This is the fifth post I’ve written in one sitting, I’m pretty sure this makes me up to date… I’ll ask Alula since she seems to be the only one counting. I think I’m going to clean my room after work today. It desperately needs it, fortunately for me I love cleaning my room, I think the transition from a complete mess to a space that people want to be in is spectacular. It’s not even just the before and after, I really like picking this up, organizing, and throwing things away like the whole process is good.
Ok, im back at home, it’s like 8:30, I’m not going to clean cause im tired but I think I’ll do some work in the morning and then finish it off tomorrow night. I’m going to watch Scent of a Woman and see if it’s actually good, prob won’t be. Alright, I think that’s just about enough words and I don’t really want to be doing homework anymore so I’ll see you next week. Maybe. More likely in a couple weeks when I have to catch up on a bunch again.
Oi Vey! Here we go again. For someone who dislikes writing these nuisances, I very much enjoy reading them. Except for that one dude who wrote about the way women smell like that’s pretty weird dog. Elizabeth, I think your bad luck might have to do with the fact that you had a drink on your piano, I’m pretty sure that’s sacrilegious or something. Alula be careful expecting this summer to be the best ever, high expectations have a tendency to let us down I recommend trying to just go with the flow rather than assuming what the future will be. I liked your Journey w/ Journalism post. I wish Mr. Alaverez mandated that we all wrote these like even the Journalism 2 students. honestly, I wish the whole school had to do them. I think the way people write in casual circumstances is a great view of their personality. Not that it’s a complete view of who they are but writing without revisions is like a way to see how people think and I find that super interesting. I wonder what people think of me and my writing, I definitely don’t put as much thought into these as other people do but I still think that they provide a view of me. I think the discussion about movies was my favorite Journalism class ever. It was probably one of the first things that made me think about how I’ll miss OVS. Last night, we were talking about how even though OVS is small and we often consider that a bad thing, it really forces you to interact with people you normally wouldn’t and I think that is fantastic. Like, and I’ve said this before, but there’s really nobody at the school I wouldn’t be absolutely opposed to hang out with outside of school. We really have an amazing collection of individuals here.
How did I even get this far behind on blog posts this is crazy. Steely Dan is so fire. I mean Do It Again is just such a head bopper, how does one even create something so in tune with the human spirit? Not to mention the other songs on that album, I can’t remember the name right now but you know the songs I’m talking about. Speaking of music, I really wish I could consume more of it, I actually would like to be able to absorb it, like through my skin, idk I feel like it never sounds high quality enough. I want my body just like be the music. When I die I just want to be a sound frequency, probably of a Steely Dan song, well not really, I definitely would take a while to decide what song I want to be after this life. Maybe A Milli by Lil Wayne that song is excellent. Or White Ferrari which is actually like a mid-song but the way it looks on the oscilloscope makes up for all the averageness of the track itself. Ok, I’d say that’s about one hundred and fifty words so I’ll stop just talking nonsense.
Hello and welcome back to Emanuel’s blogs. One hundred and fifty words of free thought so that he doesn’t get zeros on them. He being me, I am he, there is only me. Anyway, I love garage sales, it’s like modern-day exploring. Today I got a carabiner watch and a point-and-shoot camera. The camera is a Canon Powershot SD600 I like the way it looks and feels in my hand. It has a tiny viewfinder which I think is cool. I don’t have a charger for it but Ben does so I’ll go over to his house after work and pick that up probably.
I’m so done with school, I know this is a fairly universal feeling for seniors in their last month of Highschool but holy moly it’s getting to be a lot. Something about listening to the junior talk about college as if it’s the most important thing ever really bothers me. Like why are they so keen to change who they are to fit into a school, every single one of them is incredibly smart and industrious and interesting but for some reason they have this competitive, verging on toxic, view of the college process. Like if they would just be themselves they would probably do better than when they all freak out about how to curate the application to a school.
I’m at work right now. It’s pretty boring. The weird thing about working here is that you actually don’t have to do any work at all. I’m just sitting here wasting time on Instagram and Craigslist; endlessly scrolling mass consuming irrelevant content. Anyway, I decided I should probably do real work so I don’t get zeros on all my blog posts, or worse, get shamed by Alula in the group chat. I know these only need to be one hundred and fifty words (see what I did there ) but I seem to be completely adverse to doing them. I never want to make bad content so I procrastinate but by pushing them off to the last minute I end up making bad ones anyway. I think this one is long enough, so I’ll see you in a couple minutes when for the next one.
I love old technology. The analog feel of buttons and dials under my finger, the lights of a stereo amp, the crackle of vinyl, and the warped sound of an overplayed cassette tape––all create beauty we so often lose in the digital world. The beauty of chaos, the unorganized, and the functionless. These devices hold value in their aesthetics but also through the stories that define them.
Such objects fill my room with stories from my own life and the countless others they’ve encountered. Next to my bed sits a CRT TV I found abandoned on the road. It works surprisingly well for a piece of technology made before Facebook, though, like the person who left it behind, not many would think much of it. It’s been replaced by two decades of 4K ultra-HD developments, which produce bigger, brighter images. Why would anyone watch a special effects masterpiece on something with the quality of a cave painting and a screen smaller than a shoebox?
I see its beauty though, the way it needs to warm up before turning on, the way it cracks and clicks when you try to push its archaic buttons, and the decaying colors of the few remaining VHS tapes, long-forgotten.
I imagine this TV didn’t change hands many times. It was probably bought new at Radio Shack in Ventura, six years before I was born. It probably sat in someone’s living room playing movies for their kids on family game night, and then their grandkids, and then it probably sat in the garage taking up space until they finally decided the black hunk of metal, glass, and plastic was an eyesore whose good days were as long gone as its remote. Now it sits as an exhibit in my room, a reflection of others’ memories and a piece of art for me to admire.
Like this old TV, I, too, can easily be overshadowed by things bigger and brighter. I surf with more passion than I’ve ever felt before, but by most standards, I’d be considered unremarkable.
Surfing’s the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered: walls of water like moving mountains, foam like a powerful avalanche, a board that goes from being your greatest ally to greatest enemy the moment it’s freed from your grip. Is the feeling of a wave worth the pain of falling? Often, it is. Small waves, no biggie, a couple seconds of being under frigid water, and then you paddle back out and try again. But when the waves become giants and the board a brute-force weapon, that fall begins to exceed your limits.
I remember going out on a day with waves far beyond my skill set—Goliath and Polyphemus in watery form. Before I even paddled for a wave, a set came in. The first wave blocked the sun as it groaned past me, the second feathered as I crested its peak, the third, I wasn’t so lucky. The avalanche hit me, immediately tearing the board from my hands. The wave was now groaning on top of me, thrashing my body like a ragdoll in a washing machine. Then, it was over. The wave passed, and I was okay. So what pushes me to surf in these conditions? I think it’s because putting myself in places beyond my skill set and comfort, where I’m deeply flawed, has shaped me. I find love and beauty in the places where I know I’ll fall, for it’s there that I find who I am.
I climb, hike, surf, and run, but most athletic is an unlikely yearbook superlative.
Like the TV, I, too, crack and click when I’m pushed too hard. If all that made me was performance, I, too, would be left on the street without a second thought, but I am my story not my statistics. I too, have beauty, which lies not in my achievements but in my imperfections.
Something is special about summer, it’s probably the almost total lack of responsibility but I like to think about the subtler parts like the way everything is always bright like an overexposed photograph. I love the way the sun casts shadows in the summer and how leaves perfectly block the suns beating rays making glowing green arrows that flutter in the wind. I love how the heat overwhelms you and forces you to jump in a pool or the ocean or maybe close the windows turn on the ac and watch a movie. I love eating snacks with friends and doing things too energetic for the stresses of the school year. I loved last summer when we went to the beach in the morning and started the day at the beach, or, after a hot day jumping into the cool seawater as the sun set or when it was pitch dark out yet the sand still held the sun warmth from the previous day. I loved the summer of covid. I’d sneak out for a ‘bike ride’ only to lounge at the river preserve for hours on end. I loved 8th-grade summer, that warm night in woodland hill sleeping on the living room floor with my dad, or the night after seeing my whole life packed into boxes in the foreign garage I now know so well. I’m glad I was here for summers, playing GTA and eating those sour candies, late nights in the RAV with the AC on, or learning to surf on the shitty red board. I’m scared about losing summer—being so caught up in my life that I forget to enjoy it. Still thinking about school, work, and money all while the sun glistens down and the tree makes its perfect shade. Im scared to be like my parents, unaware of how beautiful it is outside. Lost in my own head never letting out that final sigh, that feeling of needing nothing more and wanting nothing less. Im scared I was going to never have summer again. I don’t want to lose something special about summer.
I’ve been thinking about doing more creative story writing, I probably won’t, but, here’s an idea for one:
There’s a person in a village/town of some sort in a cold somewhat barren landscape. Some bushes and plants grow but for the most part, there’s just not much life. But there is a lot of ice, specifically a large glacier. He’s lived in the same house his whole life on the edge of the town. When this man was just a child the glacier was miles above the town but slowly the hundred-foot wall of ice crept up toward the village. Now, while the town does have history there, the fact that this glacier is going to wipe it all out was well known for years beforehand, people could watch it over a year travel a few hundred feet, over a decade travel a mile, and so the town moved everything except for the building out of the glaciers path. Everyone has a new house not far from the original town but kind of live between the two. Until the last few months, the man has been fine to leave with only some memories attached to the shabby old town, but in the months before he notices a plant growing just beyond the confines of his backyard. He becomes attached to the little sprout, and then the plant, and then the small bush, and as it’s growing his attachment to it is growing. He becomes almost obsessive sitting next to it all day watching the wall of ice get closer to destroying this little thing that he loves (I think there’s an element of him being alone I want to explore in the beginning) and then the wall is 10 feet away from this little plant, and then its three and then one. And on his last day with the plant he watches as this wall gets inches away from everything he loves and then it’s getting pushed to the side and finally it’s gone mixed together with everything else that the glacier has picked up.
Idk just what I’ve been thinking about the last few days
Wow Wow Wow. These snacks are delicious. It’s rare to have such wonderful and thoughtful snacks brought to journalism, I mean a lot of the time people don’t bring anything at all. I am immensely enjoying the combination of the salty Cheetos with the sweet and amazing chocolate Pocky. Pocky is really an amazing snack, they can get a little sweet, but other than that they have the chocolate covering on the biscuit stick kind of thing. It’s very unique to have this combination. I also think I like them because they were very popular in Bali when I was living there so they definitely have a sentimental value. today has been a pretty weird day, I think the rain throws off the mood a bit around here, plus, with the Mammoth trip out and all the kids getting in trouble this whole week’s been kind of off. It all culminated today I think. very strange. Anyway, I think this is about the word minimum and this isn’t my best blog so bye.
As part of surfing for sports, inspired by Logan’s running journal, Logan and I decided to make a surf journal of each session we had over the week. We surfed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week because Logan’s leaving to Mammoth. We had this idea on Tuesday so that’s our first day. To explain the data at the top of each day: The Santa Barbara East Bouy (closest buoy to Ventura) collects information 24/7 about conditions at sea. The first piece of info is wave height, then the period in seconds, then the strongest swell direction, then tide on the beach (not collected from buoy), then wind speed and direction. Onshore means the wind is blowing from out at sea onto the beach, this is generally considered bad and creates “mushy waves” as opposed to off-shore winds which, generally speaking, create barreling waves, but more realistically steeper and better-formed waves. So here are the first two journals for this week.
3 really good waves, learning how to stomp on the back of the middy and turn it. Walk to nose to gain speed. Lul period was challenging and messed up the session a little mentally.
Emanuel: One really good wave plus some other shorter ones. The good session got better in the end as the tide rose and the wind died down. Felt really good turning and working on my Steez
3/8/234.3ft @ 10s, 270 W,20mph cross-shore
Emanuel:Ben, Kenya, Logan and I surfed all on longboards. Good session despite very small waves and high wind. Ben lost the fin to his board so I surfed finless which was more fun than I thought it would be. It required a lot more strength and body control which actually felt like a good way to train in those aspects of surfing. Waves were supposed to get bigger as the session went on but honestly, conditions got worse. Maybe because we were deeper in the bay in a less exposed area to swell.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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