Summer

Summer is calling! I can finally hear it, and its voice sounds oh so good. I just can't wait for those two and a half weeks of freedom....and then....

GSP!!! Gosh I am sooo excited about this! I can't wait to find out what college I am going to. Once there, it's going to be so fun living the life of a college student, only a lot more fun. All of the websites and information from their sponsors makes it seem like it will be a blast, and all of the seniors last year said that it was one of the most fun experiences of their lives. I only hope that I have nearly as much fun as they seemed to have had, and I'm pretty sure I will, haha.

After GSP, I'll have about ten days to rest before school starts back up again, and believe me, I'm going to need all of it after the energy I will have exhausted the previous five weeks. But why am I thinking about schoooooool, I have two weeks left!

Signing off on the last blog is going to be so emotional! Haha.

Dakota

New Things

Getting new things is always fun. Getting new things that you have desired and waited for for a long time is even more fun. On this regard, my family has just gotten a new internet service that allows us to do many more things at home than our old, slow, satellite internet of before. We had the satellite internet for about two years, and for the first two months, we thought, wow, this is really fast compared to dial-up. But then, as we realized how quickly other technological things were advancing around us, we realized that satellite just wasn't going to cut it.

The new internet is freakin' amazing. It's so fast and gets us wherever we need to go on the web in a quick and efficient manner. Also, I can finally get on Xbox Live at my mom's. =) The weird thing is, we had originally signed up for an internet even faster than what we got, but once the men came out to install the equipment, we found out that we couldn't receive the highest tier where we lived because all of the trees obstructed the best results, so we ended up getting the middle-grade. Luckily, it still rocks!

Dakota

End of the Year

Back to school...yay, I get to see everyone again....oh wait, school sucks otherwise. Can't wait until fall break....we still have another half of a year!....prom is still four months away.....and now there is only one week left of school. The journey was rough and tiresome, but junior year, looking in reflection, was a shorter ride than it seemed. I mean, honestly, it seems like I was going to Sadie Hawkins two weeks ago.

I wouldn't really care all that much about this fact excepthat I have only one more year of high school left before becoming an adult. These first twelve years of school really have gone by faster than I ever would have imagined as a yearning third grader. If I had the chance, I would do some things differently, would remember different things, but I wouldn't change the overall outcome for anything. My life thus far has been a blessing and a treasure to live, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The vagueness of this blog is getting to me...but I don't know what to reflect on...It's been a fun and learning experience the whole way (I guess is what I am trying to say).

Dakota

Food and Sleep Deprivation

Going through life is tough. Believe me, I'm the stereotypical teenager who knows that everyone's lives revolve around me and that if anything is out of whack it's a dramatic tragedy. I've got one for you though - try going through life without food or sleep. My thoughts on the matter are that you would most likely perish rather quickly, and you wouldn't have much to whine about.

I'm not much on whining myself, but I sometimes deprive myself of both of these necessities for days. I don't blame anyone but myself, but during school or work when I can only think of sleeping (usually I don't think much about food), I get upset with myself for having stayed up to late and gotten up too early the night before. Reasons for my sleep deprivation include, but are not limited to excessive fun, talking to friends, homework, homework, talking to friends, homework, chatting it up with my friends, and homework. Reasons for not eating include falling asleep when I get home from lack of sleep and not eating dinner...it's a vicious cycle, as evident.

I know I have a problem, and I should probably try to curb it...but as I sit here thinking about why I wait so long to post my blog drafts, I realize that these are contributing to this bad cycle. If I would simply post my drafts when I finish them instead of waiting until the end of the month, I wouldn't have to remember to post them all the time nor would I waste the time posting them all at the same time while I could be doing other things (SLEEPING!).

Dakota

Prom

Prom is coming up this Saturday. Am I excited you ask? My response: might as well be, I just spent $200 dollars for one night, haha. Honestly, dances aren’t really my thing and up until last week, I didn’t think I was going. Then I decided to give in to peer pressure and go anyway. Because I waited so long, however, everything I had to do was rushed. Between work and school and other engagements, I had to find time to order a tux and shoes and flowers. But I got it done and I’m just ready to go to the Riverpark and enjoy myself now (hoping the 200 bucks will be worth it).

As far as having a fun time goes, I don't think I'll have any problems...my friends are pretty much the greatest at keeping me happy and upbeat, even in situations less than desirable. And it's gotta be exciting, right? I mean the prom committee has been planning this since January...hopefully they did a good job. And through writing this I have realized that this has become one of my major ramble posts...I didn't think it would happen!

For everyone, pray there is no bad weather! The wretched weatherman is forecasting it, but it's a night of elegance! We can't have rain and storms then!

Dakota

KOM Training

KOM training was today. To say the least, I am glad I decided to become a freshman mentor. I had so much fun with all the activities we did today. First, hats off to Mr. Lee, he was pretty great at getting us motivated and ready to stuff. Second, I say thank you to Mrs. Conkwright for making this all happen.

Now on to the details!

First, Mr. Lee had all of the KOM's fill out bingo cards with other people's names who fit the criteria in each box. The objective was to get to know more people (and get 3 bingos) I ended up 88th out of a little over a hundred....I was quite ashamed of myself, but oh well haha. Then we played the game Mr. Lee called the "High School" game, where people must bunch up in groups of how ever many people Mr. Lee called out, and if you were left out of a group when he blew the whistle, you lost and had to stand away from the rest of the action. I did pretty well in that I suppose.

Then we had story time!

After story time, we began learning a really cool dance. This and the "High School" game were my favorite activities. The order of events blur in my memory from here, but there was a hand slapping game that involved the calling out and remembering of other people's names, and some paper work that wasn't as fun, but didn't really detract from the day in general. Overall, I had a great time, and I hope my freshman benefit because of my effort today at training. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION FOR MY FRESHMEN!

Dakota

Spring Break Numero Dos

So this post is pretty much a summary of my spring break, which I blogged about earlier.

First I went to my dad's house, where I soon realized that I was going to be doing a little manual labor to start off my week of relaxation. Yes, dad finally bought the house in Indy and we started moving our furniture in the garage up there. I got to ride up in the big moving truck which was pretty cool.

I got to my new house and was astonished...it was huge! Outside of my uncle's house (a doctor), this was the biggest house I had ever been in. It was really pretty too and I couldn't have asked for a better exterior. The foliage was perfect and it was right on a lake.

Anyway, once we finished moving all of the furniture from the truck to the house, I finally got to start relaxing. I pretty much had to veg out as we didn't have any food except for the snacks we packed for the ride up. Me and dad immediately hooked up the 55" downstairs and tapped into the analog channels (actually, we watched the NCAA men's basketball championship off of them).

I visited colleges, as I said earlier, and I was thoroughly convinced that Purdue sucked and that IU was my dream school!

Tornado warnings were out that Wednesday in our area. Fun night.

On Thursday, my dad and I headed for Lexington and stayed in a hotel there for my campus visit to UK the next day.

Then Friday, I came back to my real home and life was good....except that spring break was over. Oh well, satisfactory is the grade I would give it. Much was accomplished.

Dakota

Youtube

What more is there to say, honestly? Youtube is about the greatest website known to man. It’s one of my most visited websites (after Facebook) because, let’s face it, you can find virtually anything you’re “looking” for there. If you want funny videos, clips from real-life movies, maybe even a lesson on that song you just can’t quite get on the guitar, Youtube is your man/website. I honestly think I have probably watched about every kind of video on Youtube, and fail to be bored by the sheer number of videos available or the fact that the service is absolutely free! Seriously, where else does one find this kind of opportunity?

And it's not just other people's videos! You yourself can set up an account in about five minutes and instantly begin taping vids for all the world to see! I still have yet to do so but I definitely will soon. I don't know, I just felt like blogging about one of the greatest innovations in Internet technology ever!

To the makers of Youtube, thank “You!”

Dakota

Failing (Epic Fail?) (It's Over 9000!) (Insert Other Often Said Thing Here)

Self-regarded as a good student (not conceited, honest), I don’t take it very well when I receive less than desirable grades on school assignments, which again, isn’t very often. One of the worst feelings is when that grade is the sixth letter of the alphabet. The ominous F – the failure, frick, and other unrepeatable words word. If you thought you did well, the feeling of the F-bomb isn’t as traumatic because it’s a sudden bad emotion after a longer period of good ones. If you thought you sucked it up, the feelings are worse because you know you’re going to get a bad score but there’s nothing you can do about it.

The latter feeling is the one that I currently feel about the math test I just took. I’ve always gotten A’s on all the other tests in that class this year, but this test, my mind performed an effective meltdown. About every answer I got was wrong, and though I struggled more on this unit, I thought I had finally grasped the material. Boy was I wrong. During the middle of the test I was silently reprimanding myself for sucking so bad. It was bad. But oh well, hopefully there are more grades during the review period.

Dakota

Spring Break

Spring break just cannot get here fast enough for me. School has been in session for way too long now and I am just ready to get out and relax. I just want to be able to sleep in go to sleep late and not worry about anything…

Oh wait, I don’t get a spring break. Not really. No, I have to go up to Indianapolis with my dad for college visits. Because my mom works every day and can’t take off to take me to the colleges, my dad has to, and because he starts work on Tuesday in Indy, I have to go up there with him. I have college visits on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of spring break week. The time between visits will be spent sitting in a hotel while my dad does his business (literally). How boring.

But oh well. I guess what I am doing is better than what some could be doing…nothing’s coming to mind, but I’m sure there are worse things. Can’t wait.

Dakota

UK: A Disappointment

It’s the times that I put my confidence in a team that goes 0-17 from 3-point land that I feel I was born in the wrong state. My family has always been full of staunch UK fans, and I have become one as well. But when an Elite 8 team cannot sink a single three pointer in seventeen attempts, I begin to question the greatness of my beloved Cats.

The fact that we went about 10% from the three in the tournament is astounding, but what aggravates me more is that they still attempted them, contested or not, after missing ten in a row. Obviously we have a size advantage in the post against any team with DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton. Why are our guards hoisting up the long ball when they can’t drain it? Just feed it to the big man.

They say defense wins championships. I think this comes with the assumption that some points are scored on offensive possessions. When we screw ourselves out of a potential 51 points because of selfish three point shooting, it’s hard to blame the defense for losing the game for us.

Coach Cal, it looks like you’re going to have to coach these stars you recruit, not just let them survive on their own raw talent. Because it is very raw.

Dakota

Spring

So I got my first mosquito bite last night while biking with Joseph Powers. You know what this means? My least favorite season has finally returned. Oh, it’s been a while my pleasantly warm but unpleasantly bug-bringing friend. I love the temperatures; I hate the bugs. Strike that, I hate the bugs that hate me. I’m sort of a girlie boy in this regard, but any bug that has a stinger or has the potential to hurt me is my sworn enemy. Bees, wasps, spiders – I’m scared of every one of them.

It really is weird, though. One of my favorite things to do is camp. I don’t know, just getting out into the woods and living semi-all-natural with the Off spray lathered on and sitting around the campfire singing those campfire songs (J) just gets me every time.

Back to spring though, I literally will not open my windows in my room for fear of wasps slipping through the seal and flying around with their lazy legs eyeing me the whole time. I believe I might just have a phobia of these little buggers (no pun intended). Why can’t we just skip straight over spring and go right into summer!?

Dakota

Academic Team Over

The season for academic team has come and gone, and I think I’m going to miss it. All of the time spent practicing and…..studying…..has really gotten to me. We didn’t make it to state in quick recall for governor’s cup and I feel like the job is not yet done. We haven’t completed what we set out to do as first year upperclassmen. This one was finally going to be the year that we got to state by putting the hurt on our region, but it wasn’t so.

So now it’s necessary to wait until next year, study my butt off over the off-season. Most might think that studying over summer break is ludicrous. I think I have to agree with this most person. But when I destroy in science in quick recall, they’ll be chanting my name in the crowd (silently of course). Oh yea, it’s going to be a good day in the neighborhood when the team rejoins next year!

Dakota

GSP Anticipation

So I must say, GSP anticipation is about to drive me insane. Those who applied for this great opportunity did so almost three months ago, and we won’t find out for almost another one. I just really want to know if I made it or not, not only just for the sake of knowing, but also the fact that I need to schedule my summer events accordingly. And not knowing whether I’m going to be free for five weeks in a row or not is kind of a big deal.

It sure would be great if I were accepted. I’m sure the program is really fun and interesting and I will have an awesome time learning and meeting other people. But the major benefit of going to the program has kind of fallen away from me. I was originally going to get full-tuition to UK, but my plans have changed since I applied. Now I am about 95% sure that I’m going to Indiana University, where this program does not aid me at all.

I know it looks good on your applications and stuff to any college, but I’ve been asking myself of late if I still want to go through with a five week program that’s taken out of my last summer break as a high school student just for the sake of going.

Dakota

Pests

There aren’t many things in this world that just generally grind my gears. That said, I don’t like insects very much. But most insects themselves have biological purposes in the ecosystems they inhabit. The pests of the group that have no biological purpose are the ones that I don’t like at all.

These nuisances include but are not limited to mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks. More or less, these insects are parasitic without a general niche other than to stay alive. They do nothing helpful for their ecosystems and generally only benefit themselves.

My question is, “What is their purpose in life?” I mean honestly, they just seem to be little life-suckers that help no one but themselves.

P.S. One could probably tell by this point that this blog is very random and also rather pointless. You may be asking the same question posed earlier toward this blog post…

Dakota

Awakeness

Staying up late and getting up early has adverse effects on both sleepiness and health. It makes me want to never get out of bed in the morning and fall asleep as soon as I get home from school of a day. Deprivation of sleep makes everything harder in general. Why then, do I willingly give up sleep? The answer is simple. I am a teenager.

I’ve stayed up until the early hours of the morning talking to my friends, doing homework, procrastinating on homework, playing games, among other things. It used to not be this way. During middle school I would do my homework as soon as I got home, do all my other daily things and be asleep by 10:00. But then freshman year rolled around and it all began to change. I started becoming a homework lazy, friend chatty, and just overall time wasting kid. That fact has only manifested itself more since I’ve moved up the ranks of high schooldom.

And you know what? It’s cool, because I always get what I need to get done, done. Maybe it’s at the cost of my awakeness, but hey, if the shoe fits…wait, that cliché doesn’t “fit” here…anyway, sort of loopy right now, so I’m going to call it a blog and a night.

Dakota

Forgetting to Post My Blogs

I have a problem. I know this, and admittance is the first step to recovery. My problem? I never can remember to post my blogs until it’s almost too late. It isn’t that I haven’t written them, I just don’t like posting them until the deadline so hopefully people won’t have to waste their time reading them, haha. But this is bad for me when I forget about them, as I have almost done tonight. I usually end up doing something more interesting or time-consuming, as I have also done tonight, and forget all about my lonely little blogs, sitting in my computer’s memory waiting to be put on the Internet for everyone to see.

Also, as is probably evident by now, I have forgotten to write my last blog, and so have decided to make this one about the fact that I am so forgetful about things of this nature. Maybe if I just decided to post my blogs, I wouldn’t have this problem… maybe if I would just remember, I wouldn’t have this problem. I think I prefer the latter. =)

Dakota

Olympics Blog

So the 2010 Winter Olympics have been going on as of late, as all of you probably already know. I won’t talk about all of the athletes and medalists and things like that in this blog. I’d rather like to focus my attention on the devotion of said athletes.

First off, most of them are professionals in their area. They are used to being paid for doing their dream jobs. As Olympians, they are playing simply for national fame and glory. They are taking a leave of absence from their daily work to represent their respective countries in their sport. And for this I applaud them. They don’t have to do what they are doing, but they are risking their body and reputation for the honor of their fellow countrymen.

Some of these athletes have devoted their whole lives to the sport they are playing in hopes of being in the position they are currently in, playing on the biggest stage on Earth, the Olympics. It’s simply incredible how much time and effort these people are putting into their respective fields to be the best, knowing they are going up against the toughest competition in the world.

On a side note, though I said I wouldn’t talk about medals, USA is in the lead in medal count! =)))

Dakota

Finally Found a Job!

I’ve been out of a job for a while. In fact, I’ve been looking since I quit working at Holiday World freshman year. Well I’ve finally been offered a job at taco bell! I (and my parents) are of course overjoyed that I’ve gotten a job, especially in these economic times.

The day I was offered a job, I was sitting in Mr. Paff’s room waiting for FPS practice to start. Joseph Powers comes in and asks me if I want to go to Taco Bell with him. I told him I didn’t have any money to buy anything, and he told me that he was going because of open interviews, not to buy anything. Having my keen eye for chances, I go with him. When we get there, we fill out applications and general information and immediately get interviewed. My interview was really short, so I knew I was either immediately written off or seriously considered. Apparently, it was the latter. An hour and a half later, I got a call saying I was hired at the Taco Bell on Parrish. Needless to say I was ecstatic.

Now all there is to do is wait for my interview and then I’ll be getting that cash flow!!!

Dakota

Regionals Governor's Cup

Today, Apollo hosted our region’s Governor’s Cup competition. Let’s cut to the chase.

The test takers that made it to state from Apollo were Jacob Merimee in math, Joseph Powers in arts and humanities, Katherine Powers in language arts, and Loren Whiting in composition. Congratulations guys, and good luck at state!

Quick recall placed fourth, losing to Grayson County and Edmonson County. It was upsetting for us – we thought we were finally going to make it to state this time… but at least we beat Owensboro (in a barn-burner). Grayson placed first, Edmonson second, and Frederick Fraize third.

FPS was screwed over, plain and simple. Every one of the judges graded our booklet as third or better, two even giving us a first-place vote. Every one, that is, except for Mr./Ms. Ignorant. Yes, the last judge graded our underlying problem and said we had a dual purpose (not allowed), which we didn’t, and went on to give us the lowest grade possible on the next section because it answers the underlying problem. This score merited a fifth place vote. Overall, we and another team were tied for second place, but for some reason, still unbeknownst to us, they were awarded second and us third, keeping us from going to state. We even had more first place votes than them… and the sad thing is, if there was more team in the regional pool, and we had gotten sixth place, it would have been counted as an outlier and our score would have been recalculated without it… but oh well, better luck next year I guess.

Dakota

College Visits

I wrote a blog about college-related information a few days ago, so the title may seem a little redundant. IT IS NOT! This post is simply about me and the colleges I have scheduled to visit over spring break. I’m really excited to be able to finally get the process started for selecting a college.

Kentucky - What is there to say? It’s Wildcat Country; who wouldn’t want to go there? This school has been my favorite since I was still in the womb – my whole family is full of die-hard UK fans. My dad went there, my uncle went there, why shouldn’t I?

Purdue – Don’t really know that much about this school, except that it has a very good biology and chemistry programs, which is what I will need to become a doctor.

Indiana – I believe, as of now, this is my most perspective university. They have everything for me. Their campus is beautiful, their science and medical programs are rivaled only by the top schools in the nation, and they’re in-state for me. Plus, with my dad moving up to Indianapolis around the same time, I’ll still be rather close to home.

Notre Dame – I think it would be great to go to this school because of its prestige and its Catholic affiliation, but it does not have a school of medicine, so I don’t think it is right for me. I may still visit it, just to check it out.

Dakota

College Sports

Sports are one of the main things that make my world go ‘round. They are just quite simply the most fun things to both watch and play. When talking about college sports, I am brought to an all new high.

I don’t know why, but college sports are just more fun to watch than professional ones. I suppose it may be the atmosphere, the thousands of emphatic fans rooting their favorite college’s team on to victory. Also, maybe the fact that the players aren’t being paid and thus are playing for pride and glory sparks my intrigue more.

I’d have to say that my favorites are football, basketball, baseball, and lacrosse. But for me, it’s not just varsity sports. I love all kinds of intercollegiate and intramural sports as well. Frisbee golf, flag football, water polo, they’re all cool. I really do hope I can play on an intramural team when I get into college. It will really make the experience a lot more fun.

Dakota

Kentucky's King of the Polls...or Not

Kentucky’s men’s basketball team has fought all year to maintain a perfect record and stay in the hunt for a number one seed come tournament time. They started fifth in the polls, and one by one, their higher-ranked foes fell, until there was only one – them. For the first time since 2003, Kentucky was ranked first.

And in the blink of an eye, it vanished. In a mere one and a half days, Kentucky went from numero uno to losing the basement team of the SEC in South Carolina. I guess we went in there over-glorified, thinking we were all high and mighty, and got punished as a result. Giving some credit where it’s due, Downey played a stellar game, and had he not been a beast that night, Kentucky would have most likely not lost.

Now people are trying to blame Obama for the loss. What the heck? All he did was talk to them over the phone. They just didn’t come to play against an overzealous SC team and paid the price. Maybe we’ll be able to learn from this setback before we play Tennessee (we beat 23^rd ranked Vanderbilt, woot woot!).

Dakota

Texting

So I just got texting for my phone. This has been a long time coming, but needless to say I am happy that I at least have it now. I know I should be thankful that I at least have it, but I have a phone that is no good for texting. Now in any other situation I would not be griping about this, but my mom told me and my sister that we wouldn’t ever be getting texting for our phones. So, I bought a phone that was cool in itself instead of a phone built for texting. My sister, however, got a phone with a keyboard on it. I of course gave her crap about it because she bought a texting phone (which is pointless if one does not have texting for it). But then mother decides we will get texting once dad pays the child support. We now have texting, and I light it up, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just a bit miffed that mom sort of jipped me out of a good texting phone because she didn’t think either my sister or I would be getting texting for them.

On the other hand, life is good. =)

Dakota

FPS

Apollo’s FPS and composition members from the academic team competed in the District Governor’s Cup competition and OCHS on Thursday. This blog will focus on the Future Problem Solving part of the competition.

Basically, we pretty much dominated. We got into the testing session and got down to business. In FPS, one strives to come up with sixteen challenges to a given situation, an underlying problem of this situation, sixteen solutions to this underlying problem, grade how well eight of these solutions would fare against a criteria of our choosing, and an action plan that best solves the underlying problem. This may seem like a lot, but let’s just say that we did it all, to near perfectness. I was amazed at how well we did. We just found out today that we are going on to regional (we either got first or second place, but since the actual competition was postponed due to the snowy weather, we won’t find out until the awards ceremony of the new date for that competition). Needless to say, I am thrilled and very excited to kick some tail at regional and move on to state!

Dakota

Dog Advice

I think that if a dog were to give me (or any other person) advice on any particular subject, it would probably tell me to chill out and relax a little bit more.

He would tell me that life is good when you don’t have to worry about anything, when you can just eat, sleep, and play with your owners. Why are you always running around all busy and under stress? What’s the rush? Just lay back and enjoy life; I’ve been doing it my whole life and its worked wonders for me.

I guess sometimes we as people get too caught up in the race to be everything that we can be and get everything we can obtain instead of living for ourselves and letting things roll every once in a while. These are the times when we would really like and need the guidance of a dog, one who has no cares and lives for himself, one who doesn’t buy into the hustle and bustle lifestyle. I think I might heed this advice on occasion. It sounds pretty nice. =P

Dakota

Rant Time - Nerd Style

I have this game called Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. It’s pretty much one of the best games made for the Xbox 360, ever. Well, this game’s freakin’ awesomeness is doubled when you couple it with online play. This is what this blog is mainly about.

I’m an average online player. I can hold my own against other players pretty well. I’m not great but I’m not bad. My kill to death ratio was about 1.1. Key word – was. Until, that is, two weekends ago. I had the crazy opportunity to go skiing with Nick at Paoli, so of course I took it! And it was great, as I stated in the blog about that trip. Little did I know that while I was having the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, my sister’s friend was ruining my reputation on CoDMW2. My sister had her friend (who I won’t name) over to my dad’s house that weekend. They decided they were going to play my online profile and add people to my friends list that I don’t even know. The friends I can handle; the actual playing I can’t. For lack of a better word, they sucked. Bad. When I returned to my dad’s house the following weekend, I found that my KD ratio had fallen about .2. To put that into perspective, they earned me 20 kills and about 300 deaths while they played.

This was, needless to say, very aggravating. I’ve sort of gotten over it as I’ve cut the deficit by about .07 and am only below 1 by about 150 kills. But still, you get the idea.

Dakota

Ski Trip

First off, let me thank Mr. Nick Miller for allowing me to go skiing with him. Okay, on with the proceedings.

This trip was amazing. Stated simply, I have found out that I enjoy skiing more than about every other activity I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t know if it’s the wind whipping your hair and clothes or the adrenaline rush you get when you realize you’re going a little bit too fast. Either way, skiing is absolutely incredible.

Granted, I went last year, but this year made me realize that the fun wasn’t just a onetime deal. I was actually thinking about trying out snowboarding, but Hannah and Nick talked me out of it. Again, thanks guys.

Anyway, we got there and I could tell I was already going to have more fun than the year before because it was a clear day. Last year it got really cold and snowy later in the day. Hannah had to take lessons so Nick and I tried out the bunny slopes to get warmed up. Once she was finished, we almost immediately started on the harder slopes, and eventually went down one I didn’t even know existed. It was by far the most fun.

Then Nick and I faced do or die time. Black diamond and the clock were staring us in the face. Were we men enough to try and conquer the hardest slope on the mountain? Oh heck yea. And it was kind of a letdown, because it wasn’t very difficult or fun at all, haha. Getting Hannah on it was harder than going down it, but I finally convinced her to after ages of persuasion.

I’m not very good at explaining great things without sounding stereotypical and otherwise boring, but this was pretty great, trust me.

Dakota

Snow Days Blog

Snow days are, in my opinion, one of the most controversial things that could happen to a school student in student years. They are good in many ways but bad in other ones.

Good – IT’S A SNOW DAY! You’re out of school! What could be better than that? The day is yours, you don’t have to do homework, and you’re not stuck in a seat for six hours.

Bad – IT’S A SNOW DAY! You’ve had no time to plan anything for the day, so you’re usually stuck at home doing nothing and being totally bored. Plus, if the schools deemed the roads too dangerous to travel, you’re parents usually do too and you can’t get out of the house.

Personally, it depends on what day of the week the snow day is and what time of the year. If it’s the beginning or the end of the week, it’s definitely cool with me because I get a long weekend. If it’s in the middle of the week, it’s not as great because you still have school afterwards to look forward too. Also, how much snow actually came is a big factor. If there’s barely any snow on the ground, then it’s pointless to even go outside because you can’t do anything with the snow. But if there is a bunch of snow, as there is now, you can do REALLY AWESOME stuff with it.

Dakota

Climate Effects Blog

I was thinking the other day about the way that climate may affect people’s way of life, their behaviors, their emotions, etc, and decided to blog about it. It has to have at least a little effect on these things, does it not?

I mean, in terms of way of life, people in Siberia are going to have very different recreational activities and careers than those, say, in Florida. People in Siberia most likely stay inside their houses most of their days as temperatures are very frequently twenty below and less. People in Florida can do many more things outside of the house because the temperatures are more favorable.

As for behaviors and emotions, it seems like climate would affect them as well. You can’t tell me that people who live in Seattle where it rains a lot and Texas where there is nothing but arid land have a different outlook on people and life than people who live in Jamaica or Brazil where everything is beautiful and the weather is constantly amazing.

Then it makes me wonder – if people had the choice to live anywhere in the world, wouldn’t the majority want to live in the places where climate is more fair and forgiving? I suppose this is true if one looks at population density; more people live in the tropics than the polar regions. Just a thought.

Dakota

Facebook - My Dearest Friend and Worst Enemy

Facebook holds a significant place in my heart (not really, but that’s how the cliché goes). It at least factors into my life pretty largely. I spend a lot of time on it, checking status updates, posting my own, chatting with friends; it’s a pretty nifty little website.

But it has taught me a very important lesson – do not get on Facebook if you want to get anything else done. I have learned the hard way that homework is neither doable nor feasible when I am on Facebook. I don’t know, it just doesn’t get done. When I am supposed to be doing my chores or doing my classwork, Facebook has a devilish way of stealing my precious time. For a good friend, he can be pretty sneaky and deceiving at times when I need him least…

“And I just can’t pull myself away!” These are good lyrics to describe my relationship with Facebook. He doesn’t really do any good for me, and usually detracts from my overall success, but he has grown on me and is now something I can’t live without!

Dakota

Stay off the Roads!

I am finally a legal solo driver! It’s amazing that it has finally happened. I can drive by myself anywhere I want to. The freedom is the greatest part. I don’t have to have my parents drive me everywhere; I can just go there myself!

The second time I took the driver’s test, I passed. The instructor wanted to fail me again for screwing up my parallel parking but because I had passed it the first time I took the test, she crossed out the failure (thank goodness).

The major downside to this solo driving is the solo payment of gas and insurance for my car. I am looking for and failing at finding a job to pay for these necessities. So for now my mom and dad are helping out with both, but I have to pay them back when I get the money to do so.

It’s also kind of aggravating that mom doesn’t want me to drive on icy roads – she’d rather drive me places in situations like this. I think that I would learn how to drive in bad road conditions best if I do it myself, don’t you agree?

And I realize now that this blog has no natural flow, and for this I am genuinely sorry, haha.

Dakota