Christmas

I’m so excited to go home; I’m leaving on Friday at 6 am.  As soon as I get off the airplane in LA my family is picking me up and we’re driving straight to big bear.  Big bear is a ski resort and I’m going with my mother, sister, mom’s boyfriend, and his two kids.  I’m really excited to go skiing for the first time.  I’ve been snowboarding before but never skiing.  Normally I would be going snowboarding on this trip but my ankle is still sprained from May when I fell rock climbing.  We’re going to be going for about five days and as soon as I get back I am going to my friend’s Christmas party.  I’m really excited to see her because I haven’t since summer.  A lot of my friends will be going and it’ll be good to see all of them again.  There’s going to be a bunch of board games, food, gifts and champagne.  I’m stoked for winter break I love seeing my family and I always miss them dearly. I miss my sister and mother the most.  I tell them everything.  I probably call my mother about five times a day just because I tell her everything and I always ask for advice, or tell her when I’m upset, or even super happy.  This semester went by so fast I am very happy with it and I have learned so much.  I feel like a different person from last year and I know it’s for the better. 

Week of finals

This week is finals week and everyone is super stressed out.  I’m not that stressed just because I only have to study for one of my classes.  I have to study for my math test on Wednesday and I need to study a lot because I can tell this test is going to be really difficult.  I also have a child development test on Thursday that I’m not nervous for at all.  My teacher gave us a study guide and said all of the questions and answers are going to be the exact same as the test.  She is also allowing us to bring a couple of pages to write whatever we want on the test.  It is going to be really easy and I don’t even need to study.  I like this teacher a lot because I still feel like I learn a lot even though she makes the tests really simple.  The only final I was really stressed about was my English portfolio I was nervous on whether not I would get a good grade or not.  I think I got a good grade on it and I’m not too worried but I just really want an A in this class.  I’m trying to raise my GPA so I can study abroad next semester and this year I have done really well in all of my classes.  I find out my grade in English tomorrow and I really hope Susan counts all of these latest blogs towards my grade!

November 12th

Before this week life was very stressful; I had a few essays to do as well as projects and tests. I finally got everything done this week and now I'm stoked for Thanksgiving! I'm so excited to see my family I miss them more than anything right now.  I'm hopefully going to be driving down next Friday with some boys who are also from San Clemente. If I can't drive down with them then I have to wait until Sunday to drive with my friends Jackie, Shannon, Andrew and Jamie. I definitely want to leave Friday though so I can spend as much time home as possible. Today has already been a good day it's beautiful outside and its 1 pm and I've already gotten a lot done. I went to my math class this morning and found out I got an 89% on my exam! After that I went to the gym then showered, went to the grocery store, and the bank. At 2 I'm going rock climbing at Moonstone. I've never been rock climbing outside before and I'm a little nervous for some reason. I wish I had no fears and could face anything. This will be my start to that. Yesterday was also a lovely day I went into town and read in the plaza. I then got Hole in the Wall sandwhiches and had a picnic with a couple of my girlfriends. It was a perfect day for that. We then walked around and went to the used book store in the plaza. I got "Running with Scissors". I've started to read it and I already enjoy it.

Week of my Bday!!

So my birthday is this Saturday and I'm getting really excited for it! Plans almost completely fell through. Yesterday I sent out a message to everyone going to my bday and I said the address of where it was but then right after that the person hosting it said they couldn't do it anymore. He said that his roommates are going to be in town this weekend and they decided they didn't want to host my party. Right after that the DJ also said that he couldn't do it anymore and that his speakers blew out. I was so stressed out that I called my mom and was about to get a plane ticket home. Good thing I didn't though because my friend stepped up and said he would throw my birthday party for me instead. I'm super excited for it and I can't wait for the weekend it's going to be so wonderful. Saturday I'm going to go to the crepes restaraunt, college cove, explore the beach and mountains, and then have a huge birthday party! This week has definitely been an interesting week, however, it hasn't been that great and I've been pretty stressed out. There has been way too much drama in my life and I'm just tired of it. I wanted to run away from it this weekend but I've decided I'm going to change my life and start ignoring it because it's not worth my time. My 19th birthday will be the start to my new life! Let's see how things go next week....

Week oh Halloween

Last week was a huge build up yo Halloween.  I was so excited for Halloween I couldn't stop talking about it!  One day of the week all of my friends go together and we watched scary movies like Halloween.  We watched the new Halloween instead of the old one because we hadn't seen it before, but oh boy were we in for a treat.  The movie was very graphic and disgusting! It showed Michael Myers killing every single person in the movie with great detail.  The movie was definitely sick and there was a rape scene that was very disturbing and I had to close my eyes.  After we watched the movie I had to walk home and I was pretty scared in doing so.  We also went to the pumpkin patch in Mad River this week which was really fun! We went to the pumpkin patch and got a few pumpkins for free because they were small and they didn't have the stems on them.  There was also a corn maze we went through and my friend Chase pushed me in one of the pumpkin wagons through it.  I had a really good time going to the corn maze and I wish Halloween wasn't over so I could go again.  Halloween weekend was definitely very interesting for the msot part it was really fun but other then that there was a lot of drama that I couldn't handle and didn't want to deal with.  On Friday night I went to my friend Rowan's party which was a lot of fun because it was all of my close friends there.  The next day I hung out with my friends all day and we got dressed up for our friend's zombie party that he had which was a lot off fun.  The unfortunate thing though is that my camera got stolen.  On Sunday I was a nerd for Halloween and my friends and I went trick or treating then went to the plaza.

Week of 10/15

This week in LEAP we talked about a few trips that are coming up this weekend.  There are a couple of trips on Saturday one of them is a rock climbing trip and another one is where they're  going to a middle school and playing games with all of the kids all day.  Another group is also going on the backpacking trip that got cancelled last weekend.  I was going to be going on the rock climbing trip this weekend but I decided to quit LEAP due to personal reasons.  There are also other reasons why I quit.  The group that I do LEAP with has a lot of drama and everyone is connected in a way somehow.  The program is definitely a lot different than I thought it would be.  I realized that we all can't go on the trips together so only about 5 or 6 people can go on a trip each time.  It definitely is not whay I thought it was and I would rather do a different program next semester.  I think next semester I'm going to join the juvenile hall program where we hangout with kids from juvenile hall and play games with them and distract them from all of the problems they have.  From now on I think I'm going to write my blogs on my daily life and what I have been doing every week and how I am doing in school.  It'll be like my diary instead of what I have been doing in LEAP.  I think it'll be good for me to not do LEAP anymore because there were certain people in the program that are not healthy for me to be around.

October 6th meeting

This week’s LEAP meeting actually went by really quick.  Shannon brought some nachos as snacks and also these really yummy powdered chocolate goodies (I’m not sure what it’s called).  For our question of the day we had to go around in a circle and say what the most awkward place to fart in is.  It was a weird question, but people had some really funny answers.  Mine was a church right before the couple says “I do”.  During the meeting the directors went over a few trips planned out.  They talked about this weekend’s backpacking trip and they announced who gets to go.  I was disappointed because I wasn’t on the list to go.  They also talked about a couple of trips next weekend.  One trip is where we can take kids rock climbing at Moonstone all day next Saturday and another one is where we get to play board games with kids inside at their school.  It’s been a month and I still haven’t gotten the opportunity to spend time with children.  I’m really hoping I finally get to go on a trip with the kids.  I got a phone call about an hour ago and it was one of the directors saying I could go on the backpacking trip!  I got really excited and then he called back twenty minutes later saying the trip was cancelled due to rain.  So once again I am out of luck.  I’m going to cross my fingers for next weekend!

Last week of September

This week in LEAP we played these strategic exercise games. We got into three different large groups and two of them had giant logs. All of the groups had to switch off between three different stations after completing the tasks at each of them. The first station we went to had four logs set out into a square. We all had to stand on the logs and try to walk across them going clockwise without falling off. We had to do this for a certain amount of time and then we had to turn counterclockwise. After that we were instructed to designate four different people to be blindfolded. We then had to help and guide these people walk across the logs and make sure they didn’t fall off. After this task was completed there was a rubber chicken placed in the middle of the logs. We had to somehow move all of the logs so the chicken wasn’t surrounded by them and we couldn’t step off of the logs. We did this task a couple of times. After that we moved on to the next station. At this station there were two logs set up with ropes attached to them. We had to place the logs side by side and step one foot on each log, grabbing a rope on each log at the same time. After that we had to walk with the two logs as a group and get passed a certain point. At the next station we got to play a bunch of fun games and this was our relaxing time.

CPR class

This week for LEAP I had to do a CPR training. It was actually this morning, I had to be at the school at 8 am prepared for learning.  In this training class we had dummies to practice all of our new skills on.  We learned how to give CPR to people of all ages and we also learned first aid information. For the first aid information we learned what to do for every type of sickness or accident.  We learned how to clean up wounds and take care of people who have been hurt.  We also learned how to take care of people who have certain kinds of conditions, like epilepsy, allergic reactions, heart attack, heat stroke, hypothermia.  I feel very informed on how to help people now when they're in need.  It's good that we took this class because all of us LEAPsters are definitely going to need it when we take kids on adventures.  The class wasn't actually that bad, it went by pretty fast before lunch time.  We got a 45 minute break for lunch, but after that a few people left and time went by really slow.  A few people that I'm good friends were the ones that left so the class got a little more boring.  I'm excited to start actually taking kids rock climbing instead of having to do all of this training.  There have been a couple of surfing trips, but they are all when I'm busy.  I hope we get to take kids out soon I'm really happy to work with kids.

LEAP Retreat

Last weekend I went on a retreat for LEAP.  For the retreat about 30 people went camping at Patrick's Point from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.  We had to be at the school Saturday morning at 7 am in order to pack up all the cars and get ready to go.  When we got there everyone unpacked and set up their tents. Then we started playing a couple of games where we all got in a circle and said our name and our first ever CD.  When we did this we also had to say our favorite stretch then everyone would do that stretch together.  After we did this we pulled weeds in an open field for 4 hours.  This part of the retreat wasn't very fun but I did get to become really close with a couple of girls that I had never talked to before.  When we got back we ate lunch and introduced a few more games to play.  This is when the games started getting really fun.  We starting playing these games where everyone runs around in a circle and one person sitting out has to yell a category and a certain amount of people.  With the categories, for example, one thing you can say is spoon and you have to spoon another person on the ground and you have three seconds to do it.  If you don't spoon someone within those three seconds then you lose.  Another category is huggy bear.  For this one the announcer has to yell a certain number of people and then you have to find that many people and all hug in a group.  The games are really fun and we got to bond with each other a lot and get into each others' personal space.  Later that night we ate smores and sang campfire songs.  The people in this program are really fun and I have been enjoying getting to know them all. We also learned how to rock climb and belay people so when we take kids out we'll know what to do.  I can't wait to actually go out and take kids rock climbing it'll be a great experience.

Leap Meeting #2

Every Wednesday at 6 I have my LEAP meetings. This week was the second meeting we had and there were a lot of different people there. Instead of having our meeting outside we all crowded in this tiny room in the attic section above the YES house. A lot of my friends are in LEAP so I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with this program, even with the meetings. For this meeting our directors talked to us about the camping trip we're going on this weekend. We have to be at school at 7 am Saturday morning for pancakes and to get ready to go. For out trip we're all going to Patrick's Point and learning how to rock climb outside. I'm really excited for it because I've been rock climbing in the gym a lot but I have yet to go outside still. This trip is supposed to be a bonding experience between everyone that's going. We're also going to be learning about safety procedures and how to take children on these trips with us. The meeting Wednesday consisted of the directors talking about our trip and at the end of it everyone went outside to play a game. Everyone had to get into groups of 3, each group having a rope. Two people had to hold the rope on each end and held the rope up about 3 ft. We had to somehow figure out a way to get everyone over the rope without touching it. The game was really fun and our team got everyone over until the very last guy tried jumping and ran into the rope. It was ok though because it's just a game! I'm really stoked on this weekend and can't wait to see what happens.

LEAP Day 1

This week i've just started this volunteer program at school called LEAP.  It stands for leadership educational adventure program and you get to take kids rock climbing, kayaking, backpacking and a bunch of other fun outdoor adventures.  The first meeting was on Wednesday and the directors of the program went over the rules and regulations that we have to know.  They told us what we will be doing while in this program, which is taking kids basically to have fun. They also talked about how we need to take CPR and first aid classes in order to be in this program.  After they told us about what we will be doing, they took a huge plastic tarp on the ground and threw a bunch of spaghetti on it.  It was actually pretty funny because everyone was eating their dinner off the ground.  After we all ate we got in a circle and played the "chicken tag" game.  The directors had set out a bunch of random objects in a circle and each student had to stand at each object.  There's a rubber chicken on a box in the middle and one person stands at that and has to go up to another person and tag them with the chicken. Once they tag them  with the chicken they have to place it on the box in the middle again and try to steal the other person's spot.  The game was really fun and everyone playing bonded a lot.  I'm definitely looking forward to being a part of LEAP.