Coming back from Winter Break is always a struggle. Before leaving, you’re in a routine and have got everything nailed down. When you return it feels like starting everything from scratch. It’s hard to get back into school mode. This concept is what makes part of the second semester harder as a whole. Although we get more things to look forward to and more breaks, the academic part is more challenging. All of these beautiful breaks we get make the school part all the harder once the break has ended. In the first semester, despite it feeling like a never-ending marathon of school work, you find a nice rhythm in the consistency.
Additionally, what makes the back hard is having to come and live again by the school’s sleep schedule. Over the breaks, I consistently go to bed at around 3 am and don’t wake up until the afternoon the next day. Bering back at school and having to wake up at 7 am or earlier is a harsh reality check. All I want to do is sleep.
You know what’s interesting? All California high schools are required to have an 8:30 start time now. Go figures it began the year after I left. Anyways, I would much appreciate this enacted at OVS, after all, it is what Gavin Newsom wants and how can we be OK with disappointing him?
I spent Thanksgiving this year in Mammoth. I essentially did nothing and that in itself was amazing. I got to catch up on family time including going on hours of dog walks with my mom. I also loved seeing that there was finally some snow on the ground.
I’m not sure if it’s surprising to me or not but the highlight of Mammoth was going to see the new Hunger Games movie with my family. What was surprising was how much my brother enjoyed the movie. That was something I didn’t expect. I’ve always loved watching all the Hunger Games movies but my brother hadn’t even seen all the movies in the series. Since watching the Prequel I’ve successfully gotten him to watch them all; As his sister, this is a big accomplishment.
The best part of the movie though was when my mom emulated every Karen in the world and told 3 annoying girls to stop talking. The greatest thing about this spectacle was the way multiple other random people in the movie theater joined in and told them to be quiet.
Being a dormer you really start to appreciate the time spent with your family because it unfortunately becomes few and far between.
The enthusiasm for watching movies then continued throughout break as my parents and I later watched the movie NYAD. I liked the movie but I did find the main character rather annoying. She was so intense and abrasive the entire time. I wouldn’t want to be friends with her. Despite my feelings about her, the movie was great. My mom loved it the most out of the three of us; she loves movies about crazy athletic achievements.
The last couple of days I was on a camping trip at the Salton Sea. I had a good time because everyone on the trip was upperclassmen, primarily seniors. I don’t hate the freshmen, I just don’t want to be around them.
The best part about the trip was destroying myself by falling onto a cement plank and into a pile of thick mud (made up of chemicals and fishbones) that smelled like horse doo-doo. Kate had been filming me on the swing and I was calling her name to try to get her attention to film me jumping off of it when the seat slipped out from under me. I twisted straight off the swing, contorting my back, and landed in the most perfect place. I don’t remember the last time I fell so hard and so out of nowhere; I never saw it coming.
The trip was also good because the weather was nice. At night having the weather be pleasant makes a huge difference. I usually get anxious when I have to stress about bulky layers and staying warm, but this time that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t worrying about when the weather would get to me.
A final contributor to this good time was the fact that it was only two days long. I didn’t feel like I had to hunker down and prepare for war. It was a quick trip that I was just able to simply enjoy.
Camping is also a great time because I always love talking to people on my trip.
Overall it was a great trip and I’m glad I was on it.
I’m excited for Christmas this year because I’m almost guaranteed a white Christmas. My family has recently bought a new house in Mammoth. This house is a house where everyone gets their own room so that means less fighting and everyone getting their own personal space. Since it’s large enough for my parents to be convinced we’ll be able to enjoy it, we’re packing up and spending Christmas in Mammoth; hence the white Christmas. I’m hoping that we’ll all be able to enjoy Christmas and the entirety of winter in Mammoth without stepping on each others’ toes. Everyone could fit into our old place but I have a feeling that the new house will be a much more inviting place for the whole family.
Since we’re going up for both Thanksgiving and part of Christmas break, I’m also hoping that I’ll really be able to improve my snowboarding skills. Last year I randomly decided that I wanted to Snowboard so I went all in and bought all the gear and now it’s too late to go back. So far, I’ve actually liked the process of learning how to snowboard significantly more than skiing. I don’t regret my decision at all.
I’ve never been a pro at anything on the mountain, I’m the type of person who would get in your way. To me it’s never been competitive, the whole thing is a joke in the best way possible. When I want to go fast I do, but I thoroughly enjoy face-planting in the snow by trying tricks I know I will never be able to accomplish and taking my time on the way down. Long story short, I’m looking forward to a fun winter.
I’m writing this blog post early because I’m leaving to go visit my sister in college tomorrow. This post is about the upcoming trip and college and it’s really all over the place 🙂
Not only am I excited to see where my sister goes to school but also because it’s where my mom went to college. My mom has always been my biggest role model so it’s intriguing to see where she lived during such a critical part of her life. I’d like to be able to picture my mom at my own age and the way she lived her life. I’ve always wished that I could meet my mom at the age I am now.
My sister recently told me that she wants me to go to the same college as her. This was an absolute shock. I questioned her reasoning and replied saying that she doesn’t even like me that much. Despite my skepticism, she stood firm backing her statement. Clearly college really does make people miss their family and reminisce about childhood. Whatever her thought process, I’m just happy that she actually wants me around or at least wants me to see a glimpse into her life.
Teachers have always told me how much of a leap up college is from high school but I’m not convinced. Everyone I’ve talked to in college has told me that it’s exponentially better than high school. I completely and full-heartily and possibly naively believe them. My sister’s hardest class is Spanish 4 and that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s in college. Let’s just say despite my family’s many talents, not one includes being linguistically inclined. I personally feel like everything is easier when you’re doing it on your own terms, and when you are in college, everything is up to you.
In addition to seeing my sister, I get to visit my family in Maryland who I rarely get to see and I also once again get a taste of freedom. It’s crazy to me how before coming to OVS I couldn’t care less about flying across the country but now it’s turned into something highly anticipated. Every day where I feel in control is now a blessing.
I used to play softball. I started playing t ball on a team with my sibling when I was 4. That’s when my dad started coaching me. From there, I kept playing on youth teams every year. Softball for me was always the fun sport. My dad always found a way to make practice amusing. We’d play games such as sunflower seed spitting contests and home-run derby’s. At every game there was a never ending variety of crazy snacks in the dugout and continuous scream of obnoxious cheers that were the best. Even when I played on All-Star teams there was a positive energy. Once I started playing volleyball, I truly appreciated softball because it was an outlet without all the pressure.
I’ve always loved travel tournaments for both volleyball and softball. The difference is that for softball we’d be out in the pool eating whatever we wanted, till whatever time, and setting off fireworks in the middle of nowhere while the parents were out drinking at a bar. For volleyball, we had a schedule, people commenting on our diets, a curfew, and my mom making sure I was in bed by ten while we dissected the contents of how I played; everything was more intense. In softball, it didn’t ruin my day when I didn’t play as well as I wanted to because I never had any crazy expectations and didn’t hold myself to a crazy standard. With all that being said, softball was never my sport like volleyball was, I never had the same type of love. What made it so worthwhile was the team and the players. I ended up playing through my freshman year in high-school but at that point I was burnt out and had hit a wall. I wasn’t having the same fun I used to have when I was younger and it was exhausting driving 45 minutes straight from softball to volleyball and then getting home at 10. At that point it had lost the purpose it originally served. I played softball for as long as I did because it was something my dad and I always bonded over. We’ve never been as close as when I was playing softball. Volleyball for mom, softball for dad. I’ll always love softball and it will always be a big part of my childhood.
The best thing in life is sharing a love with people that doesn’t go away no matter the time or distance. I don’t like to text or facetime people. In general, I really don’t like having full conversations on a phone at all when I would much rather see them in person. Being able to go periods of time without talking yet knowing that the connection is still there waiting for you is a feeling of safety. The hard part with these connections is that when you are able to finally see them again you remember the full extent of how much you miss them and how much they really mean to you. Caring about someone and being away from them is hard. You live separate lives that don’t revolve around each other and the little details about your day that they would’ve experienced with you are now lost to the distance. It hurts a little to realize that the most recent additions to your vocabulary and the jokes in reference to niche lived moments don’t 100% align anymore. It’s just a little bit off. While this is sometimes saddening, I know that only a week spent together means being fully in sync again – like no one had ever been apart in the first place. Due to distance, these feelings of love and closeness cycle but I’m confident in this cycle and the people in my life I cycle with.
My favorite color is and always has been yellow, but pink is the prettiest and navy blue is my favorite to wear as of now. My favorite show for all of middle school, into high school and even to this day is Dance Moms. My other two favorite shows are Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Gossip Girl. Currently I’m watching the Real Housewives of NYC. When I was little I loved Dora and my favorite Disney princess was The Little Mermaid/Ariel. My favorite sport is volleyball but I don’t really like playing anymore because it’s just upsetting. Up through my freshman year I played competitively my whole life and high school softball that one year. I used to play catcher when I was younger but my knees couldn’t handle it anymore so I became a third baseman. I was diagnosed with diabetes at the end of 6th grade. I repeated Kindergarten because I had a hard time reading and it was “highly suggested that I repeat”. In first grade I was in an afternoon reading program called “Reading with the Dogs” to help me try to catch up and get some extra practice in. I’ve never broken a bone. I’m a middle child. I have a sister who is 17 months older and a brother who is 17 months younger than me. I’m closer with my brother than with my sister. My family puts scratcher lottery tickets in easter eggs for easter egg hunts. I got bit by a dog in Ohio the summer going into Junior Year and had to get stitches through my lip. If I could meet one person alive or dead I would want to meet my mom when she was my age. I love heights and have always wanted to go skydiving. I bought an inflatable cow costume for an AP European History class presentation about pasteurization in my Sophomore Year. I like having late night conversations. My favorite ice cream flavor is coffee. I love pickles.
Sometimes I like to be humbled. In Ms. Whipple’s AP Lit class, everyone had to go around and read their thesis to the class. In essence, everyone’s thesis was the same thing with slight variations. It’s crazy to me how all 17 or so of us had the same exact thesis. I think different things about everyone in that class. I view them differently academically, as friends, athletically, yet in the end everyone ended up producing the same exact thing. Despite what I had previously thought about everyone’s writing skills it turned out that no one was actually better than anyone else. In some ways, it felt like one of those crazy things that people say about how the US school system is there to make the kids the same and like robots. At the end Ms. Whipple read her thesis, sharing that she had written it with less than half the time the class was given. I’m telling you that it was literally a work of art. It’s crazy how much better she could be than the entire class. This experience led me to think about how small my scope of the word gets sometimes. The best person at whatever subject or sport or anything here at OVS isn’t even close to being the actual best. It humbled me in a refreshing way. I realized even what I would attribute as some of my best skills or subjects, that I’m not even close to actually being good at them. After Ms.Whipple read just one thesis statement I remembered that I’m just one student in AP Lit who is nothing special, yet it’s in an inspiring way. I’m reminded that if I want to be good at writing, it’s going to take a lot more work. I’m reminded that it’s going to take a lot more work to be good at essentially anything. I realized that compared to other experienced people I’m really bad at most things. It’s astonishing how talented and gifted some people can be. To me, it’s a freeing thought.
I didn’t know what to write about so I asked Mieke and she told me to write about Matcha.
The first time I ever had a Matcha was in the early morning before another volleyball tournament just like any other. Just as always the sky was still dark and foggy and we had about an hour of driving ahead of us before arriving at the convention center. It was our turn to drive the carpool. As usual, before we picked up our carpool, my mom and I stopped at Starbucks to pick up the whole group’s Starbucks order. After three years of carpooling every day and just about every other weekend with the same people, I already knew their early morning orders by heart. It was a routine of the best kind. At this point, we were old enough to drive but there was something so innocent and pure about waking up early for a tournament and having our moms drive so we could sleep sprawled across each other in the car’s back seat. It was a part of our childhood we could hold onto for a little longer.
Recently my mom had begun to start drinking Matcha. Watching her drink, I was never compelled to try it. For some reason that one random morning as we waited for the rest of the order she kept insisting on “taking a sip” until I gave in. It didn’t take her much effort to convince me considering that I would do anything she said. After that moment the rest is history.
Soon matcha started showing up all around my life. Matcha arrived in between volleyball games at tournaments, before doctors’ appointments, and early mornings on important days. To this day, every time my mom and I go to the airport she carves out a little time to make sure I can get my matcha just because she knows how much I love it. I quickly started loving matcha more than she ever did.
Just like anything else, Matcha became a part of me growing up. I would go to Starbucks to get matcha and study, before the start of any road trip or drive that surpasses an hour when ditching and leaving school with friends just cause, when going to the beach, and on the days after sleepovers looking homeless with my friends. Matcha has become the drink of every season.
Although I live at boarding school now, and I can’t bring my mom along with me, the one thing that I’ll always have with me (unless I get really sick of it) is Matcha. Throughout different chapters of life, different friends, different places, different problems, and feelings, one thing that has stayed with me is the Matcha.
I love you and thank you, Mom.
(Listen to your mom, she’s usually right)
(also if you haven’t tried Matcha yet you should bc it’s really god)
Photo by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist on Pexels.com
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