SOL 30- Pinnated Grouse

          Pinnated Grouse are the best. They are also known as prairie chickens, but I call them the large lemon neck birds. Basically, they are large brown birds with lemons in their necks and neon eyebrows. Did I mention that their ears are two inches tall? Yeah, they are pretty dang amazing.

This is a pretty famous Audobon painting of the pinnated grouse.

          While I would not say that they are my favorite animal, I would definitely say that they are pretty high up on that list. Geese are still the winners. Grouse tend to be pretty weird as a whole species, but I love pinnated grouse because they are still really weird but are the most normal out of the bunch. Sadly, many of the grouse populations are really struggling because of chemicals used in farming and contamination into nature. They are also eaten by hawk. They are pretty large, maxing out at two feet in length.
          Most other grouse are VERY weird. Take the greater sage grouse, for example. It has neon green eyebrows and a massive, spikey tail. All grouse are a part of the same family and, boy let me tell you, it is one weird family. Pretty much all of the males have large throat pocket things while all of the females look super normal. All of the different species gather in large flocks, meaning that there are sometimes massive groupings of these weird birds. Can you imagine how hard the females must judge the males? Like dang, your eyebrow game needs to be on fleek.
          This post may seem out of the blue, but I recently had to draw a pinnated grouse for a book I wrote. It is a full page illustration of a male, so it looks very strange. Luckily enough for me, I can just tell anyone that asks about it that that is what it actually looks like and that the bird is just really weird. Honestly, sometimes I wish humans had something like a lemon neck that was just a really weird trait carried for no reason. I think it would be hilarious if everyone of one sex had to walk around with a bulging neon yellow neck. Anyways, this was a long rambling slice about my love of the pinnated grouse.

SOL 29- Birds

          Technically this post is late. It was still written and posted on May 30, so I don't care. Basically, I had a crap ton of work in the past few days, the Alumni Induction Dinner came up, and I didn't end up blogging. Regardless, I will not fail this challenge on day 29 the third year I am doing the challenge. Now, birds.

Fowl,
very hard to draw.
Feathery,
Please not a macaw.
Challenging,
yet simple,
Drawing avians so rough.
Bird after bird,
I slowly work through the book,
finishing (not really),
I give it a final look.

          Basically, I am having to illustrate many pages in a field guide to worldwide birds that I wrote. There are 20 different birds, and so far I am done with five: an emu, a nene, an emperor penguin, a blue peacock, and a pinnated grouse. Some of those are pictured below. They have to be highly realistic, so each one takes forever. Anyways, enjoy the crappy poem.

SOL 28- Count Down

10- The number of hours I have had to spend on homework this weekend. This number has been drastically rounded down, but, in the end, I needed something to fit the number ten spot.

9- The number of years I have spent at Logan. It may seem like a lot, and it is. It has been along wild journey.

8- Around eight years ago I started to be able to fully read on my own. Now, I can write, read, and comprehend "quality" pieces of writing like this slice!

7- The original length of my continuation speech in minutes. I did not think that I had that much to say, but, this just goes to show you, it is a lot easier to write something way too long on accident than to be short intentionally.

6- I have been on six AS overnights: the Sand Dunes, California, Sustainable Settings, New Orleans, Sustainable Settings, and Hawaii. I went to Sustainable Settings twice in a row. All of these trips have come with their own memories and adventures, although I have to say my favorite was New Orleans with Hawaii at a close second.

5- I was five when I started at Logan. It has certainly been filled with twists and turns. When I first started, I was full of hope, joy, and hugs. Many things have changed. Especially the hug part.

4- We have approximately four, I don't know when the challenge ends, slices left to write for the challenge. I am very ready for it to be over as I have many other things to worry about without having to constantly think about writing about myself for half an hour everyday.

3- Three real class days of math are left, and boy am I excited to get through them. Technically math appreciation day is a math day, but I do not count throwing water balloons at my teachers a real mathematical class period. In that time, however, I still have to give a presentation after completing a poster and than take a nearly impossible test.

2- Currently, there are two pans of quesillo, Venezuelan flan, in my oven. They are for a Spanish presentation tomorrow, and I also made a crap ton of cheese rolls this afternoon for the same thing.

1- The number of Expos I have left at Logan. It is crazy to think that I have made it this far. I feel like I have been at Logan forever so it is crazy to think that I am this close to my last year being over.

0- The number of craps I have left to give about many things. It is very near to the end of the year, and my supply is running dangerously low. I am fed up with a lot of things, so hopefully I can survive.

This is kind of just a random list of things about me, but, hey, at least it is a decent length slice with a lot of information about me.

SOL 27- Guinea Pig

All my pig does is eat, sleep, and drink,

He also loves to squeak.

When I walk up to his cage he may shrink,

And loudly start to shriek, when I reach inside, he will cause a stink.

I have a guinea pig named Bamboo and he is a tiny, introverted, squeaky furball. He is fun to have, pet, and love on, but he can be aggressive and a lot of work. When I first got him, he was a tiny baby, so it has been really cool to raise him from a tiny little furball to a large, fluffy guinea pig. Seeing this growth was really cool as he started as a small bean and is now a large pickle (approximately, you get my metaphor). He now frolics around and squeaks until he gets fresh vegetables. he is kind of needy, not going to lie. He was originally bought to be the best friend of another guinea pig. Sadly, my other guinea pig passed away, so he is alone. He is happy, though. I may get another some day, but, for now, he is a sleepy, furry, alone pig.

SOL 26- Plants

          Plants are horrendously expensive. Today, my family went plant shopping for vegetables, herbs, and flowers to plant in our backyard. We got carrots, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, citronella, thyme, mint, basil, peonies, etc. We always plant a ton of plants, end up with way too many zucchinis to do anything with, and then, in the end, let all of the plants die off. This year, we decided to get, and focus on, herbs. We are trying to actually use what we grow this year and what better way to do that than plant a bunch of plants that you use microscopic portions of each time you cook with them? In all seriousness, I love gardening in the summer because you can actually eat what you produce. The best time is late summer because everything is fresh and blooming, ready to be eaten.
          On a different note, I hate annuals. You pay three dollars for a pack, they bloom for two months, and then they die. The next year the cycle repeats itself. I have always understood buying perennials, because they come back every year. I guess I understand buying annuals for their beauty and appeal, but, at the same time, it is kind of obnoxious that the world is in such a vicious cycle. I know that I can not blame the plants for the way they live, but it would be really nice if they could just all become perennials so people would not have to make quite as many yearly Home Depot trips.
          Planting, on the other hand, is one of my favorite parts  of the entire process of gardening. It is so cool to me to be able to take a group of plant smashed together in  plastic rectangles and rearrange them into freestanding, aesthetically pleasing garden arrangements. It is a very enjoyable art form. It is actually really interesting to look into how certain plants do next to each other and what the overall life cycle looks like. The worst part of gardening is the upkeep. It would be so much easier if you could just plant a plant and let it grow and bloom on its own. Sadly, you have to water it everyday, make sure it gets the right amount of sun, yada, yada. This is a massive pain if you are the kind of person, like myself, who prefers to plant something and let nature take its course. I already have too much to worry about in terms of homework without having watering a garden on top of that. Anyhow, I really like gardening and the entire process of livening up sad looking, tightly packed flowers.

SOL 25- Trifolds

          Throughout my time at Logan, I have made four trifolds. Lets just say there has been a lot of progress in the quality department. The first trifold was made when I was studying Native Americans in Upper IS. At the beginning of my unit, I had visited a Native American art gallery. One of my other focuses was the Sand Creek Massacre. Who else but me would try to combine murals with a massacre? Basically, I had way too little information on massacres and the modern white man's affect on Native American populations, so I decided to do a large scale painting of the Sand Creek Massacre site based on the paintings I had seen previously that year. It was about the quality you would expect from someone who had barely ever used a paintbrush and thought they would paint the next Mona Lisa. It was rough and, honestly, a little bit not OK in hindsight as a little white boy was turning a horrific massacre site into an art project.
        The next year, I made a trifold on Feng Shui and Taoism in architecture. There were three main sections, one for each section of the trifold. They each had a decent amount of information, but in the end it was just a way to look like I had done more for my unit overall. I color coded each section so they would be obviously separate instead of mounting the entire trifold consistently. In the end, I got marked off on my rubrics for my color coordination. I was mad. I asked the teacher, and they said that it was too diverse. Since then, I have stuck to monochromatic or single colored mounting on my displays. Never again will I get such a low score because someone's taste differs from mine.
          The first trifold I made this year displayed a collection of pressed plants I made. This was a pretty empty trifold because the main focus was the six miscellaneous species. This is probably one of the most polished trifolds I have done. There was not any mounting or illustrating involved, so things were already better. This project took a long time just because of the entire plant pressing process. I really liked this project because I left it pretty blank. I really liked this because the majority of my projects are super cramped.
          My last trifold at Logan was just finished this afternoon. It is on the history and evolution of birds. It has a crap ton of illustrations, mounted paragraphs, and it is rather full. I never intend to create as much as I always do for this kind of project, so this trifold ended up really full. After approximately three hours of mounting, I was able to assemble everything together. It worked out well, in my opinion. Compared to my first crappy mural centered trifold, I think I have gotten a lot better. My spring unit this year is birds, so the entire evolution bit is quite important. The trifold does a good job of tying my entire display together. Don't worry, I color coded all of my mounting with my books and mobile, so I wont get marked off for that.

SOL 24- Eraser Crumbs

Eraser crumbs,
covering the table,
They stick to everything,
They are the worst.
Drawing has its downsides.
The main one:
eraser crumbs.
They litter the table
like fallen soldiers.
You can't just brush them off.
Much like glitter,
they are permanent.
Making mistakes
is imminent.
Therefore,
eraser crumbs are imminent.
It sucks,
losing half of an eraser
in one go.
Many mistakes were made.
Much erasing was needed.
Drawing birds
is anatomically hard.
Feathers,
impossible to get right.
Much erasing was needed.
They are everywhere.
in the carpet,
on the table,
on the chair,
on my project.
They wont go away.
Oh well,
I guess they will stay.
Eraser crumbs.

SOL 23- Problem Solving and the Unrealisticness of Word Problems

          Problem solving sucks. It is easy to get everything incorrect, and then not know what to try differently for the next pathetic attempt. I am currently feeling this very strongly with math portfolios. There is one problem where there is one solution that checks out mathematically, but another, different solution that checks out graphically. They are different equations. How does that work? The math problem is about guiding a boat between Scylla, a six headed demon monster thing that eats a sailor for every head, and Charybdis, a massive whirlpool that lines a coast in a perfect line and will destroy your boat if you get anywhere close. Basically, the boat needs to always stay equidistant from these two evils. The equation is a parabola. If you solve for the equation the right way, you get one answer that checks out mathematically. If you graph the equation and then find the line, you get a separate equation that works graphically and physically but not mathematically. WTF. If only Scylla was real. It would make it much easier to give threats making it so this problem did not have to be done.
          Surprisingly, there is actually a decent amount of semi realistic backstory/history to this problem. The problem is from The Odyssey, where a ship actually had to pass by these two perils. The problem itself is unrealistic for several reasons. The first is that no one back then would actually have taken the time to plot a perfect parabola to steer the ship along. They would have just set a generalized course and shape to follow to survive. The second problem is that it would be impossible for a ship to be steered along a perfect parabola in stormy waters. The third problem is that if there was actually a massive monster, it would not stay in one location. That thing would be after you. If there were actually whirlpools like this, they would make the water so choppy the crew could not avoid them, and if they somehow managed that, sail in an actual parabola. I get that the textbook is trying to be cool by relating parabolas to fun stories, but, honestly, I would just sacrifice the six crew members to the six heads of Scylla. The positives out weigh the negatives.
          Moving away from math problems inspired by The Odyssey, lets talk about the math problem about making a perfect parabolic divot in the ground to cook stuff in. Also, the inside of the hole would have to be plated with mirrors. I know, totally realistic. If I were going to go into the middle of the woods, my first choice would obviously be to cook food using a parabola shaped hole in the ground where I had to magically make my food float five centimeters up from the middle of it just to cook. I get that they are trying to write fun, applicable word problems, but really? They relate parabolas to cooking in a hole in the ground in a forest? Parabolas show up so many other places in the world, and they chose that one? Problem solving for obnoxious word problems is the actual worst. End of story.

SOL 22- The End of the Year

           The end of the year here at Logan is not a fun time. On top of spring Expo,  there are continuation speeches, math portfolios, and normal portfolios. Math portfolios are the worst beast out of all of these. Math portfolios in Algebra II basically entail writing a letter, filling out three pages of rubrics, and then writing complete comprehensive proofs of around seven ridiculously complicated math problems. It is a pain. Last time we did these portfolios, we had to spend a little bit under a month just to get through everything. This time, we have a week. I have completed many of the proofs correctly, but it is still a really short amount of time to do that much work in. There have been many late nights.
          Actual portfolios have never been that bad to me. They basically are just writing several pages about what you have done throughout the year, and then a few pages on specific projects. They are rather time consuming, but overall they are not as bad as trying to solve really hard math problems. TWIMCs do suck, don't get me wrong.
          Spring Expo is the one part of the end of this year that I am excited for. I am getting kind of nostalgic as it is my last Expo and last set of unit projects. The end of the year always brings with it a wave of nostalgia, as it is the last time for many things. Last time with this group of students, last weeks at Logan, etc. Continuation speeches are very meh to me. Continuation as a whole is very meaningful and worthwhile, but writing the correct length of speech is challenging. The first draft of my speech was seven minutes, while it needed to be two and a half minutes long. I now need to cut down over half of my speech. That is going to be rough. Oh, by the way, it is also due today.
          The end of the year is a really busy and nostalgic time. Everything, especially portfolios, seem to get much more challenging and time consuming. Over the past years, Logan has cut out many of the traditions and fun things we used to do like Elitch's. This makes the end of the year more stressful and overall it is just a busy weird time.

SOL 21- Thoughts

All day,
all night,
thoughts run through my head.
It can't stop.
It is part of being human.
Some are
obnoxious,
rude,
funny,
cheerful,
or mean.
Others are
ideas, retorts, or jokes.
The torrent never stops.
I think about
everything from
family to
summer to
mistakes.
All these thoughts
running through my head
spreading like wildfire.
Songs get stuck while
important thoughts
flit away.
It all depends.
Some creep up because
of boredom.
Some stay because
they are needed.
It all depends.
It is annoying.
The world would be so
quiet without thoughts.
I guess I am thankful.
I am still annoyed.
When I think of
Mozart instead of math.
Too many thoughts.
At least,
I think.

SOL 20- Meh and Unintentional Procrastination

Meh.
I am procrastinating.
Writing a continuation speech.
Illustrating a book.
Writing another slice.
Language Lab.
Math.
Etc.
Much to do.
Not enough time.
Meh.
I am procrastinating.
Who cares?
I'm officially done with:
Math
Continuation,
Unit,
etc.
Meh.
I will keep procrastinating.
It is a problem.
I now need to rush to finish everything.
I've already worked for six hours.
I'm not trying to procrastinate.
I'm really not.
Oh Well.
I guess I managed to procrastinate
when I was trying to be a good student
and stay on top of everything.
Meh.
I might drown under paper.
Meh.
I've worked hard.
I'm ready to be done.
I've done a lot of homework.
Senioritis is surging back strong.
I can see where people get it from.
Meh.

Who cares anymore?

I sure don't.

Meh.

It may be unlike me,
but struggling to barely type
isn't worth it.
Oh well.
School is meant to torture
the mind,
body,
and soul.

Bring it on.

SOL 19- Uncommon Opinions

This is basically just a list of me talking about opinions I have that many people don't share with me.

1. Starbucks. I don't get it. I will never understand spending an insane amount of money on a beverage that barely even tastes good. I think that Starbucks has managed to create an impressive customer flow for what they actually offer, but how addicted a lot of people are is kind of insane.

2. Coffee. This is kind of carried over from my previous point, but I think coffee is bitter bean juice that tastes abysmal and is overpriced. I get needing caffeine for additional energy, but to me coffee just tastes gross and unpleasant. Also, I find the smell especially nauseating.

3. Soda. Personally, I am not a big fan of carbonation. Personally, I think it leaves a bitter aftertaste and there is no reason for me to spend an entire afternoon feeling like I need to regurgitate bubbles out of my nose just because I drank something filled with sugar.

4. Taco Bell, Chipotle, Qdoba, etc. I am not a massive fan of most, if not all, Mexican fast food restaurants. I feel like most of them are non authentic, overpriced, and overall I just don't like the food very much. I get the appeal, but personally it is just not for me.

5. Pop music. I have never understood the appeal of many of the radio songs that have the same four chords, same three notes sung by the singers, and the themes of anything relationship based. I know not all pop music is about relationships, I just say that because a lot of the mainstream music played is about relationships and/or sex. To me it is just boring and repetitive.

6. Fortnite. I have never actually played Fortnite, but I think the addiction many people have to it is stupid. This goes for most every video game. I understand having a game you like and playing for a reasonable amount of time, but when you need to charge your phone when you get to school because you have already been playing a video game the entire morning, I think it is ridiculous. In some ways it counts as an addiction, and I have never understood how people get so hooked on games like that.

7. Pools. Personally, I really don't like pools. There is something about the entire process of getting soaked, having to dry off, feeling gross, and then having your hair be gross and your skin feel weird that I am not a big fan of. I understand competitive swimming as a sport, but I have never understood hanging out at pools and just casually spending time in a massive pool of urine contaminated water.

8. Technology advancements. In my opinion, humans are creating their own demise by coming out with more and more massive advancements in technology. If we wanted to be smart about things, in my opinion, we would not make things that can literally think for themselves and recognize our faces. To me, that sounds like a massive recipe for disaster. Hopefully I survive the robot takeover. On a lighter note, why are people so lazy? Is it really so hard to type something into your phone or set an alarm that you need to have a piece of technology sitting in your house do normal things for you? I have just never understood why humans are so against work that they would go to great lengths to make easy things even easier for themselves. Solving world hunger should definitely be a priority. Duh.

9. Famous people. This opinion is two sided. The main side is that I don't understand why civilization as a whole has picked certain people to praise and give a ton of money too. It makes no sense why we randomly dote over celebrities. The second side of this is why people hate celebrities so much. I will never understand why people like the Kardashians get so much hate for just existing. I get being hated on for saying or doing bad things, but I don't think we should think so poorly of them for using what they have been given. In some ways, it just shows how smart some people have been in terms of using the system society has set up for their own gain.

10. Lastly, Football. From an outsiders perspective, it is a bunch of athletic men running into each other repeatedly and injuring themselves instead of actually using their skills and playing a sport that is equally physically taxing but more entertaining to watch. I am a much bigger fan of sports where everyone is actively doing things and the clock is not paused every two seconds because one person did something that no one but the ref could tell was illegal.

SOL 18- Homework

          At this point in my life I am seriously over the entire idea of homework. For example, this weekend, I have to write my continuation speech, write 5 pages on evolution, format an entire book and print it on cardstock, start rough drafts of 20 highly detailed illustrations, blog, write a thank you card, create an HQ page, and still try to find time to have a life. At Logan, most of the homework involves creativity, so it is extra draining. It would be much easier to just have all assignments be like math where you just sit down and work through a limited list of problems, instead of having to come up with a ton of creative ways to do things. I feel like more structure would be really nice for me, and I am definitely looking forward to that in high school.
          In my opinion, the general concept/idea of homework is not a very good one. There have been many studies done that have shown how much happier and stress free kids would be if they don't have a massive list of tasks every night. The schools with the best average scores and the happiest students have little to no homework assigned to the students. I get things like summer homework where you need to do review and prepare for the following year, but after a bunch of math is drilled into your head I don't think it is reasonable to have to go home and spend another two hours trying to figure out what it was that was supposed to be drilled into your head.
          Homework first started as a way to have a manageable discipline every night for students to practice and learn the ways of reading, writing, and arithmetic. When homework started to be assigned, it was given in reasonable chunks for the students to memorize and work through. This minimal additional work was simple and did not eat up massive chunks of time. It still left time for socializing and extracurricular activities. It was a way for students to continue to develop simple skills and prepare for tests and other assignments. Over time, homework evolved into massive, complex projects that did not leave time for students to have their own lives. As more homework was assigned from more classes, homework became much harder and unreasonable for students. (This is actually based on some articles I read, so I did not just pull some history out of a hat.)
          If homework has stayed as this original discipline, I would have a much different view on it. Personally, I think nightly review and practice makes sense and is a good idea to help students stay current with what they are doing in class. When it morphs into twenty some odd problems in math and science classes and reading and writing 50 pages, I think it gets ridiculous. It is no longer for the student, it is a review tool the teacher uses in a harsh and harmful way towards the student's general wellbeing and mindset.
          Sorry, this was kind of a rant, I just hate that my life for the next 8-10 years is going to be consumed by pointless, long assignments given by teachers who probably don't actually care about the work I've done.

SOL 17- High School

          High School is something that intimidates a lot of people. As I am leaving Logan, I have had to make a lot of decisions recently about my future high school career. I don't know why, but personally I do not feel particularly intimidated by the change. I know that I will figure out my classes and fall into the new swing of things pretty quickly. My one concern is friendships. Going into a brand new environment it is really hard to guarantee whether or not you are going to have or find a lot of friends. I feel like friendships are one of the key elements to a lot of the high school memories every adult is expected to have. If you don't have a lot of friends, how else are you able to tell your kids about the time when you accidentally lit a field on fire after releasing rabid pigs into the third floor non fiction level of the central branch of a library? (Not an actual story, just an example of the kind of thing I might be telling people a long time from now about my high school antics.)
          Actually picking high schools was never one of the more challenging parts for me. I am going to a public high school, so most of the pressure was on picking a high school as opposed to getting into one. The schools I looked at were George Washington, East, South, and Littleton. They were all surprisingly different, but I did not get to shadow Littleton so I don't know what it is actually like in terms of classes and teachers and such. Now, a brief run down on these four high schools:
          George Washington High School is the first high school that I shadowed. I shadowed a friend, so this might have made me a little biased. The main perks of George is that they have an IB program, they have a large selection of classes, and they do not have a massive student body. Personally, I felt like none of the teachers really cared about the students except for one, the science teacher was the best. This was a major turn off to me because I felt like no one really cared enough to want to be there. Also, some student walked up to me as a joke, presumably after seeing my shadowing lanyard, and asked me if I wanted to join the Neo-Nazi club. My shadow and I walked away.
          South was the next school I shadowed, and my favorite out of the bunch. It had a lot of really good classes, engaging teachers, and was good at showing shadows the student body. South did a lot to make you feel like you were a part of the school, even as a shadow. The day ended with Student Senate, and the shadows had to introduce themselves after Senate had introduced themselves, and overall it was just a cool way to get a feel for the school's students. The other main pro is the size and location. It is close to my house, and it is  medium sized, meaning that you would not be drowned in people every time you go to an event.
          Next I went to the most underwhelming of them all: Littleton. Instead of having shadows, Littleton offered a tour and presentation at night. My family went to one of these. Personally, I was really impressed with how desperate they came across in the 15 minutes I heard the principal speak. I felt like they were begging us to go there in addition to saying why it was a good school. Maybe my experience would have been different if I had shadowed an actual student, but the tour and everything was just underwhelming to me.
          The last school I shadowed was East. East was the largest, and yet again I shadowed one of my friends. East has around 3,000 students, which is just way too many teenagers in one building, in my opinion. The most entertaining part of this day was seeing two girls pass notes back and forth for like 15 minutes and then the teacher taking the phone from one of them. She looked so over literally everyone and everything. Granted, they were doing a project on reasons for population decline in the mountains and she had to google pollution, so I feel like she needed that phone for more basic things than texting. East was really good overall, and the teachers and everything were about equal to South.
          At the end of the day (metaphorically, of course), I decided to go to South. It is walking distance away from my house, has really good AP, Honors, and CE classes, and overall I was just really impressed with everything. I think my parents are a little bit disappointed about the fact that neither my sister or I will ever take any IB classes, but, hey, at least I had a guaranteed spot in.

SOL 16- Procrastination

          It may not seem like it from when I post my blogs, but I am really, painfully good at procrastinating. Take for example my math homework. It is assigned Thursday afternoon due the following Tuesday afternoon. I will watch five episodes of TV, eat a second snack after dinner, and do literally anything to make sure that I do that math homework after 9 PM on a Monday school night. Yeah. It's a problem. In many ways I have taught myself to be on top of things. I have learned over the course of time that if you face math homework head on it is not quite as bad. That being said, I still manage to avoid it at all costs.
          There is a large part of me that thinks about how easy it is to put off homework and reading until the last minute. Every Sunday night I rush to finish all of my assignments for the following day's agenda meeting. I always seem to save a four page write up to do in that perfect time when you start to write and you write so fast you get done quickly and then have to edit the living daylights out of the crap you just wrote to make it understandable.
          My room is filled with half finished projects that I started but have put off finishing because of the effort. I am at the point where I procrastinate on things that I would normally do for enjoyment. Who knew petting your guinea pig could be such a chore? I would like to think that I am not just lazy, and while that does play a factor, I just seem to struggle to get things done in a reasonable span of time so I am not up until midnight.

          Fun fact time: There used to be six feet tall geese, along with massive flying dinosaurs that would build nests in trees. I went on a field trip today to learn about bird evolution, and all I can think about is that there used to be massive geese waddling around everywhere.

SOL 15- Sports

         I suck at sports and everything involving anything borderline sporty. I don't know why, but I am really bad at every sport, and I really struggle to understand literally anything relating to strategy. I am okay at running and such, but there is something about not being separated from an opposing team by a net that I am just bad at. Year round, the only sport I do is ultimate frisbee. I have done it for four years, but I am still not that great. In the future, I will play tennis. I only really enjoy sports where you are separated from the other team by a net. I feel like it is not quite as one on one, it is more up to you as a team to do well and to return what the other team throws at you. In games like ultimate you need to be as fast as the person you are guarding and as generally skilled as them. This is really hard if you are not as good as them. In games where you are separated by a net, it is easier to have mistakes and points be up to your own team to fix.
          There are a lot of sports that I don't understand. For example, boxing. Why would you want to watch shirtless men throw probably staged punches at each other? It has just always seemed overly violent to me. Same thing with football. To me, it has always seemed like people running into each other, and then every hour or so they move past the other line.
          Now, onto sports that I like more. I really like volleyball. Not only are you separated from the other team by a net, the points go quickly and there is a lot of volleying not only within your team but also between the two teams. I am in a volleyball matrix right now, and I am really enjoying it because even when we lose I don't feel like it is my fault because I was not as good as one other person. There is a large variety of plays and moves that you can do which just adds to the entire variety of the game. Meh. I guess most sports just aren't that great to me, although volleyball is the best.

SOL 14- Perfectionism

          Personally, I am an incredibly particular perfectionist. I will meticulously spend hours on pointless endeavors like math homework just to draw perfect parabolas and create beautifully symmetrical parenthesis. There is nothing like a perfectly legible and neat page of math notes in consistent handwriting. That last part is hard for me because I have a rather messy, angular scrawl for handwriting. The one thing that I can do to make my notes neat is I will shrink my handwriting to perfectly fit on top of each line on a page of lined paper so that everything lines up. Point is, I'm particular. I don't know why, but I have a very specific sense of aesthetics and general looks.

          When people say that others fish for compliments, it really bothers me. Personally, because of my perfectionism, someone will compliment me and I will respond with a long list of genuine flaws and problems with whatever they complimented me on out of habit. I am currently in the process of learning how to take a compliment. If something I did is good, I will tell you that. If not, I will bombard you with reasons that I think whatever it is looks horrendous. I feel like there are many personal troubles that come along with perfectionism. I will take forever to do what others can do in a minute, and literally everything bothers me. Lets just say mounting takes forever.

          For example, a project from earlier this year. One of my projects about museum collections was a massive wheel with different types of collections on different sections of it. I got many compliments on this project, but personally I absolutely hated it. What other people took as fine I took as something full of crooked mounting, cramped space, a lack of distinction between the paper and the mounting paper, etc. I eventually had to learn to just accept the compliments over my crappy curves mounted with scissors. Once it was out of the hallway, about a week before expo, I got to tear the entire thing apart and restart, which is probably one of the most satisfying and therapeutic things I have ever done. 

          Overall, I am an extremely particular perfectionist, to a degree where it can cause me more harm than benefit. 

SOL 13- Six Pages Later

Notes.
That was it.
Only notes.
Now,
It is
six pages.

Six
freakin'
pages.

Who needs that?
It has happened before,
notes transforming into
six pages.
Last time it was government.
This time it was birds.
Six pages.
Before it was
12 pages.
At least six is less than 12.
Oh well.
I don't try to write
six pages,
It just happens.
Sorry, editor.

After typing those
six pages,
I write this slice.
Well,
at least this will not be
six pages.

SOL 12- Quilts

          The hum of a sewing machine is satisfying and calming to me. For those that do not know, I quilt. Quilting is the art of sewing together a pattern with many pieces of fabric, and then tacking that to a thick cotton layer and fabric to create a blanket. This also includes pillows, hot pads, and anything of that nature. I picked up quilting a year ago when I wanted a hobby that was artistic but that was not like drawing or painting. While I enjoy both of those things, they are not really useful hobbies that make things you can keep/use around your house. I picked up the hobby thinking it would be cool to just make a few quilts, but it very quickly turned into a massive hobby and set of projects I regularly work on. I have tried everything from hand piecing to machine quilting.

My most recent project, featuring 289 1.5 inch squares.

My first hand pieced project, a hexagon pillow.

          I like the fact that the entire project is a massive endeavor, involving many skills and large amounts of time. It is not just the kind of thing you can do in a day. It all starts with the fabric store, where you follow a pattern to buy fabrics. After that, you cut up all of those fabrics, with incredibly sharp blades, into geometric shapes. You then sew those shapes together, and then cut them up again to be sewn into the final project. The next step involves a lot of crawling around on the floor. The base piece of fabric is laid out, the batting is layered on, and then the pieced top is placed on top. The three layers are basted together with safety pins, and then sewn together. The edges are bound, and the quilt is done. I hope I explained that relatively well, it is hard to sum up a massive process like that in one paragraph. Now, images of projects!

My first large scale project.

This is still in progress, but I thought I would add a picture.

SOL 11- Old Movies

          I love old movies, specifically musicals and the Disney type. I feel like there is a separate world that I walk into when you step into the story of musicals. For example, tonight I watched The Wizard of OZ. While I did not think, "Oh yes! I want to get threatened by a green witch!" I did feel like I got totally involved in the story in a way that I don't feel with modern movies. The same goes for most musicals. Some of my older favorites are Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Mary Poppins, The Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady, and many others. All of these stories are very interesting and I get pulled into them easily.
          The Wizard of Oz is a super wacky movie. Allegedly, there is a dead munchkin (look it up). There is a woman in a massive gown flying around in a bubble. There is a massive field of opioids that put people to sleep. All of these elements draw me in and make me enjoy the movie even more, even if they are quirky. Other musicals have all of these elements, though not directly, and all draw me in the same way. I don't know what it is about them, but I just enjoy them more than many other newer genres.
          Disney movies pull me into the story in a different way. Snow White, for example, pulls me into the story because off how it looks and how cohesive the story is. I get pulled into most Disney movies by me being interested in the plot and the style of animation. I also just love Disney and every one of their movies.
          There are many new movies that I just can not get pulled into. For example, newer action movies. Personally, I feel like these movies are not deep enough for me to get pulled into. The large amounts of action and fast moving plots just don't leave time for the actual world and story to develop into something I can get drawn into. This is the reason that I like series like Indiana Jones and Star Wars. These series are action filled and fast paced, but they are still filled with person to person connections. These connections are what make or break movies to me.

SOL 10- Meh

Meh.
I am finally leaving.
Woopee.
21 more slices.
Oh joy.
Senioritis is very strong.
9 years at Logan.
9 long years.
Leaving after all this time.
I don't know whether to be
excited,
sad,
happy,
or ready to move on.
It is all very blah.
So meh.
Continuation speeches,
leaving forever,
yada,
yada.
So I say meh.
I'm not excited.
I'm not particularly sad.
I feel prepared.
Slicing is not horrible.
Homework is not awful.
Units are kind of fun.
Friends are nice.
Consistency is nice.
Everything is not that bad or that good.
Summer is not that thrilling.
There are only so many pros and cons.
Therefore, I say meh.
Meh to math,
meh to blogging,
meh to continuing,
meh to it all.
Senioritis is looming large.
Meh.

SOL 9- Geese

          Geese are the best. I can not think of a better way to say this: they basically give the middle finger to humans, which I think is amazing. For example, I live by a park, and when I walk past geese they just barely move and hiss. Most birds and animals would skitter away after barely seeing me. The same goes for most water fowl and their flipping off of humans. Other than their sassy fabulous attitudes, they are just amazing birds. Besides, who would not want goslings wandering around a park a block away from your house? It is the cutest thing ever. In one of the gardens there is a mother goose sitting on like 12 eggs, and she just sits there and hisses at you if you get close. She is my spirit animal. Anyways, geese are one of my favorite animals, if you couldn't tell already.
          Even though they are quite fabulous, the amount of excrement they leave behind for dogs to feast on is really annoying. Every time my dog goes to the park, we have to pull her away from literally everywhere but the center of the path because of how much she wants to get to the feast. There are enough geese at the park that the city is trying to use the "goosinator." The goosinator, pictured at right, is basically a massive orange thing that chases geese away. I have not directly seen the park using it, but I have heard about it and read about it in several park newspapers. Personally, the massive amounts of fowl do not bother me enough to require the use of a tool such as the goosinator, but the city disagrees.
          If you could not tell, birds in general are basically my favorite animal class. That is why I am studying them. I find it interesting that a class of animals can be so diverse yet all share the same characteristics, especially as they all evolved from different places and branched off to become as biologically different as they are. Out of the birds, however, I still think geese are the best. Yes, other birds may not be able to fly, and others may be like eight feet tall, but no bird species cares less as a whole than geese, and I really respect that about them.

SOL 8- Rubber Cement and Other Mounting Adventures

          Fumes waft up from my paper, and I think to myself, "Is this what it is like to be a Logan student?" I feel like part of Logan is getting used to extreme levels of exposure to things like rubber cement and sharpie fumes. While it is not inherently bad, I think it is funny that for a school of "gifted" kids we are constantly around things that slaughter mass amounts of brain cells, at least according to science.
          I still remember my first time mounting and using rubber cement. It was approximately five years ago on a sunny October day...

          "Be careful with blades," a teacher tells me.
          "Of course," I replied, while what I wanted to say was finally! I am allowed to freely use the massive slicey-slicey thing!
           She then went on to explain that you spread glue EVERYWHERE on both pieces of paper, wait ten seconds, and then stick them together. Apparently, she said, "this creates a bond stronger than family," or at least I remember her saying that. Looking back, I now realize that that is the most inefficient way to mount, it uses so much glue and creates a mess. Also, I probably added the sassy remark about family when I thought about what happened later, and the comment is now permanently engrained into my memory of the situation. On a side note, if rubber cement is stronger than a family bond, families are incredibly weak and can be peeled apart easily. Now back to this melodramatic flashback:
          "Sounds good!" I say energetically as she finishes the miniature mounting lesson. I begin mounting everything for my project with invigorated energy, thinking to myself how great everything looks, all framed in colors. Yet again, looking back, I realize now how horrendously abysmal my mounting was.

          Moving forward two years, I discovered "modern artistic mounting."
          "OK," I replied to the teacher telling me to do something creative with my mounting. I then went on to create a poorly designed collage of neon colors on a green piece of cardstock paper. Once my horrendous collage was done, I cut it into a rectangle and mounted a poem on it. I walk over to the turn in box, and give it to the teacher, satisfied with my work.
          "Thanks for doing your own, I did everyone else's," the teacher tells me after I turn it in, feeling proud of myself. My jaw has to be picked up off the floor as I quickly realize that everyone else has a perfectly mounted, color themed poem on the board, and I will have a poorly collaged crappy looking poem in the corner.
          The poem stayed up in the hallway for approximately three months, and every time I walked past the bulletin board I was reminded to never volunteer to do something like that again.

          My mounting has changed drastically now, three years after the incident of "modern art mounting." Don't worry, I have not done any form of "modern art mounting" since that poem, and I will never even think about doing it again.
          First off, I never use those massive inefficient paper cutters, I swear by slide cutters. I would rather not trade in accuracy and straight edges for playing with massive blades.
          Second off, my mounting width has reduced by approximately 70%, and my accuracy has improved by a solid 87%. My projects, in my opinion, look much better now then they did back then.

          Maybe it was the rubber cement fumes that finally made me good at mounting, maybe not. I have certainly evolved a lot, and I would like to think that my mounting no longer looks like it was done by an infant.