Things to look forward to

I have many things to write about that I'm looking forward to, but as of now, two weeks away from spring break, I will write about what I will be doing. I am going to be spending my spring break this year in Pass Christian, MS and Watercolor, FL- two of most memorable vacation spots. My family owns a property in Pass Christian and I've spent countless weekends and breaks there my whole life. Until Hurricane Katrina, our family had our own house on the property, while the rest of my dad's siblings shared a big house we call "the Marsh house," because of its view of the golden marsh. My grandparent's house, "the Main house" is across the property facing the bayou. Unfortunately, Our house got torn apart by a tornado during the storm, and my grandparents no longer use their own. So now, the three families switch between the "Main house" and the "Marsh house"; there is two families that can stay in the marsh house at the same, while only one family can stay in the main house. This half of the year, our family will be staying in the Main house. The main house is closer to the boats, have a pathway to the swimming pool and tennis court, and have the pond of ducks within our view. I'm looking forward to spending easter here with my cousins here.

I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my break with my best friend, Sasha, and many other New Orleans friends that I have been seeing occasionally throughout the years. I'm hoping the weather is as balmy as last year; It will be nice to lay out on the beach or club pool again with friends. More importantly, I'm hoping that the beach parties are as fun at night. There's always a lot of teenagers at Watercolor and you get to see people everywhere you go and hang out 24/7.  I can't remember a second of spring break last year where we weren't entertained. Everyone rides bikes everywhere and visit the nearby resort, Seaside. Seaside and Watercolor are very similar in set up, just Watercolor's houses are more modern. If you've ever seen the movie, The Truman Show, it was filmed in the perfect world of Seaside. They have the best restaurants there too, one of my favorites being a Grilled Cheese truck that makes my water-mouth just thinking about the three types of cheese fit between two slices of buttery toast. Soooooo good.  We're only staying for three or four days, so I'm gonna try to make the best out of every second!

Outside Reading

     This week, I've done quite a lot of reading, and the weeks not even over yet! First off, I had to study biology, so I was constantly reading through the chapter. I would say I spent about 50% or more on reading biology. We were learning about DNA and RNA and how they are transcribed, translated, etc. into a protein. Also, we learned about viruses and how they infect cells. It was a very long lesson, probably the longest so far! My brain was hurting after I took the test. I have also been reading my little French chapter book, June. B. Jones: Amoreuse by Barbara Park in class and at home. I am expanding my  french vocabulary. One word that I learned, éclair (lightning), showed up in a handout we were given in class. It was neat to see a word that had been new to me show up a day later in class.

Also, each night before I go to bed, I have continued to read my outside reading book, Someone Like You by Sarah Dessin. I have really enjoyed reading this book. It takes my mind off of school, yet it counts as school work. I am planning on finishing it the night or the next night. I have reached the climax of the book, when Halley and her boyfriend get in a bad wreck after they sneak out on New Year's to a party. Hallie gets hurt, but he doesn't. After the wreck happened, Macon didn't stay with her at the hospital,  so Hallie starts to consider breaking up with him. Throughout the whole novel, her mother had told her that he wasn't right for her, but she didn't listen. Until the breakup, Hallie was indecisive about Macon and kept changing her thoughts. She is definitely a dynamic character.

Biology textbook- 60 mins
French Chapter book- 30 mins
Outside reading book- 100 mins

St. "Paddy's" Day

This St. Patrick's Day was the best one in a while- and I can't believe I almost decided not to go! If it were not for falling asleep at eight the previous night, I probably would have stayed home the whole time. I was feeling pretty crummy the day before St. Patty's due to allergies but I got a full 12 hours of sleep, took an Allegra, and I was ready to roll the next day. I was woken up at 7 the next morning, put on my shamrock green, then went to the Sammon's St. Patrick's Day party to eat green donuts and prepare the float for the parade. I did not want to hold myself back on some fun after being bedridden in my house for the past 4 weekends.

This year, I joined my parents and brother, Pierce, in riding on the Sammon's float with a bunch of other family friends. Each year the Sammons hold a St. Patrick's Day party where some of their closest friends ride on their float with them for the St. Patrick's Day parade. There is a crawfish boil afterward. My friends Sara Alice and Caroline B. and Chris Sammons were all there too. This year, the float read "Who's your paddy?" Sara Alice, Caroline, and I all sat on the float bathroom's roof, where we had a full view of all of the hoopla. Seeing the crowd of people gave me a rush of excitement. I loved seeing all of the different types of people and what they would do for beads or a toy football. One little boy raised his shirt and was shaking his belly all around.  I showered him with beads. Throwing beads to people and seeing their faces afterward made my day. Everyone looked so happy, and in return, I was ecstatic. I mostly threw footballs, and it was fun to point at people, them point back, send the football on it's way, then get a wink or smile in return. There is nothing quite like riding a float. Now I understand why my dad returns year after year to Mardi Gras in New Orleans to participate in many parades.

Outside Reading- Someone Like You

Because of the rising temperature and the nearing of summer, I chose a book called Someone Like You by Sarah Dessin, that is set mostly in the summertime. I haven't read many books like this this school year, and it is nice to take a break from more serious novels like Nervous Conditions. I love reading books about summer during spring because it brings back warm memories of past summers and gets me excited for this upcoming summer. Also, it was recommended by many of my friends. I remember one of my friends reading it at camp and I was about to read it after her but it was too late because camp was ending. I know that it is kind of cheesy and not my typical book to read, but I'm glad I found it in the library and have a chance to read Someone Like You for my outside reading.

I would recommend Someone Like You to any girl who loves juicy summer friendship novels. The main characters, Halley and Scarlett just lost their friend, Micheal Sherwood, in a motorcycle accident. The two besties worked with him in the summer at a super market and Scarlett and him came very close. It turns out that Scarlett is carrying Micheal Sherwood's baby. Her trashy mother, Marion, who works at a beauty picture place in the mall and chain smokes all the time wants her to abort it. I feel like this is not the best decision because Scarlett is carrying someone's dead child's baby, and Micheal's parents would want Scarlett to keep the baby because a part of Micheal would live on. To my pleasure, Scarlett decides to keep the baby. Halley is dating Micheal Sherwood's best friend, Macon, and there is a side to him that is not yet known. This book is addicting, and I haven't read a book like that in a while!

Someone Like You- 120 + minutes
Biology Textbook- 30 mins
French Junie B Jones: Amoreuse- 40 mins

Beignet and her ball

 After each day after school this week, when I had a little bit more energy to expend, I threw the ball in my backyard with my dog Beignet. Beignet is my family's one-year-old golden retriever.  My backyard is not a great area for a dog to retrieve balls in. It is an old red brick courtyard, surrounded by the U-shape of my house. The center of my yard is consumed by a pool. A trampled garden is near the right wall of the yard, the wall that separates our property from our neighbor's. A lot of the garden is taken up by bushes and a big oak tree. There are also palmettos and banana trees. Even a large wooden table and chairs take up some space. It is not an ideal place for throwing the ball but Beignet loves it.

It is just an ordinary tennis ball that Beignet found when she was taking a stroll through our neighborhood. Not to her, though. She has plenty of chew toys, ropes, bones, etc. but if she could chose one thing to play with it would be that stupid ball. Several times a day she will come up to one of my family members or me and try to put her puppy-dog magic on us so that we will throw the ball with her. I finally decided to start doing it once that I felt a little better from mono. I'd throw at least fifteen times, and each time she will trot back to me with the same amount of energy she first started with. And then, once you grab the ball out of her mouth and hold it up, her bottom lip will start quivering from anxiety. She is THAT attached. 

Throwing the ball to me is like a marathon of America's funniest home videos. This may sound callous, but it's funny watching her run into the wall or not being able to find it. Most of the time, she will start running before I even let go. I don't know if it's the purebred retriever in her or if she's just crazy, because I have never seen a dog so determined to find and bring back a silly old tennis ball.

Outside Reading

For my 150 minutes of reading this week, I chose to read something of my moms called The Commoner by  John Shultz, I read a lot of my biology textbook, and I read 20 minutes of my french chapter book, Junie B. Jones: Amoreuse.

So far, The Commoner is about a young japanese girl, Haruko, who is living in the aftermath of World War II/ the Occupied Japan. After the bombings, Tokyo is incinerated and there are many living in poverty. Haruku is fortunate though; she lives in a wealthy family, plays tennis well, and speaks French excellently. She is not exactly a "commoner" compared to all the other distraught Japanese families during that time. I have not gotten very deep into the plot yet, because it is a long book, but I predict that she is a "commoner" to the royal family, who she will eventually wed into. I like this book, I am learning history of Japan that I have not read about before.

Reading Junie B. Jones: Amoreuse is kind of silly. It's a different feeling reading a baby chapter book and in french, also.  I don't exactly enjoy it though. Twenty minutes may seem like a short amount of time, but when your reading something with a rudimentary plot, you get bored. I'm not looking forward to having to read more of it this week.

Last Nervous Conditions Post

After finishing Nervous Conditions, I wasn't very satisfied in the way that it ended. I know that there is a sequel, but I felt as if the author made too many changes in the last chapter. It seems almost like the author was taking her time writing the story until chapter 10, where everything is quickly concluded. It does succeed however, in making me wonder what will happen next: Will Nyasha ever be herself again? Is the 'Englishness' really the problem, like Tambu's mother says? Why isn't 'Sacred Heart and what it represented a sunrise on [Tambu's] horizon'? How will Lucia be in the future? There are a lot of questions unanswered. 

 Nervous Conditions wasn't too complex as I thought it would be. Tsitsi Dangarembga's vocabulary is extensive, so I had to look up a lot of the words, but once I did, the words really did help create a vision of how the character is like in my mind because the words were so precise. I do not like long chapters for novels, because I am tempted to stop in the middle of some of them and they take up a long amount of time.  If it weren't for being a school book, I might have stopped reading it for this reason. I prefer short chapters, because they make me read more. But after evaluating it with the class, and after answering questions for each chapter, I understood it more and did not get as bored. I would have never caught how Miaguru was analogous to a mother bird or the time period that it is set in. Overall, I think NC was a pretty decent novel.

Warm weather brings spring sports

Currently, I am sitting in my backyard by my pool listening to the cheery chirping of birds and soaking up some much needed vitamin C. For me, the best thing about spring is being able to enjoy doing the things we love outside. I can't wait to splash around in my pool or unwind in the hot-tub. I (hopefully) will soon be able to take weekend trips to my family's property in Mississippi where I can practice kayaking, go swimming, play tennis, go inner-tubing, and take boat trips to Cat island and Ship island. Another thing that excites me about spring is the nearing of Spring break and Summer. Spring for me is my most active time of the year. I can't remember a spring where I don't find something to do on the weekends. 

This will be the first spring in a while where I haven't participated in club volleyball. I have had trouble figuring out what sport or fitness I want to do since my mono has set me back a few weeks. Before I got sick, I was planning on doing track. I adore running. I want to be able to get back to running, which I a whole lot did before and during the soccer season, but haven't lately because am still not fully recovered from mono yet. I was planning on doing long distance in track meets, but I am not sure that would work best for me now. It would probably be pushing myself too hard. I must work up to it first. I also wanted to do hurdles, but my doctor warned me I must take training easily.  I know that if I keep a positive attitude and recover well, I will eventually be able to go back to the things I love!