On Monday, I returned to school after having been away for several weeks. Winter break isn't all that long, but it seemed long to me because I didn't go anywhere this time. I usually travel somewhere during the breaks. Nowadays, I am concerned about saving money for retirement, and besides, I didn't want to have to adjust time zones, so I decided not to go on vacation over the winter break. Over the break, my father and I went exploring the neighborhood.

For quite a while, perhaps several years, a local place, which is called a farm (but has other things, for recreation, like a swimming pool and a golf course), had been under renovation. Sometime in 2009, the changes were done and it was reopened to the public. It was the first time I had seen the place since before it had closed for the renovating. In fact, I hadn't been there for many years, so it was like going there for the first time, practically.

It turned out that two bocce ball courts and a volleyball court had been built. There was also a trail, leading to a place that actually was like a farm (there were farm animals, like goats, cows, and I believe I saw a pony). There was a swimming pool, but it was closed because it was wintertime. It was nice to see the creek with water in it...It's depressing in the summer since the creek tends to be dried out. One of the parks near my house doesn't have water in the ponds either. My dad says that the people of my town dried it out on purpose to try and drive the birds away.

Speaking of birds, the place where I live is really infested with them. My house has birds, which is nice (though some of them look just like the finches I saw at the petshop...). But the park has many Canadian geese, which should not be; the geese already ought to have migrated by now. There's also seagulls and a few crows. My school also has this problem, especially after it rains. I like the birds, except for one time when a seagull pooped on my math homework.

When my mom's friend's family came over to our house, on New Year's Day, the TV was turned on and I started flipping channels. (There seemed to be several Educational Programming channels...Hmm.) Eventually I reached a channel where exceptional moments in music were being played, and so my mom's friend's daughter said we might as well stop there. Some singer (I forgot her name, unfortunately) was singing when a bird flew by and pooped diagonally onto her mouth! It was disgusting. But that bird had good aim.

I was pretty freaked out because I saw a dead bird today. It was pretty well squashed, something disgusting on it as well as blood... It seems like another bad sign. But it could just be my imagination. There is a lot of roadkill nowadays.

Birds aren't the only animals all over the place, though. There are also plenty of squirrels. I have some in my backyard. My mom pointed one out to me, so I ran over to the window to see. It began digging up the grass and apparently found something to eat - perhaps a nut? Then it started eating, before holding it in its mouth and climbing up the tree. The squirrel looked pretty fat. It was a greyish one (maybe that's because of the winter, it could have actually been a squirrel with brown fur). I had seen a black squirrel earlier which was quite a bit skinnier than that one. It didn't find anything to eat in my backyard. I guess the early bird - or squirrel - doesn't always get the worm (nut).

That nut looked kind of like an acorn. Was that from my yard? Or a neighbor's place? Or somewhere far away, like near my school? There are plenty of acorns there. I've always thought acorns were cool nuts. I would like to make some acorn mush, or acorn pancakes, but I'm not sure how. And what would it taste like, anyways? D:

Labels: 2010, acorn, birds, blackberry farm, bocceball, break, creek, death, explore, food, neighborhood, nuts, poop, roadkill, seagull, singer, squirrels, television, water, winter

It seems uncanny that they play the music my dad knows and sometimes even likes. In PE class, I have heard Cold Play's music and Abba's music being played through the speakers that can be moved around. (I like them both, I suppose, but Abba was popular before I was even born, so they're not even together anymore) And my science teacher, as he has his own stereo and a guitar, was once imitating Johnny Cash, who was a singer/actor/musician who died in 2003. My dad put on Johnny Cash's music at my house once. I hope this doesn't mean we will be hearing John Denver songs like "Sunshine on my Shoulders", "Take Me Home, Country Roads", and "You Fill Up My Senses", or strange Chinese songs which my dad likes. But maybe some mysterious forces are at work here, and it can't be helped.

In PE, we have tried a variety of odd activities - for instance, scrugby, which is a soccer, rugby, football, basketball, combination or something like that. We've also played bocceball (not sure about the spelling, Mr. Robinson wrote something different on his whiteboard), which is basically bowling but not in a bowling alley. There is a small ball called the pallino which someone throws out. Then several players take turns throwing bigger balls, I think it's called bocce balls (hence the name of the sport/game/whatever you call it). They can only throw underhand so the ball will roll instead of bouncing or something. You try to get your ball as close as possible to the pallino. Other people can knock your ball out of the way or hit the pallino with their bocce ball(s) if they so desire.

Another thing we have done in PE is Quidditch. I just looked up more information on Google and it seems there is really an activity meant for PE teachers to use. If you have read the Harry Potter books you may have an idea of what I mean. Quidditch is basically a nonexistent sport in which two teams of wizards riding brooms face off. There are several balls like the bludgers (you don't want to get hit by them), quaffles (just regular balls you try to score with) and a Golden Snitch (if you can grab it, you get points). The players are Seekers (only one per team, these people concentrate on getting the Golden Snitch), Chasers (just run about trying to score with the Quaffle. I didn't do much), and Beaters (they have bats to hit people and they can throw Bludgers at people. Luckily Mr. Robinson didn't give anyone bats x_x). Anyhow, that's about it. We don't get any brooms, which is a big disappointment to me. I guess such a thing as "flying brooms" will not be invented for some time yet, though.

I had to take two tests in school today (a math test about quadratic equations and stuff like that, and a history test about vocab words). They were both in the beginning of the day, two in a row. My brain almost turned to mush from it, but I think I did well (at least on the history test, because Mr. Blair read out the scores to the people who said they wanted to hear. I got a 50 out of 50, so that's a relief). I'm not so sure on the math test. I tend to make silly mistakes on them, so all I can do is hope for the best. I wonder if I should check my scores online or just wait until the end of this year to see how my final grades are. (Long as they are A's, I am in good shape, I think.)

Lesson of the day! It's a random fact I found. "Apples are more effective at keeping people awake in the morning than caffeine." That's funny. But then again, maybe that's why my mom likes apples. (I think she likes them because they are cute, though, and not because they taste good...)

Labels: apple, bocceball, coincidence, fact, games, grades, harry potter, music, mysterious, PE class, quidditch, random, school, sports, test

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