Wicked pumped!! :)

Last week the teachers came to us during committee time asking if we could find a solution (hence our name) to a problem. They knew most kids wouldn't be coming to school on the last day before vacation and were wondering if we could think of a way to motivate kids to come.

As Solutions, we decided that tomorrow we'd have a half day, party a little, then play laser tag.

Having power = Win

I'm pumped, AND tomorrow morning Jessie and co. arrive in Maine! I'm so excited to see her!!! And of course my wonderful brother-in-law and nieces. :) :) :)

Jessie has laryngitis right now. Regardless, I talked to her more today than I have in a loooong time.

Today I realized something when I was sleeping on the couch (there's one that's horrible for sitting but purely excellent for sleeping). Chris, the new junior, and Rhiannon are similar. They're both very flirtatious people, and when they hold you everything fits together, even in the spaces between fingers.

I kinda wish Rhiannon wouldn't be, though. :/ haha but good for her, it's some kind of born talent, I guess, to make anyone feel comfortable just by touching them.

It's so wicked cooool, but I kinda wonder if it would work for her if her prey was taller than 5' 2". Those charts we used in middle school lied, it said I'd grow to at least 5' 5". Oh well, being short is awesome. You can always get kid's menus at restaurants, and we all know that's where the good stuff is anyway.

I...didn't get enough sleep last night. It's the Monday Syndrome, where everything throughout the day is funny because you're hysterical and nothing makes sense. Hopefully I'll be normal tomorrow, I'll need energy for running away from the merciless, laser tagging boys of TNS.

Oh God I'm in trouble! How did I not see it before? I'm so screwed. I'll hit someone, apologize, get shot, and just hide behind the employees only door until the coast is clear. Then I'll still get shot.

But that's okay because it's gonna be a blast! For the yankee swap I got one of those bank pens, you know the kind that have the chain attached? Because it's so annoying when someone's swiped the pen...like really where could it have gone? It's on a frickin' chain!

We finished The Botany of Desire in food class. It's wicked good! I highly recommend you guys go see it. :) In Public Policy we started the movie Thank You For Smoking. It's really interesting. In Creative Writing my group taught the class about character and devised a fun activity to do, I have no idea how we took up the whole block.

As you can see, the teachers have given up teaching for the week. haha

I gots to go make cookies for da cookie swap. They shall be vegan, gluten-free, and have a subtle hint of banana.

Sleep is needed. Please and thank you. :)

Yesterday...

School on Friday was awesome, I had lots of fun and learned some stuffs.

In Food class we tasted sugar water and then soda and juice and vitamin water, and we were all laughing about how confusing the set up was and being hyper. It was a blast.

In Public Policy we're still talking about the health care bill, and I worked on a mini presentation for the class. I felt pretty good when I found two different maps that could show the correlation to red/blue states and the percentage of population in a state that is uninsured. I felt productive, a rare event for me.

During lunch me, Gordy, and Noah were talking about video game theme songs, and Gordy said his all time favorite song was from a game called Duck Tales, and he played this dainty little tune that had us all in tears. It was so funny. :)

In Robotics I was paired up with two of my favorite TNS students, Cody and Landon. We decided they were going to wear kilts at the Robotics competition, and we learned Ross (the teacher) is all for it. I'm so excited! I've heard the couple months in between kick-off (when the teams find out what the game for the competition will be) and the competition are wicked intense. They sometimes have sleepovers at the school and get almost no sleep so they can finish the robot in time.

Something that made me smile was when Will was describing the party that they have every year, and he couldn't stop talking about all the activities. Josh then said "He doesn't even mention the socializing aspect," (that's a big word for Josh haha) and Ross said "Alright, I'll give you the jist of it. Basically it's all ugly, nerdy guys, and for some reason only attractive girls join Robotics--" Rhiannon cut him off with a "Whoo!" and Gordy said "Amen to that!" haha

We didn't have ASL because Roland was sick, so me and Will crashed the World Religions class because we noticed the oreos on the table. We took a "quiz"on Judaism that almost everyone failed, because no one brought their notes to class that they were able to use on it. Harry, the Jewish kid, got a couple wrong. I don't quite understand how that's possible, James would totally school this kid. :P I got the one about the Torrah and Kabbalah right, Gordy (who's in the class) was trying to copy off me and Will, forgetting that we don't even take World Religions. haha afterwards we ate cookies and everyone else got to try this traditional Jewish food that Jade made (I couldn't, it wasn't gluten-free :[ )

Harry lit the Menorah and taught us how to play with a dradle. It's like gambling. I totally kicked their butooties in the first game! It was fun. I had a great day at school. But then afterwards...

Every year we have s girl scout Christmas party. I despise them. I don't particularly like large crowds of people who all know each other and don't try to include me at all. I hate how immature the girls are with their petty problems and ignorant points of view. But something I really dislike is the conventionalism.

We were upstairs in a bedroom hiding from Mike (because they still think hiding from their guests is funny) and one girl said "Oh my God guys let me show you the freaky-est video ever," and goes on youtube to type in "bad romance". It starts to play, and I accidentally said "I love this video!".

This was such a poor decision.

This girl continues to berate the video, harass Lady GaGa and attack my point of view. (which remarks like "This is so weird!", "She's permanently messed up," and "How can you like this, Sara??")

Lady GaGa is one of my idols. She's artistic, beautiful, and different. I feel like I can relate to her, because she's said that she didn't fit in during her high school years, and I felt the same way when I was at my old school.

Then this girl plays Single Ladies, one of my least favorite songs, and begins to praise how gorgeous Beyonce is, and how amazing the choreography is.

I cried last night for an hour.

I haven't cried for months, besides when I was reading or watching a movie.

I really don't know many people who are bad. I feel like this girl can change, but it's going to take a long time and a lot of hurt.

Later in the night this girl was getting a phone call from a boy she was leading on but didn't like. After she rejected him heartlessly in a horribly short phone call (she was gone for about twenty seconds) she said "Rejecting guys is like a sport now, I'm so good at it!"

She also told us all the guys her best friend has slept with, including two others that "no one knows, so don't tell anybody."

I left the party early with dad, we both hate these kind of social obligations. I started crying when I got home. Fortunately we had some vegan, gluten-free leftover pizza and a Seinfeld to make me feel better. Dad helped me a lot, too.

I'm sorry I've been busy so much lately. I've put more of a priority into learning this year, and this research paper is taking a lot out of me. I'm really sorry if I've hurt any of you guys, because lately I've felt like a huge jerk, but it's very hard for me to do a good job learning unless I isolate myself from things I want to do, like hang out with the people I love. I want you to know that every time I say "Sorry I can't come, I'm exhausted" or "I really wish I could be there", I mean it, and I miss you sooo much, but I have to stick to my guns. I get tired earlier, because I put more effort into things in my life that never used to be there, like going to the gym, taking care of/house-breaking the puppies, cleaning and volunteering with TNS, and trying to spend more time with my parents.

I want to make sure my parents know I love them. They do so much for me, have made so many sacrifices, that I feel obligated to take time out of my day to tell them about my life more than I have in the past. We now have dinner together every night and occasionally play a board game together. Seeing my parents not arguing with each other is a wonderful feeling, I really appreciate everything they're doing.

Sorry this was partly depressing, I try not spread this type of emotion, because you guys certainly don't deserve to be around it, but my experience last night really made me feel so thankful to have friends like you guys that I had to tell you. Thanks for everything, you really mean a lot to me.

I'm typing on a psychic's computer. Mom's having a reading, which has gone way into my session, but that's a good thing. It gave me time to write. :) It sounds like it's wrapping up...We're going xmas shopping after we're done here. Jessie and co. are coming in a couple weeks!!!

Happy Hanukkah, James! Love you guys!

Sara

Session dos funnies

New session, new classes.

Oh my Gooooood

My first block was "Food Wonderful Food", taught by Marylyn.

I was laughing for a good 3/4 of the class, which was not a good thing Everything was just so funny, plus I couldn't take Marylyn seriously after she said "Remember, garbage doesn't go in the trash."

She's nuts, and I love her, but I felt guilty that I was laughing so much. I found a fly's wing connected to his abdomen and started pushing it around the table with my pencil, then Nick gave me an intact, dead fly and we started playing with them, all while Marylyn was reading "a page" from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (she ended up reading the entire chapter).

Then Marylyn asked us what we thought of when she said the word "food", and to her surprise the only things we thought of were various types of food. She was shocked at how little imagination we had, but what were we supposed to think? It was the first block of the day, on a Monday! What could she expect?

Tomorrow I think I might try the Odysseys class instead, because I felt bad at how much my end of the table was laughing during our food class. We made some goodies at the end, though, that was oodles of fun. I love cooking, especially when there's no meat involved. :)

Then Public Policy, I'm so glad that class is continuing! We talked about the health care bill, and watched C-Span for a little while (live broadcasts of the House and Senate related stuffs). One Republican form Wyoming just could not stop saying the phrase "fraud and abuse". He must have said it at least twenty times in the couple minutes he was talking.

Lunch was hilarious! Too bad Gordy had to leave to go to court. :( We were talking about weird/hilarious names, I happened to mention the member of Travis's Mormon church named Dick Eaton. Then Rhiannon was talking about a dog named "Stay", and how all the commands contradicted themselves. "Come here, Stay!" Noah then said to name your dog "Stain" so you could say "Come, Stain!" whenever you wanted to. haha it was great :)

Singing...it was just me and Landon (plus the teacher). It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I'm kind of obligated to continue with it since there are so few kids. If I bail, that means Landon'll probably have to as well. Regardless, I'm going to check out creative writing on Thursday. The class is huge, it's got ten kids, and only two of them are girls. (That's absolutely massive for our school. haha)

Solutions was just nap time, since we didn't have any cases and I did the work a few weeks ago. After I woke up, we saw this guy wearing a kilt and biking with a Burly Rou (I don't know what else to call it, those bike attachments kids ride in) with a lady behind him doing the same thing. It was so epic, then Landon told Zeb to chase after him on his longboard and ask him why he's wearing a kilt. Zeb said "I will if someone else does!", and we got all excited before Christine and Nathan interjected their views on how mean that would be. Zeb continued to dig a hole by saying "We were just going to welcome him into the school. 'Hey, you're a freak, just like us!' "

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, I asked Ross if I could join the Robotics team (which happens during my free block), and even though Landon's told me repeatedly that he wishes to switch out because they never get anything done, I'd rather be in the class goofing off than goofing off by myself. Plus they got the $5,000 grant, so they're allowed to go to the Regional Robotics Competition. They just gotta raise money for room and board and they'll be golden...and they quite possibly might have to build a robot. I don't know if they're allowed to use the one from last year...

During Committee time, Connor asked us if we would be offended if we celebrated Christmas at the school. Haley said "Yeah, I'm a Gebovah...what are those people called?"

Rhiannon: A Jehovah's Witness?

Haley: Yeah, I'm a Joho, and I'd be offended if we celebrated Christmas!

Connor: Do you know any religions that would be offended?

Haley: Uh, Christian-ism? Beats the hell out of me!

Rhiannon: Of course she picks the only religion that--wait did she just say Christian-ism?

Connor: We're so ignorant.

Cody: This really doesn't surprise me.

Ahh, the holidays are so close. Hugs and kisses everyone! Love you guys. :)

Sara

Mah first LEAP night! :)

I was at the school for eleven and a half hours straight today. That's almost half the day! I got there early (8:30) because I was one of the four kids who figured out who was presenting where (or as Coalton would say "where they were presentatin'!") for LEAP night. Landon decided I'd be good in the common room with Jade, Joey, and Nick. They're three of my favorite people in the school, so that was wonderful! It was such a dilemma trying to figure out where to put Connor, he would complain no matter where we put him because he's just so pessimistic, so we stuck him with Dillon (who's grateful for anyone), Zeb (who's learned to just deal with him), and Noah (because there wasn't any room left for him...)

Since we did feedback teams before it started, we actually got out an hour early. I got to show Alienor around the school and introduce her to some peeps. Thanks for coming, Ali-chan!!

I spent about six hours getting everything ready for my presentation, from making a portfolio to sorting through papers to writing a personal statement that everyone was confused about. Even though it was a lot of work, today was so much fun! I got to talk to lots of people for most of the day, but the main four were Will, Zeb, Nick, and Gordy. They're really cool people. :) Today was just such a blast!

On Sundays the church uses our school, and sometimes they leave their stuff lying around accidentally. There was a bible on the table today with really thin pages outlined in gold, and Zeb said "This is sick! I want this, well actually I just want the pages. They're so thin, you can role them up easy and they burn real slow..." He said he wanted to steal the bible. I thought that was funny in an ironic, kind of messed up way.

I read an essay that I wrote about the time Sophie saved my life. Some people came up to me afterwards and told me I did a good job, even though I know I'm a horrible public speaker. It was so nerve-wracking! There were at least fifty people in the audience, but it's a lot easier when they're your friends instead of just your classmates.

Joey had her boyfriend read her pick-up lines review, it was hilarious the way Cody presented it. It was supposed to be coming from a girl's point of view, and Cody's just a really funny guy in general. Speaking of which, just a few more days of cleaning the kitchen!!

And with LEAP night (btw that stands for Learning by Exhibition and Performance) marks the end of session 1. Tomorrow we'll be writing our narratives and on Friday we'll be working on our portfolios. Since we stayed so long at school today (even though it was mostly just us having fun) we get to start school at 10 tomorrow and Friday is a half day. And then session 2 starts on Monday!! The year is going by so fast...

Does it not feel like December to anyone else? Maybe it's the whole "no snow" thing.

Blargh (I need sleep)

I finished my nature writing project. At 2:30 in the morning.

I didn't even start on the 8-12 research paper that was due today, but luckily only two people did. I was way too tired to think about doing homework, so I decided I'll do the paper for next week.

Despite my exhaustion, today was a good day. In Ecology me and Jade finished our projects, in Public Policy we watched the first hour of Sicko (it's sooo good), and in Nature Writing we presented our projects. Absolutely one of my favorite lines by Ralph Waldo Emerson is "All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle."

Then Solutions went really well. We addressed two cases, one of them being anonymous about Coalton's sexual comments making people uncomfortable and it was such a mystery to not know who sent it in!

Then we brought in some kids that we talked to a couple weeks ago and apologized for the way we spoke to them. (Even though it was really only Rhiannon's fault, she just let her personal opinions slip out) So I smile at them, and Cody walks over to me and starts rubbing my head and neck/back while Nathan the teacher is lecturing about being positive. It was so weird, it went on for a few minutes while his girlfriend just stared at him. It was really funny in retrospect, but at the time I didn't know how to react, especially after they left and Landon asked "So did anybody else just see that creeper move?" haha

LEAP night is this Wednesday! It's from 6:00-8:30/9:00-ish. Anyone is welcome to come, it's like an open house combined with student presentations to show what we've learned this session, since we don't have midterms and finals. I have classes tomorrow, and then the rest of this week is preparing for LEAP night, doing narratives and portfolios, and signing up for the next session's classes, because Monday is the start of the new session. (Which means I won't have to clean the kitchen anymore!!!)

If you guys come to LEAP night I can show you who everyone is and you'll finally have a name to a face when I mention them! It'd be great if you guys wanted to check it out, even if only for a few minutes, but I'm not forcing you into anything. However if you do come I'll make you scrumptious cookies. And cake.

And I'll recite the Shoes song from memory and dedicate it to you.

(Pwease?)

Lots of love,

Sara

Thanksgivin'!

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=111529

That's totes my school! Zach's a little slow, so we were all very pleasantly surprised he did such a great job being interviewed. Marylyn toned down her craziness for the camera, and Coalton wasn't nearly as ADHD as usual.

Today was fabulous, and it was a real treat to see so much of the family. Since the feud started I didn't think I'd ever see Amy (my almost 40-year-old cousin) set foot in this house, and then due to recent events involving my estranged, deceased grandfather's will, I thought we'd stay a broken family forever.

But what really amazed me was seeing my parents sitting next to each other at the table. They didn't even argue a whole lot. I don't think anybody noticed (maybe you did Alienor) but I cried a little bit. I couldn't believe how happy everyone was. The holiday gave us all an excuse to let our guards down and be joyful. To love and be loved in return.

My mom's family is certainly one of the most dysfunctional families I could ever dream of. It was astounding to see my parents, uncles, aunt, cousin, and second cousins sitting around the dining table talking as if nothing was wrong and forgetting about all their hatred for each other, if only for one night.

This is why I want to give thanks, because to experience this coming together is more valuable than any amount of food could possibly be worth. I'm not sure who to thank, though, it was really an effort on everybody's part.

Travis and Cathy stopped by after dinner. I hadn't seen him in months, and reminiscing with him and Alienor for what seemed like ten minutes turned out to be five hours. It was fantastic, I loved every second of it.

I really value all of the wonderful people in my life. Everyone is so special, I don't know what I did to deserve such a great group of friends and family. I think right now is a good point in my life. I'm healthy, I'm learning, and I'm happy. And hopefully I'm making others happy, too.

Happy Thanksgiving guys! Only a few weeks until Christmas. Jessie and co. are gonna try to make it up here for xmas. When are we gonna get snow? We can't have peeps from South Carolina fly all the way up here and not get to see snow...

Love and light,

Sara

Giving Back Days

This is what I've been doing for the past two days.

We winterized houses of low income, disabled, or elderly families. We insulated outlets and wrapped plastic over the windows (which took a surprising amount of work).

Insulating the outlets only takes a few minutes. You just take the screw and the metal plate out, put in an insulating foam mold, put the plate back on and put the screw back in. But the windows...holy crap.

We start by priming the wood with alcohol swabs. Then we put a double-sided adhesive strip on each side of the window. We let that sit for about ten minutes while we make sure we have enough plastic. After it's been sitting for a while, we would attach the plastic sheet to all sides of the window, pulling it as taut as we could. Then we had to take a hairdryer (but sometimes we got a heat gun :P) and use the heat to shrink the plastic to get rid of the ripples. For the final step we would cut the excess trim off the plastic, and the window would have an invisible layer of plastic to help keep heat inside the house.

Sara accidentally melted a couple holes in one of the plastic sheets at the first house. We had to do it over, so we spent about three and a half hours there. We did three windows because the little old lady, probably about 4' 7", wouldn't let us in to most of her house ("don't go in the bedroom, the cat's sleeping there. Oh, you don't need to go into the attic, it's really cluttered. Why on Earth would you need to go into the bathroom???")

The second house we went to was owned by another old woman. The place only took about an hour, and the newspaper interviewed us while we were there. Today channel 6 news recorded Coalton breaking a window while Marylyn was babbling on being Marylyn. For some reason Coalton thought glass could bend...

Yesterday went really well, but today was an absolute joke. We took two cars so we could all go to Wells. The lady there ended up having a really big house, and the only thing she needed was a hot water blanket. That took Connor and Will ten minutes to tape on and we were done. She didn't even need that much help, by the looks of her finished basement she could have just hired someone. Three of us didn't do anything while we were there.

Then we went back to TNS, had a short break, and found out Wallingford Farm needed all their windows done.

No one even lives there! They don't use heat in that part of the building, what's the point of insulating a building they just use to store all their old junk??

After half an hour of pretending we could do something there, me and Sara decided to drive back to the school and find an excuse for staying there. Gordy, Rhiannon, and Joey moseyed on back as well, and we decided it was time for a lunch break. At 11:15.

At 12 our adult supervisor told us he'd rather stay home than work, so we had to merge with another group. Zach had to drive us, and he was worried because his 6 months would be up in two weeks, but after some persuasion he said it was alright. I got shotgun :P

We went to another little old lady's house, and she only had three windows to do. For the first time that day I touched one of the supplies and did about five minutes worth of work. I felt bad for not helping more, but there were just so many people there and not enough space to work in. Zach, Will and I decided to go to Kennebunk Glass (which I didn't know existed before today) to replace the window that Coalton broke. Then Zach drove us really far to a house bombarded with teenagers.

The neighbor almost called the cops because there were so many of us, but after just staring out her window for ten minutes and being persuaded by us that we were alright, she put the phone down and took a nap.

I didn't even go in the house. Connor, Sara, Will and I just stood around Connor's truck because the other little old lady (I didn't know we had this many around here) felt overwhelmed by all of us and didn't want us inside. We then drove back to TNS in his truck...which comfortably seats two people. I got shotgun again :) this is a pun because Connor had to move his rifle from the front seat for me. haha

I knew this before I set foot in his car, but the ride re-affirmed my belief that Connor is a horrible driver. We were in the middle of a curving road, and Connor says "Oh, let me turn the airbag on for you, Sara," He takes the keys out of the ignition to turn the airbag on, a few seconds later saying "Oh yeah, I forgot the steering wheel locks when you take the keys out."

We were completely in the other lane, diagonal to the flow of traffic! And on a bridge!! It wasn't even a fun kind of dangerous, it was just an "oh crap" kind.

And those are called Giving Back Days. But now it's vacation! ~Party~

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I love you all so very much.

Sara :)