Sunday, March 22, 2009

Sunday Afternoon - Rachel

There haven't been a whole lot of blog posts on my end lately, because frankly my life has been pretty uneventful. Case point: the most exciting point of my day today was wrestling with the printer here at work. A boy in the lab came up and asked for my assistance, which basically meant I spent the great part of 10 minutes pulling sheets of paper out of the printer that had been jammed in the most ridiculous of spots. I'm sure I looked ridiculous as well, partially owing to the fact that my hair is somewhere in the mad scientist range and also due to the fact that I didn't really know what I was doing. Also, I couldn't help but feel a little triumphant each time I yanked a piece of paper out, and I'm pretty sure I held each sheet of paper up like some sort of prize. Oh dear.

Well, we can't all go to Melbourne.

However, I did go to Strongsville on Friday, which is barely worth mentioning, but I will anyways. Roberta and I went on a mall trip, which ended up being sensory overload for me. While at college, I work hard to forget the tempting allure of bright clothes in stores with pleasant music piping from the ceilings. Eventually, I start deranging myself into thinking that $30 is a sale, and I do love that pair of black and orange plaid pants! It gets absurd. Luckily, I had the restraint to channel these urges into only buying a 99cent hot dog and a C. S. Lewis book from Borders, both of extreme quality.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Stars - Rachel

As of right now, I have exactly two classes, and two assignments due before spring break. Knowing that is a wonderful feeling, especially since I'll have plenty of time to finish them this afternoon during the time I normally have choir.

I just realized, I have to pack too. Oh dear.

Last night was the first night in astronomy where the skies were clear enough to observe. When we were finally out observing I remembered why I was taking astronomy in the first place. It's unbelievably cool to look at the surface of the moon, or at a cluster of forming stars. We got the chance to look at a "trapezium" of stars inside of a gas cloud. You can't help but marvel looking at these beautiful creations, minuscule and unimportant from our standpoint yet remarkable in their power and distance away from us. I was even getting into trying to identify as many constellations as I can. Quick astronomy fact for the day: the bottom right star in Orion is called Rigel and the one on the top left is Betelguese (pronounced beetlejuice actually). Although I'm pretty sure Orion isn't a constellation you can see in Australia.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

An assortment of events -Kristen

I am currently in the car on the way home from Berea where I had the unparalleled honor of observing Nicole Scelsi's "sparkling personality" in action. But before I get to that experience I'll think as far back as I can from where I left off.

Basketball is finally over. It's a good thing that my family is so supportive of the team's loss yesterday because it will probably be quite a bit worse tomorrow at school. My family definitely qualifies as some of the only people I know that congratulate me and are genuinely excited that I lost because they were ready for me to be done. Before we lost our game to Greenville yesterday though, we had lost to Girard in the second round of the playoffs on Wednesday; however, we had won our first game against North East last Saturday, which was fun no matter what my family thinks. Also on last Saturday I dyed a little piece of hair in the back hot pink with the rest of the basketball team. Luckily I can hide it fairly well if I want to because after dying it, I remembered that I hate the color pink.

Last Sunday afternoon was quite fun as well. The youth group went on our annual ice skating trip in New Castle. I was extremely proud of the fact that I did not fall once despite the fact that many people tried to take me down with them when they would fall. One such offender is none other than Ike because he had never been ice skating before. My family does give him credit for subjecting himself to the laughter of the Jr. High boys just because I invited him, but it still has not stopped the adoption of the new family motto of "take a hike Ike." I'll have to remember not to let Ike know of this development because I'm afraid he could easily take it the wrong way and hold it against my family. The good news for him is that my family also just enjoys teasing a lot.

Also this past week, I have learned that I get to start mandatory practices for softball tomorrow. I'm kind of sad that I don't even get a week off in between seasons, but I guess that that is the result of making the playoffs. I've heard that there will actually be enough players to have a JV team this year unlike last year, but I still can't decide if I like this idea or not because that means much later nights on game days but a lot of my friends playing as well. The only other piece of information that I've heard concerning this particular sport is that I'm going to have to wear a facemask if I play infield due to a new PIAA rule which has led me to consider volunteering to play outfield or catcher, but hopefully they won't be that bad.

Now back to my "unparalleled honor" of this weekend. After my basketball team's loss yesterday, I had to head straight to Berea along with my parents and Nicole to watch Rachel in a choir concert. After a detour for me to take a shower to the hotel where my parents were staying, we proceeded to the concert. The music was extremely refreshing after the day in and day out experience of listening to the Reynolds High School Mixed Chorus. After the concert, Mom and Dad went back to the hotel, while Rachel, Nicole, and I went on a freezing cold tour and other stops before returning to Rachel's dorm. At approximately 12:30 we decided to go on a 4th meal run to Taco Bell, but this involved finding somebody with a car. This took a little bit, but we still managed to get back at about 1. This was already much later than my normal night, but I stayed up for another half hour eating my nachos and taco while visiting with Rachel and her friends. At 1:30, I finally called it a night and headed to the floor of Rachel's room to sleep. This morning was much more uneventful with church and eating at Panera for the first time. I'm going to be done with my blogging for a couple weeks again because I'm almost home, but hopefully my Transfer news was a little exciting. : )