Starbucks

"One tall mocha frappachino, with  extra whipped cream"! A woman in a green starbucks apron leans over the counter, holding a large cup with the top filled with perfectly shaped sweet whipped cream, and a green coffee stirrer embedded deep inside. "Me." I say, and she hands me the perfectly ice cold drink, condensation gathering and then dripping down the side. "Thank you", I say, and smile at her. She smiles back. After grabbing my change, I grab a straw, peel the paper off and yank it out of the wrapper, and push the straw into the frappachino. I take a sip. And then another.Then I lift the straw up out of the drink and lick it, the coolness and sweet, coffee-chocolaty flavor of the mocha frappachino blends in with the light fluffy sweet whipped cream. A piece of ice crunches in my mouth. I close my eyes. Yuuuuummm. I proceed to eat most of the whipped cream, and then blend in the rest to make it extra creamy. I then devour the rest of the frappachino, sucking ravenously at the icy cold mixture through a straw.

I love Starbucks. They have everything, whether what you need is a tangy pumpkin scone, a rich piece of chocolate cake, an ice-cold delicious frappachino, a huge cup of coffee or mocha, a crazy hot caramel macchiato; you name it. If you were to find me at Starbucks, I would probably be relaxing in a sunny black leather chair at the mall, or even more likely in Lowry, standing in the corner of a well lit Starbucks. In my hand you would find either a pumpkin scone, a hazelnut latte, or most likely a frappachino. These are probably my favorites to get at Starbucks. If you looked even closer, you might notice that the frappachino is most likely so-called "strawberry creme", salted caramel, caramel flan, or just plain caramel, or maybe mocha. It would have whipped cream on top and would be the version of a Starbucks small size, the tall, because I can't eat anything bigger then that and I feel bad making anything that wonderful go to waste. And then I get a straw, pull off the wrapper, and the rest is history. Or I guess you could say it like that...

Yum.

And so I turn in this Slice of Life, 3/31/14, the last one, in anticipation of the amazing Starbucks that I will get  and all of the other good fortune that may stumble across me because I did all of the Slices, this being SOL #31 out of 31. It was fun, considering it's a big evil assignment, improved my writing skills, and I get Starbucks.

G'bye.

Daydreaming: Hunger games

Sometimes, I get bored. This doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I want to focus on anything besides what I'm doing right now. I have a #1 daydream, which I think about 3/4 times, but sometimes I stare down at my desk and let my mind wander away...
WELCOME TO THE 75TH HUNGER GAMES!!! The announcers voice booms over the loudspeakers. I stand on a rock, overlooking a big pool in front of us of cold looking water. Behind me, steep craggy mountains rise into a glacier far above me. The wind howls around me, blowing big tufts of my hair into my face. I look around for my male district counterpart, and meet his blue eyes. Or brown. or green. or hazel. One time it was even purple. It depends.
The black and red and green jumpsuit I am wearing feels rubbery. I wonder why...Then I see a lump of mud in the middle of the icy cold looking lake. Flashes of metal appear through the ripples of the lake. The cornucopia is underwater. Just what I wanted! The gong sounds, and without thinking I dive in to the lake. The murky icy cold water feels like it's ripping off my skin. I kick to the surface with as much intensity as I can muster and dig in my arms to try to grab as much water and pull it with me as I can. I get there with my heart racing before anybody else, and dive down. I make quick calculations in my head; I have to take enough so that I can survive, but not enough so that I can't swim. So I grab a blue-green pack with reflective coating quickly, a pair of goggles which I strap on quickly and try to decide between long knife and a nice-looking bow...no, I can't swim with the bow. Dark shadows start to approach me from above, and then get closer until I can almost see some ashy blond hair and the blue eyes of the nearest approaching figure, and the dark hair of the big guy behind him. I grab the knife, flip, and push off, angling the pack on my shoulder towards the people with weapons in case one was good enough to hit me with a weapon underwater. My lungs burn, but I muddy dark bottom of the lake, which provides more protection. Just when I think that I can't stand it anymore, I come to the edge of the lake, and push up and clamber out of the lake, gasping for air, I resling the pack over my should as an arrow narrowly missed my head, going over me and skidding into the lake. I run off into the trees and mountains. I need to find a way to get warm...
"Sarah? C'mon?" A voice says. A group of my friends stands by the door. They look at me very impatiently and obnoxiously at the same time. I laugh. "Coming", I say, gather up my stuff, and follow them out the door to whatever I happen to have next.

Sol

This whole slice of life challenge has given me the chance to share so many of my interests and voice my opinions. Now that it is ending I won't be able to do that as much. So here are two things that I won't get to slice about but I probably want to:
1. How cats are stereotyped
2. I love Starbucks
But I guess I'll talk about music. One of the reasons that I love music is all of the energy that goes into it. i just finished watching a tape with imagine dragons, who by the way are great performers, and there's just so much energy that goes into it. Imagine if a couple of aliens were beamed down into a concert. Why are humans going crazy for these noises, they'd think, when they don't go crazy with everyday noises like barking dogs, honking horns, sirens, etc. They'd think that we were mesmerized, hypnotized, kept captive under the musics spell, because we all look like we were feeling the exact same thing is the lyrics say. And maybe we are. But that's not a bad thing. When you find a song that you are able to connect to is the lyrics, and when you find a song that you can connect to in that way, the you will probably love the song. Songs have a lot of energy, yes ENERGY (Max, hint hint, can we pleasepleaseplease do a project on energy in music). I also love the energy of performing for thousands of people you can't really describe it. I have not been able to do this yet, but watch a video of an artist that you like playing there song for thousands, and you'll get what I mean. So...I think that what a song is originally about does matter, but you can also translate it to whatever you think. Here are some songs with meanings that I got that are good songs but I won't tell you what I got yet (you can guess! Exciting!!! :)!!!)
This one is kind of depressing but a great song:

i did this for a unit project:

Red

My favorite color is red. Red I think represents a lot...it can represent passion, anger, a cool color, a Taylor Swift album, fire, The Voice colors, well you get the point. Take a look at this wikipedia page quote: "red is commonly associated with danger, sacrifice, passion, fire, beauty, blood, anger, Christmas, socialism, communism, and in China and many other cultures, with happiness.^[5]"
ok, but you get the point. It also looks like I am doomed to write the rest of my SOL in this font because I'm not able to change it back right now, long story. Speaking of red, something that makes me angry or I guess "seeing red", among other things is that my hangout app keeps crashing, so I'm missing out on all of the fun. Sigh. I keep getting these little hangout things...here's another one.
Alright, Max, that one was very interesting. I'm glad Kam told me that she doesn't check our hangouts often...
This slice of life is very unorganized. I guess that's what I am like today. I can't get my thoughts together. I'm not usually like this and you guys probably know that my writing isn't either but...who knows.
Maybe I'll play guitar.
My two second favorite colors are orange and yellow. And then purple. Actually I don't believe in something being better than the other but other times I do...for different reason...so yeah...
I'll leave you with this song to watch because it maybe makes up a little bit for the fact that this sol is so unorginazed...Red by Taylor Swift. And maroon 5 is technically red, and pink is red so maybe so is Avril...
Ok I'll be quiet now probably for the good of you guys. Thanks for hearing some of my very scattered thoughts down on paper...
Maybe I'll write something better or at least more organized tomorrow...
Bye...

The Cliff

The wind pulls against my hair, the coppery strands which fell out of my tight ponytail whipping and dancing around my face. Elizabeth goes over the rules, but I am hardly listening, just waiting for a chance to peer over the edge of the cliff. I walk tentatively over, itching to lie down and take one look. Briahn lies down by the edge of the cliff while I check around to see if everybody thinks that that's ok, and Rachel and Abby and I go to join her while Sloan hugs the cliff close to the edge too. I peer over the cliff, and the wind whips my hair. I feel that familiar feeling of vertigo that makes me want to scream, and then throw up over the edge, partially to see what would happen, and then laugh. I'm not really actually afraid of heights. There are a couple, although not very many things that I am seriously afraid of, and a lot of things that I am partially afraid of, but about heights I say that I'm "rationally afraid" because if anybody was peering over the edge of a cliff, who wouldn't be a little scared. I also believe that i'm not scared of heights; I'm scared of falling. But sitting there, with my hair blowing around my face, 3 inches away from falling off a cliff, I realized that I might even like fear, reasonably. You just have to ignore it, and it gives you something to think about besides whats happened that day, or who you're mad at, whether they're lying next to you or all the way back in Denver, or somewhere else entirely. And the view from the top of that cliff was really great.

Catch a Falling Star

Laughter drifts through the cabin, as well as the smell of smoke and hamburgers. I yawn, putting my little five-year-old hand over my mouth. it's dark outside, and I try to resist the urge to run over the window. Whispers surround me, mostly coming from my little hyper excited friends around me, passed from person to person, spreading around me like a wave, or the tide, but also coming from the tall people, the adults, above me. "Is it there? Is it here yet? How about now?" Little kids kneel on the zigzagged cushions by the wooden windows, staring out across that campsite into the night. "Not yet". We're all eagerly waiting for the scheduled meteor shower, the one chance to catch a falling star.

We are reluctantly pulled away from the windows to my favorite part of the camp, the contests. I sit on a wooden bench next to my mom, not finished, still rough and smelling like pine. All of the people from the camp gather around the main circle, waiting for the contests to start. The first couple go by in a blur, laughter and flashing lights and warmth. Suddenly something pulled me outside. I slipped my little hand out of my mom's big one, and while she was distracted, walked casually over to the door. I pressed against the swinging screen door, and it gave easily under my weight, and I stumbled out onto the porch from the force of my momentum. The door slams behind me, muffling the sounds from inside of the cabin.

I look around at the brown wooden planks of the porch, the faded Foosball table, and the steps leading down into the solitary yard. Laughter and warmth from the cabin trickle out behind me. I take a couple of steps away from the door, and then descend the steps into the yard. The farther I get away from the cabin, the more I notice; the sound my boots make hitting the dusty, hard packed dirt, the deserted truck and volleyball courts, the smell of dirt and grass and horses, and the sound of reeds and long grass rustling in the wind, owls hooting in a perfect rhythm from far away, and the faint trickling of the stream. I look up and see the stars above me on the dark sky. It kind of looks like a snowglobe, I think, and we're inside of it. Why not? The cool wind blows against me from multiple directions and I shiver. I should go inside, I think. I voice counters "just a couple of minutes more".

And then from the sky, there's a streak of light. It was there, bright and blinding, a bit of movement standing out, and then it was gone. Two little ones follow after that. Two, three. And then it stops. I stand there for one second, and then go inside.

Sure, maybe not everything is like in books, or in movies, where it always works out, and you always get that little perfect fairy-tale moment. Ok, definitely not. But this is my one fairy-tale moment, so perfect that it could have been put in a children's book. It's funny how something so little like that can make you so happy. All it takes is the chance to catch a falling star.

13 Reasons Why

This week I read 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. This book was about a boy, who's a freshman in high-school named Clay who's crush and friend, Hannah, just committed suicide. Clay discovers a box full of old fashioned tapes on his doorstep in the evening. He plugs them in to his friends stolen cassette tape player and finds out that they are Hannah's last words, and Clay received the tapes because he is on a list full of people who Hannah is blaming for her suicide. Throughout the night, Clay travels around town to the places that Hannah tells him to go to, and listens to the 13 reasons why she committed suicide. Eventually he figures out that he must be one of these reasons, and waits to see what he ever did to Hannah.
This book was good, but didn't really live up to my expectations. I think that it did have a lot of potential, but really didn't set the tone well for a book talking about suicide. The world built around the characters wasn't that great, and the characters weren't that great, connectable, and didn't even have a personality. It would have been more effective if you had cared about Hannah a little bit more. It was sad, but a little bit phony-sad too, like it was trying to be sadder than it actually was, and didn't represent the suicide theme well, in my opinion. That being said, it was a good book, and worth reading if not fantastic. There are some mature topics, and the book is about suicide after all, but if you need a book to read, this would be a good one to consider. It also is not too long, and the reading level isn't that hard.

Over the Weekend

Over the weekend I went up to our friends condo in Vail. We skied and had a lot of fun. Here are some memorable moments from the trip:
1. Playing quizup. One of the kids was about my age, and we played quizup over and over again, in Name the Pop Star. I won and she kept challenging me again and again. After about 10 games, we were basically tied in the last question, she was ahead by one, and the question was it who sings the song I'm With You. We all know that this is Avril Lavigne and it's one of my favorite songs ever. It was her third single off her first album, Let Go, and is 3:43 seconds long.  My friend didn't know, and I reached down to hit the Avril Lavigne option button, and I was so excited that I missed and hit Mariah Carey instead. I do not think that I will ever get over this crushing loss, and my brother will never stop teasing me about it.
2. My friend and her younger brother were in the bathroom, and one of them started rapping "you squished my butt you squished my butt". Don't ask me. This kept going on for about fifteen minutes, I'm not kidding you. It was weird. I got a lot of really good recordings though.
3. The song that I wrote to win an Apples to Apples game. It was beautiful. Not really. It was pretty awesome though. The green card was poetic, and somebody had book, and somebody had candy, and I had a song. I made up this amazing rhyming song that probably wasn't my best lyrics ever, but hey, whatever, I won!
4. Singing along to Frozen on the chairlift. We got a lot of weird looks, and my brother was so embarrassed. No one could probably hear us anyways, it was blizzarding and I couldn't see five feet in front of me.
5. The candy store. After skiing, we were allowed to walk over to the candy store. This was the best candy store ever, that had like every single thing that you could imagine. I had only brought five dollars, because I was dumb, and I spent exactly $4.98. I got some Root Beer Gummy Candy, some gummy peach rings, and some cinnamon-chocolate bears. My brother got a huge bag of weird flavored jelly beans, my friend got a chocolate bar about the size of her face, and her two younger brothers split their money and got a jawbreaker bigger than their two heads combined and a three feet tall, $23 gummy bear. Yum.
6. Dumping snow on people's heads. Someone came up with the idea to go swimming in the blizzard after skiing. We chilled in the hot tub for a while and then got in the pool, and someone came up with the brilliant idea to have everybody close their eyes and have one person dump snow on their heads when they are least expecting it.
7. Eating apple pie for breakfast. Do I have to say more? :)

The Voice (yay)!!!

The first time I watched The Voice was probably in Season 2, one time in the finally where CeeLo and this rocker lady with black hair and a lot of piercings on her face was snarling a song. I now know that the lady's name was Juliet Simms, and the song was called born to be wild, but being 10 maybe almost 11 at that time I had no idea what was going on. The one thing I remember especially was the cage with the creepy people that had dressed up as tigers trapped inside. And the fire that shot out behind them. Certainly entertaining, but didn't stick in my mind.
The next time that I watched the Voice was a little bit less than a year later, and a little more than a year ago. i don't know how it started, but suddenly we just started watching The Voice. This is actually a surprise to me, because my mom and especially my dad are strictly against watching too much TV. Especially when it's something that was not sports, which hold the number one TV watching rights in my dad's mind. We started following the show week by week, episode by episode, and it just eventually became part of our routine. I slowly fell more and more in love with this show. I wasn't allowed to watch most of the shows live, so I watched them once with my family on the weekends, maybe again on my iPod, and enough highlights over and over again that it was enough to be like I watched it a third time. By the time we got to the live rounds, or especially the final live rounds, late into the show, I was officially in love with this show.
I don't think that The Voice is just another reality singing competition, like some people would say American Idol or the X Factor are. One of the reasons that I love The Voice is that it's main goal is not basically the entertainment of the audience but the artist's journey, and the entertainment just follows right after that, and is better then most shows too. The judges aren't told what to say, and they aren't judges who actually make fun of the contestants, they're more like coaches. They also all get along really well, and are hilarious with just being themselves, without being scripted. It's also all very real-world. By just letting the artists just be themselves, they created a better show then one with all of the planning in the world.

Stand

I feel like a candle,
In a hurricane
Just like a picture
My crazy songwriting brain takes in all of the pop rock music of stand, sung by Cassadee Pope on the Voice. Scientifically, actually everyone does. The reason that they like the song is determined by whether the song matches or exceeds their standards. But my brain was actually writing the next line, word for word, and putting my own little twists on it. I put this into my subconsciousness and keep watching Cassadee.
With a broken frame.
Alone and helpless,
like you've lost your bite
But you'll be alright, you'll be alright.
I little smile comes over Cassadee's face when she sings the lyrics. So far this song has been good, if not great, but the chorus is up next. One of the many things I love about Cassadee Pope is that she loves almost exactly the same type of music as me.
Cause when push, comes to shove
You'll taste what, you're made of
You might bend 'till you break
Cause that's all you can take
The amazingly catchy, creative pop rock chorus takes hold of me immediately. Cassadee is suddenly really into the lyrics and the song, like she always is. Watching her sing, full of energy and really connecting to the lyrics, I think that this is why she won The Voice. It's also why she's one of the main influences to my performing and my songwriting and my style of music. Go pop rock! The chorus starts to close out.
On your knees, you look up
Just like you've had enough
You get mad, you get strong, wipe your hands, shake it off
Then you stand...then you stand
I love the Voice. This song is also amazing. Cassadee's brown hair flops in her eyes is the lights dim almost unnoticeably for the second verse. The blue and white light of people' glow sticks illuminate her face.
Life's like a novel, with the end ripped out
The edge of a canyon, with only one way down
It's amazing how Cassadee can tell a story in her songs. That's also why she won the Voice. And she can sing all of these lyrics like she's connected to every one of them, which knowing Cassadee, which I do by the way, she is.
Take what you're given, before it's gone, and start holding on
Keep holding on...

'Cause when push, comes to shove
You taste what you're made of
You might bend, till you break
Cause that's all, you can take
On your knees you look up,
Decide you've, had enough
You get mad you get strong, 
wipe your hands, shake it off
You get mad...
then you stand...
Cassadee then holds the last note out, and brings it up a half step. She's a really good singer. Like, really good. The song rockets up a half step into the climax,
On your knees, you look up
Just like you've had enough
You get mad, you get strong,
wipe your hands, shake if off
Then you stand...yeah
Yeah you stand, yeah...
Red, white, and orange lights flash behind Cassadee, the crowd is going crazy, like normal. All four coaches are applauding already, including Blake, and fog fills the room. It might sound kind of cheesy on paper, but it was awesome. Another really great performance on the Voice for Cassadee. Even though this is like the 23rd time I've watched it. I love The Voice. And I really hope that Cassadee wins (spoiler alert she does)!
Then you stand...
If you want to see what you're missing (I sound like a commercial) go to the comments for a hyperlink to Stand ( and watch her other stuff it's even more amazing):

Someone I love. Or hate. Maybe?

So there's this one guy (by guy I don't necessarily mean a dude, it could be a boy or a girl) who is really annoying me right now. Ok, there are plenty of people who annoy me but this person is really being a jerk right now. I needed somewhere to rant about it so I decided to make it into a slice of life like some other people have already done. Feel free to skip reading this if you do not want to hear a pointless rant thingy.
There is this person that I have become really good friends with, especially lately. We like some of the same things and get what each other are trying to say a lot, and agree on a lot of things. My problem about this is that I'm not even sure if they would consider me their friend anymore. Maybe they were just hanging out with me because all of my friends were, and that's why they were ok with me. Or maybe it was just because it gave the person something to do, because they didn't want to do the thing that all of their friends were doing. Anyways, this person has kind of forgotten that I exist. I mean, they still talk to me, but I think that they would talk to anyone in that situation, even if they were not their friend. I don't think it's because they're mad at me, but maybe I'm not really that cool anymore as there friend and once we stop having some classes (I'm not telling which ones, it could be math, matrix, just in Max's Class, whatever) in common we'll stop talking to each other forever and just not care anymore.
So that's my rant about this person. Oh, by the way if you're reading this it's probably not you. It might be, but it's probably not. You can guess but I don't think that anybody will get it right :).

Jungfraujoch and Glaciers and Ziplines and Snow.

I finally step out of the dark cave into the light which burns my eyes, causing me to blink against the sun. The sun reflects off my eyelashes, exploding when it hits them into little sunbursts. And hurting my eyes. I'm finally able to open them a little, enough so that I can squint and look around at my surroundings. I'm standing in a glacier, at the top of the Jungfrau, Switzerland. We took the gondala to the top of a rise from Wengen, hiked to Kleine Schedegg, and just had taken a train up the Eiger, the mountain that was more like a cliff, besides well, being mountain sized, in a little trolley called the Jungfraujoch. I love all of the Swiss words so much. To the left is the Eiger, which towers over Kleine Scheidegg, it's dark ominous cliffs casting a shadow. Kleine Scheidegg is like the best place ever, our lunch yesterday cost $80 for some hot dogs and hashbrowns. It also has a population of like 20. Who knew? On the right is the Monch, slightly less imposing but still beautiful. And right here? We're on the top of the Jungfrau, the tallest, most amazing thing like Ever. And there's a glacier. With sledding. What could be better?
As if to answer my question, a piercing scream sounds out from above me, as well as the short buzz that can only be linked to a zipline. OMG, I say, and run in that directions, my boots crunching on the snow. My family and I run up the metal steps, almost up to the glass viewing station, and stop on the platform. The guy there, with dark hair and light blue eyes, smiles at us. "Hey", he says in perfect english. "Who wants to go first?"
My dad goes, and then my mom. Finally it's my turn. I put on the orange jacket, and the guy clips it around my and yanks and the straps, tightening it. Finally he clips me onto a weird slidey-device looking thing, on the string, and tells me to hold on. He winks at me. "Fly like a bird", he says, quote-un-quote.
And then he lets me go. I start sliding, zipping and buzzing along, and begin to pick up speed.  zip past a couple people on the ground, and they look up in surprise. The icy wind blows against my face, whipping past me and sending my hair streaming out behind me, and then whipping and cracking back on sharp directions, sometimes against my face. The sun flashes in my eyes, which sting and water. I like go of the strap, and lean forward, spreading my arms out to the sides like wings. The wind threatens to tear a scream from my throat and I let it. "Whoohooooooo". Did I really just scream whoohoo to the whole glacier? I shrug. And then ahead of my appear the end of the zipline. The end of the string disappears into the snow ahead of my. Just disappears into the ground. But how am I supposed to get off?
I fly towards the end, fast and lean backwards, trying to position myself so that I don't face plant in the snow. There is a big plastic sign that says "caution; no unloading beyond this point". Helpful. I laugh out loud. Grinning, I shout down to my mom and dad, who are standing off to the side. "How do I get off the thing"? " You Just do It", my dad yells back. And then i'm almost there. And I hit. I hit the snow  and my momentum carries me forward. Snow kicks up in my face and I get dragged across the ground, spinning out and finally coming to a stop. I get up shakily and brush snow off me, laughing. "That was fun" I say, only half-sarcastically. Actually it was amazing. I unbuckle the harness and disconnect the carabiner from the cable and step aside to watch my brother.

 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rauleltaz/6074432946/">Raul Garcia Piñero</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

On Top of the World

I breathe in the cold thin air and it stings my throat and my lungs. I'm breathing hard but I can't stop grinning. There's something about being on top of the world...
"Sarah!" My dad's voice jolts my out of my reverie,  or just me numbly putting one foot in front of the other as I stare down at the dark brown mud that has started to coat my clunky hiking boots and already mud colored wool socks, probably just for this purpose. "Let's stop for a minute". And so we stop, just reveling in the cold mountain air. I sit down on a rock, which is rough and icy against my skin. I take a look around. It's starting to get a little windy, with the cool fresh breeze blowing the misty fog and dew all around us, obscuring our view of the top. The deep green moss that covers the ground and rocks around us is moist and covered with dew. We're about halfway up a slick, steep section, and if you look down, you can see all the way down to the beginning of the steep sudden rise of the mountain that we just came up in the past hour. We try to spot the neon orange of my brother, or the white of my friend below. It's really beautiful, with the meadow flattening out and stretching into the distance, eventually meeting up with the stream, the tall pine forest, and our cars. The whole thing just smells like Colorado; dirt and mud and rain...
Rain! Oh no, it can't rain this early, can it? When you're above 14,000 feet, if there's a storm, you have to get down fast. Your basically a big lighting rod, standing on bare rocks at the peak of a mountain. And we haven't even climbed Grays yet, haven't even started Torreys.
I put the thought out of my mind and my dad and I keep walking. I take off my jacket, exposing my arms to the icy cool air. We keep walking. I move in front of my dad too, motivated by the song in my head. I dig my feet into the slick damp mud along to it. "I'm on top of the world, hey! I'm on top of the world, hey!" After a while it becomes more of a chant inside of my head then a song, occupying my mind as we move farther up into the cold thin air, the mist wreathing around our heads and slowly accepting us, engulfing us into it. My lungs are burning from the air.
And suddenly, there it is! The top! I grab my dad's arm and point. "Over there"! He manages to catch a small glimpse of it before another thick bank of fog drifts in front of it. I start running/stumbling up the path, trying to avoid the little sliding pebbles that tumble down and bounce over my shoes up into my legs, stinging. After twisting and turning, we finally have a clear shot to the summit. Being my usual impatient self, I'm frustrated when we go up, and down, and then up again, and then come over the final rise onto the summit of Grays. We take a picture, eat some Gourp (I save all of the M&Ms for last, and the orange ones until the very end), and contemplate what to do next. The fog swamps us, but seems to be drifting our way away from Torreys. My dad calls my mom and asks where they are, They're about thirty minutes behind us, so they might make it or they might not. My dad looks at me. "Should we do Torreys?" he asks. "We'll really have to boot it down from there". Also we'll have to traverse the ridge", looking down at the steep rocky knife-edge ridge that drops out steeply below us, and then curves up into the ascent into Torreys. I eat another peanut M&M, this one is yellow and I sear it tastes different from the green one that I ate before. I sweat that the flavoring is different, otherwise why would the orange ones be the best? "Well?' my dad asks.
I look up at the bronze peak of Torreys towering above us, sun reflecting off it in all different directions, no fog obscuring the view. On top of the world. "Let's do it".

Last Time I'll Post About The Play

The closing of the play was Saturday night, and it was amazing. Even if you didn't do the play or stagecraft, didn't go to Logan, didn't see the play, or have acted in your life you can connect to the feeling of something you have worked so hard on suddenly ending. In our case, we had worked on this play for six months, doing hundreds of run-throughs, and then it suddenly ended. We had to do four perfect run-throughs of the play, in-front of an audience of course, and then it just ends. Okay, now I'm making it seem like a tragedy or a drama or something, which it's not, but still, it's sad. Closing night is especially awesome/awful, depends on your view, because you want to hold on to every single moment. Your last lines go by, and then your last lyrics, and then you go take bows, and then you know that you will never do the show again in the same way. This makes for a very good show for the audience, just like opening night too.
So basically, we did all of the things that we have done so many times for the last time, and got to share it with the audience. That's one of the great things about theater, and performing, and acting, and all of that stuff. I've made so many new friends in the play, and am sooooooooo glad that I did it.
Oh, by the way the after-party was really fun. We ate delicious food, almost all of the boys played basketball, and the rest of us hung out and played QuizUp and talked. I am so obsessed with QuizUp right now, so if you have one, friend me:). We also played lap tag, which apparently nobody remembers that I was there (Hailey and Kate) and it was just a lot of fun.
So overall, it's kind of bittersweet, but really epic at the same time!

Yesterday was opening night

Yesterday was opening night. Before I start listing all of the things that went wrong, let's just say that overall it was awesome. Also you guys are supposed to think that everything was right, so I can't talk about everything that went wrong. So let's just say that overall it was awesome.
One of the many things I love about performing is the nerves that you get before it. Actually, I don't really get nervous before performing anymore, but a little bit, sort of the walking-on-the-edge feeling, which I guess I like. One of the most nerve-wracking things that happened to me in the play last night is that my boa scarf got tangled in a string, literally as the band was playing the opening notes and I had to go onstage, I realized that it wouldn't move and ditched it. That did not get the play off to a very good start, but none of you guys probably noticed anyways and I tried to make up for it. Another thing was cutting open my leg backstage; ok, that makes it sound worse than it actually was, but I was worried that it would show up onstage. But I guess that is also one of the things that I love about performing, that you are live and anything can happen that you have to deal with on the spot. During the play last night, there was a lot of the-audience-doesn't-know-the-play-so-no-one-will-notice-moments, but it all worked out in the end. Since backstage is dark and no one is supposed to hear or see you, it's basically like stuffing around 15 actors and even more stagecraft in a tiny dark room, with people taking huge pieces of wood and cardboard around and huge funky-shaped costumes, and trying to make your way around without talking. It's kind of like those team building exercises that teachers make you do, just people tend to get mad at each other instead. Although spending so much time with each-other can really get on your nerves, I've also made so many friends in this whole experience, and become better friends with so many people. One of the great things that the AS play has done is that when the show starts, we all support each other, and suddenly become each other's friends for the sake of the show even and probably will be that way for a long time, especially the people I spend a lot of time onstage with. Overall, even though it won't be the same as opening night, which is my favorite, I'm so excited that I get to perform the play three more times, and each will be unique in its own little ways, because that's just how performing works.

Tonight is Opening Night

Tonight is opening night. Maybe you'll be thinking that I'm nervous, or can't wait to get it over with, or even think that we aren't ready. But I'm not actually, I can't wait. I think that I've worked so hard and now I get to show the play, which is super entertaining by the way, to other people. I love being onstage too, so I'll get that. our costumes are really cool and I think that all of you guys will love it, if you go to Logan/are coming/etc. My only problem is that I'm sick; why do I always have to get sick before important stuff. But whatever. The set is also pretty cool. Stagecraft did a great job. So yeah, come to the play, sit back relax, enjoy the show, all of that. I can't wait.

5 Things That You Can Learn From Frozen

My mom and dad have started a hate-fest on Frozen, saying that I like it too much, it's only a movie, my dad even told me yesterday to focus on my real life. I mean, really. So here it goes; five things that you can learn about REAL life by watching Frozen.
1. Conceal, Don't Feel is terrible advice. Although it probably saved a lot of people from being zapped by Elsa's frozen powers, Elsa is doomed until she accepts her secret. And the song when she does, Let It Go, is just awesome.
2. Fashion. I mean have you seen Elsa and Anna's clothes and hair? Style.  I'm totally being a such a girl but it's so true.
3. How to write a song. Especially the lyrics and how the feel of the song fits the emotion that the characters are trying to convey. They also have great instrumental solos and the feel of the songs for the characters and for the movie is also just perfect. The singers are also really great.
4. You can't marry someone who you've just met that day. Or so Elsa says. Basically the whole big thing that Disney was advertising about this movie is that it's no longer happily ever after when you marry a guy. There still was true love and everything, but it turned out that it was the love Anna had for her sister instead of some guy. That I think was a great message and more modern and updated then other Disney movies.
5. Magic doesn't necessarily make you special. Sure Elsa is all great and my favorite character and everything, and obviously would be pretty special without magic too, and Anna isn't like all magical and cool or anything and still goes after her sister and probably saves everyone from a certain death. Most of the characters are just normal people.
So that's it.

Life As We Knew It

This week I read Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This was about a girl and her family, just living in a normal society. Suddenly someone tells the news that the moon is set to be knocked closer to the Earth.  The news starts small, and grows and grows. Nobody could think that it would be dangerous.
When the moon actually does get hit closer to the Earth, everybody is set up on there front lawns watching. Then everything goes wrong. The tides change, cities are dragged underwater, snow starts to fall so heavy that it suffocates the power lines; but the power already cut out a long time ago.
Life As We Knew It is basically about people trying to live normally again. It was really good, and I would recommend it for a wide variety of ages. The characters are connectible. It's not a very hard read, and I would recommend it to ages 11-15, maybe. Overall, it was really good.

Music that I love right now

I am obsessed with a lot of music right now, but there are a couple of songs/albums/artists that I'm obsessed with...
1. The soundtrack to Frozen. I am obsessed with the soundtrack as well as the rest of it. I LOVELOVE LOVE the songs so much and would also love to sing/play them. Don't you think Elsa or Anna would be really fun to be in a musical? Anyways, some of my favorites include For the First Time in Forever (reprise), Do You Wanna Build a Snowman, and Let It Go. Best Songs Ever!!!
2. Kacey Musgraves. She's kind of country, and that's cool, and her lyrics are hilarious. She's a really talented songwriter and a really funny person. Some of my favorite songs include Follow Your Arrow and Merry Go Round.
3. Burn by Ellie Goulding. I really love this song, it's great. I love the tune, the lyrics, and everything about it. It's so catchy, and fun to sing a long to, and has a cool message. Her voice is also really interesting and the instrumentation is really cool and works with the song.
4. Taylor Swift, by, well, Taylor Swift. This was her first album and is amazing. She was a lot more country, but still has the pop-rock thing that I think is so awesome. It is amazing that she was only a couple years older than me when she wrote these songs. My three favorites right now are probably Our Song, Picture to Burn, and Teardrops on My Guitar.
5. The Band Perry. They are also really country a little rock, a little pop, which I have been into a lot recently. They are so awesome. Listen to Don't Let Me Be Lonely, If I Die Young, and Done. It's just awesome.
6. Dark Horse by Katy Perry. This song is so amazing, and is kind of overdramatic and stupid and amazing all at the same time. It's this whole pop song with a little bit of dance-punk-techno feel. It's really melodramatic too and has a weird sounding rap (yes!).
7. I would feel like a failure if I didn't add Avril Lavigne and Adam Levine (from Maroon 5).
Yay! So this is music that I have been into over the last couple of days/weeks etc. Not all of it. If I did that, it would take over a billion pages/

Why I want to be a Singer/Songwriter/Popstar

I want to be Singer/Songwriter. Well technically I am, considering I write songs and sing, but I would like to be a popstar. Ok, you probably are like, that's stupid, yeah, only you and a billion other teenage girls want to be a popstar, etc. But I really love music, like to the point of obsession. In a good way. To me music is like something that I can write down all of my thoughts and feelings in. Music is also just amazing. Do you know anything that can bring people together or connect people like music. That is why I'd like to be a popstar, not because of the fame (well, maybe a little bit:)) but to share my music with the world. And of course, it has it's perks like going to the Grammys again year after year after year.
But technically I would be happy being a musician in any way, even if I wasn't famous or anything like that, just because I love it. I would love being a songwriter especially, either for musicals or probably other artists. Another thing that I love related to music is The Voice. I really don't know why I LOVE The Voice so much. As you think about it, it really just doesn't make sense, but it rocks, there's good music, and I just love it. I'm so obsessed with it again, in a good way I guess probably ( I hope:)). Maybe the contestants are just amazing, most of the time. Go Team Adam and Team Blake!!!

Why I Love Frozen

I went to see Frozen last night. Again. After trying to go to the earlier showing, the projector broke, so I forced my family to go eat dinner at 5:00 to go to the later showing and to try and dodge an 80% chance of the movie still not working then. See, my family hadn't seen it before, so they didn't know what I would do to see it, even if I had seen it before at the theater, and then once on my iPod touch, because, yes I bought it. It turns out that the risk of making my family mad payed off; the projector worked, and they loved it. Here are some reasons that I LOVELOVELOVE Frozen (in no particular order)... oh, no spoilers by the way.
1. The storyline is AMAZING. This is one of the only Disney movies that I've seen where love is not the main storyline. Sure it's part of the storyline, but it's not like omg all of you girls out there need a guy and then you can be happy. There are so many little twists and BIG twists in the plot that surprised me so much, in a good way. Also, it's so funny! The thing that I like about the humor in Frozen is that they don't try too hard at all. If they had to choose between a touching moment or a funny moment they would choose the touching moment, which they do a lot. The jokes are so totally careless that it's so hilarious! Also, besides being funny, it's just fun. It's a really fun movie with about the best plotline of any movie I've watched.
2. The characters are AMAZING. Especially Anna and Elsa. At least to me, they were so connectable. I almost felt like they were my own sisters, or maybe some version of me. By the end-actually who are we kidding, about 3 seconds into the movie- you fall in love with them and feel like you are going through everything they are. The supporting characters are also so great too, and funny. There are a lot of characters with tiny parts in the actual movie that add so much to it too. The two guy supporting characters are awesome too!  A lot of the time Disney supporting characters put in just for comic relief are stupid but PLEASE believe when I say that Olaf ROCKS. He's so funny and actually contributes to the story. My favorite character has to be Anna or Elsa...probably Elsa. I was so able to connect to her, I don't even know why. She was awesome, and funny too by the way. These were probably the characters that I was able to connect to the most and the best characters EVER!!!
3. The music was AMAZING!!! They are like the most perfect musical-pop songs ever. My favorite song was probably Let it Go, there's a reason it won Best Song at the Oscars. I like how in Do you Wanna Build a Snowman she ages throughout the song,it's really sweet. All of the songs are amazing, catchy, meaningful, and take a lot of musical talent. Another one of my favorite songs was the reprise of For the First time in Forever, because the amount of musical talent that that took to sing was incredible and it was just awesome. It was so crazy. Best songs EVER!!!
4. The animation is amazing. I mean, I don't know anything about that, but it looked awesome. Just watch it.\
So, congratulations if you survived my rant.Frozen is so good!!! Overall, Frozen is by far my favorite movie right now.

Late and Early flights

I have figured out a lot. Late and early flights suck. I have been on a lot of them, considering my family and I (well, most of the time) love to travel too far off destinations. I have been on flights across the many oceans, over the north pole, flights with many connections, flights with a huge time change, and flights where I had to go to school the same day, or even a sleepover.  My least favorite type of flight is the red-eye flight. This involves going east across an ocean, and the time change makes it that you have to spend a night on the plane. You have to get all ready for bed, eat the airplanes dinner and breakfast and sometimes lunch, depending on the length of the flight, and be on an airplane for at least 6 hours minimum. The problem with the red eyes is not the flight, because sleeping (or trying to sleep) is actually better than going the other way, and spending a lot of time awake on the plane, but the awful part is getting off the plane, barely being able to stay awake, and being in a new place when all you just want to do is fall asleep in you own bed. That is also why I hate the first days of vacation a lot, if we go do something interesting all it is to me is torture. Connections are OK, because the flights are often shorter and you get little breaks for lunch and stuff like that in the airports of cool places. Also sometimes the airports are awesome, like the Toronto airport. I have never been to Chanda, but I have stopped in the airport a couple of times in Toronto, so technically if someone asks me if I have, I COULD say yes. Overall, airplanes can be both bad or good, and the idea of flying through the air is pretty cool, and we're overlooking one fact; they do get you where you want to be pretty quickly, which is pretty awesome.

SOL: Right now

Right now, my dad is in the other room. He's playing drums. I listen as he adds the ride cymbal,and then the bass drum, and turned a roll into the climax of whatever he's playing right now. Drums are cool, but I wouldn't like to put in the work to play them really well. For songwriting, and also just having a melody, piano is better. I also play guitar, but only for less a year, so I'm not that great. The drums stop for a second. I revel in the silence, listening to the patter of water dropping from the roof, until another drumroll stops my thought. The drums just stopped again.And started. I reach over and pet my dog's golden wavy fur, and she casually sticks out her big pink tongue and licks me, dampening my hand with her hot dog breath as well as the tongue. "Go away, Boo", I say, but she can barely hear me over my dad's incessant drum playing, not that it's not good or anything. The drums are going on and off, like dangling hope of peace and quiet and front of me on a string and then pulling it away. Normally I like his drum playing, but after Jack playing some game with Boo all morning that involves screaming, I'm ready to be done. I consider going to get my iPod, but decide to finish this slice of Life first.
For any of you guys wondering if this is the "I don't know what I should write so I'm just going to write about not knowing what to write slice," that apparently everyone has to do, it is a little bit, but not really, considering I'm talking about what is going on right now, at this moment. For example, my mom is setting the table for and early lunch so she can take me to AS play practice and then go to the tile store. She walks away. Jack runs down the hall, saying "Guess what? Me flappy happy"!!! Besides from the noise of my parents distant footsteps and voices, and my brother in talking to them which I can hear faintly, there's nothing left besides the low hum of this computer, the click of my fingers on the keyboard, and the splattering of the water falling off the roof outside.

Swimming

The sun beat down on my shoulders as I stepped closer to the safety of the shady tent. This is one of the times that I wish I tanned, not burned. One of the many times. Sigh. I was lined up to swim in the 12 and under link relay for my team, Crestmoor. We were at another club, Monaco, which can get blisteringly hot. Seriously. So here's how a link relay works. It's all freestyle, and involves all age groups . The youngest people, the 8 and under group swim a 25, which is 25 meters or one length of the pool. The 9-10 age group swims a 50, so twice that. We swim a 100, the 13-14s swim a 200, and the Upper-D swims a 400. There are two representatives from each age group, one boy and one girl. So the other thing about the link relay is that no one really takes it seriously. It kind of has a tendency to show up at fun or family meets and that's about it. Except for this meet. Huh. But it's really fun, and like any relay, you feel pressure to not disappoint the other people on your team, as well as yourself. I wrap my arms around my body and shiver, starting to get cold in the shade and step out into the sun again. It's a no win situation, I guess. Our first person, 8 year old Sarah-Jane, steps up on the block, and the familiar rush of adrenaline sweeps through me. Her tiny arms churn the water, and we end up in about 2nd or 3rd place. The next person goes, and then the next person, and then the second 9-10, and it's my turn. I I jog in place a little, trying to get rid of any last minutes nerves I might have, pull my goggles over my face, aiming to catch up a little, maybe even pull out of fourth into third. I focus, and then dive off the block as my brother swims in and touches the wall.
The water hits my face. I try to push myself a little on the first lap, because I can just hear my coaches slightly annoying voice in my mind. "Long and Strong!" Sigh. I flip, and try to hold my speed into the second lap. I see the faces of my team at that wall, who look actually quite bored, except for my sort-of-friend Izzy, who is cheering for me. I flip again ( I hate flip turns) and just figure I'll go really fast. I mean, it's like my last lap, except for the one after that. That's what I always tell myself. I just really can't explain my mind. I sprint to the wall, take a deep breath ( but not inside the flags) flip ( I hate flip turns) and pour all the energy I have left into the last lap. I hit the wall, Henry dives over me, and I bring my head up. First.
So, I love winning. I love winning for myself, for anybody, but there is no better feeling than having two tiny eight year olds running towards you and telling you how great you were and how we're now going to win.

Classroom Slice of Life #2 of 31/Hair

My hair is coppery medium brown, long, and wavy-curly. I also can't brush it or wear it down in humid places because it gets so puffy it's totally annoying. My mom and dad call it "the hair". One of the plusses of having hair like mine is that I can do about ANYTHING with it, not that I want to. I've made kind of minor changes to my hair for like the last 7 years or whatever, but nothing huge. I'm thinking about straightening my hair. If I ever move to L.A. I think that I will have to straighten my hair, or it will be in my face constantly. Of popstars with cool hair, I might give the prize to Avril Lavigne. Not best hair, just cool hair. And every country-pop star always has these perfect wavy-curly ringlets. That's kind of what my hair looks like, just without the perfect part, and a whole lot puffier. And that's when I don't brush it.

AS Play Stress

The most and least fun part of the AS play, besides the actual performances of course, is tech week. Actually, I don't necessarily know, because I was in the IS play last year, but you get the point. Right now when I'm writing this we are at the point where we are right on the edge of the panic-attack week, also know as tech week. I actually love tech week, because we finally get to see the completed set, run the play with lights and sound, put on costumes, etc. Sometimes though it can get a little bit stressful. These situations can range from when you suddenly walk in to play rehearsal and you're five minutes late and everyone else has their costumes on, to when you suddenly realize that you are doing a harmony wrong and you have 3 days left until the play.
Right now there are exactly three days left until the play, including the rehearsal tonight. If you go to my school and are reading this, you should all come, because it will be amazing. If you do not, then oh well. I think that opening night is always the best night, in terms of how smoothly the play runs and just in general, because it's the first time you get to show all of your hard work to people, and sets the standard for all of the other performances to come after that, and even farther in the future. Another great thing about my role besides the bunch of singing that I'm doing is the fact that I get to open the play and close it. Technically, I have the opening of the opening night, which is epic.
So come watch the play. It will be great and hilarious and you will all love it. Just trust me.

Writing a Song/SOL 3/6/14

When you write a song, there are three main things that you have to know to write a good one:
1. It doesn't have to be perfect. When I started writing songs, I would just discard an idea from my mind if it wasn't a good one. That is the curse of perfectionism. After a while I just was making no progress, and reasoned with myself that songwriting doesn't come naturally with me, and even if I should keep writing songs. This is not true at all. What I was doing was I wasn't even writing songs at all, because I didn't want to write at the level that I was at then. I had to put this past me and start writing songs a lot in order to get to the place where I wanted to be. This was hard for me because I'm a perfectionist with most things, so I had to lower my standards.
2. There is not one right way to write a song. When I started writing songs, I'd search the internet on how to do it, because I just didn't get it. There was all this information on tips about writing songs, but not how on you do it in the first place. This is because all of the smarty musicians online everywhere left out the fact that there is no right way to write a song. Some people start by playing some chords and singing along to them; this is often supposed to be the easiest way because there are a lot of common chord patterns that you can look up. Personally, since I had no idea how to write a song, I started writing melodies in my head, then trying to figure out the chords, and then finalizing the lyrics. You can also start with the lyrics, the beat, or even a riff or a hook. You can do whatever is the best for you.
3. Every song has to be personal for you. This is probably the most important rule, that you have some sort of emotion resting on this song. The way I do this is writing every song that I write about either me or someone or a situation that I know or know about. Basically, write every song like it's your last.


These are probably the biggest three rules in writing a song. The truth is, songwriting takes a lot of work. It took me a long time to get where I am now with songwriting, and to the point where I actually could write reasonable songs. I also didn't even write the songs down on paper for a long time, because I started thinking of melodies in my head. It's kind of like you don't talk before you know the words of a language. Overall, songwriting is totally worth it, but does take a lot of work, so if you want to, you better start writing now.                                                                                             

SOL

The fire warmed up my face, legs, and finally my softly cold hands. It whispered and crackled, contributing to our own conversation, laughing along to our jokes as its warm colors flared and tried to warm me up from the inside out. I shift on the rough log, squished between two of my friends. Laughter and happiness fills the air around me, seeming to warm it up as much is the fire does. The fire spits a couple of flaming sparks in the air and they pop and float up quickly, almost as if they are pointing at something, telling me to look, look up there! I flip my hood off my head, and look up. The giant swirl of stars stands out against the dusky blue of the night sky. So many different colors glow in their different ways, warm and cold, bright and soft, all swirling together and smudging and blending to create one kind of giant masterpiece. Little spots of light in the big, black, empty universe. The stars twinkle, like a reflection of our fire in the cosmos above us, set in the velvety lake of the night.
The smell of s'mores brings me back to Earth. Some people start singing a song, which drifts all around us and connects us in that way that only music can. I look at the fire again. Music is red, I decide, the red of the fire. No, music can be all different colors, but I think that the effect that it has on everything is red. At that moment I also decide that red is my favorite color. Suddenly I can't believe that I've only known most of these people for a couple of months but what I can believe is that I'll have a lot of fun spending the rest of the year with them.
I look up at the stars again, at the big black emptiness of the universe. It really should make me feel small and insignificant, but how can the universe be that big, and that empty, if it's filled with little moments of happiness, kindness, and warmth like this? Maybe each star stands for one of these moments of happiness and friendship. I mean, it's possible. You never know.
My friend hands me a toasted marshmallow, hot and sticky. I look at it for a moment, its golden toasty warmth, how it glows in the surrounding blue of the night. I take one last look around at my friends, everyone. The fire whispers to me goodnight, goodnight Sarah, goodnight.
And here we are, one little speck of light in the big, black, empty universe.

Security Cameras

Security cameras are bad. They are meant to catch villains, and if you are trying to steal 1,000,000 on you day off, they suck. This is most everybody's view on security cameras in a nutshell. There are also those really annoying ones that catch you (or if you're a middle schooler like me, your parents) one inch over the parking line and someone comes and yells at you and gives you a ticket and you end up being late to soccer practice or whatever. The guy in the security room booth must have a very boring job, too. Maybe that defeats the purpose of security cameras, if the guy monitoring them just falls asleep.
But one thing that occurs to me just now is that security cameras don't just capture all of the bad stuff that happens in the world, they also capture the good stuff too. It's not like they're monitoring all of the happiness that goes on in the world, it's just, well I guess that you could say a hazard of looking for crime and law-breaking and criminals. I bet you that the guy watching the security cameras all day doesn't just see boring stuff and occasionally maybe the crime that they were looking for in the first place, I bet they see random acts of kindness, spontaneous hugs, and happy dancing and singing. So maybe that wouldn't be the worst job in the world anyways.
Just something to think about.

SOL 3/7/14 Daydreaming and songs and why everybody should read books

I thought all of this in less than a minute and decided to write it down:)

Have you ever wondered why books always end the way they do, with a happy ending? Me too. They say books are supposed to take you away to another world, and make you imagine things. But what's the point in imagining things if you can't transition them to your real life? When I was a really little (and pretty cute) 5 year old, I loved to imagine things, and play "pretend games". I even made an alter ago for myself, a horse named Cannonball, which is pretty creepy if I think of it now.  But seriously...why do only children daydream, and make believe, and not adults or even most teenagers. And what am I even doing questioning it?

So what was I doing daydreaming when I was five? I really don't know. Why would I want to be someone else and somewhere else if I liked my life in the first place, which as a five-year-old, I think that I probably did. Maybe it was that my five year old self knew something that I didn't, which was that my life could always be better. I was happy as a five year old kid, but I was dreaming about everything I would LOVE to do, and hoping that it would come true. As I started to grow up, and went through kindergarden, first grade, all the way up to now, in 7th grade, I learned slowly how to accomplish these things, but I forgot one thing which was actually what goals are in the first place. And what's the use in knowing how to do stuff if you don't know what they are in the first place anyways?

But what about books? Here's what I've decided; the people who write books, write songs and music, and poems are the people who haven't completely grown up yet, and never will. They pour their fantasies and emotions into the story of the song, or the book, or whatever, hoping that someone out there will listen, and try to make the world a better place, or even an almost perfect place, if that is possible. Maybe that's why books always have morals, or happy endings. After all, the stories did come from the writer's mind in the first place, so it's basically like playing pretend when I was five. Maybe everyone is born with that gift, but some people lose it just as they figure out how to accomplish their wildest dreams. The authors, the songwriters, and the artists are the ones that secretly convey these messages to the rest of the world, maybe unknowingly. And the cool thing is, I think that I could be one of these people in the future. I don't know yet, but I think that every one could be their own form of Peter Pan an in some small way, never, ever grow up. This is why books, and songs, and poems are so amazing. Convinced yet?

AS Play

"Oh, brother". I finish my last line with Brynn and Lydia and go sit down next to Kate on the risers. Where's my iPod-Danielle! I go and steal it back from her as Max Davidson starts to do an interpretive dance of something. I nudge Kate. "Quickly, let's video it" and grab her phone. Max stretches his hands up to the to the sky as Kate and I try not to giggle as his face turns redder and redder. Max finally brings his hands to his heart and promptly starts a tuba solo. Welcome to the Logan School AS Play, everyone. It's really fun, actually...well considering that I have about the hardest harmony in the play. Or maybe it just seems hard because I'm the one singing it. That's probably true. People always bring homework here or something, and I should, but it's like the only time I get to listen and play on my iPod and phone at school. I mean, really? So who cares about homework if I don't need to do it, at least. I turn on my iPod touch and put in my headphones.

SOL 3/31/ L.A.

We gently roll of the highway as I look at my directions. I still can't help feeling super cool in our new shiny white car, even if it is a rental with a broken heater. And a Kia. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it is the official car sponsor of The Voice. Why do my thoughts always circle back around to The Voice?
My dad's voice rings out, shaking me out of my reverie."Sarah, what parking lot are we supposed to be in"? I try to find the map that my dad had given me about five seconds before and I had randomly put down somewhere. Do you ever get that feeling. I reach down into my jeans pocket and realize-oh wait, I'm wearing a dress. So that's the thing that I forgot to tell you; we're in L.A., going to the Grammys. Yeah, it's pretty sweet. It was kind of like a 13th birthday present because 13 is all special and stuff like that, kind of  my dad is a lawyer and got free VIP tickets from his client type thing. But anyways, I was there. Almost. Just around the corner...
My dad looks to turn onto the street that led to our parking lot, called "Figueroa Street", and...it's blocked. A guy with curly dark hair shaved close to his head, and a shiny neon traffic director bib runs up to us. "How can I help you", he asks. We show him our pale blue parking passes, and he points to the next street. "Go that way, and the make the first right on Pico Blvd. Then take the first right."
We do as he says, and drive right by the Staples Center where the Grammys are being held. So freaking close!!! We keep driving and promptly encounter some police officers, blocking off the road. We show them our pass, and they give us some directions that are totally different then the last guy. My dad rolls up the window. "Okay..." I say. At least these guys are police officers and look like they know what they're doing. We take about 10 minutes to follow their instructions and go about 2 streets over, because of the traffic-oh, we did see Wiz Khalifa, that was pretty cool, and come to where the lot is supposed to be, and find these guys blocking off the street, who we show are parking passes. I've seen these pale blue parking passes so much in the last hour that I start making comparisons. I think that they look like the artificial blue lolli-pops they give the little kids at the doctors office, or maybe the blue font option on a computer. Anyways, the people don't let us through. Long story short, we end up just paying 15 dollars and parking in a side lot close to the Staples Center. We missed most of the pre-telecast, but you know. Whatever.

Slice of Life 2/31/Walking to Piano

"You need a coat! It's cold outside." My mom calls to me as I open the door, trying to slip out, of course, without my coat. "OK," I call back and grab the first coat that I see, trying not to argue with her in order not to be late. Dr. Vertenstein would be mad. I sling my bag full of piano books over my shoulder and step out into the cool breeze. I start walking, snow blowing across the yard at my feet. Wow, I guess my mom was right about one thing. It's cold. A neighbor across the street is shoveling his yard. I really don't want to talk to him; he's the obnoxious one who always asks me "is that a new hoodie" or something like that. I pulls out my phone and pretend to text somebody until I reach the end of the block to avoid talking. I reach the end of the second block and call my mom to tell her that I've arrived safely, so I don't get kidnapped or whatever. I call her slightly early like always so my 87 year old Romanian piano teacher, Dr. Vertenstien, doesn't catch me on the phone outside of her house and yell at me and tell me I shouldn't be calling people, just focusing on piano. I haven't tried to explain to her that my mom says it's for safety. She wouldn't listen. I ring the doorbell and try to remember what I was practicing yesterday.

The Extra

This week I read The Extra by Kathryn Lasky. This book is about a 15-year-old girl named Lilo, living in Russia, who gets captured and taken to a concentration camp holding pen and then to a concentration camp, because they are gypsies. After getting separated from her dad, Lilo eventually gets sent to be an extra at the set of one of Hitler's favorite filmmakers. Lilo and her friends are excited to get out of the concentration camp, but soon find out that life at the set isn't much better, and that the star is basically a psycomaniac. Lilo eventually faces the choice of trying to escape, and what to do after that, while leaving her friends and her mom behind, or staying and hoping that someone will come to rescue her. This book was pretty good, but not amazing and a very fast read. I would recommend this book to 7th graders probably.

Intro to me/Classroom Slice of Life #1 of 31/Blizzard

Hi- I'm Sarah:). I'm 13 and in 7th grade. I love music and play piano, guitar, sing, and write songs. I also like animals, and have a lot of them, including a dog, two cats, some fish, and a younger brother. I really don't know what else-I guess I play basketball, soccer, and swim on a swim team. Oh and, I'm definitely the #1 The Voice fan in the history of ever.


I sit on the chairlift, shivering. The wind whips in my face and snowflakes blow across the front of the chair, not like I could see them. So, it's blizzarding.  For all y'all who have never been in this situation before, blizzards are kind of a problem when you're sitting on a chairlift at the top of a mountain, about halfway through the chairlift ride.
I don't even know how it happened. It was perfectly clear and sunny one moment, with great views and blue sky and all of that stuff, then it clouded over about five minutes ago and now I'm freezing my butt off.
"Sarah? Are you still there?" Emily yells into the wind as it howls by us, and dances through the cold metal bars of the chairlift. "Yeah", I say. It's not like I had jumped off or anything, but we also can barely see our hands in front of us. Suddenly the dark shady form of the top of the chairlift rises up in front of us, fast. "Raise the bar up!!!" Mabel screeches from the other side of the chairlift. We all grab the bars and pull, barely making it off. We all collapse over giggling into the snow and watch as the boys in our ski group and our ski instructor basically do the same thing, basically falling over each other to get out of the chair. I'm really glad I didn't bring my iPod or phone today because it would be frozen solid.
So this is the way it works, skiing in colorado, I guess. Some of the time it's totally pretty, and sunny, and warm, and the snow is always great. And then sometimes it gets so cold you think that your hands are going to seriously freeze off. Huh.