Summer Post #7: Comparisons Part 1

Yeah, you knew the time would come.

I get this a question a lot from newer friends in WA-
"Do you like it more here or there?"

And I get this from older friends in CT-
"What's Washington like?"

I'm going to answer the first question...well, first. And the other one tomorrow.

Things about Connecticut and my hometown that Washingtonians may care about or find interesting:

• My hometown is really small. Imagine A-Town. Now cut it into a fifth of its original size. But make sure you leave one road that you can call a "downtown" With a teensey tiny move theatre (like tinier than ours) that plays new movies about 3 months late for $3 and a 50's-style ice cream shoppe with really cheap candy. And a bunch of antique shops. and the bar. I'm starting to realize that I don't really know my hometown that well. only the parts I'm really familiar with. Well, just throw in a few housing developments and a ton of farms and you've got the basic scene.
• The HS colors are blue and gold. I love coincidences. But theirs are more of a royal and yellow.
• I find this point quite funny. Most everyone in Western WA knows where about A-Town is. But If you say "I'm from Seymour.", you generally get a strange look and have to explain that it's near Ansonia.
• Our Softball Teams are beastly. Like I can't even describe them in words other than Epic Win. All ages, and leagues, we kick ass. (haha. I think I have room to say that I am nothing like a natural athlete, but there is something in the water that produces good softball players. Softball is just a natural thing with me.) It's not uncommon for the high school to go 3 or 4 years without a single loss.

This is more about Connecticut in General, not to overgeneralize:

• We drive like assholes. And it's uncommon to get pulled over for going less than 20 mph over the speed limit, cuz there are way worse people out there.
• We have this theme park, called Lake Coumpounce, and Its pretty amazing. And its right across the street from ESPN headquarters. On the topic of ESPN, there are gigantic flat screen TV's everywhere in the bathrooms. haha.
• A lot of War of the Worlds was shot in CT, and I know exactly where. =)
• Also, on the topic of movies, A Haunting in Connecticut, if you didn't know, is based on a true story. I've been by the house it's about, and my grandma lived right down the street. One of my aunts went to it with her friends in High school or something and I hear it is pretty dang creepy.
• God, writing this reminds me of how small CT is. although I kinda love it.
• A "package" store is where one buys liquor. I really don't know why we call them that.
• Okay, this is a bit weird, but I'm from the Valley, which has a ton a smaller towns and some cities in the connecticut river valley. appeaently the rest of the state has a bunch of rich preps. (trying not to over-generalize, but you haven't been there, so you can't understand the partially-true sterotype.) and while in this area, you can see people with cardigans tied around their necks. its a bit weird. actually, think of carlton from fresh prince.
• ^ Appearently we're "The Richest State"
• And you know when you leave the Not-as-Preppy-Valley. Personal experience comes into play bigtime there. I can't really explain without a ton of photos.
• You can't buy liqour on sundays. or past 6 o clock at night . not that I care, but its a bit weird. I thought it was like that everywhere.

So, you ask, "Which do you like better?" and personally, I have no idea. I really like the small town feeling and the closeness of everything, but the people on the west coast are way different than what I'd be used to. East coast seems too rushed for me. and its not like a cool sort of fast paced ness, its more like "Get the fuck out of my way or i will kill you". but I've lived that atmosphere, so I'm used to it. yeah, I love people in connecticut, and I love people in Washington. But any comparison is like apples to oranges. I like Connecticut weather. you don't have to go to the mountains to get snow, and its in the 100s in the summer. And I like the beaches on that coast a bit more, they're sandier, and the waves can be amazing. I like Washington scenery a bit more though. and the air is better, no lie.

I've lived in oppisite corners of the country. think about it. A-Town and Seymour are about as far away on the map as you can get. And you'd think that they are really similar, and in some ways they are, but in many others, they are way different.

TO BE CONTINUED IN A 3 PART SERIES

Summer Post #6: Sports Rant? With some Actual Content? And Original Thought? Longest post ever.

Again, I have nothing to write about. usually someone on the web gives me something to elaborate on, but I can't find anything really useful.

So. I'm just going to rant a bit. haha.

I started thinking about this a while ago, but I'm having issues organizing my thoughts in a way that I could make a decent essay out of. But its my scholarly paper idea. I'll call this a prewrite. =D

And btw, If you've never seen a prewrite of mine, they're the ugliest things ever. No pretty bubbles, or outlines, or webs. Just words. Frigging everywhere. And somehow I make sense of it all. Then I graduate to Prewrite 2.0, which is called Rough Draft #1 for English class's sake. And I don't let a lot of people read those. 'Cause they're a bit scary. They actually sound like these blogs. Just me, talking to me; saying whatever I think, pulling up weird connections and tangents...

Now I'm done talking about writing process.
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I MUST SAY SOMETHING FIRST THOUGH:
okay, I'm watching the news while writing this, and I just must say something.
Okay, so there is an actual story about the weather (lame) and this lady from marysville is like, "I don't like the rain. I don't like the feeling of it touching my skin". I just started cracking up and yelled, "Then why the hell do you live in the state of washington?" I thought the entire thing was hilarious.

That reminds me, almost everytime a talk to a long lost friend and tell them I live in Washington, the first question I get is *fangirl voice* "OOOHH!! DO YOU LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR FORKS?!?!" *end fangirl voice* Although please forgive me for saying "fangirl" I should have said "fan girl/boy". Yeah.

That whole vampire thing is a LIE. It's an overrated teen novel. Get over it.
People amuse me.

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So, Sports Rant. Full of Little Fact, and a lot of no-no words.

This beginning makes no sense in the realm of what I want to say, but I feel like making fun of select softball for a while. It may get funny. Espically for all who play and understand my sense of humor.

I play softball. Most everyone knows that. Pretty hardcore softball, if I do say so myself. A lot of my best friends play softball. It just comes with all of the time we spend together. We practice together for hours on end, several days a week. We wake up early on weekends and travel to who-knows-where to play a tourney. Sometimes we travel together, often all staying on the same floor of the same hotel at our out-of-area tourneys. (and yes, its tourneys, not tournies. Even though both look weird.) We're away from our homes for the weekend, and we play somewhere between 5 and 8 games in two days. We become completely drained of all will to accomplish anything but to play this sport that we call our life.

We wake up. We dress as one. We get to the field. We warm up. We make our way to the dugout. Two of us walk up with the coach to do the stupid coin flipping ceremony. We shake hands and put on our cutesey fake smiles. We exchange names, though we'll never remember them; Unless one of the other team's girls is someone who, for some reason, we have decided to hate. Or maybe it's an old friend, one who our entire team has known for years. And now we hate them too for an hour and 20 minutes, because that's the way it goes. Mr. Umpire takes out his stupid coin. Which, of course, is never just a simple quater. Its some fancy thing. Oh, and if it's a female umpire, me make a mental note to blame any loss on her. Because we all know that female umpires suck. (okay. that was called sarcasm. Maybe not sarcasm exactly. More towards satire. But almost every girl I've played with has had the presumtion that girl umpires are the worst. And though many are, I refuse to hold that opinion. I'll end this with personal experience: It is not fun to be a 15-year old girl umpire making a close call that goes against the team with the hot head coach who is okay with his team talking about how girls shouldn't play baseball. God, I hate sterotypes.) Well, we get on with the flipping. The winner calls home team, as usual. For some reason, we find it necessary to put on the fake smiles and shake hands again. We all say "Good Luck Ladies" and "Thank you Blue" like good little girls. (Mind you that if our coach takes the chance of taking me to the plate meeting, then this entire process is really unconventional, espically if I know the umpire. =D) The two girls and the coach rejoin their waiting team. For some reason, nobody paid attention to whether we're home team or not. We talk about that for a while. We come into a circle and try to enforce team unity with a generic cheer. Then we do our thing for 7 innings. Pitch. Strike. Throwback. Pitch. Ball. Throwback. Pitch. Ball. Throwback. Pitch. Foul. Throwback. Pitch. Strike Three. Rinse and Repeat with slight variation. Yeah, it's fun and all, but I'm realizing how boring this sport can really be if you're not playing. We're 16 U. We're too cool for cheers. None of the other teams do them. We win as a team. We lose as a team. We go out for ice cream afterwards. We do it all again tomorrow.

^^^^^^What we do for at least half of the weekends in our season.^^^^^^

*cue reflection that begins to connect to topic*
I'm not gonna lie, that was pretty fun to write. Yeah, I have fun and all, but I'm a very "If it's not fun I'll make it fun" kind of person. I'm a rollercoaster. Not your average rollercoaster either. The kind that tends to fly off the tracks at certain times. I like playing. I'm competive. I like hanging out with my friends. I'm good at what I do. Over the last two or so years of playing, I've tried to be the best I could, but focused on the reality of things. It's a game. Yeah, we all mess up, but I tend to get by my mistakes really easily. And that may be why I make less of them. With the help of my teammates, we've figured out that I have a style when it comes to this game. It can't really be explained, but in short, I give it all but don't take the game too seriously. I get hurt, I laugh my ass off. I can't do things the easy way, my body just likes to fall on the ground and embarass itself. I guess I don't take it seriously enough, according to some people. Yeah, people go to college on full rides for this game. I'm freaking glad that my parents don't really care if I do, or I would not be happy playing this sport. If they had, I would have played till I was about 15, then I would have just flat-out dropped it. Actually, before then, I don't think I really enjoyed softball. I've changed way too much over the past 2 years. I'm going to keep playing, and if any post-hs opputunity comes, sure. But there is no way I'm even close to planning on it. It's fun. That's all.

*don't worry, the point of this post is on its way*

The problem I see with the entire thing is that fun has nothing to do with youth sports anymore. Well, obviously, for the fortunate few, it still is about fun. But historically, If you went through SVLL, you have no chance of making it to MLB. Yeah, this is a tad pesimistic. I'm not saying that dreams don't come true. and If you really want something, you can work towards it and maybe you have a shot. All I'm saying is that Ichiro, Jeter, Finch, Kobe, Manning, They're just a few guys (and one girl, for accuracy's sake.) who made it big. Yeah, there are tons of big-name sports guys out there, but how many people are in the world? (I'd really like exact numbers eventually so I could come up with the odds of being big in sports.) The thing is, kids are often being trained way too young to be great at one sport; to become "The next [insert famous athlete name here]".

[this is where I blame parents] Every parent wants their kid to succeed. A lot of children can begin playing two sports, each at a different time of year. But soon after their child begins to excel at the local little league or soccer program, they drop one and focus on the other. Parents dish out huge money to play on a select team with superior coaching [another story], just so their kid has a chance. [I can only speak for softball on this...] Children can begin focusing on one sport at as young as the age of 8. No child has any clue what they would like to focus on at this time in their life. Instead of spending weekends learning to read better or making new friends, they are practicing and playing in tournaments until they are drained of all energy. The parents, in many situations, are caught up in making a dream come true, that they forget what their child might really want and lose sight of what might be best for them.

[This is where I blame coaches....but don't have a lot to say.] No coach wants to share thier kid. They want them at every practice, for the duration of the practice. They don't care if you have basketball at 6, you're here to practice softball from 4-7. And that's the way it goes. Instead of being praised for trying to expand their skills and become a better all-round athlete, they are often punished for missing practice.

There is too much outside pressure on the youth athletes to specialize in one sport at an early age. [<--- I guess that's an early stage thesis?] [oh, that entire thing above was just back story, but I lack quoted fact that can back up reasons why this is whole early specialization thing is bad] [and I'm tired...so Bullet time!]

This is bad because:
-stress (phychological thingies!)
-no time for anything else
-pressure from parents and coaches to succeed.
- things that come from not pleasing the above people
-Physical harm (medical thingies!)
- overworking of certain muscle groups
-strain
-messing up other muscles as a result of building up others
-I forget the name, but like the bicep/tricep relationship
-eventually effing up something bigtime
-hahah, your dream just crashed and burned
-Growing up too fast (hmm. Developmental thingies!?)
- no time for anything else
-no friends from other activities
- being told what they want, not figuring it out
- sad face. =(

haha. now that I just dissed what I've done for the last 5 years of my life...I'll go to bed now.

however, I would like some reassurance that I'm not crazy.

Summer Post #5: Another Crappy Journal Post.

I have a friend in need. So this is going to be quick...

-I went to Kayak point today! It was really fun. but I miss east coast beaches.
I might be going tomorrow too.

I was there all day, so I have no crazy news stories or rants... =/

Although I ripped my shirt while I was there. The strap on my cami decided to go crazy and break free from the rest of it.

haha. Connecticut IN 10 DAYSSSS!! haha. i did that consonant thing.

I really need another news story. I'm likin' how my news commentary is going. even though only one of my friends read it.

Oh. and the link on my post about killing mockingbirds is blocked by myspace, so just google it.

Crappy Post! sorry. its late. gotta cheer up a friend. goodnight

Summer Post #4: This Post really is useless.

Today, I already re-coded my myspace profile, filled in the about me thing with pictures and some sort of lame intro to me. I took forever.

Then I posted a bulliten about whyyy girls add extra consonants to theirrr wordssss. I guess I kinda knewww, but I just wanteddd to see what peopleee would sayyy.

Kay, I'm done talking like that now.

This post is going downhill really fast. I'm not really expecting it to turn out well anyway.
Nope, no rants about the Dinsey Chanel, no talking about unfair trials. nope.

Buttttt. Happy birthday shoutout to my mom's friend, Sandy.

Goodnight!

Summer Post 3: This is what Happens when You Wake up at 2pm. (I really Like what I say in this one)

...You have a complete lack of inspiration for the entire day.
And now I'm not tired at all.

I was going to write about some connection I made, but it doesn't seem as cool now.
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Nothing new musically, I'm broke.
I need to learn how to parallel park correctly before next Tuesday. I can't always get it on the first try.
I got my hair cut, it looks kinda cute =)

I have an idea for a photoshop project. I can see it looking really cool in my head...I just gotta start it. You know me, it'll be a photography project. I hope it comes out good. If you've seen the cover of that book I made freshman year, for english, its the same concept. But realistic, obviously. Two photos as one, the mirror scene thing, two different people. I'm feeling a bit personality-disorder-ish. I'm happy I'm a Gemini, I can just blame astrology for everything. My super hyper/lazy sides, my really deep/comedian sides, my cynicism/belief in good in people, my eternal smiling optimism/dark pessimism. If you really want, I can explain it better, but you'll see when it's done. But I first gotta find a mirror. I wrote that chunk about my oppisite-ness in the middle of this paragraph. awkward writing flow. sorry.

woo. time to sound a bit happier!
I can't stand highschool sterotypes in pop culture.
It's driving me a bit nuts.

random connection to literature?!?!?! (LOF specifically made me think of this) I mean, I guess certain "Types" of people can be shown (connection came up from leadership of that one kid whose name is escaping me, Piggy's rationality, etc) (if you've read the book, I hope you know what I'm talking about) , but I'd prefer if these one-dimensional character types weren't on the Disney Channel. All of the popular girls are rich bitches, all of the Jocks are dumb, and all of the nerds get thrown into trash cans. Can we show that people aren't just a label. Not that this would have any value if it was alligory-ish (i think that's the lit term...) This channel is targeted at kids in middle school mostly, and I think that's why freshmen are the way they are. Not to be a total hypocrite and throw all freshmen into a category, but a lot of youngies seem to believe in the sterotypes I outlined above, keeping them in their same social circles they've established since 7th grade.

hmm, after that little rant... I've deduced that It's not just Middle School that ruins kids (friend o' mine said that...and I guess I believe it), but its the message that is somehow given to them, saying that they belong in a certain clique, this clique is destined to hate certain other cliques, and for some reason, there is no leaving the established clique. That is, until you grow the eff up.

THEREFORE, I BLAME MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
(and the rap music, lmao)

as I commonly mention in conversations about conformity:
"All of the kids who don't want to conform get together, shop at the same stores, listen to the same crappy music, and end up looking exactly the same."

This is what happens when you let Kori watch the Disney Channel.

One thing I do want to know though, is how do cliques start, really? we go from all being friends in our little classes of 25 in elementary school, to being middle schoolers who think we know everything, who somehow end up hanging out only with our best friends, and eventually wage war on those who once were our friends.

Personal connection: Yeah, i was a really lame middle schooler who talked to no one, but when I went to 6th grade, I can't really remember any good friends who I made who went to other elementary schools.

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OKAY, now that a ton of my friends think I've lost it... I'm going to stop here.

wow. that was a bit weird to say the least.

Summer Post #2: Killing Mockingbirds

Yeah. My reference to "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a bit drastic, and is getting old really fast, I'm sure, but I need to write more fully about this.

BUT FIRST, Small Matters.
--I forgot a goal yesterday, I need at least 3 more girls for the softball team thing.
--I actually have something to write about today, yay me.
--Since when do I feel so opinionated?

OK, ON TO THE STORY
Yeah, I know it's late, and I probably won't finish this post by midnight, so fail-a-palooza for me.
So, Please excuse any poor grammar, spelling mistakes, etc. I'm tired. But I'll try.

For the first time in a while, I am writing for a purpose other than to say what I've done today.

I read an artice on ESPN online (yeah, I don't even read ESPN mag, I was thrown towards the article by someone I hold respect for.) http://tinyurl.com/nxy6rl <---- Yeah, there it is.

Basically, this guy, Eric Frimpong, has been convicted of raping some girl. I think the evidence in this case sucks, and that there is no way that this guy is, as we say, "Guilty beyond reasonable doubt." What ever happened to "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"? Regardless if Eric actually is guilty, there is nowhere near enough evidence to have him thrown in jail for 6 years. The victim had a BAC of somewhere between .29 and .34, and had lapses of memory. There was no DNA evidence from Eric on the victim, and the entire thing seemed a bit fishy to me. Not to play the racisim card, but he's an immigrant from Ghana, here to play soccer. He has little monetary resources, and his jury of peers was 9 white women and 3 white men.

This thing seems a bit old, but I just learned about it, and there'll be an artice in the next issue of ESPN mag, so I thought I'd share.

Yeah, I'll be researching this a lot more and trying to follow it, but another question:"Why the hell have I not heard about this until today?" Doesn't it need a little more coverage?

Well, I'll wrap this up here. I don't care if he really is guilty or not (well, I guess I do, but...) he deserves a fair trial, which I don't think took place here.

Summer Post #1: Goals

So, the first post of this one-a-day journal thing. I guess some of my friends might read this, cuz I'm way to lazy to un-sync it from facebook, And I will copy it to Myspace, just cuz I like to.

Oh! before I actually get going, I want to share that I bought 3 albums yesterday:

One that came out today, (yeah, it said July 7th, but I bought it at like 11:50 something) One that came out 2 weeks ago, and one that came out a few months after I was born...hehe.

--Nothing Personal (All Time Low)

--Octahedron (The Mars Volta)

--Big Ones (Aerosmith)

I usually don't buy nearly this much music in one day, either, so its a big thing.

My comments:

Nothing Personal: Actually, I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. Then again, the last All Time Low album I bought took a while to grow on me, so maybe I'll like this one later.

Octahedron: Really interesting. I didn't even know The Mars Volta until a friend brought them up in a spontaneous conversation, and then it took a while for me to like their stuff, so I only knew 4 or 5 songs by them before I bought it, but I like it a lot.

Big Ones: Should I even have to say anything about this one? Aerosmith, and some of their best stuff. I really don't know why I never bought this album before. I knew all of the songs, I guess I wanted to steal the CD from my dad and I kept forgetting, so I just spent $7 (for 15 songs, may I add.) Favorite songs: Angel, Love in an Elevator, Livin' On the Edge. Might change though, once I listen to the ones I didn't know as well before.

Yeah, I just looked at my reflection of All Time Low's new album, then looked at the songs I had by them, and decided that I'd pay $3 for the rest of their album Put Up or Shut Up. And I already like it better than this new one... but I do have to give it a chance.

Oh, and Yes, I do like overrated-sorta-crappy-pop-punk bands. Let me be!!!

Obviously, if you know me at all, you know I don't limit myself to one genre, so you can't judge me. =P

NOW, ONTO WHAT I WANTED TO WRITE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

ya'know, this is why I never finish anything, I find other things more interesting and go back to them and do unnecessary work on them, I could have just told you that I bought new music, but noooo, I had to go into unnecessary detail about things you don't care about, and now I'm rambling, wonderful.

...

you see, I wrote the below sentence before I wrote all of the above crap.

...

...

Well, this is my first post, so I want to set out some goals for myself.

I'm am NOWHERE near a goal-setting type of person, either, so this can get tough.

Goals for this summer:

-Actully post once a day like I said I would

-Get My Driver's Licence
-Go to Connecticut and have an amazing time.

-Learn to play guitar better

-Hang with Sio while in CT

-See a friend other than just Kate while in CT

-Do my summer homework =)

-Do something I've never done before

-Draw things

-Take a lot of photos

-Make new friends

Wow. That's really boring.

Well, they're realistic.