Allie and Bennett 

Allie 

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You....Content!

Yeah, so I'm not dead. I'm going to attempt to provide a "real" post tomorrow-ish detailing the sordid, grotesque events of my stressful and simply horrifying month from....well, you get the idea. Anyway, sorry for the lack of posting; I will be updating on a somewhat regular basis again soon.

Sleep Deprivation and its Effects: An In-Depth Experiment in Fatigue

I've come to the conclusion that "tired" is just not a good enough word. While "exhausted" seems a bit excessive, "tired" just doesn't cut it. When you rather regularly feel as though you’ve been hit by a very large truck of some sort as I often do, the mere word "tired" really doesn't do the feeling justice. Now where did that thesaurus go....?

"If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something" - Murphy’s Laws

You know, I'm generally very optimistic, but recently, that "law" has been proven time and again in my day-to-day life. Last week I was having a pretty good day, and then just as I was heading to my car to go home, I realized that sometime between 0 period that morning and the end of 6th period I has lost my keys. The next day we were able to have the keys replaced (for the low, low price of $88!) so everything turned out fine, but that wasn't the last of my trouble.

This week I was close to getting in a car wreck twice in two days. The first time it was kinda both our faults, and the second time it was pretty much all my fault. I was making a left turn at one of those”left turn yield to oncoming traffic" places, and I thought I could get through before the "oncoming traffic" was too close. Obviously I miscalculated and had to hit the gas pretty hard. That was really scary. But even that isn't my best example of the above law.

By far the most perfect example of the aforementioned law is in my most recent revelation: I am so not normal. It seems like just when I start feeling pretty good about myself and how my life is going, I come to some horrifying revelation. This time I realized something about my social life, it's almost non-existent. After listening to some of my friends talk about their various outings with people, I noticed that I don't think I have ever gone to someone's house just to "hang out". Upon further probing of my memory I realized that in all my time at Reynolds, I have rarely, if ever, associated with any of my friends outside school. Sure, every once in a while I see someone at the library or something, but I really don't socialize with anyone otherwise. Before this rather uncomfortable realization I was living in blissful ignorance, but alas, it didn't last. *sigh*

So, in an effort to dispel my current social conundrum, I ask for advice on how to "get out there". What do the kids like to do these days? Should I just start inviting groups of people to my house to watch movies and "chill" or what?

*ponders*

Status: Alive

Yes, I'm sure you were all waiting with baited breath for news about how my first few weeks of school went, and (as stated above) I'm alive. Nothing particularly exciting has gone on, though I'm struggling a little in my attempts to re-acquaint myself with academic life. Some of my classes have been a little frustrating, but I'm beginning to adjust.

High Five started up last and Monday, and since only six people showed up that day to try out, everyone got on the team. A couple days later one other person (who was our "money boy" last year) came, so we have seven people now. The team consists of Me, Anna Fenton, Jessica Vining, Eric Elliason, Andrew Rolfe, Jed Schloter and Marty Olsen.* Marty seems to have established himself as "the new Nathan" evident in his score of 480 on Friday alone.

Our taping for High Five will be on Thursday, so we've been practicing every day. Thanks to a cool power-point slide show of questions that Nathan created last year while he was TAing for Mr. Beaman, and the wonderful coaching of the latter, our team is doing quite well. i think we have a very good shot at winning our match, perhaps even entering the finals!

In other news, our family is still adjusting to the absence of Nathan. I think I'm "handling" it the best, mostly because I've been to busy to contemplate anything other than school etc. My parents are taking it a little harder, but I'm sure that returning to work has been/will be good for them.

I wrote some essays for my AP writing class and I posted these two on my other blog. If you have time to read them I'd love to hear your comments.

* I'm 99% sure I spelled most of those names wrong.

Tenebrific in Troutdale

My seemingly endless summer has wasted away to a few mere hours! Alas, I weep for my soon to be lost freedom...It's hard to believe that tomorrow is my first day of school and that I'm going to be a Junior. My Freshman year seems like it was just yeaterday, and, for that matter, I feel like school just got out for summer break.

In some ways I'm really excited about school starting. I mean, I'm in Expressions, I get to be an upperclassman, I can leave campus, I'll see all the people I know from school...But there are also several reasons i really don't want to go back to school like: I'm taking some scary classes, homework, I'll see all the people I know from school...

We dropped Nathan off at Whitworth this weekend. It was sad. Of course, Nathan (being the kind, sesitive brother that he is) made fun of me every time I would cry, but I suppose that's to be expected...I'll miss Nathan, but I think this is going to be really good for him.

Yesterday after we brought Bennett home from the kennel he stayed at while we were in Spokane, I let Bennett out to go to the bathroom. Now, while this is usually not a Blog-worthy experience, something happened yesterday that made it such. When I let Bennett out I went and sat on the steps of our deck, waiting for Bennett to finish his "business". While I was there I saw one of the squirrels that lives in our backyard (it's actually a series of tunnels beneath our shed) jump from the top of our fence to a tree behind said fence. I thought little of it and went back to waiting for the dog. Meanwhile, Bennett (in his search for the perfect place to "relieve himself") wandered over to the area near the aforementioned tree. Suddenly, the squirrel jumped from the tree into our backyard and was quickly noticed by Bennett, who made chase.

Even at this point I wasn't too worried, Bennett is usually far too slow to catch any of the squirrels, so I expected Mr. Squirrel to arrive safely at one of his holes. Alas, this was not the case. My dog quickly followed the squirrel through the gap behind our shed and the fence, and as soon as they appeared on the other side of the shed I knew something was wrong. Bennet grabbed the little guy in his mouth and started shaking him. I began to scream my head off at the dog, trying to get him to realease the "defenseless" little creature, but, it seems I underestimated the fighting power of the little guy. As I began to run towards my dog he released a loud yelp as the "victim" bit (or possibly scratched, we're still not sure) him in the cheek.The squirrel speedily began to run away again, but unfortunately (for Mr. Squirrel at least), Bennett recovered from his injury and began pursuit again. Just as the squirrel was about to jump into the safety of his hole, Bennett caught him again. As they began to wrestle and fight one another, I got close enough and kicked my dog with as much strength as I could muster. Bennett, in his surprise, dropped the squirrel and the furry prey (after a moment of disorientation) was finally able to get safetly into his home.

The whole time this was going on I was pretty much screaming my head off at the dog, and as soon as I saw the poor wretch was safe in his hole, I "escorted" the dog into the house and began crying. I was so horrified by what Bennett had done, and what could've happened, I was completely overcome by emotion. My mom (who had rushed to my aid when she heard my shouts) hugged me and said I should go to my room to be alone for a while. I was only up there for a short while before I heard my parents telling Bennett he was a "bad dog". Now, while I'll agree that his behavior was less than satisfactory, I would hardly expect him to act any differently. He's a dog, his natural instincts tell him to hunt, so he did. So, upon hearing this, I went downstairs to defend my poor, stupid little animal.

I first noticed the wound on Bennett's cheeck when I got downstairs. It was really deep, amd I ended up tending to it almost all day because he would rub his face on things and open it up again every time it would start to heal. But I digress, he's doing fine now and I can only hope the squirrel is fairing just as well.

What's in a Name?

If you hadn't noticed already that I changed the name of my site today, you might want to click the "refresh" button on your browser. That being done, you may wonder "Why the change?" or "Why do I care?" Well, I can't answer the last question, but the change is due to the fact that I think the new title is more descriptive of myself, and more amusing. If you haven't figured it out already, it's reminiscent of the book title Black Like Me. Although, unlike author John Howard Griffin's skin color, my height is not drug-enduced, nor a result of my plans to explore the world of racial bigomy.

The only less-than-satisfying result of this name-change is that my URL will remain the same, and doesn't make as much sense as it did withe old name. The only solution I could come up with to rectify the solution was to change the "summary" section (see above).

We put the cat to sleep on Thursday, and while the morning was fraught with tears, I know it was for the best. I'll miss Mittsy, but I know that it's better that she went peacefully than to have suffered any more. Mom said that after a while we can get another cat, so it seems I won't have to go too horribly long without any feline companionship.

Friday marked my first solo journey as a driver, and though I was nervous to begin with, it turned out well. Nothing bad happened, and it was actually kinda fun. I got to listen to my own music, sing along as loud as I wanted, and I got to decide exactly were I wanted to go. My first trek was to Target and then Walmart in search of a few last items I couldn't find when I went school shopping on Wednesday with my mom.

I don't have much planned for these last precious weeks of vacation, though today I will start working on re-finishing a chest of drawers Grandma gave us because she didn't need/want them at the new house.