ugh, you guys...

Having a very social and exciting lunch. Big Picture lunch is quiet (at least so far), and seems to be very functional. You sit, and eat, and maybe theres a quiet conversation. Still better than having to go to the cafeteria. I also miss having flexibility in WHEN lunch is. Couches. Floor space. Having freedom to be in a comfortable space. BP is definitely more chill than "normal" school, but we still dont have ANY chairs that are actually comfortable. We have those blue plastic ones. Sitting on the table or floor is allowed, so I've been working with that. Imagination! High schoolers are so boring, for the most part. The ability to avoid work by walking around and observing whatever mayhem is happening. NO MAYHEM HAPPENS. People just sit in chairs, and do things on laptops. Probably work. Ugh. I will have to come up with a new procrastination technique for this environment! Wifi. The wifi sucks and I cant connect to it on my phone because reasons. It's t...

So… the first day of high school. I mean it was okay, and I think that the whole purpose of it sort of worked (to get oriented to the space), but to be honest it really wasn’t that great. It was 96 degrees all day and being stuck in a non-air conditioned school with hundreds of other confused, hot freshman really sucks. In the morning, we started off by filing into the gym and playing a GIANT group game of rock, paper, scissors. I don’t know what the principal was thinking with that one but it happened so…? After this kid named Sam won the rock, paper, scissors thing, we were arranged into smaller groups and proceeded to play awkward “get to know each other” games. After all of the games were done, my group walked down to a room at the very end of the school and were told that we were going to hike Mt. Mansfield. I’m sure you can imagine our excitement. Before we went hiking, we previewed our A day and B day schedules and then had lunch. Of course there were boys and girls tables and p...

It was pretty okay.

Yoinkers Boinkers. My thoughts on... The "Bus": A van. I liked the driver, because she will drop me off at the library. Apparently on Fridays they stop for coffee someplace. Interesting. My "Advisors": Jim is nice! Very likable. Michelle is the most ordinary person I have ever met! It is kind of fascinating. Kevin is... okay. Nothing like Kevin from The Office. They are all genuinely pretty average people and none of them do anything weird like eat baby food or get easily sidetracked by obscure history references.  My Classmates: Might be fictional?? Pretty sure one girl is a pixie. Met a kid who definitely does drugs. Everyone is very aesthetically pleasing, and nice I guess? Very diverse. I didn't really interact a lot because I was overwhelmed. I am the youngest, and everyone else seems to be 5 years older than me, AT LEAST. Students in General: So. Many. People. Pretty sure there are NO other freshman in the ENTIRE SCHOOL. There a...

Went shopping and ending up getting another piercing (very spontaneously)! It's kinda still painful right now, but I love it lots. Also, got my undercut redone! VYD is having a "sock hop dance party" tomorrow and I'm kinda worried?? But also excited? I don't know what to expect and I don't love that? And I'm giving my closet a makeover, because it desperately needed one. Tomorrow I'm putting all my stuff back in, but right now it's just pretty and empty. I'll post a finished picture tomorrow (maybe?) but here's a sneak peek: Can't wait to see some of you Monday! -D

Our herd is back down to 4. It's sort of crazy to think that at the start of this Summer we had 8. Today Parsley and Catastrophe went to their new home. (Pictured below are Catastrophe (white spots) and Mayhem (all black), twin doelings from Parsley.) I knew our herd would have to downsize, so I managed to brace myself for Ruckus leaving, and I didn't exactly have a choice about Shen. It makes me sad to watch my carefully planned names split apart. "My Disasters": Shenanigan, Catastrophe, Mayhem, Chaos, and Ruckus. Next years theme will probably be the same, as I still have more names to use up.  I didn't realize how hard splitting apart these twins would be though. Usually quiet and cuddly May screamed and ran around panicked while we dragged off Pars and Cass. She's still slightly inconsolable. I don't blame her and am trying to give her as much love as I can spare this week. It feels weird without Pars... she was the first birth our farm had. We...

Last night's book was Girl Made of Stars  by A. H. Blake. It was late, I was sad, and honestly I could've used a good cry. Didn't happen, but it was still a good book. (Also, if that name seems familiar, it's because A. H. Blake also wrote Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World !) Basic plot is that this girl Mara has a best friend named Hannah and a twin named Owen and Hannah says Owen raped her at a party. This is very hard for Mara, cause family vs friend? Feminist beliefs vs "hes my twin"? Yeah. Also, Mara was dating (and is still having relationship problems with) this human named Charlie. So yeah, lots of internal struggle and feminist things happen and it's all very emotional and hard. It has a LOT of representation! Thank you! It also has representation that doesn't really always feel so boxed in! Wow! Actually impressed, guys. At times there was too much going on and my tired brain definitely couldn't really keep up. We reread a ...

Do my Coop people remember how painful reading Matched   was for me? Keep that in mind, because this book might've actually been worse. Now that I'm done with work, my reading schedule has returned back to normal. I'm hoping to cross some ARCs off my list, but tonight I settled in with B. Lundins's Ship It .  I highly suggest you look at some reviews and laugh at how terrible it is. Also, this will probably get slightly spoilery, but I don't think you'll want to read the book anyway so? Does it really matter? This is a YA book, and a very YA review. It gets a little PG 13. (If you're one of my younger Coop Kids, I'd just... skip this one maybe??) Okay.  This book is told from two perspectives, Claire, who's a friendless teen fangirl, and Forest, who's an actor on the show Claire's a fan of. I hated them both. Claire is annoying and manipulative and just a total mess. Forest is just sort of an asshole, though he redeems himself a little bi...

Guys. I just finished reading Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World . This book made me cry like 7 times. Not pretty crying.This "juvenile" book made me cry more than the Fault in our Stars did. It just feels so young and real and scared but hopeful, and honestly, dgkhsJFKSKYSHKG I have to buy this.

     Sometimes in life you have to take risks and just hope that everything is going to work out and be awesome. Applying for the Teen Educator position at The Wild Center was one of those risks. For the Summer of 2018, I worked Monday through Wednesday at The Wild Center, a natural history museum with exhibits (including over 900 live animals), trails, and a river and pond. I was surrounded by an amazing community, and learned so much about myself and the world around me.      On top of the normal concerns (What if my coworkers don't like me? What if I mess up and get fired? What if Leanne is super mean?), I also worried about being away from my home in Vermont. I would be spending quite a lot of my summer in Tupper Lake, New York, approximately 2.5 hours away from my animals, friends, family, library, and everything else I loved. I'd grown up visiting every summer, and already knew the campus like the back of my hand, but this job connected me to The Wi...

The title uses S hould  and not Can  because lots of things can be hit with sticks, but I do not support hitting your cat with a stick. Please note that it is Should as in "nothing will go wrong, probably" and not as in "hitting these things with sticks will be great so you should do it". I say Debatably  because some people might disagree with some of these. I can understand why. Please keep in mind that the hit-able-ness of some of these items will depend on the size of the stick and might only be good in certain circumstances.  Pinatas Baseballs Trees, if you're angry Tennis Balls Wiffle Balls Rocks? Bugs, but only the bad ones. Spider webs if they're in your way Your siblings, gently, and only if it's part of a game and they can hit you back. GENTLY. The ground Snow Snowballs Strangers, but only in very, veRY, SPECIFIC circumstances Hockey pucks? Dead birds, but very gently, and only to move them to a better location. Does not apply...