Monday, November 21, 2011

Well hi there...


Found this little guy in the parking lot of my dorm, behind a car. Figured I'd give him a chance :)

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

My First Dolphin Training Session

Every summer I go to a dolphin encounter camp. I have the past six years. We always have a dolphin training session where we get up on a platform and use some fancy hand motions to make the dolphins do tricks. My first year of the dolphin camp was full of insecurity and apprehension, but my experience with dolphin training changed all of that.

First, we walk down a rickety walkway over twenty feet of water and hope we don't fall in, or else the trainers will get mad at us. One one side is the dark, murky channel in which there is nothing but carcasses of fish and algae. On the other side is bright clear water full of squeaking dolphins and pretty rainbow fish welcoming us to the key. If we fall in with the dolphins, the trainers will yell at us and pull us out with a hook and lecture us. If we fall in the other side, they tell us to swim all the way around to shore through the creepy water.


You may think that it't not too difficult to strut down the simple walkway about fifty feet to get on a platform. Not so. The walkway tends to shake. A whole fucking lot. I have to shuffle my way down it, terrorized that I will fall into the dark evil water or be scolded by trainers.

My first ten feet or so are always fine. The sun is shining, the water is calm, and I am confidant.


My stride is confidant as I march bravely toward the platform. However, after a while, the walkway starts to sway from side to side because of all the people walking on it.


I become uneasy as I discover that arriving at the platform without a mishap is unlikely. Eventually, I am forced to decide which side is a better option for falling into, as I discover that it is inevitable that I will lose my balance.








However, I somehow manage to overcome my paralyzing fear of falling and shuffle my way to the platform without mishap.


I sit shakily on the walkway above the platform. After a few minutes of recuperation, I am able to focus on what the trainer is teaching us about hand signals for the dolphins. One by one we get to go up and command the dolphin to do a trick. It is finally my turn. I had been mulling over which trick to make my dolphin do as the trainer had talked, and after much thought, I picked my trick. Whether or not it would work, I wasn't sure, but I wanted to try.

"What are you going to ask the dolphin to do?" asks the trainer.

I immediately say, "Tailwalk," confident and sure of my decision.

I step down onto the platform and walk up to the edge. I raise my hands to the "Pay Attention" position and the dolphin sits up in the water, showing me he is ready.


His clicks and whistles let me know he will be fully obedient. It is time.




By god. The dolphin did it. I did it. That's when I knew, without a doubt. I was a Jedi Knight. I had mastered the force. With the solemn knowledge of the responsibilities I had just taken on myself, I calmly accepted my title of Jedi.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Computer Programming

I AM DONE. SENYA.

Now I get to pick when to upload my blog and with what. Win.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Failing

Then end of the year has rolled around, and like most seniors, I am suffering from a horrible, and potentially lethal, case of Senioritis. Homework has not been done, nor projects. Classwork is a joke. Math is my red zone. I have been teetering on failing all year, and now it's time to try to keep myself afloat.

I had an 85 in that class (an all time high!) before one damn test tanked my grade to a 66. Upon applying effort, I managed to boost myself to a reasonable 68.30.

Now, though, I find that my distinct neglect for English has left my grade a little sub-par to say the least...

Thursday, February 3, 2011

True story from showchoir competition.

This past Saturday, we had a showchoir competition at South Jones. I'm the set crew manager, and the crew and I were killing time until the second performance. We had about 5 hours to spare, so apparently becoming hyper and giggly was the best alternative. We were walking through an empty parking lot when a train came by (we don't usually see trains up close here except for certain areas of the city). I jokingly suggested that we should chase the train. My three companions laughed at the idea and one of them, a 10th grader named Hollis, said, "Yes! Let's do it!" Up until then, he had been the more quiet member of the group. Needless to say, he surprised us all when he took off after the train.
Eventually Hollis returned, out of breath. Turns out there were people on the train that watched him the whole time. I can't imagine what they thought.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

I Scare My School

So today in computer programming, our teacher reminded us of an agreement we signed at the beginning of the year that basically made us swear to "never go to any bad website on a school computer, to not engage in any Internet activity that could be hurtful to another student, and to never post any inappropriate, explicit, or incriminating information on any website." Part of me hopes that my school is flexible about the 'inappropriate" posts. The other part wants to scare the crap out of them. -evil cackle-

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Procrastination doesn't always pay.

So over the holidays, our calculus teacher assigned us a take home test. I, having much more self confidence in myself than I ever should have, decided to wait until the night before to try to get it done, because I was going to "Buckle down" and do it all in one sitting. Did that happen? Nooo....


But I did manage to get at least some of it done. I was quite proud of my half-assed efforts. However, my joy was short lived, because at the end of second period I was told, to my dismay, that the test was supposed to be turned in before school started. 

All together now: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU----------

Mike's New Blog

As a good friend, I wanted to help my friend Mike, who sits next to me in computer programming, figure out a good name for his blog that he's creating. After a little while, we came up with a name. I was pretty proud of it, finding it both catchy and borderline inappropriate. However, our enthusiasm quickly turned sour when we discovered a fatal error.

My First Day! (night)

Hello, all. This is my first blog post. Ever.

No, really, it is.

So we have a project going on in computer programming class in which we are supposed to start a blog, and blog about something. Personally, I find that a little boring, and I would rather just start my own little, fantastically awesome web-comic-type blog. (Also, I have a pretty good grade in my class, so I don't mind if I only get completion credit.) It's currently almost two AM, and I kinda promised myself I'd be in bed before midnight. Yeah, right. With all my procrastinating and writing short story and creating this blog, I managed to put off my take home math test until 1 AM which is, coincidentally, NOT my best time for mathematics or logics. However, I pulled through, and am now rewarding myself with my first blog post.

I also managed to semi-make my first comic in Paint. Of course it looks like someone crapped on a page, smeared it around, then puked on it for emphasis, but hey, it's a start.

But anyway, my printer just ran out of paper and needs to be babied along to finish printing my short fiction. Hopefully it can manage this task before morning.

Peace.