Geez what a year 2010 was. I haven’t updated this blog in a while and I am 6 days behind the beginning of the new year, but oh well. I’m a terrible sporadic updater. Last year was definitely full of ups and downs and has lead me down a different path.
I was finally able to transfer to Stanislaus in the path and spend much of the beginning of the year preparing for that. Lots of shopping, applications, and financial aid. I left in August and quickly adapted to living in the dorms, which has been a huge experience. Learning to live on my own, with three others, away from my family, and an entire building of college kids is no small feat, but I’ve done pretty well. I did well in my classes and although they were more work than at delta and felt like a bigger deal I didn’t struggle too much. I pulled good grades and might be able to finish by next Christmas.
While living in the dorms I found out new things about myself and decided there were unresolved issues that I needed to get over. Midway through the year I went to see a psychologist. After the first meeting I had high hopes for what we were going to accomplish, unfortunately it didn’t work out and after a 5 minute second meeting there wasn’t anything after. I’m still hoping to get over my problems. I don’t really have a plan on how to accomplish this, but I know that there are things I need to do and things that I have to do. It’s been a slow trip to this spot and I know it will take even longer.
I was able to take several fantastic trips last year. We went to San Francisco’s De Young Museum to see the exhibit Tutankhamun & the Golden Age of Pharaohs. It was something that I had been keeping my eyes on when it opened and was finally able to talk my family into going. It was an amazing exhibit with artifacts from Egypt that were created ages ago. It was made me want to visit the national museum in Cairo. It must be an amazing place.
We were also able to visit Disneyland twice. We went the last week of June as a family and had a great time. There’s no place like Disneyland. We talked about going again in the winter because my mom loves the decorations and decided to go again. We did a lot of saving and were able to find the fund. My cousin’s Tom and Mike and Tim’s girlfriend Hannah went with us this time. We spent New Year’s in the park which was an experience. I don’t think I’ll ever go this time of year again. There were so many people. But it was still really fun and I can’t wait until we are able to go again.
It was definitely a big year and I know that much of what was started will roll over. I’m interested to see what this year holds and I hope that it is filled with improvement.
I’ll have to do another post with just pictures and videos from last year since there was so many.
Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Best Find At The Wrong Time
My mother and I went to the local street fair on Sunday. I wasn’t planning on buying anything since I don’t have a job and any money I get from babysitting I save, but I took $25 and decided just getting out of the house was nice. We were strolling down the street with antiques and my mom was looking over everything looking for a gift me for grandmother….plus anything she might want. A man was selling books and I of course went over to look. Sitting on the top self was three older different sets of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the series I had just put on my WANT LIST only two weeks earlier. He said it would cost $45 and I almost gave in. It took a lot for me to walk away. It figures that when I have no money everything I want comes out from hiding.
Anyways….I read over my reviews from my creative writing class. It’s going to be difficult editing my story. It’s not like a lot was asked of me but it hard taking something that sits pretty good and adding more meat to it. Plus I want to make sure I like it. I mean having other people enjoy what I’ve written is awesome and I love it, but I want to make sure that it still fits into what I want it to be and what it’s supposed to be.
Anyways….I read over my reviews from my creative writing class. It’s going to be difficult editing my story. It’s not like a lot was asked of me but it hard taking something that sits pretty good and adding more meat to it. Plus I want to make sure I like it. I mean having other people enjoy what I’ve written is awesome and I love it, but I want to make sure that it still fits into what I want it to be and what it’s supposed to be.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Teaching the Art of Writing
I helped my sister write a paper for a scholarship she’s entering. Somehow I became the essay expert and since my freshman year of high school I’ve been helping all of my brothers and sisters write their essays. I’m not a fantastic essay writer. I know that I’m majoring in English but I still have yet to master punctuation and formal word usage (also using big words), but I am amazed at how….bad my sisters and brothers are at writing. It kind of amazes me that they can’t write an essay and make it sound professional. It’s times like this that I realize everyone isn’t good at everything. There are things that some can do and things that some cannot do. And while you feel smart and great doing the things that you can do you have to realize that not everyone has that come so easily to them.
Usually when one of my siblings comes to me with school work I take over. The last essay my sister Erin had to write I snuck on her computer, which she left in my room, and finished the essay. Tonight though I just gave my sister, Chelsea, a prompt and told her to write what she felt should be written. After she wrote it out and read it back to be I tweaked it a little, but not as much as I usually would. Although this was different than before since it was a essay about her and she knows herself better than I would I think I’m going to try and continue to work this way. Not only will I stop getting blamed for their papers not grading so high but it will teach them how to write on their own. I can’t continue to have them come into my room saying “we have a lot of work to do” and then basically so their work for them. I think it’s time they stop being so dependent on me. Not for everything but for things that they need to accomplish on their own.
Usually when one of my siblings comes to me with school work I take over. The last essay my sister Erin had to write I snuck on her computer, which she left in my room, and finished the essay. Tonight though I just gave my sister, Chelsea, a prompt and told her to write what she felt should be written. After she wrote it out and read it back to be I tweaked it a little, but not as much as I usually would. Although this was different than before since it was a essay about her and she knows herself better than I would I think I’m going to try and continue to work this way. Not only will I stop getting blamed for their papers not grading so high but it will teach them how to write on their own. I can’t continue to have them come into my room saying “we have a lot of work to do” and then basically so their work for them. I think it’s time they stop being so dependent on me. Not for everything but for things that they need to accomplish on their own.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Editing Birthdays
Today my brother turned 15. On Monday my sister turns 21. The older my siblings get the older I feel. I have four younger siblings and I can remember them being younger. Not losing the baby fat, or voice changes, or dating, or anything that comes with being older. This aging thing seems to get going way to fast.
I mean 15 years old. I remember when he was born. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago he was 8. Goodness.
I finished reading my assigned stories. I’ve edited them pretty thoroughly and have written out what I think needs to be changed. I have to go through what I’ve written to make it helpful and tactful. I don’t want to insult them or make anyone upset. So I need to get that done by tonight or mid-day tomorrow.
The pieces I read were pretty good. There were a couple of things that I didn’t believe fit into the story or I feel they missed quite a bit. Two confused me. One of those seemed like the writer wrote it just before it was due and didn’t go over it at all. The other two weren’t too bad. They had a couple of unnecessary facts that made me question at the end why it was there.
Overall they were interesting and I hope that they will be able to edit their pieces. I would like to see how they come about after the student responses.
I mean 15 years old. I remember when he was born. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago he was 8. Goodness.
I finished reading my assigned stories. I’ve edited them pretty thoroughly and have written out what I think needs to be changed. I have to go through what I’ve written to make it helpful and tactful. I don’t want to insult them or make anyone upset. So I need to get that done by tonight or mid-day tomorrow.
The pieces I read were pretty good. There were a couple of things that I didn’t believe fit into the story or I feel they missed quite a bit. Two confused me. One of those seemed like the writer wrote it just before it was due and didn’t go over it at all. The other two weren’t too bad. They had a couple of unnecessary facts that made me question at the end why it was there.
Overall they were interesting and I hope that they will be able to edit their pieces. I would like to see how they come about after the student responses.
Friday, April 2, 2010
King Tut and the Golden Age of Pharaohs Exhibit
At the De Young Museum in San Francisco they had an exhibit called King Tut and the Golden Age of Pharaohs. They had items from all over the world all of which came, obviously, from Egypt. It started last year and I had mentioned wanting to go but we kinda stopped family days to save money and it wasn’t mentioned until two months ago. We had planned on going Sunday the 21st but the tickets were sold out so we got them for Saturday the 27 the day before it ended. They were selling 90 tickets for every 30 minutes we were able to get tickets for 4:30. Before we could go we had to stop in Sacramento.
It was also the 2 year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. We left the house at 9:15 and headed up to Sacramento. My grandmother, aunt, and cousin were waiting and we hung around the gravesite, took some pictures, had a small speech, and left some flowers. After we went to Brookenridge (?)….well it was a restaurant and had some yummy breakfast.
We were able to get done at the time we wanted, 12:00, and get on the road to San Fran. It only took us about 2 hours to get to the Bay Bridge and a little longer to get to the toll booth. After the bridge we hit wonderful traffic. Let me tell you having seven people crammed in a van on a semi-warm day is not fun. We made it to Golden Gate Park but couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around until we found on the other side of t he park. We made it to de Young at 3 something and just walked around before I told them I was sure we could go into the main part of the museum just not the King Tut exhibit yet. So we wandered around the art and artifacts. It was interesting, but I did get a little bored after the fiftieth African head mask and stopped reading all the info.
Anyways skipping some uneventful nonsense after we toured the musuem at 4:40 we stood in line for King Tut. We had to wait upstairs and then slowly made our way down the stair to another line. They had a video about King Tut’s death and we got our tickets scanned (there were also people buying tickets which was a little annoying since we probably could have gone last weekend). I knew that no one but me was really excited until we got in line downstairs. I swear it was like getting on a ride. Everyone perked up, Chelsea started quoting the mummy, I showed her that King Tut married Ankhesenamun and his dad’s name was Imhotep the IV was his father (or grandfather), Chelsea then thought there was a conspiracy theory, and people began admitting there excitement. They had the huge wooden doors that they let the people in and would shut them after 20 or so went through. We were finally ushered through the doors and ended up in a small black room that had blue lights and two TV’s on either side of another set of big wooded doors. I swear it felt like an amusement park ride. We were shown a 90 minute video giving up an introduction on King Tut before allowing to enter. The first room has only a bust of Tut then you walked through different rooms that held all the items.
Upon entering the first room I knew why they limited the amount of people allowed to enter. In each room there was one big poster talking about what the room theme was with history and then there was tall glass cases with the items. At the top of the case they talked about what the item was so that people behind the large crowd could read before seeing what it was. But there were so many people. You could barley move, it took forever to get up close to the case, and even though there was air-conditioning it was warm. My annoyance for the people gave me a bit of claustrophobia which made me even more annoyed. I lost the family after the second room (my mom saw a group of people said “forget it” and walked away), but Chris joined me and we joked around as I read and saw everything.
Even though I wanted to seriously injure, yell , and skip things I had an amazing
time. There were so many interesting and wonderful things from King Tuts Tomb and from Egypt in general. They had knives, stools, games, the outer part of a mummy coffin, Canopic jars, weapons, King Tut’s still-born children’s coffins, and so much more. The last room showed what King Tut’s coffin was like (six boxes, three coffins, and a head mask). They also had some of the jewelry he was wearing.
After that It was the gift shop. I just walked around wondering what to buy because they had so many cool things. But I ended up with a book and magnet.
I can’t really think of any other word to use but amazing…thesaurus gave me some good ones: incredible, remarkable, mind-blowing…you get it. I was just astounded buy the things they made and how thousands of years later it’s still there and we can look and hold it. Learning more about Tutankhamum; how he changed his name, his parents, his marriage to his half-sister, how he really looked (club foot, cleft lip, diseases).
Almost eveything had gold in it. The gold was mixed with wood, silver, other melts or a varation of it. You would never had know that there was wood under the gold. They created such smooth surfaces and detailed carvings by hand. If it wassn't made of gold it was a colored stone (blue, white, black). Everything was beautiful and I can almost imagine half of what Howard Carter felt when they first entered the tomb.
I loved it and it wish I could go through again (just without so many people). It has definitely made me want to visit the museum in Cairo where they hold these items and much more. I also want to see the pyramids that are amazing in themselves but that held these things.
It was also the 2 year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. We left the house at 9:15 and headed up to Sacramento. My grandmother, aunt, and cousin were waiting and we hung around the gravesite, took some pictures, had a small speech, and left some flowers. After we went to Brookenridge (?)….well it was a restaurant and had some yummy breakfast.
We were able to get done at the time we wanted, 12:00, and get on the road to San Fran. It only took us about 2 hours to get to the Bay Bridge and a little longer to get to the toll booth. After the bridge we hit wonderful traffic. Let me tell you having seven people crammed in a van on a semi-warm day is not fun. We made it to Golden Gate Park but couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around until we found on the other side of t he park. We made it to de Young at 3 something and just walked around before I told them I was sure we could go into the main part of the museum just not the King Tut exhibit yet. So we wandered around the art and artifacts. It was interesting, but I did get a little bored after the fiftieth African head mask and stopped reading all the info.
Anyways skipping some uneventful nonsense after we toured the musuem at 4:40 we stood in line for King Tut. We had to wait upstairs and then slowly made our way down the stair to another line. They had a video about King Tut’s death and we got our tickets scanned (there were also people buying tickets which was a little annoying since we probably could have gone last weekend). I knew that no one but me was really excited until we got in line downstairs. I swear it was like getting on a ride. Everyone perked up, Chelsea started quoting the mummy, I showed her that King Tut married Ankhesenamun and his dad’s name was Imhotep the IV was his father (or grandfather), Chelsea then thought there was a conspiracy theory, and people began admitting there excitement. They had the huge wooden doors that they let the people in and would shut them after 20 or so went through. We were finally ushered through the doors and ended up in a small black room that had blue lights and two TV’s on either side of another set of big wooded doors. I swear it felt like an amusement park ride. We were shown a 90 minute video giving up an introduction on King Tut before allowing to enter. The first room has only a bust of Tut then you walked through different rooms that held all the items.
Upon entering the first room I knew why they limited the amount of people allowed to enter. In each room there was one big poster talking about what the room theme was with history and then there was tall glass cases with the items. At the top of the case they talked about what the item was so that people behind the large crowd could read before seeing what it was. But there were so many people. You could barley move, it took forever to get up close to the case, and even though there was air-conditioning it was warm. My annoyance for the people gave me a bit of claustrophobia which made me even more annoyed. I lost the family after the second room (my mom saw a group of people said “forget it” and walked away), but Chris joined me and we joked around as I read and saw everything.
Even though I wanted to seriously injure, yell , and skip things I had an amazing
time. There were so many interesting and wonderful things from King Tuts Tomb and from Egypt in general. They had knives, stools, games, the outer part of a mummy coffin, Canopic jars, weapons, King Tut’s still-born children’s coffins, and so much more. The last room showed what King Tut’s coffin was like (six boxes, three coffins, and a head mask). They also had some of the jewelry he was wearing.
After that It was the gift shop. I just walked around wondering what to buy because they had so many cool things. But I ended up with a book and magnet.
I can’t really think of any other word to use but amazing…thesaurus gave me some good ones: incredible, remarkable, mind-blowing…you get it. I was just astounded buy the things they made and how thousands of years later it’s still there and we can look and hold it. Learning more about Tutankhamum; how he changed his name, his parents, his marriage to his half-sister, how he really looked (club foot, cleft lip, diseases).
Almost eveything had gold in it. The gold was mixed with wood, silver, other melts or a varation of it. You would never had know that there was wood under the gold. They created such smooth surfaces and detailed carvings by hand. If it wassn't made of gold it was a colored stone (blue, white, black). Everything was beautiful and I can almost imagine half of what Howard Carter felt when they first entered the tomb.
I loved it and it wish I could go through again (just without so many people). It has definitely made me want to visit the museum in Cairo where they hold these items and much more. I also want to see the pyramids that are amazing in themselves but that held these things.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Lack Of Conversation
I was talking to my dad the other night and after our conversation I thought of this video because it went pretty much like this.
"Teenage Song" by Peter Denahy
"Teenage Song" by Peter Denahy
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Secrets
Today my sister and Amanda decided to dress me up. I let them because I was bored and I kinda was okay with it. Maybe because I had a little attention and I was interested to see what they picked out. Anyways we had just finished and stopped at Macy's so they could try on dresses. Amanda was still trying them on when my sister and I got into a discussion outside the dressing room door. I told her that there where things about me she didn't know and that my friend could describe me as a totally different person than she could. I said that there where things I didn't want to know about her because outside of the house was probably a different person and I didn't want my views of her to be tarnished. Well she whined and pushed wanting me to tell her a secret. I said no so she told me a secret of hers and Amanda old her my secret (I couldn't do it). Then is got real awkward.
I realized that I'm always going to assume that my brothers and sisters have followed my example in a lot of things and that I hold them up in this light. But really they are people who do...stupid things and stuff that I'll never know. I really wish that I wasn't told the secret. It made me realize that my sister is a bit of a hypocrite and that she isn't the person that I thought she was. My friend said the same thing. She was shocked and finds it hard to admire my sister.
As for my secret I wish more than anything she didn't know. I hate he fact that she does and I wished I had lied but my mouth just get so caught up. Ahhh I don't like secret sharing anymore. It can ruin so much.
I realized that I'm always going to assume that my brothers and sisters have followed my example in a lot of things and that I hold them up in this light. But really they are people who do...stupid things and stuff that I'll never know. I really wish that I wasn't told the secret. It made me realize that my sister is a bit of a hypocrite and that she isn't the person that I thought she was. My friend said the same thing. She was shocked and finds it hard to admire my sister.
As for my secret I wish more than anything she didn't know. I hate he fact that she does and I wished I had lied but my mouth just get so caught up. Ahhh I don't like secret sharing anymore. It can ruin so much.
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