High Horse's Courting

I just read this hilarious story from my English book called, "High Horse's Courting". It made me laugh out loud!!!! I have paraphrased it for your reading enjoyment, but the story in its entirety is even funnier! It's an authentic Native American tale about an Indian boy named High horse who wants to marry this beautiful Indian girl. He talks to the girl and she says that she likes him maybe a little. The Indians would trade horses for their wives, but High Horse only had two horses and her father won't let him have his daughter for only two horses and said for him to quit talking foolishness like that. High Horse's friend offers to let him borrow two more horses, but the father won't let him have his daughter for four horses either. High Horse asks the girl to run away with him, but she says she wants to be bought like a proper wife. So High Horse felt really sick and he felt like he was going to die. His friend Red Deer notices and says he has a plan: they will steal the girl and High Horse and the girl will ride away together and be happy for the rest of their lives. Red Deer waits outside while High Horse sneaks into her teepee after he is sure her and her parents are asleep, but finds that her parents have tied her in bed with leather thongs in case someone tried to steal her, and they thought she might even want to be stolen. So he has to cut the leather cords away with his knife while she is sleeping, and each one makes a loud POP. But she still doesn't wake up. When he is down to the cords at her thighs, he is really nervous and his knife slips and pokes her, which in turn makes her wake up yelling, which wakes up her parents and they start yelling, and her father gets some other men and they go and chase High Horse and Red Deer, who run away like antelopes, but no one is sure who they were because it was so dark. So High Horse is feeling sicker than ever and Red Deer plans another way for them to steal her. He tells High Horse to strip and then he paints him white with black stripes until High Horse looks so terrible that Red Deer says he is almost scared. Red Deer tells him that this time, if he is caught again trying to steal the girl, the village will think he is a bad Spirit and would be afraid to chase him. So High Horse sneaks into the teepee again and Red Deer waits outside while he cuts the cords. It made a lot of noise and the girl started moving around in her sleep and then her mother wakes up. "Suddenly the old woman awoke and said to her old man: 'Old Man, wake up! There is somebody in the teepee!' But the old man was sleepy and didn't want to be bothered. He said: 'Of course there is somebody in the teepee. Go to sleep and don't bother me.' Then he snored some more." (LOL) But this really scared High Horse so he lay still so they wouldn't see him and then he got so tired he fell asleep. Next thing he knew, it was morning and the girl was screaming and her parents were yelling about a strange animal in the teepee and he almost knocked the teepee down getting out! Apparently his friend was wrong about the village being scared to chase him because the whole village chased after him with guns and bows and tomahawks but he ran and hid in a hollow tree and nobody found him. By then the village was creeped out and decided to move out quickly. So they moved and left High Horse behind in the hollow tree. The whole time, his friend Red Deer knew what was happening of course but had to pretend to be as surprised and scared as everybody else. He watched where High Horse ran off to and after the camp moved he went and found High Horse. High Horse wasfeeling so ashamed and sick he said he would go on the war-path all alone and he didn't care what happened to him. But Red Deer said he wouldn't let him do that, and went on the war-path with him. They went and stole a herd of about a hundred horses from a Crow tribe and drove them in front of the girl's teepee. High Horse yelled to the father asking if he thought maybe that was enough horses for his girl (I can just feel the sarcasm...) The old man told him he didn't want the horses, he wanted "a son who was a real man and good for something. So High Horse got his girl after all, and I think he deserved her."

Tiddlywinks!!!

Okay I was just exercising so I feel really happy right now cuz of all those whatchamacallems endorphines? that get released when you exercise :D so that is why I may seem a little too perky lol

Thanks all of you who prayed for Tiddlywinks! Tiddles got his teeth clipped a few weeks ago and he is now just as hoppy as ever! He is going to have a operation to have some of those teeth pulled because thankfully, it was inexpensive enough. :)

The last blog post I did was actually on another blog that is for my honors US government course. It's called "Can We Provide Broadband Across PA?" and you can visit it in the slight chance (ha HA) that you are interested. http://palcsbroadband.edublogs.org/

During winter break I attended GYC (Generation of Youth for Christ) in Louisville, Kentucky. The theme was "Unashamed," and we learned all about being unashamed of Christ! I even went on outreach and invited people to sign up for Bible studies. It was an awesome experience and I am sooo glad I got to be there! I am totally going next year when they have it in Maryland!
And I want to shout out that my friend Christina earned her yellow belt in karate today after a grueling test!!! ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡YAY Christina!!!!
I went to the PA Farm Show yesterday. It was fun and stinky and tiring! Some of the best parts were getting to see this girl do stunts on a galloping horse and watching horses play soccer and see Irish dancing. Not to mention free ice cream samples and fried portabella mushrooms and seeing a bunch of animals. I even got a magic scarf! It is purple and blue and green and so it matches like a lot of my clothes lol... it is magic because you can stretch it into being a shawl as well as a scarf. I also saw a lot of rabbits, a few of which looked exactly like my rabbit Hopscotch (one of them was actually distantly related to Hopscotch because he was from the same breeder that we got our mama bunny from and bred by). Hmm I should go get Missy, she would probably lick me. She loves licking me when I am sweaty cuz I guess I taste good and salty then... yuck? whatever :)
I was gonna call this post "tiddlywinks!!!" before I realized I had a lot more to say than just about Tiddlywinks :P

bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bloggin'

I happen to be listening to Spanish Christmas songs. These particular ones are called "Pastores y Zagalas" and "Que preciosas mananitas" y "Las Posadas". I shall attempt to find the translations. Pero primero yo estoy voy a comer arroz de español para mi almuerzo. Okay. Done with the spanish rice which was prepared by mi madre. So "pastores y zagalas" means "shepherds and shepherdesses", "Que preciosas mananitas" means "What precious early mornings," y "Las Posadas" means "The Inns." ¡Qué interesante! lol

I learned how to make some German paper stars the other day. They are like the ones below, but mine are much cooler because they are colorful and one is made out of ribbon! :)

Tiddlywinks

Please pray for our rabbit Tiddlywinks! He has a major problem with his teeth and he could die because of it!!! Please pray we can take him to a vet that can help him. He is a special pet of ours and we don't want to lose him! Thanks!

My account of December 22, 2009

Our family had planned several days before to go to a craft party at my cyber school's hq in West Chester, which is like an hour and a half from our house driving. Some of my family decided they were too sick to go so we it ended up just being me, my big sister, and my dad. My dad actually had lost his voice, so it was a much quieter ride than we were used to when being with my dad.
But my dad does this thing. Whenever my dad is driving near a fancy hot new expensive car, like a ferrari or mercedes or bmw or anything that is worth half our house, he ALWAYS says he can get in front of them and change lanes before them or whatever because the person isn't going to want to hurt their new fancy car by ramming into him for it. And each time he goes in front of them or whatever they ALWAYS beep their horns loud and long... and each time he says get my gun; I'm armed and they're not. And each time my mom goes "Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat!!!!!" (which is my dad's name). It was funny cuz this one time, there was a fancy car behind us and he beeped at us when my dad went in front of him and then later when the same car got behind a line of traffic, my dad drove by him quick and beeped at him lol it was so funny but my mom got all freaked out and my dad said I'm armed and they're not, and my mom was like how do you know they're not armed and for the tiniest split second I was like how can they drive without arms? and then I realized he meant firearms and I felt pretty dumb lol anyway so yesterday on this particular drive in Philly there is this guy and his gf in their hot new mercedes in the lane next to us and trying to change lanes and my dad says, "Watch this" and next thing I know I hear BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPP from the shiny silver mercedes and my dad says "Get my gun! Get my gun! I'm armed and they're not!" and we throw up his briefcase and I duck my head in my lap and then I look around quick and the car is behind us and the guy is glaring. But he couldn't afford to do anything to our car for fear of damaging his shiny new mercedes. So anyway, SURPRISINGLY, we arrived safely at the building and made our way through the confusing maze of cubicles until we reached the room where we were to spend an hour and a half making international crafts with the foreign language teachers. One of them was my Spanish teacher in 8th grade and 10th grade. She taught us how to make God's Eyes, that craft with popsicle sticks and yarn. We also spent a long frustrating hour learning how to make these German Stars. They are like origami, and you can make them with long strips of paper or ribbons.
On the way back, we are listening to the charming English accent version of the voice on the gps. Unfortunately, it tells us to stay left at the toll booth so we accidentally go through the EZ pass one and don't get a ticket so when we get to the booth where we have to pay, my dad almost has to pay $24 instead of $2 but then my dad explained what happened (with difficulty because of his lost voice) and the toll booth guy said it happens a lot so we got away with it. My poor dad. Later we met a friend at the grocery store and she asked if we enjoyed our dad not having a voice for once because he is usually extremely talkative, but actually I missed his voice because I had been having to do a lot of his talking for him.
After that, we go to a Chinese restaurant and order vegetarian Chinese food, but I don't order the moo shu vegetables because I don't know what is in them and my dad always jokes about cow feet. haha
But we are still hungry so we go to this place that sells luxury chocolates so that we can get free samples. But I couldn't find the samples, so when my dad shows me where they are, he said my eyes bugged out and I made a beeline for them like a zombie and he was teasing me the rest of the day about it! I reached for the biggest piece and Alyssa says, "Don't be greedy!" So I grab a smaller piece, rather disappointed, and watch as SHE grabs the biggest piece. I should really not listen to her so much.
Then we go to Wegmans and get the rest of our dessert. The first thing, I will not disclose what it was because my dad would get in trouble with my mom if she reads this. The second thing was a 2-liter bottle of cherry soda. We are all rather full by this time and my dad doesn't want to carry the soda around and I don't want to throw it away so I finish it off for us straight from the bottle. But by then I am too full and too tired to want to shop for food for Christmas. So I am walking around in a stupor while we get groceries and then I need to use the restroom because I had just drank about a liter of soda. But when I get to the restroom there is a guy standing in front of the door holding tape which says "Do Not Pass This Line." So I am forced to keep walking around feeling tired and sick and OOOH my brother just handed me two Hershey's kisses!!!! But what made me feel better was this funny thing I observed. I noticed a trail of chocolate milk on the floor, and I decided to follow it. I saw an employee discover it and he walkie talkied to some other employee, "We have a situation here! There's a trail of chocolate milk all over the store! Send someone over the clean it up." And maybe it wasn't that funny but since I was so tired I was laughing hysterically!!!
After that ordeal I wasn't so tired anymore, and we went to some other stores and the mall and I got a great Spanish-English dictionary for only 4 bucks and Alyssa and I helped my dad pick out something for my mom for Christmas. Then we went home and I went to bed and had a disturbing dream and woke up this afternoon.
Well, if you have just finished reading all of this, congratulations. I hope you have become a better person because of it, or have at least been amused.
Excuse me while I go refill my blood sugar.

In the beginning...

...there was a blog. Called Mandy's Place. And I posted and posted and posted from the time I was like 12 to the present. And lately only got on every once in a while.

Soooo this feels kind of awkward, blogging after not being on for so long. I guess all I should say for now is announce that I am going bowling today!

The other day I learned chest block at karate class.

I also just finished up to the 2nd midmarking period of 11th grade.

Still desperately attempting to learn español.

I am so excited for the holiday season!!! Mi tiempo de año favorito!

And I quit all the stupid facebook games which my sister started me playing and which took over my free time. So perhaps I will be blogging more often. But ironically, all my blog posts show up on facebook anyway, because somehow I set my blog to be affiliated with facebook.

I made a skeleton dude for anatomy class named Mr. Skelly Ton. When it is time to get rid of him, I am going to bury him in the ground as befits a skeleton. Maybe even make him a gravestone...

My brother just pulled my hair...

...And his excuse: "I wasn't pulling it! Some of it just, um, got stuck between my two fingers!!!"
^^Exactly! :)

Heat Wave

I readily agree with accuweather.com when it says that it feels like it is 100 degrees. It's actually only 89, but it is still apparently the hottest weather we have had so far this summer. All that talk about how I wanted warmer summer weather, I take it all back! I love the rain; I would do a rain dance if I thought it would help. I have piled up my hair and stuffed it under a cap so it won't stick to my neck. Makes me feel kind of topheavy; 20+ inches of hair, even rather thin hair which requires gallons of volumizing shampoo and conditioner to keep it from being so thin that strands of it would be invisible to the naked eye, feels especially weighty when one is soaking in a pool of sweat. Days like this I almost feel jealous of guys, because their hair is already short and light and they can go around without their shirts. It makes me mad to see my brother parading around in only his underwear and shorts. In times past I have even bullied him into putting his shirt back on, just because it was annoying me that I couldn't go around without one too.
I feel like jumping into the creek, but on second thought that would probably not help since I bet it is almost boiling by now. And it is surrounded by poison ivy and supposedly according to my mom, lyme-disease-carrying ticks [I don't really blame her for being paranoid though, seeing as she has gotten lyme disease twice]. Seriously, come to think of it, the creek would be boiling if it were a hundred degrees Celsius rather than 100 degrees fahrenheit. Even though, to the chagrin of my Canadian friends, I have basically forgotten what I learned in chemistry last school year about converting temperatures, for some reason or other I still remember that 100 degrees Celsius is the temperature at which water boils. I wonder what temperature blood boils at? You know how blood has to be heated before they can inject it into people who need a blood transplant? Well I heard a story once about some people who tried to heat the blood in a microwave, and the person who got that blood died. Rather creepy... but it is a favorite anecdote of the people who believe microwaves are dangerous and life-threatening and possibly cancer-causing (of whom my mom is also one of, sort of :)
Okay, either I swallowed too much pool water yesterday or the heat is really getting to me. Or maybe it's the strange book I have been reading. At any rate, I had better quit typing before I spill out something really bizarre. Well, in parting, remember to stay hydrated and try to keep as cool as possible, which means you'll have to try even harder if you don't have air conditioning like we don't. Well, at least the giant fan is on now and buzzing its heart out loudly. My dad seems to be an expert in ventilation (or at least thinks he is), and has set up a system that coincides somehow with how the propellors on an airplane work (trust him for that!). The fan is so loud I can hardly hear myself think. So tata!!

The Call by Regina Spektor (but done by me this time)

~ Lyrics-- It started out as a feeling

Which then grew into a hope

Which then turned into a quiet thought

Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder

'Til it was a battle cry

I'll come back when it's over

No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing

Doesn't mean it hasn't been this way before

All you can do is try to know who your friends are

As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light

You'll come back when it's over

No need to say goodbye

You'll come back when it's over

No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning

It's just a feeling and no one knows yet

But just because they can't feel it too

Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let those memories grow stronger and stronger

'Til they're before your eyes

You'll come back when they call you

No need to say goodbye

You'll come back when they call you

No need to say goodbye

Everyone has their own agenda

^that - a quote in a book I read a while back. Lately the following have been on my agenda - think, sleep, talk, eat, pick blueberries, play, read, shop. Not necessarily in that order, but sort of. But this is kind of just to let you know what I have been up to lately. So you don't worry about me. HA ha. I wish my agenda would change a little or a lot to include something very exciting. Like my sister decided to travel. Which I would like, but is an expensive habit, and we need to save up for skydiving lessons and flight school. Because those would definitely offer an extremely exciting and welcme change in my agenda.

Videos & Photos of Missionary Ground Pilot Class at PVYBC

At Piedmont Valley Youth Bible Camp (PVYBC) I was in the flight class and at the end of the week we all went to an airport and got to experience flying first-hand! I got to copilot for a while, and had full control of the plane for about 3 minutes... I also got to sit in the back seat for two more flights. I had never been in a small plane before and the one time that I had flown in my life was when I was 3 so I could scarcely remember that. So it was a new experience for me and it was absolutely the most exhilarating and AWESOMEST thing I have ever done!!! At first I thought I would be nervous, but somewhere on the fun van ride to the airport, I got so excited that there was no room left for nervousness! Also, while I was up in the plane I kept having this urge to jump out the window LOL... So now I have two new goals, to get my private pilot's license, and to go SKYDIVING!!! yeah! I took this first video of the plane our flight class rented taking off.

We also did a few stalls... one was called the roller coaster and I LOVED IT!!! We climbed so hard that we were being pressed into our seats and then all of a sudden, we stalled and we were just FALLING, falling out of the sky, floating out of our seats, and whatever was in our lap started floating around too! Unfortunately I did not get a video while doing that but I need to do that sometime :). We had someone else's camera with us in the plane, and it was just floating around inside the fuselage, then when we recovered it went shooting into the trunk lol... know what would be neat, turning a video camera on right before you did the roller coaster, then later seeing what video it took while it was floating randomly inside the plane hahaha.

Anyway this next video is one I took of takeoff while I was sitting in the backseat as a passenger.



We opened the windows in the airplane because it was so hot and we wanted to decrease the chance of us getting airsick. Boy it was awesome... I even stuck my hand out the window on several occasions, and the wind obviously pushed really hard on it. Our instructor was telling us how he stuck his arm out the window nce when he was going much faster to see what would happen, and it almost broke his arm!!! He also said if you have a bug hit you at that speed it really hurts LOL!

^ Me copiloting the plane!!!

Me having crazy hair cuz of the open window...

^ at an altitude of like 2000 feet I think.

^ The plane about to take off.

^A pond/lake from the copilot's eye view.

DEFORESTATION!!!

"THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!!"

Outdoors with Korah and Lanaya

Our 'crick'

Some freaky cool mushrooms i found.Famous last words - "Don't worry, these are the good kind of mushrooms!"

The "shelter" my brother and I half-built.

beautiful greenery

A fern growing out of a stump.

^me

A MOVIE NIGHT!!!

Well that's kind of what my mom, sis and I did last night, 'cept we started at 7:00 and watched A movie (8 Below), no more. Mostly because my sister dropped asleep halfway through it and my mom followed sometime later. We bought a pile of movies cheap from this really nice guy at this farmer/flea market we went to on Tuesday. Let's see, there was of course 8 Below, and Finding Nemo (oooh love that movie, my favorite part is when Dory speaks whale!!!), Ratatouille, Happy Feet, Over the Hedge, Everyone's Hero, Meet the Robinsons, Shrek 1 & 2, and I think that is it. We had our own table so we were there for a while and got to talk to a bunch of ppl including the ppl who had their tables set up near ours. When he found out I have a job picking strawberries, this one older guy named Luther was telling me how when he was a kid, they would pick strawberries from 6-6 every weekday and got paid a dollar each day! Then they would give all but 25 cents (which was their allowance) to their parents. I was like wow! It makes me grateful I get paid as much as I do! Anyway PVYBC (summer camp) starts on Sunday! I am so excited and I'm going shopping this afternoon for stuff to wear and other things I need to take there. I can't decide whether or not to get a haircut though. I probably should since I haven't had one since October (gasp) since I've been trying to grow my hair out but on the other hand I have neeee idea how I would want it cut other than a trim. Talk to u guys later...

What I look like with wavyish hair/pelo rizado

You guys like pictures, don't you? Here is what my hair looked like after Alyssa graciously French-braided it and I waited to take it out til it dried.

Red strawberries and Purple Asparagus

Well, this morning, starting at about 8:30, I began my summer job picking mostly strawberries. I got a little surprise when they asked me to help cut asparagus. Yeah what an event! ha ha
Some of the asparagus was actually purple. I'd never seen purple asparagus before but it's the same color on the inside as the green asparagus - green. My two favorite colors combined in one cute vegetable! It was fun slicing through the stalks. I had to use a knife and I didn't cut any of my fingers off! Aren't you proud of me? :D I did cut pretty close once, I accidentally trimmed my little fingernail. But anyway. Because I spent about an hour at the asparagus and the strawberries were a little sparse, I nly picked a paltry 17 quarts of strawberries... my first day last year I picked like 39! Oh well. At least I'm not sore at all from all thebending down. Last year my first couple days I wasso sore from all the stretching that I could barely walk!! But I guess it's because I'm used to it since I stretch a lot and and stuff for karate and soccer.
But the big bummer about all this is... I can't even go back tomorrow to be with my sister on her first day of work there because I'm not done with school yet and I have to keep working at it until Friday. How sad :'( I'm allllll finished with my English, History, and PE classes, but I still have a lot of work left to do on Geometry, Chemistry, Spanish, Art, and a PSSA review course. And I have finals in three of those due on the 4th. On the bright side, if I get all done with Geometry by tomorow evening, I can go to a pizza party! So I'd better get working. good-bye!