Day: September 22, 2012

Lee Vining Day 2-Game Day

backinphilly3 Comments

Today, we woke up to our pregame breakfast. First off, this consisted of a 4 pound slab of bacon (purchased from the Mahogany Smoked Meats Co.).

You have never seen a group of guys go this wild for meat.

With the bacon, we made sausages, eggs cooked with the bacon grease, potatoes and onions cooked with bacon grease, and threw it all into breakfast burritos. Clearly, there was salsa and cheese involved. But it was meat-tastic.

After breakfast, we relaxed and either slept or went into the freezing cold river for a nice wake up dip. We then gathered to elect team captains while getting game gear ready to go.

Each player had to vote for three players that they think displayed the greatest form of leadership. Although we only planned on having three captains, the vote was so close that the coaches added a fourth. The result was John Olivo, Cody Triggs, Grant Spencer and Min Ung Choi.

We checked our gear one last time before loading up into the vans and blasting pump up music. We all got into our own zones, and prepared ourselves for battle.

We arrived to the field with one goal in mind: Win. We showed up an hour prior to kickoff, and began our warmups. The captains led the team in their stretches and agility workouts, and then broke up into individual position drills.

The whistles blew, and the starters took the field to compete in what very well may be the greatest 48 minutes in OVS history.Read More »

Growing Up

Daphne Psaledakis2 Comments

When I was little, we lived in Marin, a small town outside of San Francisco, California. Specifically, we lived in Kentfield, which is a town that even some of the people who live in Marin have never even heard of. Number 338, Kent Ave. was not a new house when we moved in. The stairs leading up to my brothers’ bedrooms were covered with the ugliest green carpet you could imagine. It was absolutely horrendous.

But then my mom decided to put her decorating talents to use, and we moved into our friends cabin while our house was remodeled. The cabin was so small that I had to share a room with my two brothers, and the youngest of the two eventually had to get his tonsils removed because he snored so loud.

The remodel seemed to take years, although in reality it didn’t take very long at all. I remember sitting on the front porch and talking to one of the workers. I ended up begging him to have the house down before my birthday.

And although the house wasn’t done in time for me to have my birthday party in it, it was eventually done. My favorite room quickly became the living room. It was in the very back of the house, with a door leading to the backyard. All the walls were painted white, except for one. It was hidden by a gigantic blue book-case, filled with novels, dictionaries, and my personal favorites: The picture books.

Picture Books.Read More »

Endeavor

smackyjackjack1 Comment

Last night, the Space Shuttle Endeavor sat perched atop a Boeing 747 at Los Angeles International Airport.  It spent the whole night atop its winged friend waiting for a crane to pluck it off the back of the 747 so it could being its final mobile journey to the Science Center in downtown L.A.

For the Shuttle, the coming years (and even decades) will be ones of quiet solitude as a tourist attraction and symbol of the once mighty manned American space vehicles.

Americans now have to buy seats off of other countries if they want to get into space. The lagging budget for NASA has fallen in part due to the recession, and also because of greed and misunderstanding.

Of the hundreds of members of congress, none are scientists. Therefore, it is extremely hard for federal branches of the government such as NASA and the EPA to get funding.

Space exploration, and even space tourism in some cases, has been left in the cash filled hands of private businessmen and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Richard Branson.

This exciting new turn of events could actually mean stronger and more determined space programs.

New designs for space shuttles are already in design by these companies, most notably the Hawthorne based SpaceX..

Until these designs become a safe reality, however, the world will have to be satisfied with the decommissioned Endeavor: a small black and white speck on the tiny blue dot.
Wooo, photo, yahhh

Three Roommates. Four Years.

moustachulous2 Comments

Tristen. Iris. Nicole. What do all of these three people have in common? They were all once or currently my roommates. I started OVS in 7th grade and have had three roommates. I know some people who have had five different roommates over three years.   I also know people who have kept the same roommate for four years. I’m glad to have had my past roommates. They all have been wonderful people and I never had any problems with them.

When I first started OVS four years ago, my roommate was a girl named Tristen. Tristen was my roommate for the two years I was at Lower Campus. She was a great roommate, but she was always losing things. Most of the time she would ask me where her stuff was and 99.9% of the time I had an answer for her. “I can’t find my laptop.” Literally my answer was one single word: closet. No joke, everything she lost was in her closet and if it wasn’t there it was down the side of her bed. I really don’t understand how it always ended up in her closet. I am going to be confused for life on that one.Read More »

Printemps dans Paris

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

My school is going to France and Spain over spring break.

I can’t go, but I think it’s so exciting that Ojai Valley School gives its students the opportunity to travel in Europe!

OVS is collaborating with a company called Education First, and will be traveling in France and Spain for 11 days in April, 2013.

But the part of the trip I think is OUTSTANDING is that our students are going to Paris in the spring.

They’re going to visit:

–Notre Dame Cathedral

–Place de la Concorde

–Champs ÉlyséesRead More »