What a Week!

You never realize how tired you are until you fall asleep at ten with the TV still on. I woke up at 6:30 and realized I had left it on all night. I turned it off, went back to bed for half an hour, then couldn't fall asleep again. Mom and Dad came home today, which I'm grateful for. This week was a riot, but I'd rather have my parents home. Special thanks to Lona for visiting me and chasing away Torry's 'bro'friends. We went and saw the play Pops cameo-ed in, "Dearly Departed." Of course me and my short attention span, the thing I remember the most was he was wearing green suspenders with trains on them. Oh, and the fact that his death brought the family together. On the way home we listened to a CD where blues singers sing Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. Blues isn't exactly my thing, so when we got home I put on the actual album. You might be a Carlson if you do the cancan to Rainy Day Woman with your mother. Mom then showed me things she saw and bought in Philly. I won't say what they are in case they pop up in someone's mail slot soon. I'm so tired I'm going to bed after I'm done typing this (or at least when the record ends)

First Day of High School!

My first impression of high school was scary. When I got to the bus stop, I saw so many more people, some of them I didn't even know, that I got so frozen from the unfamiliarity of it that I didn't go to the stop sign, I just stayed across the street. The bus was crowded, too crowded. When walking to the cafeteria, where the freshmen were supposed to go, I got a dizzy spell, like I couldn't believe I was doing this, and I had to wave my hand in front of my eyes. In homebase we got our schedules (again, in case you lost yours since orientation), and the papers you need to fill out to get your locker. First block was government. The teacher was kind of crazy in a in-your-face way, but he's a coach, so he has an excuse. We spent about five minutes going "Kapeesh?" "Kapeesh" "Kapeesh?" "Kapeesh". Second block was Geometry. He jokes around a lot. He told us a really lame joke. "What did the tree say to the other tree?" "Gee, I'm a tree (geometry)." He says he gives a lot of homework, but he gives a lot of time to do it in class. There were lots of sophomores there, which was kind of intimidating. Next block was French. Since I was in French II, there was older kids there, too. French was fun. Most of the time we learned about the teacher, who was a hoot. After French was lunch, which I had most of my friends in. What was surprising to me was that lunch was with other grades too! I was shocked! Same with health, which I had after lunch. I'm so used to the structured classes and lunches of middle school, where the different grades have their lunches and electives at certain times. I don't know how tomorrow will go. Tomorrow I have theatre arts, earth and space science, honors English, and chorus. I have to say that today was okay. A lot better than I thought it would be. Now I'm home, and Torry randomly handed me fries and a chicken sandwich from Wendy's. Not my favorite meal, but at least I won't have to cook dinner.

Home Alone!

Well not really, since I have Torry. I just got home from grocery shopping with Pops and GangGang. Torry is currently gone, and something tells me he had a party last night, since there's beer cans in the bathroom trash can, which I will transfer to the recycling bin later. One good thing about having no one around for a week is I can blast my music! MWUHAHAHAHA! I put a record on when I got home, but the sound wasn't working, which scared me. Then I plugged in a random cord, and it worked again :D

Oh what now?

My underwater woven basket!

Back from an awesome week of Camp CEO!

Camp CEO was a blast! Everyone got paired with a CEO, and I got paired with Karen Howze, a DC magistrate judge. She was a lot of fun, and we went synchronized waterfront watching, underwater basket weaving, and making potpourri together. Camp CEO is the strangest, most interesting girl scout camp ever. Monday and Tuesday were a blur, but Wednesday was when things really started to pick up.

Wednesday was when my CEO buddy came, since the CEO's only stayed for one day and came and went throughout the week. When they came, we'd sing:

We welcome you to Camp Coles Trip
We're mighty glad you're here
We'll send the air reverberating
With our mighty cheer RA RA!
We'll sing you in, we'll sing you out
To you we'll give a mighty shout
Hail, hail the gang's all here
And welcome to Camp Coles Trip

And when they left we'd sing:

Hats off to you
Hats off to you
Camp CEO is proud to say
Hats off to you
We're glad you came
We'll shout your name
Hats off to you *insert CEO name here*
Hats off to you!

Jan, who was from the GSCNC council and seemed to run the show, told me that her folk idol when she was a girl was Pete Seeger, who she asked to sing at Still Singing After All These Years. He sent a reply via postcard saying he couldn't and that he hoped they sing This Land is Your Land. She has the pamphlet from the concert and the letter from Pete Seeger is framed in her office. She said that she wants to bring everyone together by singing like Pete Seeger did.

Anyway, on Wednesday we got to sign up for what we'd want to do, and I chose the waterfront. There's only two things to do at the waterfront; kayaking and waterfront watching. At first I went kayaking, where when we got out far enough we could get out and swim. The seaweed was really creepy. Afterward there was enough time for us to go waterfront watching, where you sit in chairs in the water. The tide was high so we synchronized waterfront watch, where we sat in a circle and stretched our arms and legs in unison like synchronized swimmers. The kayakers were too late to do underwater basket weaving tho. Later that day we had to get in to groups again to prepare for dinner. Wednesday was dinner on the porch, where we have a fancy dinner and everyone has a part. My group was making potpourri which was placed beside every plate. Dinner on the porch was awesome. There was entertainment before dessert and we drank sparkling cider. My CEO left that night and we sang hats off to her.

Thursday was groups again. I went to the waterfront again, and instead of kayaking I did underwater basket weaving. Now let me tell you, the stairs to the waterfront are steep and long, and it is hell getting back up. Thankfully we took a shortcut, so it wasn't as bad. After that people came and taught us modern dance. Why? I don't know. Then we went to the amphitheatre to listen to two CEO's that work at universeties talk about college. The amphitheatre is also the place where we have 'Dreaming Your Future', where after breakfast every morning, the CEO's that are there sit on a panel and tell people about their careers and take questions.

Friday was jam packed. After Dreaming Your Future, we had a 'Scout's Own' for a woman who died and participated in Camp CEO in past years. After lunch we split in to three groups and went to stations. The first station was working with Jan on planning our book. Yep, they're making a book about Camp CEO 09. The next station was making a scrapbook page about us to be put in a big scrapbook. A photographer from the Washington Post was there taking pictures of us, and he probably thought I was crazy. He pointed out my pen tatoos and I said that hopefully I'll get a sunburn so that when I wash off the pen I'll get real tatoos. Third station was cooking with one of the CEO's, Ris Lacoste, who's a chef and will be opening a restaurant in DC in October. She even asked us if we needed a job, but I figured a thirteen-year-old wouldn't be that great in a restaurant. The dinner was made by the other groups. My group made the hummus, salsa, and guacamole. I was dicing onions, tomatoes, and peppers, so I got to hold a realler big knife. Since it was the last night, we had sparkling cider. We had to present our scrapbook pages and say something we learned, then we got our badges and pin, and a CEO (if yours wasn't there) read the letter your CEO left out loud. It was nice to hear all the praise the CEO's left all the girls. Jan announced all the staff one at a time, and a few of them had standing ovations, especially Foodie, who's the camp cook. At Camp Potomac Woods they usually sing a parody of Leaving on a Jet Plane, but they didn't here, so I sang it to myself (the real version) in the tent.

I learned a lot from Camp CEO, like leadership skills, who I want to be, and what I got to do to get me there. Now that I'm home, its time to rest since I only have a week before school starts for me. It's been a fufilling summer I think. Dad got me a webcam so I can talk to Andelle at college, or so I can report to mom during the first week of school since she won't be here.

CAMP!

I'm going to Camp CEO tomorrow, and I'm über-excited! Andelle went there, and says its really fun. For a whole week I will be learning about being a CEO, eating awesome camp food, and swimming in a river. And I'm going to bring my buddy, Gumby. I decided to no pack Agent D, the Fabulous Snail, and Kylie since I won't be able to pack a plethora of plushies. Besides, gumby's my new buddy. I will miss all of you greatly, especially Andelle (she's beautiful soul)
Smiles! :D