must-dos" now seem to take over. Cleaning the house, for instance, or walking the dog. Or practicing the piano or working in the yard or blah blah blah or duhdee duhdee. I don't know! And then when all of that is done, I get so exhausted and don't want to do anything else for the whole day expect sit in front of the TV with a cold lemonade or something like that. Then I wake up the next morning and decide that I don't want to work super hard and have a repeat of the day before, so I do nothing and end up bored out of my mind.

The vicious circle that haunts us all.

So I have come up with some personal "goals" if you will for how to make sure that I don't waste away my summer, or miss out on it completely:

1. Stay inside for the morning-time hours. My reasoning is I'll be doing household-y chores that won't wear me out, but part of the staying inside will include not being hooked to the TV or anything. I will piano practice or do needle work or something like that.

2. Refer* to my list of things I wish I could do during the school year but never had time to. I think that if I plan out my days then I will have more time than I thought (this is all hypothetical) and hopefully be able to get things done like check the all the fire ladders in the house to see that they're the right length for the windows or reorganize the DVD cabinet or read a classic novel. I think that this will work for me, but if it doesn't, which I totally understand, then I will reevaluate what kinds of things to spend my time on.

3. Hang out with the fam and friends. I'm not very good and contacting people that I know from school over the summer - I don't know why - but I'm just not. So I think that if I just call up one of the girls that I know they would come over and hang out with me. If that doesn't work (which is my fear) then I need to just be with my family and do family things. Last summer we went to this great park all of the time. There was a lake, a playground, tons of little animals running around. I don't know what happened to that place, but it was always a cool place to go.

I will probably be checking my own blog from time to time to see that I remember these ideas that I have. There is a huge chance that this little snip of organizational genius may leave me in an hour, so that's why I wrote it down. You don't have to read it if you don't want to ... It was kind of for me so that I don't forget ... but comment anyways!! Let me know how your summers are going. I want to hear all about 'em.


*Refer is a palindrome.

I AM SO ANGRY!

I don't normally get angry (not like this), but when I do writing it down is my solution. ( I apologize in advance if I offend anyone in my ranting of The Chocolate War. We'll chat later about our opinions on it. Promise.)

Ugh. The source of this body-shaking, mind-boggling, anger is my ever infuriating English teacher. She's an intelligent woman with intelligent things to say, but we're not always on the same page. She has some very different opinions than me, and for those who know me well, I'm always the first one to express mine given the oppurtunity. Anyways, her new book assignment for the next month is a choice between Ayn Rand's Anthem and Robert Cormeir's The Chocolate War. Initially, I picked The Chocolate War (I'm not sure why; probably because my best friend did), but quickly came to learn of the gross content and sick scenes this book harbors. She told us yesterday (after I had made my decision) that this book did have some "disturbing scenes" in it and that it has been banned in other schools.


She also said, "Now I want you all to be mature about this and handle this novel like real adults. Some of the things they mention in here, you should already have learned about in your Health class and your sex education course in Science." I didn't really know what she was referring to (or rather, I tried not to think about what she was referring to), but one of my other friends who had read ahead whispered to me, "That's for sure."



Okay, so this was getting a little bit weird for me. I then raised my hand (if you know me, then you already know what I was going to say) and said, "Mrs. C-----, I'm being very bold here by asking this but, shouldn't you have told us about some of the innapropriate things in here before we made our decision? I think I would have liked to know this yesterday so that I could've made a more educated choice."



I said all of that in that voice that my dad uses all the time to persuade people he's right. That voice that's probably a little too loud and questiones one's authority a little bit too much.


At this point everyone had turned around in their seats and were staring at me - me all alone in the back row - with mixed expressions on their faces. Mrs. C----- looked at me, looked down, looked at the clock (?) and then back to me, suprised that I had made such a comment. She then lashed back with, "Well you hear about all of these things on the bus, at home, on the TV...none of this should be new to you."



Well thank you Mrs. C-----. That is the perfect thing to say in this situation [exclamation point] That totally makes a little Mormon girl with an over-developed sense of superiority feel a lot better.


So then I said to her, "At school and in the halls I have no choice but to hear innapropriate conversation topics and profanity. At home I choose not to watch it on television and choose not to go finding it on the Internet. I also choose not to read it."



Again, all of this in that forceful tone I learned from Prince Charming.



At this point, she was obviously uncomfortable and I was raging - and FREAKED out. I personally couldn't believe I had just told her that and was slightly embarrassed. I also didn't really care just then. She was making me mad. "You can come talk to me after class if you really feel that strongly about it, Alice". I mumbled a "Thanks" but she said under her breath, "I really didn't think anybody would."


I wasn't quite ready to talk to her, so I went back at the end of the day.


I was cooled off (a little) and went up to her desk . She then asked me, brilliant as always, "So what was it that bothered you?" Oh my goodness, Mrs. C-----, where do I start? The bad language? The pornography? Everyone had been talking about it at lunch time, and giggling as they told each other what page to find the such-and-such bad behavior on. I was sickened. I honestly didn't know what to tell her, so I simply asked her for the other book and returned the first. It felt dirty in my hands as I handed it back to her, another tell-tale sign of bad literature. "Are you sure you don't want to give it a chance, Alice? You really can't judge a book before even reading all of it. It really has a wonderful message in it; you have to dig for the deeper meaning." She had a hopeful look on her face, like somehow that worthless comment had changed my mind. Ya right. I shook my head. Wait, wait. There's more.

"Well honey, its probably just where you are in your life right now." She said it in a very final tone, no doubt expecting me to walk out and leave for the day. But really, what in the world was I going to say to that??? Actually, I knew exactly what I was going to say (...'where I am in my life'? I guarantee that I never will be apart of any pre-marital sex EVER and I don't have porn magazines in my room under my bed like the kid in THIS book does. That will never change.), but I didn't, knowing I would just get her and myself more mad.

I was still fuming when I got home, and sat my mom down to tell her everything. She is such a good listener, that woman. She reassured me that I did the right thing, and asked if she should write my teacher an e-mail, agreeing with me. I said no, just that I would apologize the next day. My mom then quoted herself saying, "You know, Alice, 'It's not worth wading through all the muck to get to the good parts'". She had made this comment before concerning a movie, and a time before concerning a friend. I didn't realize how true that statement is until that moment, and I'm grateful for "the spirit...of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," (2 Tim. 1:7-8) that I am blessed with every day.



I think I've finally calmed down. A miracle, writing is.