Month: October 2012

Fight through Pain-It hurts to write this one, guys!

backinphilly2 Comments

I mean that completely literally, by the way. Last night, we traveled to Maricopa to play a football game. We knew from the beginning that this one was going to be a battle.

This is probably the understatement of the century.

We worked hard and just couldn’t make anything happen on either side of the ball. We started strong, and finished strong. But somewhere in the middle, we lost ourselves a little bit.

We didn’t lose our drive and our determination. We were confused and in pain. A lot of what happened last night was very controversial, especially to the spectators, who had a pretty good view of the carnage that was being left on the field.

I want to thank the spectators that came out to support and cheer us on. I speak for the whole team when I say we could never show how much we appreciate the shouts and yells from the sidelines. Trust me, we hear you.

The reason this post hurts is actually completely physical pain. I’m still a little shaken in the head from taking as many hits as I did. Also, I have a very swollen hand that is making typing very impossible. I am also sitting in a position that keeps the computer close to my body, as I cannot fully extend my left arm.

None of that matters, however.

Pain heals itself.

We will get back to work this week and keep on going.

Enjoy this picture of men running into each other.

For those wondering who that is, yes it’s Brian Dawkins hitting Alge Crumpler :).

Souls from Southeast Asia – Pee Sai

theycallmedameLeave a comment


His name is Pee Sai.
He is 23-years-old.
He is my friend.

Pee Sai speaks very little English, and I speak absolutely no Burmese, but the language barrier is not detrimental towards our friendship.  I don’t need to speak his language to know that Pee Sai is hilarious, kind, and worrysome.  He does not need to speak my language to know how well we get along.

When I first met Pee Sai, I had just crossed the Burmese-Thai border after sitting between the two countries in horrendous heat for an hour.  I was sweaty, irritated, and was suffering from one of my headaches; he was shy, not speaking to anyone as we found our way to the bus that would take us throughout Burma.

I officially met Pee Sai outside of a school in the Burmese mountains.  I was asked to grab my ukulele from the bus so our group could sing a song for the schoolchildren, and Pee Sai was asked to escort me.

“Hello, I am Pee Sai, what is your name?”
“Hi, I’m Aria!”

When I tried to converse further, I realized how those few words were some of the only English words Pee Sai knew.  After we discovered this hurdle, we communicated through outrageous gestures, silly faces, and universal sounds of approval, disapproval, annoyance, and happiness.

Pee Sai would seem to be, to most of anyone, a shy but friendly face; a man who has lived a relatively easy life and recognizes that.

Pee Sai has not lived such a life.Read More »

Burma VJ

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

Burma VJ is a 2008 Danish Documentary. It tells the story of a group of reporters in Burma, which is a closed country, who film the 2007 protests and smuggle the footage out of the country. Their footage was used by CNN, BBC, and other news stations to tell the rest of the world of the proceedings in Burma.

The film is narrated by one of the reporters, who is forced to leave the country and work form Thailand after being caught with his camera out and interrogated by the police. Throughout the movie, he references the 1988 revolution.

In 1988 the people of Burma rose up and protested the government. As a result of the uprising, 3,000 people were killed. The country spent 19 years in fear, too afraid to speak up.

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We Run.

eternity10302 Comments

Yesterday was a special day for me. I had my first cross country meet in my life.

We left for The Thatcher School for the meet. The whole team went there and most of us were going to run under the fervent sun for 3 miles.

My leg still hurt from last day’s practice and I didn’t really feel nervous until we stood on the starting line, with other girls talking by my side. They cheered, laughed. Five of us – me, Min Ju, Momoe, Emmy and Ally represented our school. I was in Line 6, the number stands for luck in Chinese.

“Take your mark, ready, GO! ” We flew out of the lines like birds finally gained freedom from the cages. “Three miles, just as what we usually run at school. ” I encouraged myself.

It was hard, I admitted. We need to run two times of the course. For the first one, Min Ju and I was running together and we sometimes talked to each other so that we would not feel tired.

I ran.

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Brian Dawkins-An Eagle Forever

backinphilly1 Comment

Last week, Brian Dawkins‘ number 20 was retired by the Philadelphia Eagles during their game against the New York Giants on Sunday night Football. As many of my readers may recall, my role model has been Brian Dawkins throughout my entire life. He’s the number one reason I play football. He has acted as someone that I strive to be everyday. This past Sunday was the final act in Dawk’s storied career.

The Friday before the game, my cousin went to Lincoln Financial Field to join in the celebration with the rest of the Eagles personnel. The team, coaches and alum were celebrating Dawkins’ career and my cousin decided that he wanted to get involved. While not to the extent of myself, my cousin also has a strong admiration of “Weapon X”.

My cousin then made his move and did something that I will always appreciate and never forget. He decided to surprise me by getting Dawk to call my cell phone and talk to me. I almost had my chance.

EXCEPT I WAS AT FOOTBALL PRACTICE!!!!

However, Dawk left a voicemail that I consider almost better. I can never replay a conversation that I have over the phone, but I can always replay the voicemail. He didn’t even have to say too much. He just told me to “Make sure I ball out every play”. For those that don’t know, “ball out” means to play every play like it’s your last. I’ve been living that way since day 1 of my football career, and Dawk’s words have resonated throughout my mind, body, heart and soul since the first Eagles game I ever went to.

That voicemail has meant the world to me. I have played it every night since I’ve received it before I go to bed. Finally, I have a piece of the Wolverine that I can share with everyone.

App Review: Dungeon Village

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Hello. As anyone who goes to OVS knows gaming has been banned in the dorms. There is a grayish area however (More of a ignorable area). iPhone Apps, more specifically iPhone Games can be amazing.

At 1ST Dungeon Village may seem like a Gameboy era Final Fantasy or Zelda game. In reality it is an entertaining bastardization of the Sims.

In Dungeon Village your job is to build a town that will host typical RPG Adventurers: knights, archers, merchants, or mages. You are given some gold, one adventurer and a quick tutorial before you are left to your own devices. In spite of its low graphics the game does have some complexity.

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Camping, Here We Come!!!

moustachulous1 Comment

Last year, I went camping with third graders for three days. It was a lot of work, but tons fun. I got to miss three days of school hanging out at the beach everyday and just being a kid again. Who couldn’t love that? Well the reason why I mention this is because I get another amazing opportunity to go with the third graders again. I am leaving tomorrow (Wednesday, October 2, 2012) and will be back on Friday. I’m actually really excited to go. It is nice to take a little break from school that is longer than two days. I’m going to miss my friends and my lovely horse, but it will only be three days. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone! I’ll write all about it on Friday or Saturday!

Oh and I don’t have any pictures yet because, well I haven’t gone yet, so here is a picture of a cat.

App Review: Puppet Wars

frog3Leave a comment

ede Hello. As anyone who goes to OVS knows gaming has been banned in the dorms. There is a grayish area however (More of a ignorable area). iPhone Apps, more specifically iPhone Games can be amazing.

The one that I have been obsessed with of late is Puppet Wars Episode 1. For everyone who likes First Person Shooters but can no longer enjoy them this is the solution for you.

Puppet Wars is like this. You are a janitor, a survivor of the Puppet Apocalypse. Your old job was cleaning toilets at a Puppet TV Station; your new job is killing Puppets.

At level one the puppets are weak, stupid, and purple. As the levels get more difficult the variety of the puppets increase. Before you know it your fighting: agile yellow puppets, invisible Ninja Puppets, purple puppets that throw heat-seeking chickens,

and (my favorite) red puppets that pop out of trashcans and throw tomatoes at you. After a while you will encounter your first boss, a troll-like monster puppet.

The weapons in Puppet Wars are divided into two categories, Melee and Firearms. At level one you are given a pistol and a mop. The pistol and the mop are effective at 1st but they are soon rendered obsolete by the increasing difficultly of the game. As you progress through the levels you begin unlocking new and more powerful weapons. Some of these weapons are (of course) quite ridiculous. The most over the top weapons in Episode 1 are the Plunger-Crossbow and the Mystic Sword (mystic sword= OP).
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Weapons are not the only things that help you in your quest to kill every puppet that moves. Puppet Wars has added perks giving you a wider ranger of abilities and tactics. My favorite perk is the Invisible cape, it not only renders you invisible for a limited time but it also confuses the puppets.

Unlocking weapons and perks is not very hard; buying them is the real challenge. After you unlock a weapon or perk you must buy the unlocked item from the Workshop (a type of armory) by using the in-game currency. On death each puppet you kills drop a yellow star, tougher enemies drop a large yellow star. These Yellow Stars when picked up give you money that can be used to upgrade your arsenal.

This is one of the most engaging apps on Apples App Store. Good Graphics, easy gameplay, and a smooth on screen d-pad makes this game a must buy for app and FPS lovers (minor annoyance; there is no reload button).

After school expeditions

equestri vitam5 Comments

I hadn’t planned on blogging again until after my Rome experience but I must share to you all about my day today.

First, after school I walked through downtown and got delicious Gelato. A cono piccolo with menta and nutella. If you haven’t assumed already, I’ll let you know that it was freaking delicious! So to start that put me in an excellent mood for the evening. After I finished my delectable gelato my host dad picked me up to go home, or so I thought…

We were heading up to the mountains behind our neighborhood. I asked my host dad what we were doing and he explained to me that we were going to see my Nonno’s(grandpa’s) farm. We arrived to the farm and greeted Nonno.

He then took me into the bottom floor of the farm house where I found his small winery! I always knew that my family made their own wine but I never knew how or where. Turns out that they do it five minutes away from home. Nonno explained to me the whole process of the wine making which is quite simple.

First all the harvested grapes are put into a big grinder and all the mushed grapes go into a wooden barrel. When the barrel is full there is a lid that with a crank pushes all the juice out of the barrel into a bucket. All the juice that goes into the bucket is put into bottles for a long time to ferment and become wine. I tried some of the grape juice before it’s fermented into wine and it’s absolutely delicious! Naturally very sweet and refreshing.

After viewing the wine process we walked through the farm to pick grapes and tomatoes. Which are all organic without pesticides or anything of the sort. The grapes are so yummy to snack on. Read More »

Collages

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

I’ve decided that I really enjoy making collages.

There’s a free app for the iPhone called InstaCollageFree that lets you make super cool compositions.

Electing to exercise my assembling talents on my friends, I made a series of Catalina Sea Camp collages to pass time.

Sonia Grunwald, Melissa Ballard, Ursula Granirer, Isabel Kirk, Alex Dierking, Brooke Browning, Kimmery Galindo, Roxi Harvey, & me

The app gives you a bunch of different frames you can just load your pictures into.  I personally like the one that looks like a postcard, with a stamp reading, “True Love” in the corner.

You can adjust the background color and the color of the lines between the pictures.Read More »