7/31 SOL

I woke up to the feeling of my feet. My friend and I didn't go to sleep for a while, but I just wanted a few more minutes yet something was with my feet. I groaned and turned over. It stopped for a second, and there it was again. I couldn't stand it and there was no way I was falling back asleep with my feet keeping me awake. I opened my eyes, and go straight for my feet; Sarah. "Sarah, why are you pinching my feet?" she just smiled. "Good morning!" she exclaimed fully awake as I turned on my phone. "Sarah, it is seven in the morning on a weekend! I'll see you in an hour and a half." I flopped back onto my pillow. Again, she started to pinch my feet. It was really irritating, so I got up to make breakfast.

Later when it was late morning and we were ready to face the day as they say, we pulled out the tie-dye and grabbed some white shirts. "Come on Sarah, we have to finish before my dad comes home." The original plan was to tie-dye outside but it was raining so we decided to do it in the garage. "So we have gloves, shirts, dye, oh we forgot rubber bands." We were out of hair ties, so we had to think of something. "Oh Hannah! Don't you have a million rainbow loom bracelets?" Yes, we did use rainbow loom bracelets, and it worked really well.

 My shirt was a collage of colors. A dash of red, some yellow, and a lot of blue. As I worked, I tried to keep a balance of dye and shirt. Soon, it was time to clean up and I had to practically guide my sister's hands so she could actually be productive. I turn away for just a second, "Hannah?! Don't put the dye in the trash! Were going to use it again!" I was pretty upset because I had to go through the trash just to get the dye out. I took the blue and squirted it all over her grey pajama shirt as she was screaming to the house in disbelief. "Hey, you can't do that! Now my shirt is ruined!" She was smiling but still shocked that I actually did it. "Maybe you will listen better next time. I'm sorry did that upset you? You seem a bit blue."

6/31

The first five slices came easily, but now I 'm starting to run out of ideas. I sit here staring at my computer from the library, without a sliver of inspiration. I have been stumped for 45 minutes thinking and thinking, but I haven't gotten anything done. "Lydia," I asked annoyed. "What should I slice about?" "Bananas." She replies quickly. "What?" "Yeah, bananas. Talk about why they are the funniest fruit." "No." "Yes." This went back and forth until I won. I then moved onto Sarah. Before I could ask her anything, she asked me to peer edit her AS program bio, again. "75 letters, how does anyone type 75 letters in their bio?!" "I don't know Sarah. What should I write for a slice?" Sarah wasn't completely paying attention, but I finally got out an idea out of her; to write about how I can't write anything. It wasn't very original, but I didn't have any other ideas so I didn't complain. As my fingers hit the keys, the first line came out. "The five slices came easily, but now I'm stating to run out of ideas."

5/31 SOL

 My favorite two more religious things we do at camp are celebrate Shabbat, and Havdalah. Shabbat is the seventh day of creation; God rested so the Torah commands us to do so as well. There is a nice dinner and we all dress fancy and have a party. There is lots of singing and dancing, and religious food such as challah. The last Shabbat, I was one of the five or six people that played the Jewish prayers/songs on the guitar before we went to bed. The lights were off and the whole camp was singing along side by side, hand in hand. It is just a special moment when you are singing these prayers and songs with a special bond with the camp in a big circle all connected. People say they have comfort food, but these songs and tunes and even this memory is my comfort. I feel at home when I sing the songs and the songs remind me of a place where I belong. The words go "Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai Elohanu Adonai Echad. Baruch shame kivod malchuto l'olam vaed." The next song I also played is called the Haskivanu and it goes "Haskivanu Adonai Elohanu L'shalom V'hamidanu Malkanu L'chiyim." There are other versus but normally we just repeat this verse.

        Havdalah is when Shabbat ends and there is no party but we have a ritual. We all sit in a circle with a cup of wine, a jar of sweet smelling things like cinnamon, and a braided candle in the center and we sing a couple of songs about the objects in Hebrew, and the other two I mentioned. As I sit next to two of my friends,  I sway ever so gently to the music as I sing along to the familiar lyrics. I just close my eyes and feel the warmth of the candle on me even though it is very small. This is my home away from home, and the songs are part of me. The lyrics are repeated and I don't want this night to end as the jar of cinnamon gets passed around and everyone takes in the soft smell and wish for a sweet week like the cinnamon. I am exhausted from the long day and almost fall asleep on my friends shoulder, but I keep singing while I sit there. During the part when we sing about the candle, we hold up our hands and watch the light and the shadows crawl around our fingers as we move them around. The candle is a dark orange and almost fills the room, with only a single flame. The candle rests in a tin where the blue wax slowly drips down from the heat I love.The last part of the ritual marks the end of Shabbat, which is dipping the candle in the wine and hearing the crackle as it burns out. Before I go to bed when I am laying in my stiff cot, I still mumble the lyrics because I don't want the night to end.

The Fault in Stars/SOL 4/31

This week I read The Fault in our Stars by John Green. It was really good, and I am glad I got to read it before the movie came out. I have to read the book before I see the movie or I wont even try after I see the movie, and I wouldn't want to miss a great story like this one. This was a pretty quick read, and it had around 310 pages. Hazel is sixteen years old and is diagnosed with a kind of lung cancer. A miracle medicine has kept her alive for a couple of years now, but its not a permanent solution. Her mom wants her to be a "normal teenager" so she sends her to a support group to make friends, and there she meets Augustus Waters and her whole life is getting turned around. This was a very sweet book, but it isn't a typical cancer book. Those are normally very factual, sad and only talk about death and being sick, but this had a great plot to it. I would highly recommend this book to anyone in AS who hasn't read it and anyone who likes sweet but kind of sad love stories.

3/31 SOL

Normally my dreams are very creepy and vivid, so I decided to share one of them. It started out in a carnival/amusement park area, except a lot of people lived in small houses down the street.  My house was in the middle of block, and was very poorly built. The inside looked somewhat like my actual house, but instead of a kitchen it was a metal working area with a refrigerator where it is supposed to be. I'm going about my day at the amusement park with my friends in my dream. (I don't actually know them but my dream told me that they were my friends.) We decided to go in the haunted house. We thought it was going to be lame and childish like it normally is, but as we kept walking strange things happened. I've been in there many times before and I know exactly what is going to happen when but it didn't this time because the ride kept malfunctioning, like the swords would actually drop and hit us. Luckily we got out of the way just in time. This happened a lot with a bunch of different pieces of the ride, but we just assumed the ride was getting old and broken. We kept walking and as we were about to exit, this large horror clown about ten feet tall came up and just stared at us and we stared back. It wasn't startling, but it wasn't pleasant either especially because it seemed very real instead of a pop up dummy. The next thing I know we are outside of the ride but we didn't remember leaving, just staring at the clown. We didn't pay any mind to it so we kept walking over to go take a picture with the mermaids. It was obviously people dressed up and paid to pose and take pictures, but we still wanted the picture. I hand my phone to the man who takes the camera and I ask him if he can take a picture. He took my phone and his eyes bulged at the sight of my phone and I still don't have a clue why. In a thick accent of some kind he said "No phones like this allowed" and he threw it behind him. When I picked it up, the bottom was cracked. Did he want to break it? Why? Strange things have been going on all day. My friends and I want to go on one last ride before heading home, so we decide to go on the zip-line. Thirty minutes went by, and then our group somehow got moved to the group zip-line which was like a char lift. Three at a time go, and I sat between two of my friends. As we were going over the canyon following the sharp cuts of the orange rock, we suddenly stop on the edge of a cliff that had one small tree threatening to fall. As I look behind me, I see an emerald green plane with a banner that had an advertisement. The letters were small, but I could make out three sentences each one starting with the word Ladson in green print. I knew that name from somewhere, but I don't remember what it means. I look back to the amusement park and I see most of it engulfed in flames burning and I could hear faint screams. Driving away was an emerald green car from some time around the sixties. I hear the crackling of fire at a near factory and see a similar emerald green car. My friends continue the ride but I race home to check on my dad. The last time I saw my sister, she went with her friends so I assumed she was safe. I come home to our small house just one hundred feet from the amusement park, and find my dad reading a book at the dining table. I let out an exhale of relief just before I hear the window smashing. I was panicking someone was going to rob or murder us, but it was just my sister. "Hannah, what are you doing?" I yelled at her. "They attacked and I had to join their side. I had to." I was about to ask her who and why, but she interrupted and said we needed to hide dad quick because others would come looking. They weren't interested in me, but something with my dad that they would be willing to kill for. "Dad, you need to hide now. Go in the basement, and maybe they will go away." I was panicking now, because they were going to be here any second. "But what about food?" said my dad. "Here, have this." I opened the top drawer of the freezer and pulled out seven individual pints of chocolate or phish food ice cream.   I threw them down the stairwell and told him to go down and hide, and hide the ice-cream too. As soon as I closed the door to the basement, four people wearing black sweatshirts and sweatpants with colored gas masks broke down our fence and were quickly advancing to my house. And then I woke up. Most of my dreams that I remember are this vivid and are not normally happy ones, but they make great stories!

2/31 SOL

Over Winter Break, my family met up with my aunt and uncle to go on a cruise to Cozumel, and Belize. The road I live on has trees that create a canopy over the street which is like a blooming tunnel of green lush. The only thing is, is that it is winter and the trees are covered in snow which in some ways is prettier. Normally the drive to the airport is slow and boring, but I pass time gazing at the snowy tunnel of branches all around me. My parents are talking about how to get to the hotel before we go to the ship, which I would be interested in and even give some ideas but I am lost in the many twisted branches that were intertwined with each other. The simplest objects around us can have meaning and beauty and I was realizing that through the frosty limbs. It was probably forty-five minutes  to get to the airport and I just leaned my head against the cold glass of the door as I watch the landscape quickly change from houses and tall buildings to white planes with solar panels. We finally arrived at the airport and we quickly boarded the plane.


The ship was starting to set sail as we were getting to eat our first lunch. The days at sea where were fun and I got to hang out with some new friends, but my favorite days were the days where we docked. First we went to Belize and went on excursions. We saw Sleeping Giant mountain as we thrashed violently against the thick fabric of the "left handed" land rover my dad decided to drive. The second part of the day was a river tour and a hike to a cave. As we were getting ready for the hike, I noticed the bridge we were going to be crossing to get to the path. The scene was really pretty at the cite of the hike with the tropical Hibiscus flowers, the the tall green plants that thrive in the humidity, and the river with the rickety rope bridge. I was laughing quietly to myself as my mom was worried about walking across the bridge because she had acrophobia which is a fear of heights.

My feet were starting to get tired on the uneven ground especially because I was wearing flip-flops. I kept myself busy by looking at the beautiful scenery and listening to the soothing sounds of birds and other animals lurking near by. The cave itself was really warm with the thermo-heating "vent" system while we were walking through the gloomy rock structure. My mom and my aunt could have had a better time because they realized when they were walking through, there were bats two inches away from their heads. They didn't think it was funny then, and they don't think it is funny now. The only thing that was funny was that on the river tour my aunt sat in the back of the boat so she got soaked in the river water from the wake the motors were creating. It was a long tiring day with the humidity drenching us in heat from the Central American sun that was beating down on us in December. We also visited Xel-Ha in Mexico which was another small adventure with my aunt and uncle while my parents stayed in Cozumel. It was a great way to end the year; in warm weather, and with my family.

1/31 SOL

Introduction:

I'm Briahn, and I am in 7th grade. This year I studied Environmental Inventions, and for my next unit I am going to study Festivals Around the World. I like to snowboard, and Ice Skate with my friends and family as well as read.

Most people could say that the art in Ohio is in the things around us. The trees, the animals, even the architectual design in the buildings. When my family and I visited Ohio for Thanksgiving, we just went to an art museum. This was after a couple of days relaxing with family, celebrating Hanukkah, and celebrating Thanksgiving. Hanukkah is always fun with my family for a lot of reasons; the traditional food such as latkas, and the customs that our family practice. My favorite part is lighting the candles after dark. The blue candles become glossy as thick wax drips off of the sides from the small flame. We all say the hebrew blessing for the candles, together as a family and in unison. Our family talks about the candles and the words they are associated with while the flames are still burning. The first candle is connected with faith, and we would talk about that until the conversation ended or until the candles burned out.
My aunt made the food for Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving with her own family recipes. Holiday food is comfort food and it is even better with family recipes cooked in. The turkey was softer, the cranberry sauce was sweeter, and the latkas had the best homemade applesauce. Some people would also call cooking an art, and I would have to agree. You have to mix and compliment the flavors and spices in the dishes as well as making it look like a culinary master piece.

Our trip soon came to an end but before we left, my family and I went to visit the Ohio art museum in Gahanna. The museum displayed a large exhibit to an artist the worked with light, so we went at night for the best experience. As I walked in the first part of the exhibit, I saw lights flashing up above me with the sound of lightning and thunder. It was a inside of a greenhouse, that had blooming plants and flowers everywhere. The lightning clashed and made me shudder at the loud sound. As we kept walking, we eventually ended up outside in the garden of lights. The entire garden was filled with hundreds of balls of light that changed colors in waves. It reminded me of the ocean as the blue wave moved across all of the lights, soon changing into green. We passed colored glass sculptures hanging from the ceiling that were reflecting the light all around the room, and many others before going outside to a different area then the garden of light.

These were the water bottles in the pillars.

Each triangle had around 30 water bottles.

There were many pillars of light, that also changed colors, but not in waves. each one changed colors separately, but they looked identical. As I looked closer, the lights were inside 2-liter water bottles that made up the pillars. It was cold enough that the artist put in the lights and then froze water around it. This was also in the last part of the exhibit, which was a dome about fifteen feet tall also lit up with light inside water bottles. As I walked around it, it changed colors and reminded me of a memory from when I was younger. All of the lights were beautiful, but the pillars and the dome spoke to me in a special way, and I hope I can see them again next year.