Slice of Life #2 Skiing at Snowmass

hi- I was going to write about something that I do everyday, but decided to write about this instead:).
The sun shines on my goggles, reflecting off of the snow around me as we swing through the air. This is my first time skiing since last year, and I'm excited. But hell, it's cold. I pull up my coat over my nose and breathe out, fogging up my goggles. The chairlift comes to a stop and we slide off, regaining our balance. We look ahead to see the volunteer giving out warm apple cider. Jack and I look at each other, and he says "let's get some", his breath creating huge clouds in the air. The warm cups return the feeling in my hand and make it sting. I start to shuffle around to the trash can to throw my cup away and then realize that this huge old guy is in my way. Instead, I judge the distance really carefully and then throw it towards the opening of the trash can, missing the guy's stomach by about an inch and sailing off the corner of the trash can into the opening. I scream "yeah!" and pump my fist, and turn around to see my dad raising his eyebrows at me. "Ready?" he asks, and starts to ski away. I push off the edges of my skis and jump to gain momentum, and then start gliding down the ramp leading to the main slope. I take one last longing glance at the warm, lit-upbarbecue place, Sam's No. 3, and slide out onto the main slope, the sun dazzling my eyes.

Slice of Life

I look at the river. Then the people behind me. My friend raises her eyebrows. And then I stare out at the long line, only about as thick as my fingers, spanning the huge, white-water river in front of me. I'm excited; I love stuff like this. We're about 20-30 feet up in the air, on a platform which Abby has made clear to me has no railings (sorry, Abby). The harness gives me a tug, bringing me up on my tiptoes and almost sending me flying off the platform not be choice. the guy tightening my harnesses looks at me and gives me a thumbs-up.  "You ok?" he asks. "Great", I say. He goes over how to slow down, how to speed up again, and how to rescue myself if I get stuck in the middle of the zipline, over that raging river. Great. Well, I did volunteer to go first. As soon as he finishes, I close my eyes and jump-fall off the platform and start sliding. Fast. The wind and spray from the water whip against my face. Forgetting about everything, I almost spread my arms out to the side, but then remember that I'm supposed to keep my arms on the zipline. I remember that I'm racing Katie, and look over to see that I had probably started ahead of her; she's way behind me. I'm starting to slow down, and end up just sliding gently down the rest of the line. I end up stumbling onto the platform on the other side, and getting fist-bumps and high fives from the people on the other end. Then they harness me up to go across the swaying bridge. Double-great.

The Book Theif

This week I read The Book Thief by Micheal Zusak. This is one of those books that everyone kept telling me I had to read and never really got around to it. But warning:  this is a really good book. I should have listened to everybody earlier. This book follows the life of a child named Liesel in Nazi Germany during WWII. She's a pretty normal person, but at the same time a lot of pretty awesome things happen to her, and she ends up maybe making a very, very small difference to a lot of people by doing a lot of really small things. All of the characters are really lovable and it's even kind of funny sometimes, even though the topic is really grim. It's also kind of weird; the book is told from a weird perspective; you pretty much figure it out in the first chapter but I still don't want to give away too much. It's kind of a long book, just a little bit; it's more than 500 pages ( I think 530? I should go see and probably check it out if I find it, wherever it went). Anyways, this isn't the easiest book to read, but it's not really hard either. Part of it is that there are SO MANY WORDS PER PAGE, that it's kind of ridiculous. At least in my book. I would totally recommend this book to almost everyone in our class, even though it's kind of grim and depressing sometimes, especially the ending (no spoilers):)!!! Overall, awesome book.
3-5 books I might read next: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Far, Far Away, by Tom McNeil
The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Lymerick Poems

Max's Excuse.
Winter Break Poem:
There once was a guy named Bill
Who went sledding down a hill
He knocked out his teeth
Now all who he meets
say do you play hockey still?
Logan Poem: It's kind of gruesome and awful but it was the only Logan poem that I had.
There once was a student at Logan
Who's little hands were frozen
She said, at last,
Stuck her hands in boiling gas
Let's just say there was quite an explosion.
And finally, me being weird: Lymerick Ode to Will Champlin on the Voice
There once was a guy named Will
He liked Guacamole not dill,
He might win the Voice
Americas choice
And I'll be talking about it still.

Haha. That's great.

Occasional Poem

Hi- my unit is astronomy so I did first man on the moon. I don't like it, but oh well:).
From trains
to plains
to cars
nothing has ever
ever
reached up this high
this far
past all problems
we have kept
going higher
goin stronger
until we touch the stars.
And we have, haven't we?

Poem

I was just think about the fish. The fish has no life, but never mind- who knows? The fish does have a life. We always make assumptions like that. We think that there are like "lesser beings" than us, not knowing what's beyond their fish tank, or whatever. But don't we do the same thing? We totally immerse ourselves in our own world, and our society,not knowing what's beyond our world.  So we are judging the fish. I don't know what I think of that. I still think that it's impossible to write down what your thinking on paper, because I don't think in words, exactly. Wonder if I'll get to watch the voice tonight. My thoughts always seem to circle back to the voice. That's perfectly fine with me.

Racing in the Rain

This week I read Racing in the Rain  by Garth Stein. This was the teenage/ young adult-/whatever adaptation of the book The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I've also read, but I think that this adaptation is probably more connectable to people our age. This book is told from the view of a dog, and is probably the best dog biography that I've ever read; it's not like other books told at the viewpoint of a dog at all, it's totally different. Racing in the Rain is also really good; I read it in less than a day and it's about 350 pages long. The book kind of follows the storyline of the dog's life, focusing in on eight years. It talks about how the dog (who's name is Enzo) gets affected when a couple of awful thing happen to his family, when his owner's wife dies of brain cancer, and his mom-and-dad-in-law start trying to take custody of his toddler, insisting that his career is getting in the way of taking good care of her, which is definitely not true. It talks about everything happens around this point in time from Enzo's perspective. WARNING: This book is really sad, and really relatable. I mean, really sad. Overall though, the message is positive, and it's a great book. Really. You should read it. I think it's worth reading both the adult adaptation and this one, the one for adults is on the higher end of our reading level, and this one is on the lower end, but the teenage adaptation is more relatable and I would start with that. I would compare this book to books like See you at Harry's and A Mango Shaped Space, but it's really not like either of those and is totally original. Overall, great book.
Wow. That was a lot of writing.

Oh Brussel Sprouts, why?

A master composition by Sarah London. Not really (about the masterpiece part)...
Why, brussel sprouts,
Why?
Why do you continue to dissapoint me so?
I do not know
All I know is that you can go sizzle up in that vat of oil,
You can end up under the dirty fingernails of my brother,
You can burn until your crispy little skin falls off.
May You be eaten by fleas, tortered until you bleed your horrid green juices out onto the clean, polished table.
May your brain be eaten by a half-starved cat,
May your little sister crawl inside your head and stay there and never come out.
May you end up on the bottom of the toilet bowl, being retched upon,
And finally, may you end up strangled in a dusty chimney somewhere, choked like you have done to us all of these years with your horrible taste.
Oh why, brussel sprouts, why?