After being in Thailand for less than twenty four hours, on December 24th at 7pm, my family and I went to our ancestor, Prince Rangsits large house/ mansion/ palace/ cottage (depending on who you’re talking to) for a Christmas part with the Rangsit branch of the family. It was a lot of meeting new people, but it was clear we were all related. A woman who was introduced as my cousin looked exactly like my dads sister, Cat. Her name was Dimpy, she was the daughter of Vippy, and she had three children. The eldest was three years older than me and he goes to the University of Washington.

Most of the family spoke English because they all attended international schools in Bangkok and went to college in either the UK or the states.

Carter and I played Bananagrams with our “cousins” (everyone there was introduced as either a cousin or an aunt/uncle) and it was a really fun experience. They taught us some Thai and we taught them crazy English words. Like Dodecahedron.

We just went to lunch and I had a coke because I needed caffine so I could survive math during D block without passing out, but this was a mistake because now I feel like my blood is vibrating and the sugar high is not going to last for all of D block so now I guess I’ll just be sad.

The two days after we went to the Christmas party, we left for Cambodia. It was a one hour flight from the airport in Bangkok to the airport in Siem Reap. When we arrived we got in a tuk tuk that the hotel sent. After checking in, we decided that even though it felt like a million degrees out, we would go see Angkor Wat. It was 2pm, so not many other people were there, and it was so cool. It’s a giant temple and crazy detailed. Most of the surfaces are intricately carved and it’s really hard to believe that it was built in one king’s lifetime. It’s also super unregulated, so you’re free to walk through the temples at your own pace, seeing what you want to see, touching and climbing wherever and whatever you want.

I don’t think that’s what it’s going to be like much longer, because the temples are similar to Machu Pichu in the sense that they are old, made of stone, and an increasingly more popular tourist destination. So I’m really happy that I was able to go when I was.

After touring the grandest of all the temples, the next days we saw some that weren’t really as cool. But each of them had something unique that set them apart. My other two favorites were Angkor Tom which had a ton of faces carved into all the pillars, and another temple I can’t remember the name of that had trees growing on/in it.

In the evenings we would walk to some of the many night markets that were just a few blocks from our hotel. The people there would low key accost you and stalk you in order to try and get you to buy something. But everything there was pretty cheap, and you could bargain all the prices down. I bought two shirts for five dollars.

They also sell a ton of “designer” merch for like $10. Things like “Supreme” slides, or a “Gucci” wallet can be bought for less than twenty dollars. That is of course because it is all faked, and if you look hard enough, you can spot the differences in the logos. It was kind of weird to see though. And now you know that if you have a friend who recently went to Asia, their new Supreme sweatshirt is probably a fake that they got for fifteen dollars.

Another super great thing about Cambodia is the traffic patterns and laws. And when I say “great” I mean terrifying and chaotic. See, they have traffic laws, like drive on the right side of the road, and at stop signs you stop. But these “laws” are treated more like “friendly suggestions that don’t actually mean anything”.

For example, it is quite common to see a family of six and their chicken sharing one moped. And driving on the wrong side of the road is expected. And stop signs are ignored. And I felt like I might die at any minute, because the only way to drive there is to expect everyone to drive in front of you. Really the only rule is “get where you’re going as fast as possible and try not to hit anyone else”

super fun and not at all scary

Over break I had the privilege of going to Thailand to visit my grandmother who lives there. I am going to be using this to write the blogs I have this week because I am too lazy to come up with any other ideas.

The adventure began on December 21st at 7 pm when the Puranananda family gathered around their Christmas Buddha. We didn’t bother getting a tree because we weren’t going to be home for Christmas and there weren’t going to be that many presents anyway. Instead, we put the few presents we did have in front of the Buddha that resides where we usually put the tree. It was decorated with red ribbons and dubbed Christmas Buddha as a joke.

That night we celebrated Christmas and opened presents from my moms family. The main gift was really the trip to Thailand.

The next morning, on December 22nd at 10am we left for the airport. We boarded our plane at 12:10pm and we took off at 12:35pm. This flight was destined to last fourteen hours, and at the end of it we would have arrived in South Korea. This plane ride was not as terrible as one may think. We flew economy on Korean Air, and I would have to recommend the experience. There was a lot of leg room, enough that my brother (who is 5’8″) could straighten his legs entirely, though not super comfortably.

Another super fun fact is that Korean Airlines safety video is kpop themed. Now I greatly love and respect the KDC here at GD.And I do believe they are one of the few things to look forward to at pep-rally’s. I also know that some of my classmates are members. But I’m sorry, I could not stop cackling any of the four times I watched that safety video. It was very ridiculous. And also so long. If you want to view it, it is available on youtube if you search “Korean Airlines Safety Video”. I don’t really understand what is happening during most of it. It did get me to watch the whole thing the first time though, so if that was the goal, mission accomplished.

Now the rest of the flight was mediocre. I tried to sleep, but was unsuccessful. Instead I watched the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, then the first two Hunger Games movies. Then I was done with my phone so I moved over to the in-flight entertainment system tv thingy in front of my seat. It had a glorious selection of movies, however the only one that interested me was the new Dora movie. I can seriously say that I still have no clue what age group it was geared for.

For some reason they still had Dora turn and talk to the camera occasionally, and also there were people shooting at her. I was very confused for most of it. I think the writers may have been confused also.

For the last three hours of the plane ride I was exceptionally bored. So of course I decided to listen to all of my terrible music while I watched the 3D world map that tracked our flight. Looking at the flight plan, I was quite confused. Because it seemed like we should only be in the air for another hour. So why did the screen say three? Over the next thirty minutes it soon became apparent. We had flown from Boston, over the North Pole, and back down over Russia and China, and on the flight plan, it seemed we would be going over North Korea. This would be a terrible decision because our dear friends the North Korea have a really nice tendency to shoot foreign planes out of the air. So we took a two hour detour to avoid being blown up. I guess that was considerate.

It was all worth it to get to the airport in Soul though, because that is the best airport to have a layover in. In the transfer lounge, they have the two greatest things ever. The first, is free, 24 hour showers so you can feel refreshed for the next torturous leg of your journey. The second, is a freaking nap room. Complete with little cubical beds and charging ports for up to four devices.

That didn’t change the fact that we had landed and had no idea what time it was. In actual fact, it was 2:40am at home on December 23, but 4pm in Soul.

We then boarded our next plane at 9pm and arrived in Bangkok Thailand at 2:30am on December 24th. We then suffered through customs for an hour, before arriving at my grandmothers apartment at 4:30am on December 24th. That’s 4:30 pm on December 23rd in Massachusetts.

I recently had the pleasure of receiving an email from Tufts University. I applied there Early Decision on November first and then spent a month hoping I would be accepted. Decisions were sent out on Friday the 13, which I have now decided is the luckiest day ever because I got in!

I found out in the Five Guys in Nashua while sipping on my milkshake after swim practice. Needless to say, I was very excited. It feels so good to be completely done. All I have to do is make it through the rest of the year without failing all of my classes. Easy right? Just don’t get a D in calculus and I’ll be fine. Incorrect.

I also need to apply for as many scholarships as possible because college is expensive and I barely have enough money to pay for gas every few weeks.

The guidance website is slightly helpful, but you need to do a lot of the searching yourself. And even if you do find one that works for you, sometimes the website is sketchy, or they make you create an account. Like no thank you, please let me just write an essay and win a contest. Don’t send me three million emails I don’t care about. And it wouldn’t be bad if only one or two made me make an account, because then I could just delete the account when I was done. No. Most of the ones that are for more than $1,000 wanted me to make an account. I do not have the mental capacity to remember all of the scholarships I apply for and delete my accounts, so I must resign myself to either being crushed by spam emails or being crushed by debt.

I know which one I would choose, but still. I thought the spam emails would be done once you applied for college. I’ve received college emails for two years, I don’t need anymore emails about things I don’t care about.

Anyway, the title of this is “College Sucks”, but really I have no way of knowing that because I am most definitely not at college yet. However, I believe that people should be able to educate themselves without paying schools $70,000 a year. I’m sorry, but with $280,000 I could purchase a small condo and a car. And in the future if traveling to the moon was something people did regularly, I could probably do that like three times.

Besides, now with an undergraduate degree you can’t really do much. Especially in science or math. (tragically I am studying chemistry) So you have to go to graduate school. Which is even more money.

Now I know with inflation and all, costs of things will go up. But I feel like it’s gotten a little bit out of hand.

The whole system seems a little crazy. First I had to basically sell my soul to the college board when I turned sixteen. Now I’m becoming a willing slave to Tufts, a privilege that I’m going to pay a small fortune for, and I’m not even allowed to vote yet. I will be eighteen when I zip off to college, but I had to make the choice to apply ED while I was still seventeen. Who’s idea was it to be like “hmm, they aren’t consenting adults, but lets make them sell their souls and agree to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education. This is a smart choice.”

I’m pretty sure I will be fine. And I think I’m only freaking out because it’s just starting to sink in now. Once I have a little bit of time to talk about money with my parents and grandparents we will find a way to make it out. I might try to finesse some money from the my grandfather who #abandoned the family.

Also, this may be kind of mean, but this other person in the grade also applied to Tufts, but they didn’t get in. I got immense satisfaction from this because this person and I are not fond of each other. When I say “immense satisfaction” I mean Josh Booth, Maddie Donahue and I jumped for joy when we found out. We were just in my room screaming “this person” didn’t get in while jumping for two minutes.

I feel kind of bad because I think Tufts was the person’s top choice, but also if I hadn’t gotten in and they had I would have murdered something.

That is all for now. I must now go deal with my conflicting emotions of excitement and fear 🙂

Since U Been Gone by my gurl Kelly Clarkson is at this point in time one of my favorite songs ever. The reason for this can be boiled down to one person, Kimmie Harding. See Kimmie Harding and I spent an abnormal amount of time together for the months of September to November. I drove her to school, I saw her at practice, I drove her home from practice, I drove her to and from pasta parties, and I saw her at all the cross country bonding things we did. Basically if I was going somewhere in those three months, Kimmie was usually in my car.

Of course, this lead to us listening (and screaming) to a lot of music very loud in my car. There was a lot of variety usually. We would listen to Katy Perry, anything from Victorious or Big Time Rush, Avril Lavigne, and so much more. I had a whole playlist just for when she was in my car.

But there was one song that without fail, we would scream/shriek to every single time she was in my car. That song was Since U Been Gone.

It started on the way home from a pasta party at Sydney Adams house. We had stayed late in order to ensure Syd wasn’t stuck with someone she might physically harm on her own. We drove with the windows down, because that’s the only fun way to live, and listened to our terrible music all the way to Ava Metzgers house. After dropping Ava off, we then headed on to Kimmie’s house. On our way, Since U Been Gone played.

I’m not sure what possessed us to shriek, but it was the craziest thing ever. Our energy when screaming it during that car ride was so high and we had such a fun time. Ever since then, Since U Been Gone became our song, and we listened to it every day, sometimes twice a day.

I even wrote my song parody to Since U Been Gone. It was about cannibalism and I thought it was pretty funny.

I wrote my dearest Kim Dog two candy grams. They were both jokes, meant to make her turn red during chemistry. The first one is fairly mild, it just says the word “smoochies” which she hates. But the second one is hilarious. It reads “Hi boo! I am going to give you soooooooo many smoochies later 😉 u r soo hot. Love Hunter”

But do not be fooled, it was not written by Hunter. It was written by me and Sydney Adams in the hope that Kleeman would read it out loud to the class.

I took a small break from this for a little while so I’m not quite sure where I was going with it. However, during this time I did sing Since U Been Gone a couple more times.

The first was with Kimmie on Friday in my car on the way to school. This was absolutely wonderful because it had the effect of waking us right up for the school day. I was promptly placed back into sleep stasis in yoga, but it was nice for the twenty or so minutes it lasted.

I was quite thrilled after singing in the car. It really made my day so much better. I think that has something to do with the screaming. I would really recommend screaming every once in a while, it really releases the emotions.

Then on Saturday I cheated on Kimmie again. It was in the bus on the way home from a Saturday swim meet (thanks Ted Bundy) and my gurl Abigail Gribbon put on Since U Been Gone.

I’ll be honest, up until this point I had been peacefully minding my own business, creating a new playlist. But as soon as the song came on, I sat right up ready to scream. Except, Kimmie wasn’t there, and the speaker was kind of quiet.

But then the chorus happened and something else took over my body. I was physically unable to sing the song without screeching. So the entire bus got a suprise karaoke session by Claire because I was screaming so loud you couldn’t hear the speaker. I think I was just too tired to feel any shame, and in that moment I possessed more confidence than I ever have.

I’m 90% certain that the front of the bus (who probably couldn’t even hear the music when I wasn’t screaming) high key judged me for this. But you know, I don’t really have it in me to care. The screaming was definitely worth it.

I don’t have any idea what I want this blog to be about, but I need to write one so buckle up for something that may or may not make any sense.

Nothing super interesting has happened lately. I pretty much just get up, go to school, go home and zoom through my homework, and then go to swim for like four hours.

Yesterday I had a really good day though. First, school didn’t suck too much. Although I took a math test and I may have failed. I’m not sure yet.

Second, at 4:30 I received an email from UVM telling me that admission decisions were up. After trying to decide for about 30 minutes whether or not I wanted to look, I discovered that I was in fact accepted. They’re also giving me a lot money, which I think bodes well for the other schools I applied to. Honestly, even though it’s not my first choice I was really happy to hear I got in. It’s my first acceptance, so even if I don’t get in anywhere else I’m going somewhere that I liked when I toured. Today I’m hearing back from Tufts at 7pm. That’s going to be fun. I am slightly terrified.

After that though, my day got even better. Swim didn’t suck as much as it usually does because our practice was only until 7:15 pm rather than 7:30, because of a meet. My swim pals and I had had a super fun pizza and Mario kart night planned for about a week, so this was a small blessing. So at 7:15 the squad rolled out of the pool to the locker rooms to change, angering a certain person who did not receive an invite. To clarify though, we don’t not invite people to be malicious. The five of us have been doing this for almost a year and a half, even outside of swim season. It’s at Sam’s house and her parents buy us pizza, so it would be rude to invite the whole team. And if we added anyone to that, I would feel like we had to invite the whole team.

Anyway, last night was super fun. Per tradition, we all ate pizza with Sam’s family before going to the basement to play mario kart. I was Baby Peach in the Quacker (like always), Sam was Baby Daisy in a rocket ship thing (like always), Austin was Wario on a motorcycle (like always), Megan was Yoshi on a motorcycle (like always) and Ashleigh was Kunky Kong on a potted plant or something (again, like always). And per tradition, Sam won, I came in second and Ashleigh and Austin fought to see who would be 11th or 12th.

Some interesting things did happen last night that were not in line with tradition. First, I actually won a few races because Sam gave up Baby Daisy so she could try and coach Austin and Ashleigh into being less terrible. Second, (and honestly this was crazy) Austin actually WON a race. He got his first ever win at Yoshi Falls after getting a Bullet Bill and right before the end. It’s not an understatement when I say this was a MAJOR upset. We went crazy, this is something completely unheard of.

Another crazy thing that happened is kind of in line with tradition and kind of not. Ashleigh and Austin usually fight over who will be 12th, this much we know. Well, while playing DK Mountain, Austin fell from first to 11th. And while he could not make up the distance between him and the 10th place person, he was still in front of Ashleigh. Ashleigh on the other hand was in a solid 12th nearly the whole race. She was a solid three turns, a ravine and a bridge behind Austin (who was right by the finish). Ashleigh pulled an absolutely INSANE move, skipping the three turns by whipping over the ravine and flying across the bridge before passing Austin just before he crossed the finish line, solidifying her place in 11th.

The absolute defeat on Austins face was so sad, but also so funny.

Our Mario Kart Tournaments are very dramatic. We get extremely heated.

I am a little sad though because two of our swim buds, Sam and Megan, are going to New York for a school trip so they won’t be here for practice today or our first meet tomorrow. And my hero Assistant Coach Langston Hughes said he may or may not have put me in the 500 free and 200 IM and that combination makes me want to die so that will be fun I guess.

But the important thing to take away from this blog is that I LOVE playing Mario Kart.

So swim started last week. And honestly, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Sort of.

We have a new assistant coach named Langston Hughes. I don’t think his last name is actually Hughes, but I don’t know it so now his name is Langston Hughes. Now this guy is so cool. He has been swimming for a long time and he calls the 500 a sprint so obviously I love him. He does his best to make it so I’m not lapped in the fast lane and he does a really good job making the practices coach Andrew gives us better.

Now let’s talk about our dear coach ted. I don’t actually interact with him all that much anymore. He coaches the slower lanes now and stays with them to work on technique and stuff. I have absolutely no problems with this arrangement. I do feel bad for those lanes though, because they probably have to do wrong kick, which is just the worst drill in the history of ever.

Also coach ted shaved off his beard, so he looks slightly less like Ted Bundy. But it’s not enough to negate all of the factors proving that he is in fact Ted Bundy reincarnated. The evidence is too strong.

On Friday we were able to convince him to let us have a cannonball contest. A diver won it, obviously, but it was still fun.

I’m still not looking forward to going to practice though. I swim in a lane with Cam Watlet, Gavin Duhamel, Austin Drake, Abbigail Gribbon and three others. This would not be a problem if we were the same speed, but Gavin and Cam are super fast. They can do 100’s on 1:05 or 1:10, which is pretty normal for boys their age, espcially since their so dedicated to the sport. Abby and Austin aren’t too far behind them. Then there’s me and the other three. I’m out of shape, so right now I can only do 1:20’s, but eventually I’ll be able to do 1:15’s. Tragically, this means I should not be in the same lane as Gavin and Cam. Especially since they can do 50’s in 30 seconds. This means that since we leave the wall 5 seconds apart, after six people, Cam will be back at the wall. Now why ever would this cause a problem?

Because there are eight of us in the lane. So when I’m about to leave, Cam comes back. Joy. It’s quite the mess.

Why don’t we leave four seconds, or three seconds apart you may wonder. That seems like a wonderful solution. Well that only means that Cam and Gavin and Abby are swimming on top of each other, which is unpleasant as well. There is no winning.

But if we take a quick rewind back to Langston, we can discuss why this man is fantastic. He gives us intervals that we can all make easily and says “if you don’t all do eight dolphin kicks off each wall none of these count.” So we all get something out of it.

Langston is honestly a god send, meaning he will probably quit after this year because that’s what always happens, but we all love him.

I don’t have much else to say.

We’ve only had three practices so nothing very interesting or dramatic has happened yet.

Although these three practices have really solidified my absolute hatred for one person who will remain nameless. There is no need to spread dislike. However every time the person speaks it makes me want to jump off a cliff. I feel bad because it takes a lot for me to dislike a person, but here we are.

Also my brother did swim for three days, but he quit. I have mixed feelings about this. I’m sad because the 20 minute drives were nice brother sister bonding time, but also I couldn’t listen to my really bad music really loud, so I’m kind of happy he’s not going anymore.

We have to sell fudge for a fundraiser and its kind of the worst thing ever. The fudge is $8 for 8oz so it’s not cheap and I don’t blame people for not buying it. I do not want to sell it, but as a captain I am kind of required to try. It’s the worst. We won’t get that much money anyway because everyone is tired of doing it.

I have zero desire to write any more about swim. It is making me dread practice tonight.

I told myself I would write three blogs on Sunday, and then Sunday came and I chose not to do that. Instead I played Civilization V for like six hours.

If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a game where you have a civilization and you compete against other people for resources while trying to keep your people happy. I always start the games telling myself I’m going to be peaceful, and then I end up attacking everyone because I’m selfish and I want all of the things.

Any way, while I was doing that I watched netflix and then I tried to go to sleep at 9pm which didn’t work because I have the internal clock of a bat. This means that at 11 pm I was suddenly very motivated to do my math homework and also eat three sandwiches at the same time. This is not what one wants when trying to fall asleep.

Now let’s rewind to Friday. After swim practice (which we will be discussing later) I went to Josh Booths house. Honestly that shouldn’t surprise anyone. We practically have a weekly sleepover every Friday. His house is my second home. While I was there I ate the burrito his mom so kindly got me from Chipotle. I cannot state enough how nice it was of her to get me because I didn’t respond to Josh’s text at 6pm asking if I wanted one (in my defense I was in the pool, not just ignoring them). After eating the delightful burrito I convinced Josh to start doing Vlogmas, and it has been a huge success. At first we could not get the app to work though, but it was 11 pm so I was suddenly flooded with superpowers and was able to work out all of the problems in record time.

After crafting Vlogmas for that day, Josh and I played Civ V until 3 am. The game is addicting. During this time we started our civilizations and absolutely demolished Sweden. With us teamed up against him, the guy had no chance. After that I went to sleep when Josh tucked me in on his couch. He made me into a blanket burrito. It took three blankets.

I slept very well from 3:30 to 7:30 when I had to get up for my swim meet. But before my swim meet I had to go drop my car off to get new tires, because mine would kill me in the snow. Unfortunately the tire place didn’t have tires the correct size. This made my dad very mad, and I didn’t get new tires. Now I must wait another dangerous week to get new ones.

The swim meet went pretty well. I do not like most of the people on my team though, so it was a painful five hours.

Then I went to a chamber concert to see my dear friends Joshua and Taryn sing many songs. They were both very good. My favorite part was making direct eye contact with Josh and making silly faces at him. My least favorite part was accidentally making eye contact with the delightful person behind him. This person will not be named. They will simply be called rat. Rat doesn’t like me or my friends and we aren’t big fans of rat either. That’s why it was super fun to make eye contact with rat. I made eye contact with rat more times than with Josh or Taryn because rat was staring directly at me and Cecilia the whole time. It was weird!

After that I got thai food with Cecilia and went home. Then I drove Michelle Chu home from my house. During this drive I cheated on Kimmie Harding because I listened and screamed along to Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson without her. I am quite ashamed of myself.

Then it was Sunday, something we already discussed.

I titled this sledding at 1 am because I had a dream about sledding at Larter field in the middle of the night.

It was actually super fun in my dream and now I want to do it this weekend. Tragically I probably won’t be able to because that would seem “sketchy” and my parents might think I’m buying drugs. They put this stalker app on my phone that tracks my movements, and this annoys me. My mother says they don’t stalk me, but when I made it so I didn’t allow the app to find my location they got mad at me. Then, to test them, I told my mom I was going to the library when I was actually going to Josh Booths house. I got an angry text about lying not 5 minutes after I had arrived.

I’m almost 18. This is an invasion of my privacy. I feel like they must not trust me if they have to keep tabs on me like this.

If it is not clear enough by now, I am running out of ideas. Well that’s not true. I have ideas, I just can’t think of titles for them. Anything titled with “My Swim Coach is Ted Bundy” is now going to just be me talking about swim.

I have a feeling I’m going to be ranting a heck of a lot soon. Practices were supposed to start yesterday, but the Lowell Tech closed today and yesterday so it didn’t. And if GD doesn’t have school they can’t force us to go to practice. Because funny story, did I mention that our swim team is combined with Tyngsboro? I can’t remember if I did or not. Well it is, and the coach is a math teacher there. So that’s why I can’t speak to him in person and must wait for him to return my emails at a snails pace. If I had wanted it to take more than two days to get a response, I would’ve contacted him via SNAIL MAIL not E-MAIL, an already inconvenient communication method.

This swim season is going to be interesting to say the least. I’m not sure what our coach expects from us, but my only goal is to try and have a good time. It’s my last season. I want to have fun. I don’t care if I drop the 4 seconds I wanted to drop, or if I finally break a minute on my 100 free. These are all things I should’ve been able to do if I was swimming regularly. But I’m not. So I want to just enjoy the time I will have with my friends.

Not that that is going to be easy.

I’m not sure if our coach can make anything fun. The other captains and I had a meeting to discuss things we wanted to do on the first day. It mostly consisted of us learning each others names and teaching everyone the basic rules so no one was confused at the first meet or in the first practice.

Usually we throw new people to the wolves, expecting them to “figure it out” but not everyone knows what all the strokes are, so we need to start at the basics.

He shot us down unfortunately. So now I’m not sure when we’re going to do that, because we will be swimming in practice so we can’t tell the new kids what to do.

I’m expecting this to go a lot like it did last year. He will stone wall us by not responding and just throwing us in the pool as soon as we get to practice so we never have time to talk to him.

Also in an email he sent out he called Julia Kay the “team captain”. Now this wouldn’t have caused a problem with me had he mentioned the other captains too. See Julia one of the most amazing people I have ever met. She is basically the diving coach, she organized carpooling and put together the team store. She was also a captain last year, and she deserves the title of “Team Captain” because she is the most motivated and the most experienced and definitely the most helpful.

But here’s what really grinds my gears, he made it seem like she was the only person who did anything. And I’m sorry, but we had a meeting to get all of the stuff we wanted for the team store. We designed the shirts together, we picked out the merch we wanted together, we designed the placement of the logo and name together, I came up with the cheer, Sam made the list of the things we wanted to accomplish the first day. The rest of us do stuff too.

And the rest of the team don’t even know we’re captains too. I just think that’s slightly unfair. It also scares me a little, because Nabo kind of did that and I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be captain the first day of practice.

I’m also kind of worried about certain other seniors who weren’t named captain at the end of the season last year. (another thing is I’m afraid he forgot his decision) Because one of them, who will remain nameless, is really heckin bossy. She’s the type to pretend she’s captain even though she isn’t and talk to the underclassmen as though she has power over them. The worst is when she spreads information that is completely false and then we have to go back and tell everyone what’s actually going on.

I am stressed.

So I wasn’t going to write about running camp again because some things are better left short and sweet, but Clarissa reminded me of two things I forgot to add to my previous blog.

The first thing was another team that was at the camp too. These people were the Westfield Boys, aka the most annoying human beings on the planet. I cannot describe how terribly obnoxious they were. They were so very loud and so very rude. Some of them were in Group Four, and their chant (each group was supposed to have one) was “GRROOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPP FOOOOOOOUUUUUUUURRRRRR” and when one of them yelled it, all of the rest of them joined in. Think the seagulls from Nemo, except louder and yelling longer.

One of the Westfield boys was not as terrible as the rest. In fact he was probably the only nice one out of all of them. His name was Rory and he was super sweet. He did his own thing and really loved running. He became a celebrity at camp and did a dance to Africa by Weezer on karaoke night. He was complicated, but super cool.

Another super fun thing that happened is we almost died.

Not really, that’s probably not true, but there was a strange occurrence the night before the last day at camp.

See it was 10:15, and like the rebel I am, I was not going to sleep. Instead, I was texting my bro Ava who was in Clarissa’s room because we were both bored. Well while we were texting, we hear one of the counselors yell outside our window at girls on the third floor of our dorm because they hadn’t turned their lights off. And that seemed pretty normal. I mean some people wanted to be rebels, I wasn’t going to stop them. But interestingly enough, we were on the third floor. There were four rooms for our team and then another ten for other girls. Seven of those rooms were in a different suite, but three were in ours.

Still nothing odd, nothing to freak out over. Then we heard a scream. And that was strange. It wasn’t like an “I’m dying” scream, but wasn’t a startled “what the heck” sort of scream either. It was more of a combination of the two. And it came from somewhere in our suite.

Then a door slammed and there was running. Then another slam and more running. And then another slam. Then someone tried to get into my room. The door handle jiggled and someone sort of banged against it. Then they walked away.

That was freaky. Because I figured if it was a counselor or something they would’ve knocked and asked if we were alright. But that’s not what happened. It was strange.

And it is still unclear what actually happened, since the next morning everyone was acting normally and we were the closest to the event, so we should’ve had all the details.

At the time it sounded like someone was dying, because of the scream, but really that theory had no merit. It was just strange.

I couldn’t go to sleep for a few hours after the door incident. I kept thinking the person was going to come back, but eventually I fell asleep and everything was fine.

I kind of want to know what happened, but I never will.

I have to say that running camp was one of the best weeks of my summer. If I had to rank them it would go: Turks and Caicos with my family, New York Pride with Josh and Cecilia, then Running Camp, and finally Saw Week with Josh.

It sounds crazy that I would put running camp up there, but it was so much fun. I didn’t want to go home. But any other year it would not have been nearly as fun as it was. The reason it was great was a combination of doing something you love with people that you genuinely like and have fun with.

Cross country before this year had a lot of people in it that didn’t make it fun. They low key bullied anyone that wasn’t in their clique, which was annoying. So running camp with them would’ve sucked. But this year was good. I think everyone had an awesome time, and that makes me so happy.

LMAO I just wrote “heppy” and couldn’t see why that was wrong. I can’t with myself.

I need to get out of my house. Maybe I’ll go sledding or something.

So we have had two whole snow days so far, and as a result I have had a whole week off from school. I am hoping for at least two more this year, and since its the only the second day of December, I am rather optimistic.

This break has been kind of meh for me. I stayed home pretty much the whole time. My grandparents, my aunt, uncle and their two kids came to my house. It went all right. Nothing too crazy happened, no outrageous things were said and no crazy fights happened.

One Friday I saw some of my friends in college since they were home for Thanksgiving and on Saturday I saw some of my swim friends. Now though all I’m doing is watching more Law and Order SVU. I’ve seen like three seasons this week alone.

I was also taking care of my friend Josh’s dogs. The insane ones that run at your car and basically almost die every time someone drives up the driveway. Taking care of them was an interesting experience. I would feed them and let them out in the mornings, then feed them and let them back in at night. Not too crazy right? Well that would be incorrect. Since there was snow and Josh wasn’t coming back until Monday night, I got to go let them out and back in with all the snow.

This was a super fun experience, because their drive way wasn’t super well plowed, it’s super steep, and my tires suck. I went to their house three times yesterday because the dogs couldn’t be out in the snow all day. Every time I drove there I slipped at least three times. My favorite one was when I was turning around to leave the last time, and I had my foot all the way down on the brake and I started sliding down the driveway anyway 🙂 So much fun. Not scary At All.

Another super fun thing about letting the demon dogs out and then back in is that they wouldn’t come back very quickly. This became an issue when I was trying to leave, because they just would not come back.

I’m so bored. It’s so snowy. I don’t want to go back to school, but I don’t want to be in my house for any more days. I can’t do anything either because if I go drive anywhere I might die.

Not actually. I’m not a terrible driver, and I could probably make it to wherever I needed to be, but I’d rather not risk it. Like yes, I could go somewhere, but where would I even go? And do I really want to drive at 20 mph the whole way there?

I mean, I slipped on Josh’s road going a hot fifteen mph, and I was fine, but there was no one else on the road.

I have to talk for two minutes in Spanish the next day we have school, which I’m assuming will be tomorrow. I have to talk about my “to do list” which is just the worst. Because I don’t have all that much stuff that I have to do. Certainly not enough to talk about for two minutes, which is actually a pretty long time since I talk fast when I’m nervous. Also I’m not too sure what I’m going to say.

I’ve finished my college applications, I’m just waiting to hear back from my early decision school so I know whether or not I need to spend all the money to submit my other applications.

I don’t have that much homework, I mean I have to study for my math quiz that I don’t want to fail, but other than that I don’t have much.

I have swim practice and other captains duties, but that deserves it’s own blog and I can’t really explain myself in Spanish. Besides, the swim stuff takes seven years to get done since the coach NEVER RESPONDS TO MY EMAILS. Like sir, I don’t go to your school. I must email you. Please respond to my yes or no question in less than two days. I think that’s a pretty reasonable request. Literally just yes or no. It would take two minutes to read and respond.

Other that though I have to find and apply for scholarships so that I drown a little bit less in debt when I’m done with college. I mean, $500 would go a long way here and there.

But heres the deal. That would take less than a minute to discuss in Spanish, so I’m unsure of what I’m going to do. I’ll probably spend the first thirty seconds talking about how even though I had the week to prepare I still didn’t.