Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
I’m going to talk about my week! Yeah! (And forgive me if there are typos, I’m on my sister’s computer and the n key sticks like crazy!)
So I just got to my sister’s house from a state 4-H camp called OMC–which stands for Older Member’s Conference. This is an older 4-H camp for the older members (because 4-H is an 8 to 21 year old club) and you have to be between the age of a freshman in high school to a twenty-one year old in college.
I like this camp more than a lot of others because of the age. My county older 4-H camp ranges from 12-21, so the youngins are a bit too young for my liking. At OMC, we can be dirty. We can make crude jokes with extreme sexual innuendos and get away with it without any trouble. Most of all, I like this camp because I only see these people once a year.
Now, if you’ve never been to camp then you can’t really relate. There’s something fun–something adventurous about it. I like my friends, they’re fine people, but there is absolutely something different about these 4-H friends. I’d hate them if I saw them all year long, but most of them live about seven hours away (so the seeing them all the time thing is covered and covered well.)
My week went great. I met so many great people. Four of the boys there followed me around all week hitting on me awkwardly, which I for one adore. I love being hit on.
We had a speaker each day and the good thing about this camp in particular is that we have a discussion type thing where we talk to an experienced elder and ask questions in front of the whole camp. The campers can have a conversation with each other during this and I adore it! I’m a talker though, right? We have the ability to be intelligent, and the intelligent thrive here.
As the week progressed, I learned many things. I learned some more propaganda about alcohol, I learned about civility, I learned about rich bastards that we suck up to so that they can give more money to us, I learned about the world.
I hope that I never forget the people and actions there. I hope that I never forget me and a friend making fun of a fellow for his love of midgets, or the weird as fuck looking bug that landed on my boobs, or my sister crying hysterically in front of 300 people. I don’t want to forget my community service or the tornado that struck about a mile away from the camp that destroyed many places but didn’t touch us. I don’t want to forget my brother singing while I sipped on coffee in the back, or a fellow I have had a crush on for years looking like crazy for chocolate milk so that he wouldn’t have to drink coffee like a big boy. I hope that I will never ever forget the good times, the great times, the fantastic times.
I loved this week, and I’ll love the next month even more <3
But! Party time!
Have a wonderful life,
Olive Juice,
Elizabeth <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Hey there, young one. Do not fear, it is you from the future. I have perfected an awesome time machine, and come to give you some advice on your journey into adulthood!
You are about to embark on a journey through an inferior school system. You live in Norway, one of the worlds richest countries for reasons you don’t quite understand. Something about how black goo is awesome, but black people suck. Don’t worry about that, when you get older, your mind will tend to wander.
You will enjoy sports with your fellow classmates. But as you grow, you will realize the hierarchy in the school class. There is the alpha males and females (usually 2 or 3 of each), the gang that follows them like cattle (part of the cool gang), and the rest, who for all intents and purposes are known as loosers. You will be a socially awkward, weird-smelling nerd who nobody seems particularely interested in talking to. Except others like you. This is going to bother you somewhat, yet you will ultimately accept it.
At one point, you will start playing World of Warcraft. I’m not going to say don’t do it, because some of the people you meet there will change your life forever. Just be careful, and when your mother wants you to get away from the computer screen don’t bark at her and keep playing. She just cares for you.
As you grow, you are going to make many mistakes. You will do cruel things to people, you will steal, laugh at other peoples misfortunes, and not give a crap about anything. At one point, you will have a political epiphany and join RU. It’s going to change your life drastically. I only have one tip for you: When you get invited to join the SST, do it. Don’t wuss out. Your reasons for staying in Bodø are bogus, you will leave the town that same year anyways.
You are going to fall in love. Oh, how you will fall in love. It’s going to be magical. I’m not going to tell you when you first end up in a relationship, I will only say that it’s going to take alot longer than what you see around you. When it finally happens though, you will be happy. Briefly. You will be hurt, you will cry and you will try to drown your sorrows with homebrewed booze. My only tip for you, don’t get carried away. Do not trust blindly.
It’s going to be a long journey for you, little one. Your 19 years in Bodø will be filled with bad memories, good memories, laugher and crying. Good luck.
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I got the idea for this from Elizabeth, a while ago she blogged about a letter she had written many years ago to her future self. This is a modification.
What would you tell your younger self, if you could?
As a tribute to mine and my family’s cat, Snurre, I would like to dedicate this entry to him, and them!
This cat was truly a good, and rather special, companion through the past 5 years. Through my childhood and youth, my parents have taken cats from outside into our warm friendly home, connected with them, and become good friends, even though every cat we had, suffered the same outcome at last. Killed in traffic. Such a tragedy happens to a lot of cats here, and everywhere with traffic, I assume.
Well, the tales of this one last kitty are many, and this cat has barely survived through a short but colorful life. Many times we’ve sat in the living room stumbled by this cat bringing its prey for the evening home, or hunted birds in our back yard, to the amusement of our utterly weird but amazing dog. This cute little thing would hide in spots people would never even imagine looking, it would mew over noting, and mess with our dogs mind, and play games with it, letting the dog chase him, and then disappear, only to make the dog completely crazy by not finding the cat. This Changed, even though our cat never was the kind of guy to be lying in our lap, we easily saw his mind was changed after the one time he disappeared for 3 to 4 months or so.
A few times before, he’d be gone a while, and whilst on vacation in Trøndelag, we had to leave without him. Then one day, this young boy called the number on his collar, and my dad picked up. The kid asked where he’d come, and my dad said Bodø, and the kid just barely believed him, since this is 700km away. Snurre got a taxi drive from Trøndelag the next day. But this one day he was gone, we waited, and waited, but Snurre never came. After a couple of weeks we assumed the worst, and got through the grief of losing our friend. After 3 months we saw him 6km away from our house, but didn’t stop, because the cat couldn’t be this far away. A month later we got a call by a woman seeing one of our old posters. She had a black cat, that looked like he was lost, our cat was, so we naturally went to see him. It was him.
By that time he changed a lot, and he had lately gone back to a normal state of mind, though he was the weirdest pet I’ve ever had. If you let him out one door, he would walk around the house, and mew to get in, only to go out the same way he did last time. Sometimes Snurre made me fucking crazy. Hunting birds he stuck one of his teeth’s to his lip wile falling from a tree. Later he disappeared again, and someone came by and said they found this female cat in the ditch after being struck by a car. I saw the cat, but didn’t have no female pet, so I said sorry, and they went along. A week later my sister saw a poster, and we got our cat back, again… He was hurt badly, but survived. This time, he changed even more, and reacted to our dog, never played, and avoided everyone but my sister. He slept in her bed. Now this last incident happened, yesterday that is. Again, he was run over by a car, destroying his leg. The damages were too severe. At least the driver stopped after seeing him running into our garage, and informed us of this. He bled, and mewed a lot, until he went to the vet. After that, silence. I will never forget the look in my sisters’ eyes when she told me.
Thank you, for being a good friend, a soft pillow, the weirdest cat I ever knew, and the cute little kitty we had.
As you were, soldier
Steinar
And so summer begins!
I looked at my schedule for summer, and holy fuck it’s full. I was considering getting a job, but damn! I’m busy!
In eleven days, I’m going to a state camp which is usually pretty fun. I’ll be there for a week. Immediately after that, I will be going to my sister’s house (also for a week.) After that, I will be attending a local 4-H camp (that I absolutely LOVE!!) And the week after that, I will be a counselor at another 4-H camp (for kids aged 8-12.) That is a month that I will be either out of town or unable to communicate with the outside world. A month!! Two days after my last camp ends, band starts and continues for the rest of the summer. My summer ends in eleven days!
Holy shit, I just realized that I have to do my summer reading within eleven days! For summer reading I have to read three books: Their Eyes Were Watching God, the Awakening, and Macbeth. I’m frankly excited to read all three, but a bit too busy right now to enjoy them. Perhaps I’ll just hang myself and everything will be okay.
Summer makes me look back at my year, and I am honestly ashamed of myself. This has been the worst year of my life, and I don’t mean that in a melodramatic manner. It isn’t an overstatement. This year has been hell.
I took on too much this year. Three AP Classes were too much. The ten clubs I’m in were too much. Everyone who had a similar schedule agreed.
I hate that I wish away a year of my life; I feel like I’m not doing it justice. I can’t help it. This year has been awful. I should be enjoying these days of my youth to their fullest; I should be living every moment; I shouldn’t regret an entire YEAR of my life! But I do.
2011, here I come! WOO SENIOR YEAR!
This summer will be fun, but in the meantime I need to read some books and take notes on them and shit!
With love and all that jazz,
Elizabeth <3
P.S. This is my favorite class saying. I find it very fitting:
Peace, pot, tequila shot
Jesus loves us, stoned or not
Sex, drugs, rock and roll
Speed, weed, birth control
Party hardy, drink bacardi
Smoke a bowl, throw a party
Smirnoff’s good, sex is heaven
We’re the class of 2011.
Well I just found the most awesome website ever. It’s called TheWorstHorse.com and is dedicated to all things Buddhism-related in popular culture. It presents a mixture of genuinely-Buddhist and all-things-douchey-Buddhist products/things.
Two of my favorites:
“Zendough.com-” a credit score website dedicated to enlightening its customer with “the complete path to master[ing] their finances.” Pretty sure the last thing Siddhartha Gautama was thinking about back in the early 500’s B.C. was his credit score.
“Zencore-” the all natural male enhancement supplement. Why the devil “zen” was brought into such a thing is completely beyond me. Buddhist monks take an oath of celibacy, yes? So why is a fundamentally Buddhist concept, such as zen, being slapped upon a product entirely intended for sexual satisfaction?
God bless America: the home of the utterly fucked up and all things ridiculous (also applicable to Japan, but that’s an entirely different blog entry).
