On Weekends at College

      Last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was a three-day weekend for me. All week I was so excited (two three-day weekends in a row?! How awesome!) The first weekend was really cool, because I got to go home and enjoy REAL FOOD and see everyone again. This weekend, however, was the polar opposite.

      Ok, it wasn't terrible, only as terribly boring as sitting in my room all day, everyday. At first, I thought it was awesome that I wasn't required to do anything those days.

      Then came Saturday.

      I had all of my homework done and was basically surfing Facebook and eating meals. Thank goodness my mail was actually contained some pretty awesome stuff (laptop bag, letters and a care package from Mom containing comics from the paper, carrots and my Seventeen magazine) or else I possibly would have gone crazy.

      I finally went ice skating around two o'clock to get some excersize. And let me tell you. It's definitely excercise! I went by myself to the indoor rink that's up on the hill behind my dorm and walked from the sunny seventy-degree weather into the cool, crisp 40-50 ish degrees inside. I rented my awesomely cheap skates (four bucks!), put them on, and glided out into the unpopulous ice. I was the ONLY one out there- which made it so much better because I could flail my arms and not hurt anyone skate wherever I wanted, whichever way I wanted. It was only the second time ever that I had been skating and I'm proud to say I haven't fallen yet. Lost my balance, yes, but never fallen.

      After a refreshing forty-minutes-ish, I went back to my cave-of-a-dorm room, sore ankles and all, and continued doing nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing nothing and it's no problem... but given the last year I had and the non-existant summer vacation, I'm not used to doing nothing. Let alone three days in a row. Once I get everything done, there's no point in doing nothing, so I figure I should go out. If only I had something to do, energy to do it... and money to spend! Oh money to spend would be wonderful right now.

      Really though, I don't mean to give anyone the wrong impression of college weekends (heck, all of my followers have already experienced them) and I'm sure my definition of this weekend was far from the stereotypical one. Honestly, though, I know they'll get better (next week I have a freshmen retreat to a ropes course!), especially once I get that energy to get up and go do it!

      But now it's Monday, the weekend is over and boredom ceases to exist... for the most part. Today, Monday activities call (Woodsmen's practice anyone?) so I must depart from this rather non-exciting post.

Peace!

Sharing Biology Class: Part II The Galls

 It's time for the second round of the Biology Class series!

This lab that my class and I did last fall had to do with a certain natural phenomenons called "galls."

What are galls you ask?

Galls are those swelled, green balls found on Goldenrod stems. For class the friday before lab that week, our homework was to go out and collect galls. They are most usually found in the giant gatherings of goldenrod (not on singular stalks in the middle of nowhere) and our job was to grab 'em, tag 'em and bag 'em. ....Ok, so tagging didn't happen but all of us brought in twenty or so galls that Monday morning for dissection.

Dissection you say? The whole reason that these galls are in existence is because of the parasitic Gall Fly and Gall Moth. These two insects spend their larval stage inside the galls. Eggs are laid inside the stem, and the gall forms as the eggs grow into maggots. The white plant tissue surrounding the maggot's little hideout serves as it's nutrition and protection (although one type of beetle can sometimes burrow into a gall and feast on the white grub within). Eventually, the maggots mature and emerge from the gall as adults to start the cycle all over.

Anyway, back to dissection. Our job was to take scalpels and cut open those galls. It was a relatively fun class, interuppted here and there by occational cheers along the lines of "Hey guys! I DIDN'T accidently cut through my grub this time!"  We basically had to measure the galls, count the ones that had maggots in them, and examine the inside nutritional tissue.

All in all, galls are pretty cool. The grubs aren't slimy and discusting (they're more like really, really short white earthworms) and I was happy to finally learn what the heck those swollen lumps were on the flowers.

** Thanks to http://www.gpnc.org/goldenro.htm and http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/goldenrod_gall_fly.htm for helping me remember some information!

5 New Things I Experienced in the Last Few Days

1. Ice-skated

2. Tried sushi (only a bite)

3. Saw a live comedian

4. Watched people getting hypnotized

5. Pulled a muscle in my neck trying to keep my balence on a bus that was near it's full capacity of people.

Aaand, I succesfully completed my first day of college. Hurrah!

After all of the orientation things last weekend, it's finally nice to be able to go out and do things on my own. Schedules were so packed (try 8am to 11pm) and even though some were optional, those were the fun ones. It was so awesome though. I'm having a blast, and I just hope that these classes won't be too difficult. So far chemistry seems good, and other classes won't be too awful bad, as long as I can budget my time correctly.

Anyways, although that may not be very interesting to read, I had to get some of the new goings-on off my chest.

So, hooray for good classes, a great schedule and new friends. Cheers!

Sharing Biology Class: Part I

One of the most interesting classes I had last year was A.P. Biology. Yes, I know I wrote about how much it aggravated me, I still think it was pretty darn awesome. This series hopefully depicts the better times I had in the class.

Gross, I know, but that was the very beginning of my favorite class last year.

Our very first lab was studying the eating habits of slugs. This means that our homework that first Friday was to go out and collect at least five slugs, more for extra credit. Our rather large class of nine was successful in our searches for the slimy little critters. I grabbed an old, plastic ice cream tub to house my catches in and dubbed it "The Slug Pad." 

Only when I got to class that Monday did I realize how my seemingly triumphant 12 slugs paled in comparison to one of my lab partner's nearly 200. I thought it was cool that she could get so many! This picture above is only a fraction of her huge tub-full.The class gathered around to wince and gag as she uncovered the overcrowded box.

As class went on and we got through our lab papers, my two lab partners and I were put on Slug Duty as the little slimeballs kept escaping from their prison of plastic. Thank goodness for gloves!

At the end of the lab, a week later, we set our captives free. While dumping out The Slug Pad, I turned over a leaf to find a slug that had laid some eggs! Our class, being the cool kids that we were, turned her into the class pet, Bertha. We made sure to give her water as much as we could remember every day and even gave her a mini-terrarium to house her future babies.

Unfortunately, our beloved Bertha sadly dried out died from the change in surrounding atmosphere.

R.I.P. Bertha! You are sorely missed!

Dear Blog,

     I'm sorry. I've left you out in the cold again. I know it was wrong of me, but I have good reason, I promise, my lonely little blog. These past few weeks, dare I say months, have been excruciatingly busy for me, for it's truely painful to have to deal with

a.) getting up at 4:50am every weekday
b.) spending eight hours at a job that I hate, because we literally can not do anything
c.) knowing that those eight hours of nothing could be spent doing so many more productive things
d.) not being able to do what I need to after work, because I'm too exhausted from trying to look busy all day (I'm not lazy, my boss told me to do this)
e.) knowing I can't relax on the weekend because we have so much going on (not complaining though, because they're all so worth it...they just make me tired is all)
    
     And, on top of this all, I'm trying to get used to the fact that I will soon be surrounded by hundreds of people I don't know, trying to make friends and basically handling living on my own. I'm not entirely scared of this, I mean, home is only a couple hours away and I can contact help whenever I need it. It's just intimidating to know that I won't be seeing anything familiar for at least a couple weeks. I believe I can handle college, it's only the change that I'm hoping I can get used to fast.
    
     It's not you, dearest blog, it's me. Those reasons are why you have been so deprived of new material. When I come home to check all of my e-mails and my facebook, I'm simply too tired to carry on and spend up to an hour writing an entry. I wish not to spend my precious few hours in the evening sucked into cyberspace only to come out moments before bedtime wondering why it's suddenly so dark out. This is summer, the one season a year I have to relax and enjoy being outdoors, the place that I so dearly love.

     So forgive me, my beloved blog, for leaving you for the warm vernal breezes, the cool nights under the stars, the marshmallows toasted over the campfires, and the coziness of a sleeping bag in our tent. Also, for dealing with thank-you cards, spending time with family and for sorting and determining which of my belongings is worthy enough to accompany me to the next stage of my life.

     I promise to always keep you in mind, but I cannot say how often future entries will be posted. I posess no knowledge of how much time I'll have in order to sit and write, although I hope I'll have just a little!

Take care, and I hope to write again soon,
Love,
Holly

Just a Little Note

   
 So this morning I had a little brush with nature again.

Mom was driving me to work this morning and as we pulled to a stop at the bottom of our hill, I saw a deer cross the street into someone's lawn. It wasn't completely out of the ordinary, but I found it interesting that I had just come down from a rural road where deer often frequent, to downtown where the animals under the "wild" category consist mostly of squirrels and crows. It was just a neat beginning to my day.

     And on the way home, just before pulling up to our driveway, a mother turkey crossed the road with  dozen or so of her poults. Again, not strange but just a nice welcome home. 

     I think I'm going to miss all of these little joys that come with living rurally once I go to college. But.. being a biology major, maybe I'll still get to enjoy nature a little bit :) Boy these next three weeks are going to go by fast!

This Is My Car

Or, rather, my family's nonexistant one.
One of the many reasons I haven't written in here since the beginning of the month was because I wasn't here at all last week. We, my family and I, were all set out to go on vacation last Sunday. Our plan was to go to Chestertown, Lake Placid and then Old Forge to do some hiking, kayaking and other awesome things we like to do in the Adirondacks. We have to go through Utica to get where we were going and then continue on route 8 in the direction of Speculator.
Well, we hit the West Canadas and stopped at a picnic spot on West Canada Creek about midday (maybe 1:00) to have lunch. After lots of pictures and lovely turkey sandwiches, we went further down the turn-off road to a possible hiking spot. We all decided we were just a little too tired to hike four miles round trip, so we turned around to rt. 8 and went on our way.
It wasn't twenty minutes later that we turned around a left curve to see a long stretch of road and this car pulling hastily back into a line of about seven. That car had cut in front of a track (Ford) that was pulling a boat on his trailer.
That threw the truck out of control...which sent it fishtailing across the highway. Once we saw that, my dad slowed right down, pulled off the highway and into the grass.  Sooner than we could think, we saw the truck wildly swerving to the left... and then... straight into our left side.
Honestly, it was so fast that I had no time to think. I really thought it would miss us because, you know, things always worked out that way. But, no, I realized it was coming for us when it was about a foot away from the side of the car. We all braced, flinched or both as it drove us into the weeds.
I don't remember hearing anything really, except the impact and the windows blowing out.
When we were stopped, Mom checked to see if we were all ok, and then we got out of the car (note: we were informed later that it is a bad idea to do that).  Mostly, we were cut up from glass and bruised. Dad had the worst of it right under his ribs. The truck driver immediately got out of his truck to ask if we were alright and to see if we needed an ambulance.

The passer was nowhere to be seen. Grr.

Fast forward to when the ambulance came; we were all put in precautionary neck braces and taken all the way back to Utica. Our vacation was going pretty poorly, but we were more concerned about each other at that point. An hour later, we were wheeled into St. Luke's hospital and cleaned up. We were all in shock, which was probably good because it bore the blunt of hearing that Dad was going into surgery for a splenectomy, but bad because our minds were still set on "Ok, so we'll have to cancel the hotel tonight, but maybe tomorrow we can go on our way."
Eventually we figured out the car was taken to Speculator, so we went and cleaned it out the next day. Seeing our things back at the hostpital, the nurses jokingly said we were the most prepared accident victims they'd ever seen. And soon, the shock wore off to a point that we realized we had to cancel all of vacation.
One week later, last Saturday, we came home from Utica after staying with my Aunt and Uncle, at a hotel, and with my mom's cousin. Dad was all stapled up (turns out he could keep his spleen, yay!),-and the rest of us just weary from the tiring previous days.

I'm definitely still feeling it, but we're all a lot better. Several people commented to us that maybe it happened for a reason, and I agree that it's a possibility. Maybe it was saving us from a more terrible accident down the road, or maybe it's the cause for a beneficial effect. I suppose we'll never really know, and all we can do is be really thankful for how it turned out. It could certainly be a whole lot worse!