Don’t Erase Me

So, we’re going to ignore that it’s been 82 days since I’ve last posted… In summary: Portland band trip, very fun - sadly not many photos to share. School got out - Yay! John visited - definitely would deserve a post however it was a month ago.. Kayla and Jamie visited - also very fun but again I don’t have many pictures however you may see tagged photos of me (if you’re my friend on facebook): here.

Okay, so back to my original post..

Over the the summer I’ve been doing a health class online. I have to read pages upon pages of health information, then take quizzes and tests on it. Obviously over time I’ve begun to see a pattern in what they’re trying to say. Consistently, good ways to prevent chronic illnesses are: maintain a healthy weight and regularly exercise.

I’m not a particularly athletic individual but I have spent years walking distances either for a paper route or to and from bus stops to school (decent 20-45 minute walks from my house). My mom and I like to go on walks through parks here too. However since I’ve moved to Bellingham I haven’t had the daily need to use my legs as transportation.

I’ve decided that my walking exercise, although helpful and relaxing, wasn’t quite sufficient for the exercising habits I should be developing. As a result, I started looking more into riding my bike. In Bellingham there are a lot of trails to go on, and many fellow bikers. Also, John has been quietly wishing me to get on a bike again for pretty much two years so he and I can go ride together. These things got me to go around the block once or twice… not necessarily what you’d call aerobic exercise.

One day while driving into downtown my mom and I saw a sign for “Tour de Whatcom”. Once we looked into it, we found out that in was a charity bike ride with three different rides; 100, 50, and 25 mile. The rides go through Whatcom county and are near the end of July every year. You can read up and look at last year’s pictures here. Seems pretty cool, right? I thought so too.

So this has become my goal. Come next July I want to be able to participate in at least the 25 mile ride. Today I went out with my dad and went on a short ride. 5.5 miles. I did pretty well Seeing as it was my first ‘real ride’ in quite a while, I’m feeling pretty good about my goal :).

Any fitness (or any other kind) goals you’re working towards?

At the moment I’ve having a bit of a missing Kennewick Moment.. of course, not exactly Kennewick itself, I was just thinking the other day how much I love it here. I love the rain, and the green trees, the fact you can drive to the post office and go over a waterfall, the fact we’re so close to Everything, how what would normally be an obstacle for construction is turned into a beautiful park to go walk though..

However, I do miss what’s In Kennewick.. I miss my friends, the teachers I got to know while in their class, the classes I was used to going to, the people know I could say hi to in the hallway.. It’s going to take a while before I can have that here.

So, to make this more intersting and less sad for you, I’ll tell you some happy memories for those things.
During Lunch Jamie and I would sit with each other and talk about how silly the boys were who were standing around us. We would decide to accompany each other to get lunch, or on my last day, she went to all of the offices with me to get my withdrawal paper signed. Lots of times we would have starbursts and she would make sure to give me her wrappers so I could make them into a chain.
In Spanish my teacher would have us draw on the back of our tests every week. Then she would show them to the rest of the class before we graded them. It was one of the highlights of my Fridays because they were so funny. She would tell us a theme of what to draw ranging from “the football team winning the game” to “your partner’s future husband/wife”. Kylie would always put zombies into hers.
Band was fun because we all were so close. We were a pretty small band. In between songs we would always talk and joke around. Kayla and I would sometimes forget where we were while we were talking. I liked playing the piccolo on some songs, it would be so loud!!
I think I can just say my physics teacher here is no Mr. Choi.
My physics class was also really close because by 2nd semester there was only 12 of us. We would watch these videos of a really good physics teacher that was so enthusiastic about what he was teaching. Although he would say strange things like, “see if your partner be knowing the answer.” and “us physics types know..” It was a joke between the class that he was a creep…
I miss the flute parties we (my original three flute buddies and I) would have, staying up all night not even really doing anything, or just talking. We once made a red velvet cake and dyed some frosting pink just so it would match. It was a really really good cake….
And most of all, I miss John… Even though I get to talk to him everyday, it’s just not the same. I miss getting hugs and kisses from him every day. On our anniversary last year we went walking though the zenital canyon again. It was a pretty warm day so we had water bottles, by the time we got back to my house we were close to soaked having had a spur of the moment water fight on the way back.

Needless to say, I’d be pretty excited to go back for a little while. I wonder what’s it’s like there when I’m not there. How obvious is it that I’m gone? I miss Kennewick…

Finally to tie things up, good things here.. There are a couple of fellow flute players that I’m getting to know. They’re kind of fun. There’s a girl I have been eating lunch with almost every Z day, and talking with her. She’s very nice. My algebra class is very fun and my group likes to talk while we do work. (I also like that I learned all this stuff all ready) The marching band, also the concert band and pep band..  is getting back into marching because we have a couple of parades to march :). Those will be exciting. Along with the previously mentioned, there are some nice kids that I’m starting to talk more with too. Some from band, say hi when they see me in the hallway. Obviously they’re not going to replace anyone from Kennewick, but it’s nice to have made a start toward friends like in Kennewick.

Impulsively on sunny Wednesday afternoon, my mom and I decided to go to ‘Tulip Town’ down in Mt. Vernon. It was such a nice day and we loved seeing all the different kinds of tulips. We even brought some (more!) home! Here are quite a few… pictures from the excursion.

This was a reflection in the water between the rows

Mwuahaha! I made my mom the tulip fairy! Yes, I photoshopped her! I think I did pretty well :) ..oh, and did anyone notice the toes??...

So this past week has been my first week at Squalicum High School. This school is a little smaller than my old school, Southridge. Fortunately it kind of has the same layout. Although I haven’t quite figured out how the gym works into everything.. I found the gym, I think.. but where are the locker rooms….? The weirdest thing about the new school is the schedule. At Southridge we have all six classes everyday, in about 45-50 minute periods. At Squalicum there are only 4 classes a day, in 80 minute periods. All six classes are spread out evenly over three days, X, Y, and Z days. X: periods 1,2,4,5     Y: 1,3,4,6      Z: 2,3,5,6     (hey! and That was from memory! I’m learning!) There are also two lunches, which are decided by your thrid class of the day. I’ve had trouble deciding if it was a long or a short day because the classes were long, but it felt short to have only gone to four!

My schedule is as follows: Band, Viscom. (Visual Communications, aka. Photography), Algebra (2nd year), Physics, Spanish (3rd year), and Hon. English.

Band: Met the flutes right away and now they all know My name.. but I don’t know all of theirs yet:) We started on music for parade season. At Southridge we didn’t do parades so I’m looking forward to this. I also get to sight read lots of their music which is just about the same level I was at, if not a little more challenging It’s a productive but fun class.

Viscom.: The teacher has an interesting personality. When I first met him he was wearing tropical hawaiian shirts and wearing pastel colored reading glasses. This class has been the most neutral because we don’t do much and there’s not much for me to do… I hope it will get a little more interesting when I get a little more adjusted to the class.

Algebra: My teacher for algebra is friendly and “hip”. I don’t mind listening to him go over what I already learned (because I’m ahead ) because he teaches it in a new way. He, like the band teacher, allows the class to be fun but productive. He seems like a good teacher to me. The people at my table are enjoyable to talk to too, and we have to interact and “ask each other questions” on how to do the problems, so I’m glad they’re friendly.

Physics: The most recognizable feature of this teacher, in my opinion are his glasses. They make him have huge bug eyes! he’s not Mr. Choi, and certainly easier to understand, but that’s okay. We’re in electricity at Squalicum and Southridge was only at Light waves. I think I caught up pretty well and feel pretty good about the test I took today. If it makes my grade worse the teacher won’t count it because I haven’t gone over this section, but if it helps my grade, extra points for me!

Spanish: This class is certainly not as fun as my other Spanish class, but I had a pretty fun teacher. Like any foreign language class though, it’s enjoyable and a break from the norm. It is a funny coincidence however that at Southridge we were reading a Spanish novel called “La Catrina” and at Squalicum we’re reading the Sequel to “La Catrina”. Same characters, new story line. Also the teacher gives most instructions in Spanish. Which is a good strategy but something I’ll have to get used to. She tries to use words we know, and will define them for us if we don’t know, so it’s not that hard

English: Ugh… English… Just like any English class… However, the students are very close and like to chat a lot. Even though I’m not actually in the conversations I feel included a bit The teacher is a lot like my old one unforunately… she maybe could be a little worse…. BUT, I do appreciate that we’re writing Essays instead of reading and analyzing things. That’s my least favorite part. Essays are okay, and I get to write my own because I didn’t read Frankienstien or do the research that the rest of the class did.

Lunch: Yes, it’s totally a subject :)  I spent the first lunch looking for the library and hung out in there the first day. Then I was invited by flute players to eat with them the next day. A girl in my spanish class invited me to eat lunch with her the next day and she told me a lot about the school. Thursday, I ate in the band room with band and orchestra people which was very fun with the loud music over all the conversation. Today I had an enjoyable solitary lunch in the hallway with my book I liked just being out in the open but not actually looking like I didn’t have a place to go.

So, School hasn’t been that bad so far. Physics is always my favorite subject, then Band and Algebra. Teacher/student wise, my favorite class is Band, then Algebra and Spanish. Nows you knows… The only thing I’d change is make my friends from Kennewick go to this school too

Yes, yes… it’s been awhile since there was any action on this blackboard… Today is the start of Spring Break (in Kennewick) and I have some time before our flute party!

So , really the only interesting thing lately:  Mr. Choi-isms!

- There was an optional assembly about poverty in Africa during 5th hour yesterday, and seeing as Mr. Choi is my 5th hour teacher, I didn’t expect to go. However, some of the other students still had hope in convincing him that we should go. After a lot of ridiculous reasons why, Mr. Choi simply said, “Don’t eat for a week then you know poverty.” Shocking as it may have been, that was a typical Mr. Choi-ism and made us all laugh in surprise.

- As you’d expect sometimes there’s a small difference in the way Mr. Choi pronounces words… some of my favorites are:

Octave:
Us: oct-TIV Mr. Choi: oct-TAHve
Page:
Us: pay-guh  Mr. Choi:  pay-gee
Trumpet:
Us: Trum-pit  Mr. Choi: Trum Peht

(it’s especially funny to realize that We’re the ones that aren’t going with the spelling. Phonetically, Mr. Choi is right. )

- Mr. Choi loves to give advice based on physics when he can. Have you ever looked on headphones at the decibels(db) it’s able to produce? Typically a normal cheap-ish pair (lets say $10) can produce 12db-200db, while a more expensive pair (for exaggeration lets say $200) produces 8db-200db. You’d assume those 4db make a big difference, wouldn’t you??  Well, the human ear can only register about 12db!  Mr. Choi’s life lesson, don’t pay the extra 190 dollars so that you can say you Can’t Hear your music!

- Now, Mr. Choi’s biggest lesson (for boys he said, it would ‘Save Your Marrige’). Here’s the story:  So there a guy and a girl and they fall in love. The first anniversary comes along and the boy give the girl 10 flowers. and the girl is “oohhhahhh” (Mr. Choi makes a sound kind of like an excited school girl). The second anniversary comes along and the boy give the girl 20 flowers. Again, the girl is “oohhhahhh”. But now the the third anniversary comes and the boy give the girl 30 flowers. The girl goes “awwhhhhh… “  (Mr. Choi acts disappointed, then looks up at us) Why she dissapointed? She want 40 flowers! See?? It doubles!! So after a few years you’re going to have to buy 1,000 flowers! The trick is, ‘don’t play the game’. Don’t give her Anything! You can’t win!
At this point a boy in the class asked: “So do you not give your wife anything?”
Mr. Choi: “That’s not a physics question!” *looks back at his text book*

So there you have it, Happy Spring!