Power Out

Rain. It tumbles out of the pregnant clouds that hover calmly over our lands and each drop hits the ground, the cement, the grass, the roof with a singular thud that sends waves through the air and reaches my ears as I sit in my room reading Rebel Angels by Libba Bray, a story about a witch who is trying to bind the magic that she has set loose. I look up and out the window to see a my neighborhood as if it is a bath tub and someone has just turned on the shower. Water poors down the sky and tumbles down the streets in a raging stream. I mark my book and run to the study room where my mom sits at the edge of a black leather chair, staring at the computer screen typing words into the keyboard swiftly.

"It's raining!" I say, stating the obvious with excitment in my eyes. Here in Texas, rain does not come in a surplus. My eyes glow as I run to open the front door and look through the frame. The smell of the rain tumbles into the house, the humidity of the air follows it. I close the door in a few seconds and run to the living room.

A few minutes of this excitement seems to be enough for me because I am soon bored and in the office room not listening while my parents talk about... something. I mumble, "I'm gonna watch TV." and walk out of the room and to the living room. I get in about an hour of television.

Suddenly, I hear a spark and the power goes out. Another spark. The power is back on. Another spark. No power. Spark. Power. Spark. No power. Spark? No. No more sparks reach my ears and the power stays off. I run to get the flashlight and unplug the television, our computer, and our two laptops to make sure none of them are hit by lightning. Mom is in the kitchen getting the candles. I help her light them but it isn't enough. We have to eat dinner in the dark. But nobody except for me is hungry. So correction: I have to eat dinner in the dark. I take a candle and put it a few inches from my plate and eat dinner, barely being able to see the food that I am putting into my mouth. Afterwards, my father gets on the phone with his sister (my aunt) and talks away. I sit and listen. I say "I'm bored" a few times but that doesn't bring the power back.

I have an idea! I run to get the flashlight. "I'm going to read a book!" I say, proud that I had thought of such a simple thing. But, of course, mother contradicts me.
"No. Your eyes will go bad, you can't read in the dark." She explains.
"But, I have a flashlight!" I say holding the small blue source of light up in the air.
"No." She says and I know I can't go against what she says.
"Fine..." I grumble and go back to the couch and say: "I'm bored."

Soon, (well not really soon, but later) my dad finished his conversation and asks me what I read today about Probability and what did I learn. We talk about this as my mom eats dinner. And by the time that conversation is done, the power is back on, so my dad eats dinner. I run to my room and read Rebel Angels for another one and a half hours or so and fall asleep at 2 AM.

What a life.

Water Water Water

First, let's talk about my love affair with water. Well, I don't know if you could call it that because I hate drinking water. I hate it. My mom has to, literally, yell at me for me to drink water. But, I almost live my whole life in water. Not the my-body-is-made-up-of-75%-of-water I live in water, the I-am-a-swimmer I live in water.

Today: I had a trip to the doctor's office today for my annual physical.(Yes, it is a month late, but so what?) I have been having some stomach problems lately, mainly acidity. I have been having chest pains, cramps, and irregular periods as well. This all made the visit an hour long instead of the usual fifteen minutes. I told Dr. Briggs about this and she listened and asked me questions, and thought for half a second and for ever single one, her answer was: "Drink more water. You need more fluids so that..."Blah. Blah. Blah. So, now I'm supposed to drink 5-6 glasses of water each day.

Rewind my life about a month back and you'll find me swimming. It's the last ten minutes or so of the workout and we're doing 25 backstroke sprints on 40.(For all you non-swimmers, that means, half a lap of backstroke as fast as you can and do it within 40 seconds)Pretty easy. But then my right calf muscle starts to cramp, I can feel it. It's not that bad yet, but then, It's intense and me? I can't stand it anymore! I jump out of the water and start massaging it. This makes it hurt even more. My coach tells me to stretch it out and not to massage it.

Fast forward my life from there about 10 or 11 days and you'll see me limping. I tell my coach that the cramp I got last Tuesday still hurts like something bit it. He tells me to: "Drink more water and take vitamins."

A couple days ago, I had a headache. My mom told me to drink more water.

A couple weeks ago, I was jogging, I stop I have a HUGE cramp in my sides! My trainer tells me to drink more water.

Do you see where this is going? Water Water Water. Everything that happens to me = Drink more water. Water Water Water. Yes, I know i have to listen and start drinking more water, but I hate it so much!

How can I make a habit of drinking water when I hate it so much?
OR
How can I stop hating water?

'Knight and Day' plus some major competition

Since on the title, Knight and Day comes first, I guess I'll talk about that before I talk about some major competition here in Texas.

I watched Knight and Day today with one of my best friends. Mom and Dad went to see it on sunday, leaving me home alone on the flat couch watching NCIS. Dad said that it was a bad movie. Not at all Tom Cruise like. Boring. Mom said it was a fun movie but wouldn't go for oscars. My opinion: It was a GREAT movie. I wouldn't nominate it for oscars but on my scale of 1-100 I would give it a 92. That's pretty good. It was full of humor, action, suspense, surprises, epiphanies, and MOST surprising of all: it was CLEAN. No naked people, no sex. Just a couple kisses between Cruise and Diaz, plus one part where Cameron Diaz was in a bikini, and 3 crude jokes. I recommend it to all of you out there! Watch and tell me: What do you think about the movie? And what do you think about the actors?

Competition between best friends is not a cool thing. It lingers in your mind for multiple hours of multiple days which might go on into multiple weeks of wondering: Why is she mad? Why is she jealous? Why is she not talking to me? Why is she acting this way? Why hasn't she called back yet? Why hasn't she returned my texts or my emails? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? What is this about? I have multiple best friends. During summer, I plan to go to a movie, at least once, with each of them. (One down, 1..2..3..4..5 to go!) I planned to go see 'Grown Ups' with Shannon sometime in July (the date isn't set yet). Carrie heard about this and said,"Well, what about me?"
I told her that I'd go see a different movie with her, "...after all, I can't do everything with you."
She agreed and said, "You're right."
*Fast forward: the next day:* Carrie calls me and says, "I'm going to see Grown Ups with Jenna tomorrow." And she says it in that voice, the that's right, i have other friends too voice.

I think she's hurt, jealous that I would make plans with Shannon and not her. And I understand that she would be. What do you think? Why is she acting this way? Do you understand her?

Think

So, I am on Facebook, just browsing the News Feed and my attention is drawn to a certain page: Trying to preserve nature is selfish. I think about this. It nagged the side of my brain for months and months and months and finally, today, I know what to say to someone if they ever try and tell me that trying to preserve nature is selfish.

What are we trying to do here by preserving, saving, stopping the ruin of nature, the beauty of the world? We are trying to keep it beautiful. Why? Maybe so that we can keep seeing it's wonders. If so, then yes, we are being selfish. BUT. But think, the earth is made of 75% of water. Only 1% is fresh water. That is the only type of water we can drink and the only type of water that deer, lions, giraffes, hippos, and many other animals can drink. In rivers (which is a source of fresh water) many populations of fish have created habitats along with other marine animals and plants. Birds' homes are in trees, squirrels'. When we TRASH the earth and do not clean up and allow global warming to take place, here's what happens:
1) When factories release toxic chemicals into rivers, when trash companies dump trash (which contains toxins) on banks of rivers, when hospitals put expired medications in rivers all these poisons and toxic chemicals are released into the water. We drink that water. What's the resolution? Make a filter to seperate toxins, poisons, and medications from the clean water. That's easy for us. But what can the fish do? The corals, seeweed, starfish, catfish? Nothing. The toxins go into their bodies and they are poisoned and they DIE. If we don't fix that, if we let millions, billions of marine animals and plants DIE so that our lives can be easier, isn't THAT selfish?
Then the river flows on and the toxins flow on with it and get to this forest. A herd of deer are thirsty so they drink the water... and the toxins. What happens? They die. Then lions eat the dear, hyenas eat the deer... and the toxins. What happens? They die. Vultures eat the remains... and the toxins. They die. Soon, these species, and many others in multiple food chains, will be endangered and/or extinct because these toxins will never stop coming because WE didn't clean them out... we didn't stop polluting the water. If we let millions of species of animals die and become extinct so that our lives can be easier, isn't THAT selfish?
2)This issue of Global Warming we're trying to solve.It melts icecaps, and raises the ocean water levels a LOT. Ice caps are at the north and south poles. There live: Polar bears, penguins, snow foxes, rabbits, sea lions, walruses, puffins, and MORE. All these species will become extinct because the poles are the only places which are cold enough to provide a habitat for them but their habitats will be destroyed because we don't want to try a litle harder and ride a bike, or walk, instead of driving a car. Because we don't want our lives to be tiring, and we don't want to work "hard". Isn't THAT selfish?
And when ocean levels do rise, a lot of land goes under water. WE can just move. But what about all the squirrels, rabbits, lizards, insects, snakes, mice, etc. whose habitats will be destroyed? Many of them will die because of Global Warming which was caused by us and we're not doing anything to stop it. Isn't THAT selfish?

So, the next time, before you say something like, "it's selfish to preserve nature", THINK. Think about all those animals that will almost literally drop dead at you feet because we did NOT preserve nature, because we did NOT take caution, because we did NOT stop pollution, because we wanted OUR lives to be EASY. Think about the TRILLIONS of animals that will die, whose species could be threatened, endangered, extinct because YOU wanted YOUR life to be easier. Think about THAT. Then tell me that I'm being selfish for trying to save their lives.

Dreams

Dreams. They can be delightful, full of happiness, joy, full of hopes and accomplishments, of wants and needs, but also of sadness, disappointment, grieving, of failures and death, and full of despare. Dreams. What do they show you? Through their moods and visions? They take you into a whole new world altogether and drop you there and you alone can dig through and find the answers to the questions that this dream, in particular has brought to your mind. But what is their purpose? I am so curious because I am a girl whose dreams go wild and they take me to completely alternate dimensions, where sometimes I find happiness. But I have found that I can never quite understand my own dreams. My friend, she has these...curious(?) dreams. One time three of us jumped off of a cliff together (in her dream, of course) and flew through the clouds of London. She said that it is the best dream she has ever had. When I was just four years old, I had a dream about my father. We used to live in an apartment then. In my dream, I was standing in the middle of two pillars a couple apartments away from ours. My dad was standing in the middle of an opening with a ZipLoc bag around his head. He is making these movements to show that he can't breathe. I was just four, I had no clue what was going on or why my dad couldn't breathe, but somehow I knew that he was dying... suffocating. I try to run to him but I can't, my legs stand frozen. I tell him to unzip the bag and take it off, but he can't, he's trying, but he can't. The dream stops there, but you can't deny that for a four year old little girl this dream can be devastating. It was a nightmare. So the question remains. Why do we have these dreams? What is the purpose? Scientists might think they know the answer, or are close, but I don't think they are. This has nothing to do with science. Or does it?