Camping Memories 2015

On my other blog, I shared a run down of all the things that happened on our camping trip to Bend, OR that we just got back from. Here is a list of some of the things that I predict I will remember most about this trip.

1. Late night campfire philosophical discussions with Ted and Spencer. Staying up til 12:30 talking was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

2. THE RESISTANCE. This was a game we played a lot on this trip. In it, there are randomly selected 'spies' and 'resistance members.' The spies know who the other spies are, but the resistance have no idea about anyone. The resistance wants to succeed 3 of 5 mission to win, and the spies was to fail 3 of 5. The rest of the game mechanics don't need to be explained here, but seriously, this game is awesome and you should play it. We played this a ton, and learned that some of us are much better at lying than others.

3. Rafting down the Deschutes River. The river is pretty mild and you can hike up about a mile and the float all the way down to the campground.

4. Exploring the river! On our last full day there, a group of us went about two miles farther than usual. We didn't know what to expect but what we found was a lot of beautiful scenery, some pretty deep water, a few mild rapids, and a little island full of wildflowers. It was awesome.

5. Waking up to the sound of the younger kids around the fire. There was a group of about four kids who were always up early, and it was not uncommon to wake up to the sounds of them talking about Lord of the Rings, or Monty Python, or who knows what else.

6. Playing mafia. I love this game, and it's a lot of fun to play it around the campfire in the dark. We had one game where the mafia won (which isn't that common), and one where the mafia was lynched but after a pretty long, interesting game. We also had some great storytellers, which made everything more fun.

7. Listening to podcasts in the car. We spent between 16 plus hours in the car on the this trip, and I spent a lot of it listening to old episodes of the Nerdist podcast, plus the new Hello Internet.

8. Inside jokes! When you have a group of people in tight quarter for long enough, some inside jokes begin to form. My favorite is the joke that formed from the Peters family getting so involved in a conversation that they drove all the way to Kennewick (not at all where they wanted to be), which led to a series of Kennewick jokes.


Overall, it was a pretty awesome trip. I love being in a great place with great people. It's nice to being somewhat isolated for a while with people you love and trust and to not have to worry too much about anything. A little break from real life for a while can be pretty nice.

The Lost Books: Part 1 {Emotional Attachment}

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Tragically, I lost some books this week to a plumbing problem. There were 17 books that had enough water and/or mold damage that they had to be thrown out. I went though the books that are officially lost causes and made a few different lists, which will go up as a few different blog posts.

This is the first part, the books with emotional attachment/books that might not be replaceable.

Luckily, there are really only two books that fit into this category.

The first is Tales from the Ballet by Louis Untermeyer. I got this book at a library book sale for $1 many years ago. When I was little I checked it out from the library many times and I loved the stories and beautiful pictures in it. The copy I had was from the original 1968 printing, and it had a handwritten note on the first page dated December 1968.



This was the same cover as the copy I had. I would love to replace this book if possible, but I don't know if that'll be doable.


The second book is another one that I bought at a library book sale, probably for about $0.50. It was a copy of In the Hands of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce. It was an old library copy that had been pulled from circulation. It was from the origional printing (and had the origional cover), and was old and kind of ragged. When that book was in circulation, I checked it out from the library probably no less than 10 times in a period of 3 or 4 years. When I saw it at a book sale, I had to buy it.

This is probably the book I'm saddest to lose. I doubt it'll be easy to find a copy from that printing, and more than anything, I just loved having that copy of it, which I had read so many times when I was younger.

Hate vs. Indifference {Question #3}

Welcome to the series where I answer open ended questions from a quiz I found on Tumblr. They are a great opportunity for me to share bits and pieces about myself on the blog.

Today's question is:

Is there anyone close to you that you know you can't trust?

There was a situation not too long ago with a person who was a friend of mine who I always knew I shouldn’t trust, but still did. That situation spiraled completely out of control, and ended up very badly for a number of people. That person and I are no longer friends.

Since then, I try to be more careful about who I’m friends with. I don’t want to end up in a situation like that again. There are people I wouldn’t tell my deepest secrets to, of course, but all the people closest to me are people I trust.

Recently, I saw someone online say “Hate is too strong an emotion to waste on those you don’t like.” At first it made me mad, because I knew that person was trying to invalidate someone who said they hated them, but then I thought about it a little more. There is a very, very small number of people who I would say I legitimately hate. And the reason I hate those people is that I did like them once. I liked them, and they screwed me over, and made me hate them.

So I completely agree. Hate IS too strong an emotion for those you don’t like. Most of the time, my negative response to someone is just indifference. It’s only hate because I liked them once.

Sorry, that was kind of a tangent. To answer the actual question, there are some people close to me that I wouldn’t trust with certain information, but I try not to be close to people who I really can’t trust. 

Best Friends {Question #2}

Welcome to the series where I answer open ended questions from a quiz I found on Tumblr. They are a great opportunity for me to share bits and pieces about myself on the blog.

Today's question is:

What makes someone a best friend?

There are a couple of people who I would say were my “best friend” at different points in my life. One of them, who was my best friend from about ages 9-13, drifted out of my life until one day I realized I hadn’t talked to her in almost a year. When she was my best friend, it was honestly mostly because there was nobody else. She lived close to me, her dad was friends with my dad, and she was basically the only other girl my age that I knew. We were very different people, but we did a lot of stuff together, and had a lot of fun. She pushed me out of my comfort zone a lot, and as it turned out, that was often a good thing.

The girl who I would now call my best friend just faded into that role. One day, she introduced me to someone at school as her best friend, and I thought “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s right.” Unlike with M, L and I have a ton in common. We’re both huge readers, we have all the same friends, lots of similar interests, out parents are super similar, and we’ve had a lot of new experiences together. There have been periods of time where we don’t talk all that often. We both have other friends, who we actually spend more time with, and talk to more. But I think we’re still best friends because when I show up at her house, I feel like part of the family, and when one of us gets asked out on a date, the other will be the first (and maybe only) person to know.

Age is Relative {Question #1)

While browsing on Tumblr, I stumbled onto the F*** Yeah Surveys blog, which is just a collection of awesome surveys to do. I found this one that had a really great selection of questions, and I realized that most of these could be full blog posts of their own.

So that's what I'm going to do. These should be fun to answer, and these posts should be easy to write. Some of the answers will be short, others longer. I'll try to make sure they are all at least 500 words, just to make things interesting. There are 100 of these total, and I'll try to do most of them over the next few months, though I'll probably end up skipping some.

Today we're starting with the question:

1.    Are you young at heart, or an old soul?

Well, I kind of don't like this question, because we all are the age we are, but the experiences we have shape the way we react to situations, which is what I assume this question is talking about. My friends would probably say "old soul" simply because I'm always the one saying, "Uh, guys, don't you think this is a bad idea?" and being the 'responsible one.'

But also, I don't put a ton of value on a lot of the stuff that is part of youth culture. I haven't had a lot of the stereotypical teen experiences, and I don't really care. I'm happy with the person I am, and I don't care all that much that I've never gone to prom or homecoming, or that I won't have a typical high school graduation, or that my parents and younger siblings are at basically every party I go to. I really don't care.

I don't know if that really answers the question, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't feel the need to party and live it up right now. I want to go to college, not to drink, but to study, and being on the path to having a successful, fulfilling career is more important to me right now than meeting guys and being a traditional 17 year old.

That's not to say that I don't value having fun, I certainly do. I just know where my priorities lie.

I don't know if this was what this question was supposed to mean, but what the heck. This was fun. :P

Stuff I Like: Summer Edition

*This post may contain affiliate links, and if you make a purchase after clicking them, I will receive compensation.*

Today is another installement on my occasional series in which I tell you about cool stuff I've been readind/watching/listening to/playing lately, in list form, because I like lists.

Reading

1. I recently finished a book called Old Wolf by Avi, and it was quite good. It is a middle reader that flips between the POV of a wolf, and that of a 13 year old boy. It's a quick read, and well written, as is anything by Avi. I read an ARC of it, but I believe it comes out this month sometime.

2. I'm reading a book called The Swerve right now, and it is fantastic. I'm not far into it, but I highly reccommend it.

3. I reading The Golden Compass outloud to Isabelle right now, and I'm really loving rereading it. I am a huge fan of those books, and this time through, I'm really appreciating the writing.

4. I just read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and it was amazing. I highly, highly recommend it. There might be a full review of that one coming soon.

Watching

5. I finally finished Lost recently, and the ending was much better than I feared it could have been. It's been awesome to finally be able to read stuff on the internet about it, and boy is there a lot to read.

6. I'm now caught up on Gravity Falls, and I got my mom and sister to watch it, so now I'm also rewatching it with them. It's awesome. And there's a new episode tomorrow!!

Listening

7. There haven't been any new Hello Internets in a while, so I'm sad about that. Even Cortex is taking a week off. :(

8. I've been listening to a TON of Nerdist lately. I know I'm about four years late on that bandwagon, but it's a great one. For those of you who don't know, Nerdist is the podcast of Chris Hardwick, on which he and his co-hosts Matt Mira and Jonah Ray interview people. They come out three times a week most weeks, so there are over 700 of them, which is a lot. I actually much prefer the 'hostful' podcasts, which are just the three hosts, but the interviews can be really good too.

Just a warning - Nerdist is not a family friendly podcast. They swear a LOT, and there is a lot of adult content. Nerdist is hilarious, but not for kids or for the easily offended.

9. Welcome to Nightvale just came back from their hiatus, during which they posted two new episodes. One of those was the first chapter from their new book, and I am so excited! I can not wait for that book to come out this fall!

10. The Green brother's new podcast, Dear Hank and John, is also quite good.

11. I've been listening a little bit to Radio Free Burrito by Wil Wheaton, but it's not grabbing my attention as much as I thought it would. Not sure if I'll stick with that one.

Playing

12. I haven't had that much time to play games recently, but I have been playing a bit of Don't Starve every now and then.

13. There is this great indie game called Paper, Please that I really like. It's a work sim in which you are a boarder guard in a fictional world that is remarkably similar to 1980's eastern Europe.

I don't have time to put in links to all of these things, but please, go check them out!

Homeschool Academy, dancing, and more! {Life update}

This blog is feeling pretty empty now! The weird thing is that I feel like I'm writing stuff for this blog all the time, but you guys don't realize it. The back end of this blog has probably close to 50 unpublished drafts of posts. Some of those are terrible, and will never see the light of day, but some might... We'll see.

I think it's time for a little life update! I'm blogging (semi-regularly) on The Daily Ramble about my day to day life, so for a more complete idea of what I'm up to, go over there.

I've been pretty busy this summer. I'm teaching Latin still, plus some friends and I teamed up for Homeschool Academy, where we teach a bunch of cool classes. I'm co-teaching Geology, plus I'm teaching Irish dancing each week. It's a ton of fun, and it's super relaxed and laid back, which is nice.

I'm not doing any ballet this summer, but I am doing Irish, and we have some more performances coming up! We're dancing and the Whidbey Island Highland Games in a few weeks, and then at Birch Bay State Park a few weeks after that.

College searching continues. This weekend we're going to the east side of the state to visit Gonzaga University and WSU. I don't have any interest in WSU, but my sister wants to visit, and I love college campuses, so it should be fun. Plus, I've never been to either Pullman or Spokane, so it'll be fun to see more of the state.

I just finalized my class schedule for the fall. I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (unfortunately I didn't get into Precalc I), German I, and Introduction to World Religions. I think it should be a fun load, albeit a challenging one.

In the winter, I'll be taking Precalc, German II, and Western Civ III (assuming all goes according to plan.

That's my life right now! Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Prep for the Lit Analysis class I taught for the Homeschool Acadmey.

Aslan and I.

Bad pic, but I got a WTNV shirt!

Awesome necklace I bought at the steampunk festival yesterday!

Beautiful sunset over the dogpark