School is almost done

So I’ve kind of failed on this whole keeping you updated thing. Sorry about that. I vow to start anew. So this is partly in response to a comment and partly (okay mostly) in procrastintion for studying.

So what’s been new with me? School has only two weeks left, thank God, but they’re horrible. I have my IB exams for Spanish and philosophy this week. I’m dying. I have to take a prereq test to take advanced bio because I haven’t had the teacher before and so I have to review all biology from freshman year to take a two day test during my studyhalls. I have actual exams in all my classes the week after that. I have to get job applications for the summer in. I have to organize my whole summer. Arghhh. I’ve been a little stressed. I’ve only had one major breakdown so far though, which is good.

I was shocked to see that people are checking this. Just today there where 10 looks at the page. Sorry to disapoint folks. But here’s a new one.

Prom for you guys was last night. I’ve been scanning the photos posted, you are all gorgeous/handsome. I hope it went well. My prom was the weekend before this. It went very well. Lots of fun. I finally got the photos up today (more procrastination).

I am planning on coming down tues. June 2 for the alum orchestra concert and to pop in at school. If anyone reading this can give me a place to stay for that night, that would be lovely. (Britta, Sarah…?)

I will also be at UW Madison the week of June 14-19 for a crew camp, so perhaps the day after I’ll stick around with you guys.

It’s a crazy thought that we’ll all be seniors next year. It doesn’t seem so long ago that we were freshmen. It’s been strange; this year has gone pretty fast. I can’t remember much from first semester. It’s been surreal.

I just went for a long walk. It’s gorgeous outside.

So yeah. What’s up with all of you? How was prom? Where are you guys starting to look for college?

Hope to see you soon!

Impromptu Dance Party

So finals are start on wednesday… just twodays after break, which super sucks. And I’m starting my new work schedule which is 11 and 18 hour weeks, so I work for about three hours monday-thurs, so less study time. So I got home after guarding for three hours today and studied for a solid two hours (math and honors physics). Anna came down toward the end and was interupting me, but in a fun, sisterly way, and I was pretty much done anyways. I put my stuff away and we broke out into an instantaneous dance party (I was music listening while studying) and it was awesome. Really I was crazy dancing and she wasn’t. She would only dance when I wasn’t looking. And of course she was recording me on her new camara (I convinced her to delete them). It sounds lame, but it has left me with a good feeling… of course that might just be the tiredness from going from 10 to 5 hours of sleep.

Polar Plunge

So today, I am feeling much better than my previous wallowy self. This morning I did the insane. At exactly noon, I ran into Lake Michigan. I went in over my head. In just a swimsuit. The first of January 2009. It was freaking cold but awesome. It was such a thrill. It was about 27 out without the wind chill, which was brutal. There were white caps and iceburgs floating. I got a bit of a scrape from one on my leg. It’s kind of sensitive. But anyways. Insanity. Even crazier, mum did it with me. I would never have expected her to do that. Ever. The rest of the day I worked on my new jigsaw puzzle.

I do have some plans for tomorrow though, so that’s good.

And Happy New Year to all!

Here’s a photo from the Jacksonport polar bear club website of the conditions.

I Hope

I hope that if I have children, they do not inherit my social skills. Most prominantly, my lack of them.

I’ve made friends at school and it’s all good there, but there’s no one that I can hang out with outside of school. If I call someone up, I’m pretty sure they’ll just think I’m weird, friendless, and deserate. Not to mention it would be incredibly awkward. So it’s looking like a lonely new year’s eve tomorrow. The only person I feel comfortable asking to hang out is out of town. So I’ll probably spend the night cleaning my room and watching the ball drop. Pretty much the pinacle of coolness, no? I pretty much spent my day today wallowing. And lounging. I’m such a loser. Well I’m not. I have friends at school, but just not really anyone I feel comfortable inviting myself over to hang out with.

The good news is… is…

I get my car back tomorrow. Finally.

And there’s all that other jazz. I have my health and my family and my home and yadaetc.

I’m just pretty bummed right now.

Almost Christmas!

So this week is pretty shitty. Hormone influx, stupid math, I got in an accident. Just the normal stuff.

This morning was horrible. I was driving from the Y to school. It was icey. I tried to stop. I had that ‘Oh shit’ moment when you realize that you’re not goinig to stop in time. I rear-ended a pick-up truck. I totally destroyed the front of my car. It was still drivable, but smashed up in the front. I was upset. Stupid lack of coefficient of friction. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Nobody was hurt, thank God. And I have learned my lesson, stupid ice and increased braking distance. Consider this a warning to all of you. Do not make my mistake. Leave plenty of time in between you and the other cars. Because if they stop soon, you will hit them.

I mean, all teenagers get into accidents right? And in five years it won’t matter.

Anyways. I hate mathamatical induction. That’s all I’m goig to say.

I am working on a christmas, excuse me holiday (getting used to the Catholic school), gift for you all. If you would like one, I will e-mail one to you. If you don’t think I have your e-mail, just leave it here. And comment. Where the hell are your comments? I miss you.

So yeah. Bye. I ust wanted to vent. Please don’t spread it around. It’s quite embarressing.

Lurve you all!

Philosophy Dialogue

I know it’s been a while. Everything has been alright, nothing too eventful. Here is a glimpse of my school life. Below is a copy of my philosophy dialogue that I recently turned in. It was my first philosophy internal assessment.

Philosophy IA Discussion

Hr. 7

Core Themes

 

Two women are seated in a comfortable room. The lights are soft. One woman sits on the couch while the other holds a clipboard and pen and sits on a revolving chair. The woman on the chair is the counselor; the woman on the couch is attempting to overcome depression.

 

Counselor: You know, you’re not the first person to be depressed. For thousands of years, humanity has known depression and fought to overcome it. Many did this by attempting to define happiness. How do you define happiness?

 

Woman: I’m not sure what happiness is. I guess happiness is doing whatever I enjoy doing, like watching TV or reading or playing with my kids.

 

Counselor: Do you always feel happy when you do those things? You told me before that you’re never happy. That’s what upsets you, isn’t it, that don’t enjoy playing with your children or relaxing?

 

Woman: I guess you’re right.

 

Counselor: Aristotle defined happiness as “an activity of the soul.” And by “activity of the soul” he meant virtue. Aristotle called this happiness “eudaimonia.”

 

Woman: How on earth is that supposed to apply to me? Are you saying that by being ‘virtuous’ I will automatically become happy? I’m not sure I believe that.

 

Counselor: What I didn’t say, was that Aristotle did not consider happiness to be a mental state. Eudaimonia is the concept of transcendence and thriving.

 

Woman: But isn’t the mental state of happiness what I want? Isn’t that why I am here, to fix my thoughts? By volunteering, I don’t think I will become automatically happy. What if I’m volunteering to do weeding, which I hate, or… or… I jump in front of a bullet for someone. The act of dying would indeed be virtuous, but I doubt I would be happy while I died.

 

Counselor: Again, I am afraid you are misunderstanding me. Eudaimonia is translated as happiness, but the more accurate translation would be excellence. Eudaimonia is a way of living your life. When living in such a way as to achieve excellence, you will undoubtedly have many moments of mental happiness. Thus, happiness is just the byproduct of your journey to excellence.

 

Woman: Okay, I understand your point, but I don’t know how you would hypothetically “live eudaimoniously.” Should I just volunteer at homeless shelters all of the time? Do selfless things? Give all of my money away?

 

Counselor: Let’s look at this from another philosophic angle. You’re probably familiar with the phrases, “Know thyself,” and “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Both of these sayings originate from ancient Greek philosophies, the first inscribed at the Oracle of Delphi, and the second, spoken by Socrates. Can you control your happiness with your thoughts?

 

Woman: Well I guess not. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it, because I can’t make myself happy? If I could control my happiness just by thinking or doing volunteer work, I wouldn’t have a problem.

 

Counselor: Well if we knew ourselves well enough, could we not predict what would make us happy? Couldn’t our internal knowledge be the source of our happiness?

 

Woman: As I just stated, I don’t think self knowledge is happiness. Your idea is that we still manipulate ourselves, which is just not completely possible. I know what things used to make me happy, but when I do them now, I feel no happiness, only emptiness. Furthermore, isn’t happiness just a byproduct of luck? Should one lose the rest of their family in a horrific car accident, wouldn’t their ‘happiness’ be shattered? Should someone by coincidence run into a handsome man at the library and eventually marry him and live ‘happily ever after’ have that ending through luck?

 

Counselor: Luck perhaps, but I think that we know that finding that certain someone will bring us joy and that having our family die will bring us grief. Because we know these things, we talk to guys at the library and we wear seatbelts in our cars. We do all that we can to achieve the joy and avoid the grief.

 

Woman: Before, you talked about knowing yourself. Can you ever truly know yourself? Can you predict your future reactions to future events? I work as a nurse in the hospital, and have seen many times, unexpected emotions. A man becomes paralyzed. He expects extreme despair, and at first he is. But as he adjusts, it may take months or years, but again he finds happiness, which is as close to unpredictable as anything can be.

 

Counselor: Unpredictable? I think not. The media is saturated with such stories. From these stories we know that we can do it because others could do it.

 

Woman: Really? Let’s say that’s true. You believe that you will automatically become happy after paralysis because others have done so before. You don’t work at physical therapy and you won’t talk with a counselor. Because he doesn’t do any work to make himself better, he doesn’t become better.

 

Counselor: (slight laugh) This is quite funny.

 

Woman: What, you find my ideas comical?

 

Counselor: No, not at all. It just seems that we have switched places in this argument. I began with the eudaimonia argument saying that to achieve happiness we needed to seek excellence through work and virtue, and now we end with you arguing that same point you scoffed at before, if only in different words.

 

Woman: (thoughtful) I guess you’re right. But what do you mean, ‘we end?’ Both of our ideas and perceptions have just begun to grow. How can we stop now?

 

Counselor: Stop? I don’t think this conversation can ever truly end, and I don’t mean the words we use to argue; it is in our own actions that we continue our quest for happiness, be it eudaimonian or not.

 

Woman: You close our session with deep words. I’m sure I’ll think about these ideas for a while.

 

Counselor: As will I.

 

Woman: Well, I’ll see you in two weeks same time, same place, but maybe a different mindset.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Barnes, Jonathon. Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: 2000.

 

Kazez, Jean. “More Happiness Please.” Philosophy Now 14 Nov 2008 <philosophynow.org>.

 

Pianalto, Matthew. “Happiness, Virtue, and Tyranny.” Philosophy Now 10 Nov 2008          <philosophynow.org>.

Fallfest

There was one more thing that I was going to write before, but forgot.

I officially have manwriting. In philosophy, we got off on a tangent about handwriting and what it reveals about the personality. So to explore this, everybody copied down the same random passage from that days reading and lightly wrote m or f on the back. The class would look at a bunch of samples and would try to know if the writer was male or female. Mine turned out to be first up. And before this I already knew that I had manwriting, and I accepted/accepted this fact. The class concurred that it was a guy’s writing. I found it interesting that my opinion about my manwriting was confirmed. I was the only one of the samples to be guessed incorrectly. It was quite funny.

In truth, the reason for this post is procrastination. I really truly do not want to work on my philosophy dialogue. At all. So hence this writing.

The fallfest dance was this weekend. I did find a group. A friend from IB invited me. It was just all girls and we went to dinner and the service was horrible, and we had to eat super fast because the food was late and we couldn’t get into the dance past 9:30 and it was almost 9 when we finally got the food and yeah. I made a new friend. We were already aquantinces through powderpuff, but we became friends. Her name is Tammy, and I think we get along together well. The dance itself was beyond lame. The new nogrinding rules were enforced hardcore. So pretty much everyone was just standing around. And I felt a bit of awkwardness shuffling between groups. I left about 45 minutes before it ended; it was just too dull. Ah well. What else was to be expected.

So I was teaching lessons yesterday at work and after was getting warm in the hottub w/my work buds, and I stayed in the hot tub too long and made myself sick. I felt nauseaus and could only walk so far before almost passing out. My buds helped me out and convinced me not to drive home. Mum came and picked me up and it all turned out well. I just chilled for a while after and felt much better.

I went to the first lax thing up here. Nobody has any idea at all what the hell to do, but it felt so good just to pick up a stick again and play.

That was my weekend. And there’s nothing else for me to say to procrastinate any longer with unfortuneately. Ah well.

Good Night.

Another Week

Okay, to start off, there’s a whole lot that I want to share, but I’m tired, so this isn’t going to be very long. So this weekend was pretty much amazing with you guys. Thank you all so much. I hope to see you guys soon (come up and visit!). I finished a hard core history test (bluebook style, two days) today. Our powderpuff game was last night. We won. I played as a defensive lineman. And offensive lineman. It was freaking cold. And freaking raining. I used my lifeguarding skills for the first time in reality, and not on a dummy or classmate. One girl went down on the field, and when they got her off, I was all “I know first aid” which sounded really stupid, but I lent her my kneebrace conveniently in my bag and told her to do basic twenty on and off icing and to see a doctor if it still hurt in a few days. I was pretty proud of myself. But yeah, so the juniors are undefeated. Threepeat. Next year it’ll be fourth. Donald Driver was supposed to show up and help coach the senior team, but I didn’t see him at all. How disapointting.

I’ve been so tired. And I have this stupid philosophy dialogue that’s due friday that I really don’t want to work on. I only have about a page done. Argh.

I strained a hip flexor yesterday while I was doing an ergathon for a crew fundraiser. It still hurts. Quite a bit, in fact.

Fallfest is coming up. I’m kind of bummed about it. I don’t even have a group to go with. Oh well. I’ll figure it out hopefully. Maybe. Please. I’m asking around. I just fished an offer from Dylan, the girl I give rides homme to, so if all else fails, I’ll go with her.

Work is going well. I’m pretty much teaching my own lessons on wednesdays. The polliwogs. I like my second group quite a bit. They’re all friendly and behave and are willing to try and learn new skills, which is always nice.

So yeah. That’s pretty much it at the moment. Maybe I’ll get lucky and some random guy or group will ask me to join them to Fallfest. If not, whatever, I can deal, it’s just a dance.

Later

Dance Party!

So this weekend I pretty much did nothing. It was glorious. But, the one thing I did go to was super fun. I went to a legit dance party that Christian was holding with his bayport friend. It was pretty fun. I was dancing the night away (scary thought I know) I worked on those too rusty social skills danced with some new friends. It was all and all pretty good. Mary and I drove there together (I drove) because we live just down the street from each other and are pretty good friends. We might have gotten a little lost becuase the house it was at is way out in the boondocks. When we did find it we were to freaking nervous to actually enter the creepy driveway, so we drove in the opposite direction for about five minutes. We turned around and went back eventually, and ended up having some fun.

Today was monday. Nothing too exciting. It was a pretty good day overall; made a bit of progress in the social arena, talked to some people. Turns out that even though I ended up getting a c- on my physics test, I’m only lowered to a b+ now. And it would have been a c+/a- had I still been in Middleton. Stupid hardass grading scale.

Philosophy’s become all sorts of intense all of a sudden. I have an art project and explication due friday and my first internal assessment (big deal) due next friday. I have to research and write a whole philosophocal dialogue. Help!

I officially hate my chemistry teacher. She’s incompetant and stupid. Okay enough ranting. Just needed to get that out of my system.

One kid Thomas, who was pretty nice to me at first is starting to seem quite obnoxious and douchebaggery. He’s so closed minded and arghh. “Obama’s a terrorist” “let’s just shoot them to hell” starting to drive me crazy, not going to lie.

Fallfest is coming up, the weekend after the 7 when I’m hopefully coming down, which I still need to wrangle, but I’ll start working on that tomorrow. It’s pretty much the homecoming equivalent.

Other than that, nothing going on. Just the humdrum details from humdrum green bay. I’m so excited to hopefully see you guys!

I’m just chillaxing

So hello all.

This has been a pretty long week. But finally it’s the weekend! First things first, I just totally overreacted in my argument. I’ve been thinking it over. … and now I’m done thinking about it. It’s the weekend for crisis’ sake.

And speaking of crisis… (see that nifty word play that acted as a segway? I thought I was pretty clever) I took my first part of my physics test yesterday and got it back today before the second part. Let’s just say disaster. 13.5 points off. It is absolutely horrid. Right now, I’m just focusing on trying to totally forget it. You know when you sit down to take a test and you’re totally prepared and you look at the questions and you go what? You forget the most basic and important skill LIKE ADDING FREAKING VECTORS!!! Deep breathes. There’s nothing I can do about it now. Oh well. My grade in it was fine before that, but now, I don’t even want to know.

Again, blocking off that part of my brain. Forever.

At dinner tonight, I was brought up Canada and Anna asked who was in charge and mum and I said the prime minister. Jeff went on to elaborate that Canada was still connected to the U.K. and the prime minister of the u.k. was also in charge of Canada. Mum and I just stared at him blankly. I know at least I couldn’t believe what he was saying. We hurried to correct him. I still can’t believe it.

So yesterday during practice, there were five of us, so we took out a four and OC coxed. Somehow at the very beginning, we all started talking in yooper accents, except for me, because my inner yooper fails, but OC was genius as was Steve and Coach Steve. It was quite hilarious. So we were doing threes and twos and oc would say, “I wanna see dat booat set up, ya understand? Yahderhey, that’s what I was a talkin’ about.” It was quite hilarious, I must say. And I really must work on my yooper accent.

This weekend, I’m going to a ‘dance party’ at my new friend Christian’s place. I think it’s going to be a pretty big deal. The majority of my new friends are going to be there. I’m pretty excited. A bit nervous, but mostly excited.

So yup, that’s pretty much it. I hope to see you all soon.