Frankenstein

So far I have read around thirty pages in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and I have to say ehhhhhhh. I am just waiting for it to get to the part with the mad scientist and the making of a monster and have no clue on how these letters to Margaret have anything to do with it. I wouldn't say that I am bored with the text, because while I am reading it I am not suffering, it’s just whatever. I would still prefer to be reading something else, but for it being a school book it isn’t that bad. I just want it to start relating to the story of Frankenstein I have heard of, I hope that is somewhat what this book is about, otherwise I might become bored with this text. I will admit that I am one of those people that always thought that Frankenstein was the monster, not the scientist. Whoops. Hopefully by the time I am finished with this book I will have this problem solved.  Another thing I find great about this book is that it is only around two hundred pages. To me that is nothing, I could easily read that in a day, so that makes me happy that we will finish this book in no time. I will continue to post as I continue to read this book, so maybe my thoughts will change, who knows. I hope they will turn more positive than ehhhh.

And it Begins

Ever since the Christmas music has been turned on at work last week I have been craving for it to be after Thanksgiving. That way I have a legitimate reason to decorate my whole house and bake a kagillion gingerbread cookies without being one of those people that don’t wait until Thanksgiving to prepare for Christmas. Not to mention that we have also started practicing our Christmas music for our winter concert in the Reno Pops Orchestra, that is definitely not helping my inner Christmas demons. They have also decorated my work and are now asking for people to take shifts to be an elf. I definitely am taking one of those shifts, so now I am going to be Santa’s elf for a day. I never thought i would get to do that, I think it is going to be so much fun! Not to mention I get paid for doing practically nothing for seven hours. So I have been surrounded with Christmas non-stop for over one week and just need it be this Thursday so I can succumbed to my inner Christmas demons and go crazy with decorations, cookies and of course Christmas music! The only issue is I have no clue when we are going to get our Christmas tree, so I guess I will just have to do without it for a while, but i can assure your that this won’t stop me from doing everything else in the meantime.

Talent Show

The Talent Show is beginning to become a huge pain this year. We have like six or more practices, which to me are completely useless and they all happen from 2:30 to 3:30. I have off campus so this really sucks. Not to mention I work most of the time and it makes me not have anytime to eat before I have to leave for work, so i am now starving while at work. For the practices all we do is do our part and then leave. I really don’t see the point, I have no clue what I am gaining for attending these practices; if they weren't mandatory I would only attend about half of them. Now they are wanting us to wear our outfits for the show for about three of these practices. This I really think is lame, I should only have to wear it once. Right now I don’t even have a clue what I am wearing and I have to wear it tomorrow. All I am doing is playing the violin, how should I dress up for that? I am indecisive on whether I should wear something fancy or wear something fun. I guess I will decide that later. I really don’t wanna be complaining, but I find most of these things to be completely unnecessary and more of a burden on me. Luckily I’m not working any 4-9 shifts otherwise I would have to miss some of the practices, which I think would disqualify me.

I think I Died...

Let me start off by saying I am a VERY PUNCTUAL person, if I am on time I feel late. I carry the motto that it is better to be an hour early than one minute late. I absolutely despise the feeling of being tardy. So last Tuesday was quite the shocker to me.

Monday night I went to bed at my usual time, around ten o'clock pm, not too late and not too early. Being the punctual self I am, I set about five alarms on my phone and one alarm on my alarm clock, just to be safe. I wake up around five forty five am every day I have school, so it's always pitch black when I wake up. So you can say I was quite surprised when I woke up the next morning and realized that it was way too bright in my room to be five forty five in the morning. Leaping out of bed I stared at my phone wondering what was happening. Maybe it was Monday today? I glanced at my phone. Nope. It definitely was Tuesday and did my clock say 11 o'clock!!!? Crap. I looked at all of my alarms and they were still set, so they had gone off and I must have in a dazed state turned them off. I still can't remember doing anything like that. I decided it wasn't worth going to school for only an hour, so I was able to enjoy a four day weekend, while it felt great, it also felt extremely weird to be home while everyone else was still at school. I couldn't stop thinking about how I didn't wake up, that never happens to me. I decided the only explanation for my odd behavior was that I must have died when I hit my pillow. How else could I have slept through all of my alarms and the bright sun?

All in the Name of Science!!

While reading my book for AP Biology, Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, I learned that science can be kind of crazy. These scientists were doing the most insane experiments! The main focus on this book was how similar fish are to mammals and how mammals ultimately evolved from fish. They mainly did experiments on embryos, or more specifically shark embryos, even though they did experiment on others as well. They would inject these shark embryos with various chemicals to see if they could solve the mystery behind development and what purpose genes served in it. In doing so they were able to mutate these embryos to extract the reaction they desired. They discovered how one gene that forms a specific part of the body (such as a limb or fin) when moved around, would form a duplicate of what it would have originally formed. That means some of these sharks grew up having duplicate fins.

I have to say what horrified me the most is their experiments on fly's and mice. The pictures they put in my head seemed like something that could only be created out of a horror story. In this case they were working specifically on eyes, and what did they discover? Well, they found out that they can mess with the DNA or genes and form eyes whenever they wanted. Need an extra eye? They knew how to make that possible, even to the extent of making a fly eye appear in the place of a mouse's eye. That's right. Mice had fly eyes and fly's had mice eyes. Freaky, right? While this book is very interesting, I can say that it has scarred me a few times.

Thank You, Not THANKS

My job takes everything pretty seriously. They are very strict on having the customers being treated with the best care as if they are all our bosses. This makes it so there are a lot of rules and regulations based on customer care. The majority of these rules are pretty common, say "hello" and "goodbye" to every customer that walks in, even if they buy nothing, make small talk so the customer doesn't feel awkward, and of course ask if they need help and assist them if they do. One - and this one is a serious one - is something I never heard of until I started working. It is saying "thank you" instead of "thanks" to all of our customers, if we don't we can get in a lot of trouble if we are caught. If we say "thanks" to a secret shopper (people disguised as customers to grade how efficient their cashiers are working) our store leader will be fined $1,000. So yeah, he would probably be pissed if he learned that he got fined due to one of us saying "thanks". I think we could get fired for that. So now every time I hear someone say "thanks" or I say it myself I freak out. I think I am going to get in major trouble until I realize that I am just at school and freaked out for nothing. So my job is definitely improving my speech.

My Blog

Okay, my blog is doing strange things to me. I know I am weird, blogging about my blog but just go along with it. If you scroll through my blog posts I am sure you will be able to discover one of my issues. Some of my color fonts change. That’s because every time I tried to publish those posts they would only show a title and in order to reveal my actual post you had to highlight over the words with your mouse cursor, so i changed the color and font type and voilà! My post appeared, I don't know why it only does it to some of my posts. Why not all of them? The next thing it is doing is when I am writing a post and decide I want to make a correction, it will delete words as I’m typing new ones, so now I go on Google Docs and type up my post (as I am doing now), then I copy and paste it in so I can publish it. Lastly, it is underlining several of my words and turning them into links when I finally publish my post. I have yet to figure out why and how to fix it. So yeah, my blog is kinda crazy… It is making me try too hard to make a single post. I am curious though, am I the only one having this blogging problem? And why me then? I think my blog might be rebelling against me, I just don’t know why… yet.

Catching Up

I think I am finally starting to catch up on the life I took a vacation from for a week. I think I should be gracious that it seemed as if I missed a slow school week, but I still got a lot of work that I have to get done. Everyday I have been doing hours of homework and all I need to do now is finish a few essays for English, I don’t know where I am going to be able to find the time to do them since I won’t get home until like ten pm tonight, but I will have to try. I think the hardest thing about catching up is having more than going to school on my schedule everyday. I have to work and go do my extracurricular activities like FFA and play the violin, so it’s hard enough getting all my school work done even when I don’t miss an entire week. I just can not wait until I can give myself a sigh of relief when I am all caught up. I would like a day of free time and sleeping in, so I am soooo happy that we don’t go to school on Monday, even if I do work it will be nice to be able to sleep in and not have to worry about school. I hate the feeling of having missing work, so as soon as I can turn everything in I will be super happy and relieved.

Nationals

Okay, let me start off by saying that the National FFA Convention was a blast! I competed in Farm Business Management or FBM and got a bronze for individual and a bronze for the team activity. That was my first time even competing in FBM, so I would say that this trip was a success, especially since I was able to do a ton of touristy things while in Louisville, Kentucky. Not only was I competing in FBM, but also in the Hall of States, which is pretty much a booth set up by my partner and I that represents Nevada Agriculture. We didn't win that, but it gave our teacher a good idea on how it can be improved on for next year. Now the touristy things we were able to do included going to Churchill downs and seeing all the horses training, going to the Louisville Slugger Museum where we were able to take a tour of how the bats are made, going to a Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, an arboretum and a haunted Corn Maze (which was the most terrifying thing of my life). Even when we were just at our Hotel it was fun, due to everyone hanging out in our Hotel room until practically Midnight every night. It was an awesome week if you don’t include how little sleep I got and how it was a bit humid there, let’s just say that my hair didn't like it when I straightened it, because it just wanted to get wavy.

Technicalities

Well, remember that blog post I made about one month ago about my future predictions on Hamlet? Well it turns out I wasn't completely off. Goooooo me! Okay, I will admit that I may have gotten a few of the details wrong, like how everyone dies, but at least I was right about everyone dying… well everyone except for Horatio. But lets see what I got right. Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet die, there is a sword fight and poison involved. I think that is a pretty good considering that this is the only time i have read Hamlet. Now, I was wrong about how they died… except Claudius does get stabbed by Hamlet, just not exactly how I thought he would. I was also wrong about when in the play this would all take place, I thought it would happen during Hamlet’s reenactment play of his father’s death, but it happened when he was fencing with Laertes. Minor technicalities, right? I can say I was surprised that Ophelia, Laertes and Polonius were involved, I thought their characters would not play a serious role in Hamlet’s death, yet Laertes was the one who stabbed Hamlet to death due to Ophelia dying which ultimately was caused by Polonius’ death. Crazy how everything adds up, if Hamlet hadn't killed Polonius he could have never died… well maybe. He did have a hit placed on his head from Claudius, but that’s another minor technicality. Overall I really did enjoy Hamlet, especially compared to Shakespeare's other play *cough* Romeo and Juliet *cough*.

Now that I am alone...

I am feeling fantastic when it comes to Hamlet! I feel like I understand it when I really pay attention to the words. While there is always a few sentences or paragraphs that make no sense, being able to do class discussions really helps me comprehend Shakespeare's writing. When I just look at the words they end up getting all jumbled up in my mind and turn into useless mush. As long as my mind is present when I read Hamlet, I should have no problem following everything that happens.    

Now the part I am enjoying most is memorizing one of Hamlet's famous speeches, mine happens to be "Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I...". I already have all of fifty-seven lines memorized, that's right, fifty-seven lines. I can thank my wonderful job for that, standing around all alone for hours gives me plenty of free time to memorize my lines. Though I have been caught talking to myself a few times by my customers and fellow co workers. I feel as if all I ever do at work is read over my lines.

I am definitely going to rock this assignment (knocks on wood). All I can hope is that my mind does not decide to go blank when I stand in front of the class whenever we present, or that I can at least recall twenty of the lines. Hopefully all those hours of practice will not end up being a waste of my time.

Fall Break

Ever since I got my job in August I have been feeling stressed all of the time. Right now the only benefit is the extra cash I have, but with school, FFA, three Orchestras and my job I have not been able to relax at all. Maybe I'll get a few hours here and there, but otherwise all I'm doing is working. I thought my Senior year wouldn't get stressful until the last few months, but boy was I wrong.

So it's no surprise that I was excited to start my first ever Fall Break. Well, let me tell you it sure didn't feel like a break. I went to Chicago for five days - not for fun - but to go to my brothers Naval Graduation from boot camp. While it was better than working or going to school, I was still waking up at six every morning. I never should be up at six in the morning if I'm on break. Then when I get back from Chicago at midnight, feeling Jet-lagged and have to work in the morning. Every day after that I was working, and the one day I wasn't working I was catching up on all my homework, at least I slept in that day.

Now that school is back in, I’m praying that my teachers will decide not to do a lot of work while I am gone for a week competing in the National FFA Convention.  Which by the way, I am completely stressing over.

So yeah, Fall Break was a BLAST.

Future Predictions

I have never read Hamlet, or seen the movie of Hamlet so my predictions on what I think will happen are complete predictions. If there are any spoilers I don't know of them. In class we left off with Hamlet making an arrangement with the players so he can trick his uncle to reveal that he killed his father, we were able to do the most famous speech in all history "To be or not to be..".

My prediction is that Hamlet's scheme is going to blow up in his face. I have a hunch that the players will end up using actual poison and end up killing a player. I feel like this will escalate into the new "King" or Hamlet's father uncle figuring out that this was a hoax to get him to announce the murder of the old King. He will in return be furious at Hamlet, possibly there will be a sword fight between the two of them, and possibly Hamlet's mother will accidentally intervene. She will then accidentally be stabbed by her son, distracting the new King who will then be stabbed by Hamlet, but before Hamlet was able to kill his father uncle he called for guards.

The guards rush in and try to kill Hamlet, but since Hamlet is so great, he was able to kill them all. He is the last one standing and sees all the death around him that he caused. Feeling horrible he grabs the poison and kills himself, or maybe he will stab himself (poison seems too Romeo and Juliet). After Hamlet's suicide, the ghost will appear and  feel that his vendetta was not worth all of these innocent deaths, especially the deaths of his wife and son. The End.
As you can see by my predictions I believe everyone will die

*Sigh*

Can I give up yet? This is seriously frustrating me. Hamlet, I thought I liked you, but now that I sit at my computer I see that I am blank. Not me exactly, but my brain, which decided to fail on me tonight. I have finally created about two paragraphs for my rough draft, and I am not even liking what I have written so far. Why? Well, right now given the current state I am in, I can admit that it is kind of crap. Well, my theme is actually pretty good. In fact, I think it's is quite brilliant. It's just forming the words and sentences to go around the brilliance to make it turn into an actual essay that's the hard part. I'm pretty much creating a fluff sandwich, and the only good part is in the middle where all the meat is, while my "fluff", or the bread is all stale and hard and just doesn't belong with the rest of the sandwich. I feel as if everything I now write is ruining what I have previously written. I am not even sure if i could write anything  long enough to make an essay that's not full of fluff covered in even more fluff. *Sigh*

I think I might have left my brain at school, and trust me, it is not returning anytime soon. I think by just using big, fancy words that I can cover up the major flaws, but boy was I wrong. As I read over my essay, well what I have of an essay, I can clearly see that pretty much all of it, except my theme makes sense. Good job Tyra. You are really rocking this assignment. Excuse me while I go sigh again.

Crazy Talk

Okay, my exhaustion is clearly catching up to me. This past week has been a rough one for me. Not only do I have school, but I have work, FFA, violin lessons, and two orchestras I am in. You can say that I am crazy busy, I barely have any free time anymore. It is depressing to know that I only read one book this month. One book. That is a new low for me, I usually read about ten to twenty books per month.

During work last weekend, I began to say crazy things to my customers. One person asked for directions to a place upstairs and I told them to go up the Ferris Wheel and take a left. She might have given me a weird look... Then I was counting back a customers change and  thought I said the wrong number the first time, so I told him the correct change, and he then told me that was what I said the first time, he might have also have given me a weird look. I had plenty of customers where I would repeat myself, so I pretty much looked like a complete fool most of the time the past few days.

Then there comes the time where I have to count my till at the end of the day, yeah, that was especially challenging due to my current state of mind. I struggled so much just to count my till, it probably took me twice as long as usual. So you can say that I'm pretty psyched to be getting a complete, that's right, a complete week off after tomorrow, I just hope I don't make a fool of myself then.

Shakespearean Humor

Let me first state that I can understand the majority of what is happening in Hamlet. I don't catch on to Shakespeare's double meanings without doing a close analysis of them, but I at least understand the main plot. So far I have found that figuring out when Shakespeare is using humor is the hardest for me to comprehend. When I say humor I'm mostly speaking of Hamlet's and Horatio's friendship. They tend to use a lot of sarcasm between one another, which I didn't even realize until I was enlightened to this fact in class.

I think this is mostly due to the way Shakespeare writes. Sarcasm is hard enough to understand in our modern day speech, now if you put it into Shakespeare’s time it is almost impossible for me to find it. When someone tells me he is using sarcasm on a specific line, I’ll notice it right away, it is being able to figure it out on my own that is the hard part.

When I do uncover the hidden humor I have a feeling of awe towards Shakespeare. The fact he is able to hide it so brilliantly is astounding, well at least to me it is. I wish I could write as beautifully or as dramatic as he does. So far I am enjoying Hamlet, I can say so far it is my favorite play he has written. I love how dramatic he can make every scene while keeping me interested at the same time. I’m kind of excited to read more, even though I think I know how it’ll end (you can thank the Simpsons for that).

Obsession

A few days ago I discovered that ever since my brother left for the Navy, that his Xbox was up for grabs. I was so excited that I would finally be able to play it. My brother was not a sharer when it came to his pride and joy, aka the Xbox. So I pack up his Xbox and move it into the living room to play it. Let me say, that was the longest I have played it in years.

Then, yesterday, I had a family dinner at Olive Garden with my mom, and yes, it was delicious. I was thrilled to know that when I got home I could play the Xbox all I wanted. You could say I became a little obsessed with it. Then all my excitement vanished when I returned home to notice the Xbox missing. My dad had taken it into his room. My reaction was quite hysterical, I'm not completely proud of it, but can you blame me? I had just gotten the Xbox for two days, and it was already taken from me!

So, what did I do instead? Homework. That's right, homework. It was as awful as it sounds. I stewed in anger, I know, it’s pathetic. It’s just an Xbox and I should get over it, but I just couldn’t do that. So now I had a competitor, and the prize was so glorious -well at least to me it is- and so beautiful. The Xbox glowed with its glory! I had to win it no matter what. Yeah, I was obsessed.

Oh Shakespeare

So far out of every poem I have read for this class I have always enjoyed reading Shakespeare's the most. Why? Well I love how he always changes the complete attitude or tone of the poem in the last two lines, and I especially love his out take on "love". His thoughts differ from what most poets would write, which to me, sappy is boring. They are also not too difficult to comprehend, out of all the ones I have read so far I have always gotten almost a complete understanding of them after reading them a few times. Which is pretty impressive if you know me. 

My favorite one I have read is "My Mistress' Eyes". This one makes me so happy to read, because one: it is not sappy, well maybe it gets a little sappy towards the end, and two: the tone is a fun one to read, it sounds as if the speaker is saying "ha ha, I'm better then everyone else and here's why..", and three: I understood it the first time I read it; after I finished answering the questions I looked it up on Google to make sure I wasn't completely wrong and found out that my thoughts were pretty much the same as everyone else's (Self high-five).

I hope we mainly read Shakespeare, because let's face it, he is kind of awesome. He is really the only poet so far that makes me not want to bang my head on the table when I try to comprehend his writing.

35/10

I think I have finally discovered a poem that I somewhat like, sure I’m probably never going to reread it, but to me this is an accomplishment. I was able to grasp the concept of 35/10 right away. This poem is about a woman and how she dislikes how she has become with age. She begins to compare herself to her ten year old daughter, who is young and alive. Towards the end of the poem she starts to realize, that her getting older is actually a positive thing, because while she is getting older her daughter will bring life and happiness to the World.

This poem has descriptions that are a bit hidden within the text, but it is nothing as intense as one of Shakespeare’s poems where every word he writes represents something significant in his poem and if you don’t understand one line it can make the poem have a different meaning than the one he is trying to reveal. 35/10 was refreshing, due to it being straightforward. I am one that wants to get straight to the point with everything I read. While this poem wasn't exactly like that, it was short enough to keep me interested until I could understand what the poem was trying to uncover for me. If a poem can hold my interest throughout the poem, I am more inclined to enjoy it; hopefully the poems I shall read for the rest of this year will follow these guidelines. A girl can dream right?

Frustration

I stare at the blank computer screen as if it holds all the answers; I need a miracle as of right now. My thoughts wonder drastically, I'm no longer focused. Suddenly I'm thinking about dinner and... wait focus.. back to work. I turn my head back to the screen, maybe now it will reveal the secrets I've been searching for. Nope.

There is nothing to see, all I am doing is wasting my time and hurting my eyesight. Maybe if I keep searching- even if there is a chance that there is nothing to find- I will discover something, anything. I just need a little bit of anything to keep me going, but apparently that is too much to ask. I’m being fooled by what I always believed to know everything there is, Google has betrayed me.  If the number one search engine can’t help me, than what will?

 I aggressively rake my fingers through my hair and let out a groan of frustration, why couldn't this be any easier? I crave to get this over with, only I haven't a clue how. All of the sudden, everything sounds more appealing than this, cleaning my room might even end up being the highlight of my day. I start to ponder a new technique to get the answers I’m looking for; the one I’m using is worthless. I finally come up with an idea on what to do when my computer retaliates; images begin popping up reading "error". What I thought could hold all the answers, actually holds none.

This is Stupid Stuff

Naturally I am one to despise poetry, I simply do not comprehend the meaning or purpose behind it. My homework was to read several poems and answer questions based on each, and naturally I did not understand on my own. I do not like hidden meanings, I would rather be told straight out what Shakespeare or Housman is trying to portray to me as the reader. So I required assistance and sought out Google's wise advice, while this did help me recognize the meaning/purpose behind the poems, it did not help me answer all of the questions; to answer those I really had to focus and use my poetry side of my brain, which was covered in cobwebs. I had to do an extensive house or "brain" cleaning to achieve success on this assignment. I do admit that it made it more pleasurable to read the poems the second time around. It made the words have meaning, rather than going through my brain and getting lost somewhere between comprehension and what I did earlier that day.

The first poem I read was Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?", I feel like this had some serious poemception that I would not have even been able to perceive without help. I simply thought it was about a man confessing how perfect he believed his true love to be, but poetry had to be sneaky and make it become so much more than that. Who would've thought it was about how Shakespeare was actually addressing all of mankind when he said "thee", and that it was a poem about how beautiful a writer he is, not this supposed "thee".

The other one I thought had acquired a hidden meaning was Housman's "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff", I concluded that it was talking about the qualities of alcohol and the purpose of it. I was to some extent right, except it had nothing to do about the alcohol, but instead it was about the necessity of poetry in everyone's life. But it was even more than just poetry, but rather Terence's poetry, which had a pessimistic, depressing mood to them. This "mood", as you can call it spoke the truth and therefore made whoever read Terence's poems stronger and more prepared for what life had to throw at them.

This homework was definitely a tough one for me. It took me several hours to complete, even with the service Google had to offer. Reading a poem is simple, but deciphering it is another story. I still do despise poetry, but even I have to admit that when I can understand a poem, it makes me like poetry for at least few minutes, well, until I have to read the next poem.

Star-Struck

I started the day dreading going to work, not that I don't enjoy the job, I just really didn't feel up to working for seven straight hours. My mood quickly changed when I was getting customers that were asking me about a signing by some football players. I was completely clueless as to what they were talking about until I saw a burly man at a signing table with hats, pictures, footballs and football helmets engulfing him, only 20 feet from my register! You can say the next two hours until my lunch break went excruciatingly slow, I couldn't wait to walk over and meet this guy and possibly get an autograph. I was lucky enough to encounter this burly man, also known as Jeff Barnes and another one, Jerry Robinson; both are retired NFL players that played for the Raiders. Not only was I able to meet them, but get an autograph and a picture from both of them. You can say I'm quite star-struck right now, I practically feel as if I'm floating on clouds. When I shook their hands and introduced myself I was practically stuttering from my excitement. I was especially surprised by how nice they were, Jerry Robinson even called me tall when I stood next to him to take a picture, obviously a joke as I'm two feet shorter than him! Jeff Barnes was kind enough to charge me $5 dollars less for his autograph even though I offered to pay full price. See? Totally awesome guys (excuse my informal language).

I first bumped into Jeff's wife when she was purchasing some Raider's footballs and didn't even realize until she told me so, she was also an amazing person. I only found out she was Jeff's wife when I commented that she must be a big Raiders fan to buy five Raiders footballs and that she should get them signed today, she replied with an "oh I am a big fan, in fact that one's my husband" (those weren't her exact words, but it was along those same lines). You can imagine my surprise when she told me this, even meeting her gave me butterflies. She was enthused to know that I was looking forward to meeting him and getting his autograph on my lunch break.

I, being the awesome little sister I am, decided to not only get myself an autograph from Jeff Barnes, but also to get one of Jerry Robinson's pictures signed for my brother as a present when he graduates from Naval Boot Camp; since I won't be there to witness it. My brother's favorite team happens to be the Raiders, so you can say that this was my lucky day. The Raiders were also the only team my brother and I have witnessed play live, so I was enthused to meet them. Jerry signed "Right on with Boot Camp", so I hope my brother loves it. This day definitely turned out to be an unexpected one, but I'm ecstatic that I was able to cover this shift so I could work today.

Feathers, Feathers and oh so many more Feathers

An ideal day for the average teenager might be going to a party or spending the day with their boyfriend/girlfriend, I guess you can say that my friends and I aren't the average teenager. Today, myself as well as Jay Lion and Kingsley decided to explore Sparks by wandering around various pet stores in search of entertainment. What did we find as the most entertaining? Well that would be the abundance of birds and parrots we found. I think I made Kingsley become a bird enthusiast during our great adventure. The parakeets were especially engrossing due to their vibrant colors and misshaped clipped wings.

Now rewind, earlier this same day, before the brilliant idea of exploring the pet stores took place, we were hanging out with my own birds: Molly or as Kingsley and Jay Lion call her "Grudge Bird" (only because she refuses to accept them as "friends"), and Brandy the one Kingsley especially adores. Both of my birds are very timid and therefore don't accept strangers right away. I like to think I taught them to not speak to strangers (bird version, of course) quite successfully. Molly even went as far as protecting herself from Kingsley by laying siege on her hand when offered a deadly Honey Nut Cheerio, no blood was bled in this ill-fated battle.  I know this won't be the last battle fought between the two, but I have great confidence that Kingsley and maybe even Jay Lion will earn her trust and possibly become friends as well.