Deer

You always hear about the pigeon problem in New York City or San Diego, but never do you hear about the deer over population all over the east coast.







Last night while driving I was this close to hitting a deer crossing the street at night. I stopped really short and realized that there were two deer, a baby and her mother, about to cross the street.











In stead of issuing more hunting licenses to kill the deer I think that the east coast should solve the over population by protecting more land for the deer to live in and also maybe put birth control in the food for deer to try and control the population.

Isla Mujeres

Water at the north end of  the beach.

I recently just took a vacation with my mother to Isla Mujeres, a 5 mile long island off the coast the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The views of the beach were absolutely gorgeous with clear turquoise water endlessly hitting the golden sand. The beach surrounds the east side of the island with turquoise clear water that goes on for miles. When I would swim in the water, I would go much further out than i had realized because the water was so clear that I could see the ground of the beach bellow me. However, actually I couldn't touch the ground at all!

Waves crashing on the west coast

The west side of the island was filled with a coastline of deep blue waves and turquoise waves crashing into the  rigid rocks. This side of the island was loud and powerful as the waves crushed the sharp rocks. It was too dangerous to swim on this side of the island because of all the rocks but it was absolutely gorgeous to watch the waves crash. This side of the island was much less calm than the east side because of the gushing waves. I drive along this coastline in a golf cart as we drove from the south side to the north side of the island and the view was absolutely amazing.


The island is less divided by east and west but more divided by north and south. The north side of the island is where most of the restaurants are and big hotels. Most of the stores are on the north side as well. Tourists generally stay on the north side because it is famous for its clear water beaches.


The south side of the island is more for the locals who live there and is less built up. There are however three tourist attractions on the south side. One there is the sea turtle park. There are lots of different turtles and some other animals such as a few sea horses and  fish. There is also Garafon Park which has zip lines that cross the water and other interesting paths to take hikes on. It is most popular for its dolphin park where people can pay to swim with dolphins. Finally there is a sculpture garden at the very south tip of the island and it has a ruin there, however it is mostly destroyed because of the recent hurricanes there.

In Isla Mujeres the island is painted with colorful and unique architecture which makes the place lively and fun. Especially the cafes that I went to. One had different patterned tiles bordering the entire ceiling and tucan mobiles hanging from the ceiling. Another cafe had bright blue tables and chairs. The tables a clear glass table so you could see the sea shells inside of them.

Most of the tourists who visit Isla Mujeres travel by golf cart. There are some cars but not many and some bikes as well but most of the people on this island travel by golf cart or motor cycle.

Isla Mujeres is absolutely beautiful with stunning views, delicious food, great music, and tons of things to do.

Shenandoah Mountains




As we drive, there are endless hills with beautiful colors in the fall.

This weekend I went to the Shenandoah Mountains which are absolutely gorgeous. My family and I try to visit friends who live out there 2 or 3 times a year. Our family friends have girl who is about 9 years old now and two twin boys who are in third grade.

I love to visit their family and almost remove myself from society and civilization. I live in a pretty urban place where you can always hear the sounds of buses on the streets and it's noisy, but out here it's so much more quiet.

I also love visiting them out here because the family has a really cool house. There house was transformed from a one room school house in the early 1900s. The basement has a stage on it where the students used to preform, and you can still see the lights hanging from the ceiling that would shine on the actresses and actors. Up stairs they have huge windows reaching from the ceiling to the floor in the dinning room and you can see the endless mountains and green land that stretches beyond the house.

This time we decided to go on a walk.  Apparently this real estate agent had bought a lot of land and had plans to turn it into houses, however with the economy; only one was built. All three kids went into the woods where there was a path parallel to the paved road that went to the end. We walked down the road as the kids followed. We got to the end of the read and below was a beautiful view of the hills and a lake. You could also see part of the Shenandoah River. It was absolutely gorgeous.There were no cars or houses nearby except for the last one at the very end of the road.

I was so glad to have come back here to visit friends and get away from the loudness of where I live for just a few hours. It was nice to see them because we hadn't in a really long time and I liked taking on this new adventure and going for a walk on this empty road.

In the Process of Knitting

So I've been wanting to knit for a while now and I decided this winter to learn how to knit. I went to the knitting store and bought needles and yarn. They're technically called skeins of yarn. Anyways I learned actually from a few videos on youtube.

1st. I learned how cast on.

Its actually really easy! I had to watch the video a few times but then I got the hang of it.

2nd. I learned how to knit

It took me a while to understand this part, but I sort of got the hang of it plus I had some of my friends help me.

So I'm in the process of making a scarf. That's my ultimate goal, but I keep adding on stitches after each row, so I'm still in the beginning fazes of learning how to knit.

Some of my friends are really good at knitting and I think its cool that one skein of yarn can turn into a headband or scarf or hat. My friend from camp is so good at knitting that she can knit under the table.

Maybe one day I will eventually finish my scarf.

Getting Letters

From tumblr: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqw5ebtTqc1qh239s.jpg

The feeling of getting mail from friends that is handwritten is such a nice feeling. I was on the plane coming home and now you have to turn off all electronics for about the first 15 or so minutes at the very beginning of the flight and at the end. So I couldn't listen to my music on my phone, but I'm the kind of person who always likes to be busy. So I decided to pull out the barf bag from the seat and started to write a letter on it. I figured it would cool and funny to write a letter on a plane barf bag.

I wrote the letter and stuffed it into my backpack and then got off the plane. So normally I write letters to camp friends but I never send them because I don't have their address off hand. My camp makes a "yearbook" sort of booklet where everybody can put their address and then people can write letters. But in order to send the letter, I have to find my booklet, and then find the address and make sure I still have the letter. I loose things easily so actually getting it together to send the letter is the most difficult part for me.

Anyways I actually did send this letter and I was really excited about it. My mom keeps giving me all these random cards that she gets in the mail, so I always have cards to write on. So I sent it to my friend in Massachusetts and it got there maybe 3 or 4 days later. When I got a text saying "I GOT YOUR LETTER" it made me happy because I had forgotten by that point that I had even sent the letter in the first place.

I think that my generation barely knows what the postal system is let alone how to write letters. It's such an easy thing to do but its one of those simple things that make you smile. I think that my generation should stop texting, tweeting, face-booking  and just write a letter for one time. Letters for me, seem so much more genuine, because the person took the time to hand write the letter and send it. It's nice to get letters and then send other ones.

I'm going to try to send more letters to my friends from camp and even maybe to my friends who only live about 10 minutes away from me. Although it may seem like a waste of money for postage stamps, I actually think that it's a really nice way to say hi!

Vermont Ice Cutting

Over the long holiday weekend I went up to my camp call Tamarack Farm. It's one of the five camps all apart of an organization called farm and wilderness that run wilderness and farm quaker camps. They have 3 work weekends during the year plus they run summer camps.

I've gone to SAM Camp the coed wilderness camp for 10-14 year olds and last summer I went to Tamarack Farm for 15-17 year olds. I really enjoyed both camps and this year I won't be able to return to Tamarack Farm.

I am disappointed that I can't make it but I understand that I need to start working and my mom and I have already started planning our trip to China. So I decided this winter to go up to ice cutting, one of the weekends that my camp hosts.

We all went and cut ice out of a frozen pond for one if the camps called Flying Cloud. During the summer they use absolutely no technology or electricity including a refrigerator. Therefore, in the winter we cut ice to store in the ice house so that by the time summer camp starts up again, they can have a place to store their food and keep it cold. Without a refrigerator.

I mostly ran ice down. So basically there was a pulley system in which runners would run down a hill to pull a sled filled of cut out ice blocks up to the ice house. From there people would unload them into the ice house. There were also people down at the pond cutting and lifting ice blocks from the pond.

It was so much fun and an interesting way to still stay in touch with camp. I spent time with old counselors and friends. I also met new people and on the last night 5 of us teenagers stayed up until 1am knitting, talking, and laughing. It was such a nice way to still connected to this special place and I hope to go to other work weekends like this.

Cluedo

Cluedo

 

We only had 1 week to plan, shoot, and edit a film that included a specific object.

Our group got a bloody plastic head so we decided to recreate the game  clue, also known as cluedo in England. This week we had students from England come to our school on an exchange trip so we all brainstormed for the first day to figure out an idea for the film. 

So we ended up choosing cluedo and planning out our script and shot list. We even drew a story board. The next day we filmed all our shots with a cannon video recorder and I filmed most of it. At the end of class we imported it to the school computers.

Finally on the last day to work on this project we edited the film. I am really proud of myself because I actually helped edit and add music in final cut pro. I was so proud that I could figure out how to import music and then actually edit it. This is the first time I have ever used final cut pro so I was really proud of how our video turned out. 

This project was great because we got to really bond with our english exchange students while developing our film skills. I though our idea was creative and the process was really effective because on filming day we didn't waste any time.