Induction, eye black, and Cane's.

After much preparation, today was finally the day for the NHS Induction. I got to work closely with Fr. Swann, and Mrs. Royall was jealous of Tiger's moniker. Enjoyable moments. I would also like to mention how much of a success my Physics homework was today. Def a higlight. Traveling to FWCD, the team whipped out the eye black. Catherine and Catlin bonded over their war paint and cat-ness. It didn't help us win.. but was still fun. My eyes endured less damage from UV rays. Unlike my skin, which might as well be an exoskeleton. Beside the point. Afterward, Catherine, Anna, and I went to Cane's!! Needless to say, it was delicious. If I had to rank freshly baked cookies, exploring old houses, and Cane's, it would be a tough decision.

Opening Week Celebration!

In celebration of the Opening Day on Friday, we had Ranger day at softball practice (games tomorrow and Friday!) We referred to each other by our Ranger-equivalent. I was Elvis. (NB: This was the day all of the freshmen piled in Heidi's trunk to go to the lift. And the dreaded day when tons of people heard back from their colleges, good thing all of the denials will be forgotten when everyone ends up where they need to be.) After practice, the end of the year seemed scarily close as we took a pic for Sarah's yearbook ad! AND I got to see a fantastic performance of Steel Magnolias--there's a shot of Madi having a diabetic fit! Break a leg tomorrow!

Texas A&M Tuesday.

Or it was for me. Seniors (who know what college they're going to.. good luck to everyone who hears back tomorrow) got to wear their college tshirt for the alumni lunch/celebration today. Anna found herself looking particularly purple.. NB the pencil, hair tie, and earrings. Some alumni imparted some wisdom AND we got ice cream and free frisbees. Pretty good deal. During club period SADD showed us how fun/dangerous/difficult it is to drive under the influence with some sweet goggles. Today I also got to take my picture for the back page college-shirt montage! We had practice indoors due to some precipitation, and got to have a pretty COOL throwing competition. There's a target on that wall. Catherine was really good at it.

Gospel Choir busts it out.

 

So, on this loverly Monday, Gospel Choir totes rocked out an amazing performance that I believed earned them a standing O? Somehow I missed their last performance, so today was even more rewarding. Check out Claire Cahoon's vocals and Britani's rap! The video doesn't do it justice. It was delicious MeXIcan food for lunch. And today Madi, Catherine, and I decided to be healthy and run a mile. How enjoyable it was. On the way to the lift, Anna and I got into a little banana/scatter tiff. There's me looking menacing, and Anna a little apprehensive. She doesn't like bananas. No softball players were harmed. A banana was, though.

First Sunburn of the Year

This picture summarizes my today so very well. My shoulders didn't like being in the sun for nearly 4 hours yesterday. So, while helping sophomores build molecule models, cleaning, and reading the newspaper, I moved gingerly. But this weekend really was a taste of summer. Except for the fact that it was 65 today, yet I had a sunburn.. oh, weather.

Taste of Summer

So, at 10am our softball team was thri11ed to be out at the field to play Casady. We played a good game, but ended up being outscored 15-10. Afterward, Genie and I enjoyed some Elevation Burger and baseball/Brazil talk with the Puckett fam! Then the summer activities began. Went to Sarah's to utilize the pool, as it was a warm 85 degrees. Hit up Madi at her workplace. Wore some pennies.. Drove around. Ate dinner. Watched Steel Magnolias. Lay around. The summer usual. It was quite pleasant. Just one shenanigan from the Not Just Soccer visit: hide and seek. Sarah's hiding place was far superior. Can you spot her?

Partyin' partyin' yeah!

Sorry, it had to be said. Because it is Friday. Despite being tinged with some verses of a subpar song, it was a great Friday at that. Spirit Day concluded Student Body Week, Mr. Lutken talked in chapel, and the Chapel Band performed Float On, my personal fave performance of the year. Then, Murphy Anne Carter interviewed me for the Eagle Edition. About this blog. The one you're reading right now. And there's a pic of it. WHOA NELLY. It was fabulous. And then, after school, softball and baseball had a game/barbecue combination with Holland Hall and Josie visited! We lost, but played some pick-up baseball afterward to make up for it. Also, today, much college news was heard. AND, the guys lax team had an epic battle against HP in which the eagles emerged victorious!! We Navy'd out and stormed the field. AhHHHhhhHHh!! (that's what we yelled.)

Accessorized girl in an unaccessorized world.

If that's not poetic, I don't know what is. But today was wacky accessory/bling day and.. approx 10% of the student body went for it. Shoutout to all those who showed some weird wearable item spirit! Anyway, Madi took this lovely portrait of me.. Janis did not teach her to shoot like this, clearly. (She doesn't read this blog so she'll probably never need ice for that burn). Weston gave a great chapel talk and we found out the prom theme today, Moonlit Masquerade/Mardi Gras! Shoutout to those of us in the Mardi Gras clip in the video! And to Ian for his appearance in the Hollywood clip. Also, had a SKA dinner midweek at Penne Pomodoro with the photographer of the day. Made up for not getting pasta personally served by Fr. Swann. Excited for round 2 next month!

Nom. Student Body Week.

At lunch it was announced that it is Student Body Week, meaning free ice cream! This is my one ice cream sandwich per year.. who knows what I'll do next year. At practice, Coach Ashton was pitching (cue screams of terror!) and I hit my first homerun at our field! Never hit one at home before. It was a special moment until I had to go retrieve it from the lacrosse field. But even then it was still special. Tomorrow NG's fateful dictatorship paper is due.. off to learn everything about the totalitarian regime in North Korea.

Thank you Rebecca Black.

Vinay showing Grant Rebecca Black's Friday for the first time, which is too terrible to link to.. I'm sure you've heard it by now. Despite the absolutely awful lyrics, auto-tune, and overall talent involved, Friday has produced its benefits:

1. It has restored my belief that we, as music critics, draw the line somewhere. There are times when I'm sure we all question why a song is played on the radio, purchased, or listened to ever at all by anyone. Sometimes I feel like people will like anything they hear. But thankfully, they don't! We have a musical preference! The fact that Friday has 35,613,780 views on YouTube and is #42 on iTunes' Top Songs hopefully goes to show that we just like to make fun of failures. 
2. Justin Bieber tweeted, "sunday comes after saturday? weird." Even JBiebs has taste! Plus this sarcasm represents that celebrities and people in general are not too obsessed with political correctness that they can't have any conviction whatsoever, but at the same time are able to maintain a degree of politeness. Thank you Justin.
3. Rebecca said, "I don't think I'm the worst singer, but I don't think I'm the best singer either." Well said, 13-year-old-who-suddenly-rose-to-fame-because-of-a-lack-of-creativity. Even though some parts are monotone because of over-computerization,  Rebecca is not the worst singer in the world. I volunteer to be THE absolute worst if necessary.
4. We have been able to bond over Friday. It seems everyone can agree on one thing: we do not like this song. That's at least something! I'm sure blogs everywhere are enjoying this future 2011 memory. Though we are uniting out of mutual hatred, it is still something.

Also, today I straightened out my deaf composer conundrum and Jessie started a days-left-of-school countdown on her hand: 36. We we we be so XI-ted.

KH Support

On this first day of fourth quarter, second day of Spring, and beginning of the last 1/16th of sen11ors' high school career, some DC-ers sang in chapel, we took down Alohomora, and Katherine made us this sign. She thought it would be nice to return the support.. she was right (we were clearly excited). Props also for tying it to the fence with prewrap.. so innovative. I think it contributed to our 24-9 win!! Go team.

Erm..

Went to church.. this kid was in the pew next to me. Went to softball practice.. she was parked in the car next to me. Went home.. pulled up next to her at a stoplight. I guess we had similar days? It was nice running into you..

Lax at Cowboys Stadium

ESD Women's Lax, thanks for having games that conveniently fit into my schedule! I've become quite the fan. After sleeping in for the first time in a few days, Genie and I decided to support some close-by Eagles at a pretty sweet venue. Hannah made this face. I practiced some sports photography and have yet to edit them down, but there was a plethora of photographers so I don't think it will be a problem. Congrats on the win! Other than that, today was basically a recovery day. I watched Play the Game (boo) and Good Will Hunting and I unpacked. Pretty chi11, you know.

Heading home.

Packed up our stuff to make the 10 hour trip home. Slept, watched Waitress, decided I didn't like Family Guy, and saw some tumbleweeds. I'm going to miss New Mexico. Finished off the day with a round of catch in the front yard! As far as the trip, I'll be sure to improve my previous postings with some more pics and vids. Don't get too excited.

Taos and goodbye to Sipapu.

A lovely goodbye shot of our mountain we came to love so dearly. This morning we went to Taos and explored the city, as well as a CANYON! To give you a sense of scale, those bush-like things are full grown trees. Yea. We skiied for the second part of the day and I carved up Paul's Folly, the black slope nemesis from Monday! AND maybe most important occurrence of the day: saw a tumbleweed tumbling!!! Cross that off my to do list! But I really did.

Lanterns and adobe.

Took a break from skiing today to go to Santa Fe today and had the best time buying some stuff from the markets! Heart souvies. Being surrounded by so much non-software related adobe was awesome. I enjoyed some local food from Charlie's Spic 'n Span and the Tesuque Market. When we returned home after our big adventure, we went on a somewhat scary (think creepy strangers and inquisitive neigbors), but still good hike. Luckily we had a lantern.

Chi11ing Out

Another fab day on the slopes (check out that ski vocab)! So after a couple practice runs to get reacclimated, I started from where I left off yesterday and skiied a blue TWICE. Thats right, Bambi to Thumper after one day. I'd have to attribute the success to Mads, who taught me more than Jennifer ever did.. Toward the end of the day we decided to chi11 for a sec on a snow bank. Of course we ended up taking some sen11or class propaganda. Der's Mads chi11ing on the slopes. You can kind of get a sense of just how beautiful the landscape/mountain is here, but being here is absolutely amazing. I'll be skiing and look up and say (to myself) check out dat picturesque mountainside! Who knew this actually eXIsted?

SK11NG

Today was my first day ever skiing. I had so much fun! Went to ski school this morning, had lunch, then hit the big kid slopes in the afternoon. Madi (a veteran skier) was getting a little bored on the same course, so when she saw a sign for another green, Pinball, branching off of Sassafrass, I agreed to take it with her. Well. Pinball was in the same direction as Paul's Folly, a black slope. After realizing we had no such ability to ski down, I end up sliding/flailing at least 100 feet, somehow headfirst at one point, until I was able to pizza wedge my skis. Just then a girl skies up and tells us she has no idea why this is labeled a green slope.. instead of helping me, Madi took this video. After trekking through some woods and meeting some savior, shirtless skiers who helped us ski down a blue, we  made it to the bottom. Basically it was the classic ski story of accidentally ending up on a black diamond on my first day. After telling Madi she would never live this one down, the rest of the day went well. May progress to blues by choice tomorrow!

The Land of Enchantment

Today was the day!! Sorry I'm having to blog from my phone bc we haven't had time to figure out the wifi, so I can only post one pic. BUT as for today, the trip started with Mrs. Skochdopole quizzing us with US History flashcards, stops at Cracker Barrel, Dawson's Famous Food, Dairy Queen,and Wal-Mart. Then we got to New Mexico (cross another state off my list!) and the terrain was BEAUTIFUL. Like awesome. Mesas, yucca, shale, red rock, tumbleweeds (yet to see one tumble).. I just really really like it. So then we got to our cabin and established some ground rules (see pic), had some dinner on the porch. After that had settled, we went on a hike/jog (some altitude training) and the stars were SO awesome. Creation is sosososo awesome. We stargazed and found the dippers, Orion, Draco, and creacona or something along those lines. I wish I could have taken a pic with my phone, but I could only get them with my camera and 30 second exposure. Promise not everything in the cabin will stay, I'll share those pics later. If I made this trip just for the hike it would have been worth it, but tomorrow I even get to ski for the first time! Thanks for bearing with the phone posts. Can't wait to be even more outdoorsy.

Vegas or bust!

T minus 6.5 hours until we are on our way to Vegas baby! That's Las Vegas, New Mexico. But it's fun to use common excited prospect-of-Vegas sayings because that's how I'm feeling: XI-ted. In my fam we have a tradition of eating barbecue anytime we'll be away from home for a while. So, in preparation, my mom and I enjoyed our classic dinner before I started the arduous packing process. Packing is no fun except for the thoughts of "Oo I'll be wearing this in the snow" or "this sock will be on my foot on Tuesday!" Things like this get me excited. New MeXIco 2011!!

The first day of spring break..

..was spent preparing for the rest of them. I woke up and worked on a Physics lab and homework for five hours (who doesn't love solving problems of the physical world?) and then, after turning it in, ran some pre-trip errands!! (Having to do homework made errands seem exciting. Hooray silver linings!) I took a pic of some of the photo gear I stocked up on. Snagged a polarizer for some snow shots! For dinner I went to Rafa' s with Genie to discuss plans and eat some chicken before I leave her for six days. No worries though, amidst these tasks I had plenty of time to drive with the windows down (friendly-ly) and stumbleupon the internet. Everyone needs some chi11 time. Sososo excited for the week ahead!

SB2011!!

SPR11NG BREAK!! Talk about exciting! Today I got to go down in ESD history and plot my dot on the government political ideology graph. Check. And everyone was feelin' the spring break mood all day. When the bell rang, Sarah and I got especially excited and were playing in senior hall with our previously confiscated beach balls that I hid in my locker before Mrs. Beatty made us go outside. But it was good because Madi almost got decapitated by Michael and Philip's frisbee! The outdoor fun continued when we got out of practice early and got to watch the baseball game. My friend Madison and I also got to watch some tennis and boys & girls lacrosse AND play our own game of tennis. We refueled with some dinner. It was a good day, and if I don't get to see you, have a GREAT spring break!

Shakespeare Films etc.

Holy Lent! That's what Fr. Butler told me to say instead of "happy." This morning started off with some Lenten inspiration when a car let me over in a usually tricky merge spot, so I waved, and he waved back! How friendly is that?! So I picked up another resolution: be a friendly driver. Anyway, today was Ash Wednesday, and I thoroughly enjoyed the smudged foreheads and hearing "you've got something on your face" multiple times. The church calendar can be pretty fun like that. If that wasn't enough excitement, today was Shakespeare film day!! All of the films were SO so good! There was The Office, some animation, stop motion, love stories, and Febreze- what more could you want? Fab job, filmmakers. At practice, it was a party with Coach Ashton! Singalongs and t-ball occurred. AND, if all that wasn't enough, there is ONE day 'til spring break. Yessss.

Fat Tuesday

Apparently our teachers didn't get the memo that the week before spring break is a blow off week, but despite all the work we're finding time to celebrate. Today Starbucks launched their new cups/"siren scheme," as Weston told me, so during study hall I went to check out the sitch and buy some gas at $3.45. I posted a vid of a starbucks with the old cup here. Then, to really give Mardi Gras what it deserved, we AP art students had our luncheon at Mi Cocina and severely overate. Madi was the birthday girl today, and Lauuurraaa came to our softball game and brought some of her own baked creations! (she's really bored on spring break). Thanks for warming up with me, Lau! After the game I had cookies and a minicupcake of Madison's. You would think the eating would be over.. but Catherine decided to give me the best themed spirit buddy gift of Mardi Gras necessities. It included king cake, of course. Though I couldn't really eat it, I dug around and came across plastic baby Jesus!!! I was REALLY excited! Never found the choking hazard version of my boy J before! Also, shoutout to Ryan, the newest follower of my blog! Welcome! Anyway, today was def food-themed. Which I think is what it's supposed to be. Happy Fat Tuesday!

Seniors Support YOU!

All your favorite seniors were at the girls lax game last night! I'm especially proud of Olivia and Kelsy in their varsity debut! Earlier this day Fr. Butler told us about his eating habits, Mandy(the photographer) said I was ghetto, and the softball team trekked to Grapevine. I took a dugout pic in which Anna of course looked fabulous, buttt Catherine looked awk.. you're welcome. AND also, Coach Ashton was accepted to be a Rangers ball girl!! Those weeks of catch paid off! Can't wait to point her out like e'eryday!

Cam

Meet Cam, my camera. This was my view of him as I took some selfies today! I actually forgot my little doodad that connects Cam to Pod (my tripod)[I'm a more creative namer than this post makes me seem], but this pic is sans ghetto-tape job. Other events of the day: had some Lucky Charms for breakfast. Ate the oats first and the marshmallows last, as usual. It's been eventful.

Motherly advice.

I do not do scary movies. Not even moderately scary. Even after seeing The Adjustment Bureau, a not scary movie with like 2 semi-thrilling moments, I was paranoid. In the movie [spoiler alert] they can use doors to transport to other places (think Monsters Inc.)[the fact that the part that scared me was in a Pixar movie is embarrassing], and when I got home, I was afraid to open the door. This dialogue ensued: 

Me: "I'm afraid to open the door!"

Mom: "They didn't have anything bad behind the doors.. except Yankee Stadium."

Lunchtime baseball, wasabi, and a slip n' slide.

So basically best possible Friday. After a chapel involving a rousing chorus of We Are Family, the baseball team was playing in a tournament at school, and seniors attended and got free lunch AND got to cheer on the boys! Welcome back Bryce! Props also to Nate for his homerun over ESD's own green monster. Working on our own skills, at softball practice we busted out the slip n slide for the first time to work on our sliding skills. I had the pleasure of tagging out each person and getting splashed by each person. It was chi11(y). CatCat is pictured with the aftermath. On maybe the best day for a birthday, Sarah turned 18 with some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and lobster shooters for dinner. Anna, a sushi novice, mistook wasabi for guacamole. She quickly learned that wasabi is not, in fact, guacamole, along with some other things 18-year-olds need to know.. Happy Birthday Sarah!

Makin' our own luck.

First ever precursor post: Eagle edition day, game day, 7 days til SB. Seems like the best day ever!! If I had a clean yellow shirt, it would def be a sweater vest day. My iPod seems to agree: The Middle, Hey, Soul Sister, Get Rhythm. Cue morning jam out session.

Much like luck, more seems to happen in our day when we are decidedly aware. Genie was not here, and I started off the day with a brownie, Catherine's spirit buddy gift, for breakfast. I had some milk too. Balanced breakfast. This morning, I managed to get the last spot in the faculty lot, gave a presentation about supernovae, was impacted by Mrs. Rogers' chapel talk (what happens to you matters to me, great concept), all before 9am. I organized some of the files on my computer during gov class; I felt productive. Anyway, 4th period came and I snagged a copy of the Eagle Edition from the j-lab. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Love distribution day. A nice old guy talked to us during lunch. I started a cool new image in photography, and Mrs. Rogers (it was really her day), let us read outside during Transformations [pictured]. Some skilled freshmen were skipping some rocks across the quarry, pretty sweet. On this beautiful March 3rd we got to play a softball game, and though we lost, the 2-6 innings went well. And some lovely people I know named Murphy, Ellie, Mandy and Kelly came to support. Afterward Madi and I caught part of the women's lax game. AND to finish off this marathon of a Thursday, I went to starbucks (ran into Westie!) for a couple hours and finished 1984. Fabulous! (no matter what)

a KA Wednesday

Since my Monday post, this week has gotten a whole lot luckier. It's an exciting concept. Physics crazy week is on a hiatus, and I thoroughly enjoyed our Breakfast Club meeting today, as well as a guest appearance by Fallon in Stat. I also very thoroughly enjoyed some run-ins in the training room. Hannah and Katherine, lax spirit buddies, told me about Kath's glitter obsession, which I will add to my current stockpile of information including love of drawing and eating halves of chocolates. Hannah successfully wrapped my inverted elbow in an upside-down maneuver only capable of a nature-loving scholar like yourself. And Caroline Oden, good luck with your surgery! Later at pre-bible-study dinner a phoneless Sidney Sikes ate some of my lettuce wraps, then raced me to Starbucks. Caroline watched. Happy independence day, Texas!