Little Brother

                I am an older sister. People say that older siblings have a lot of responsibility regarding younger siblings. This is usually true, except for the fact that I have an older sibling as well. My older sister is the one who looks out for me and my younger brother. Usually this is a good thing, but not always. I love my siblings dearly, but it’s not always a happy Brady Bunch family around here. When my sister and I were younger we used to fight all the time. My brother was just a baby and hardly able to talk, but we would fight over which one of us he liked more. It seems silly now, but at the time it was a big blow to me when I realized that he learned how to say my sisters name before mine. My two siblings would like to gang up on me at times. My sister was the older “responsible” one, and my brother was the baby, so he is pretty self-explanatory. They were an unbeatable team. My sister would do something bad and blame it on me; of course when she was blaming me she was holding our innocent younger brother. My parents usually gave into the “bread” of the sibling sandwich. But like all sandwiches it is the middle filling that matters most right? Or at least that’s what I like to tell myself.

                Now my sister and I hardly ever fight, but that just makes it so there is more time to pester my little brother. I am not the finest example of an older sibling. There are always times when I decide that there are no recorders playing rules that must be enforced. Occasionally I slip in a little nudge to him here and there, but I would never actually hurt him. Maybe it’s all little siblings (and if that’s the case I have a greater respect for my dad who has 11 younger ones) but is seems like every little thing that they do is the most annoying thing in the world. Every time he hums a song or makes race car sounds or plays that… *Shudder* …..recorder, I can’t seem to ignore it. He in return treats me like I’m younger than him and is always trying to find ways to prove me wrong. I have to hand it to him for being smarter than I was at his age; all I did to my sister was bite her and that didn’t help with anything. Even if we do have our down times, there are a lot of ups.

                Lately our parents have been going to banquets and dinners to honor my soon to be graduate sister and her classmates, which leaves the two youngest at home. We have fun not doing our homework and watching movies.  When the time comes for him to go to bed I will read him a story. Usually it is one of the classic Dr. Seuss books, they never get old.

Through good and bad he is still my brother, I didn’t get to pick him, but if I could I wouldn’t choose anyone else. 

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3 Weeks Left

                There are currently three weeks left of school. This means that all the teachers will start piling on everything that they can in order for us to learn all that they had attended by the end of the year. In my school the second to last week of school is “dead week”. During dead week teachers are not supposed to give any new assignments. All that the students are supposed to do is study for each and every one of their final exams. It may seem like a nice break, but it is not. We are supposed to have finals at the end of each semester. Last semester however there was a bit of a hold up.

                A couple weeks before we were all going to leave for Christmas break, it started raining. It rained so much that most of the local schools were cancelled in order to provide shelter for those who had lost their homes in the floods. Our school was cancelled as well. This cancellation meant that we had no dead week. Teacher and students were all kind of thrown off course, and it was difficult to get much of anything done. We were able to come back for final exams, but some teachers decided to cancel them, or make them less significant in our overall grading process.

                This semester we have all been high and dry, so it seems as if school will continue as planned. There is only one more week of learning left. But the density of what teacher will give us will amount up to much more than one week. At least there will be more structure at the end of semester exams this time, but for now I have to go continue doing the mountain loads of homework which I have been assigned. 

Awaiting Vacation

                Spring break only comes once a year. I know that there are many other school vacations, such as Christmas Break, Thanksgiving weekend and of course, summer. Spring break is different from all the others. There is no holiday (except sometimes Easter) that is during this time, and it happens to fall right before the end, and hardest part, of the school year. Spring break is exactly the “break” that students need in order for them to have the proper motivation to finish the end of the year. This spring break I will be going back home.

                I have two homes. One of them is Salt Lake, and the other is Los Angeles. I only lived in LA when I was little, but my family and I visit frequently. I grew up in Utah, all my friends and the majority of my family live there as well. Luckily on this vacation, I will be able to go to both places.

The plan is to leave Friday morning at 4:30am to go to the airport. This means that I will miss out on a day of very precious school, but it seems that no teachers will actually be assigning anything the last day anyway. My flight heads to LA via Atlanta. Just as it turns out one of my friends will be on this flight as well, what are the odds? After arriving in LA, we head to my family’s best friend’s house in Beverly Hills. It has been a few years since we last saw them, so we are all very excited. Saturday my sister will most likely go and visit some of the colleges that she was accepted to, and that means I am free to wander LA and do as I please. Sunday my best friend of 13 years is flying from Salt Lake to come stay with my family, while her parents leave at the same time, but are going to be heading to California in their car. Monday and Tuesday will probably pass similar to Saturday, but Wednesday night my parents and siblings get on a plane and head for New York. On the east coast my sister will be looking at more schools, while I get to stay and have fun on the west coast. My friend’s parents will arrive in their car around that time my parents leave, and I will stay with them for a night or two in LA, until we head on a road trip back to Utah. Her parents will be spending a long time in the car, but they love road trips, and driving in their suave new Subaru. In Utah the only plan that I have is to visit my sick Grandmother, and everything else will just have to be spontaneous.

 I am so excited for this spring break! 

Sisters' Surprise

                              My sister is currently a senior in high school. As is the custom the seniors apply for college and hope to get accepted. I have lived through the stress of my sister interviewing, applying and writing essays for multiple different colleges. Due to the fact that we do not live in the states and all the schools where she applied are, indeed, in the states, some of the application process is a little more difficult.

                Colleges are advancing every year with technology. Through the computer my sister was able to find out almost everything that she needed for each of her choice colleges. The applications are 100% online so that makes thing easier. One of the hardest things about living away from the US was the interviews (so she says). If we were still living in the states and she was asked to interview with a college advisor, my sister would probably go to lunch with a real persona and discuss things about her and the school there. Here it is not the case. Only a few alumni from the schools live where we do. So in order to solve this problem she had her interviews over the phone. Time differences interfered and made some things difficult for her, but after a few months all she could do was wait for the results.

                It took months before she heard anything. The first schools to make their decisions were the UC schools in California. Of course she got into all of those that she applied to, not such a big surprise considering that she is a good student and all. She was really happy.

                Around a week or so later the Ivy League college decisions came out.  I came home from school as always with my sister, and then I went into my room.  A few minutes later I was just sitting in my room when I heard a scream come from the living room. I thought maybe there was a big bug or something so I decided not to let it bother me. Then there was a louder scream, it sounded like my mom’s this time.  In order to find out what all the fuss was about I decided to go out and see what the matter was. The first thing that I saw was my sister crying…that wasn’t a good sign. The second thing I saw was my mom (still screaming) jumping up and down with a huge smile on her face. As you can imagine I was really confused at this point. I kept asking what was going on, but they were both too preoccupied to reply. Finally my sister blubbered that she had heard from Harvard University and had been accepted!! Way to go sis.

                She was crying tears of surprise and joy. 

Sick

This morning I woke up feeling terrible. My throat feels like tiny elves are inside hammering away in search of jewels or something that they will never find. My ears feel like a balloon has been expanded inside my head and is pushing them out. My head hurts, my nose won’t stop running and don’t get me started on how much my entire body aches. Seems like the flu season is coming around again.

                I remember when I was little and I told someone about flu season, but they just laughed at me and said that there were only four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter.  But the truth is, whenever the flu comes around, it is usually around the beginning of fall or spring, so this virus does come in “seasons”. Another thing about the flu is that it can take over everyone. Slowly, every year I watch as seats empty around flu season, one day only 2 people will be gone, but by the end of the week half the school is missing. The difference this year is that I was one of the first victims.

                Another thing that seems strange now is that kids used to fake having the flu, or try to get it in order to miss school. I know that I would always complain to my parents when I was in 1^st and 2^nd grade that everything was too hard, and it was making me “sick” so that I had to stay home and watch cartoons. Boy do times change. Now I dread getting sick. Being sick in high school means more work, not less. For the next week I will probably be seeing all the teachers whose classes I missed and trying to find a time during, before, or after school to make up any tests.  I have to figure out what the teachers did during the classes that I can only find out through other peers…work work work…no play when someone is sick.

                Being sick sucks! I can’t see my friends, I’m loaded with making up work, and all I actually feel like doing is going to bed and sleeping for 3 weeks straight. 

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International Fair

At my school, the families and teachers make up the community. Due to the limited activity provided by the place we live in, the school tries to compensate by incorporating fun activities and get togethers. The biggest get together of the year is International Day. This year I was lucky enough to be the daughter of the woman in charge…then again, come to think of it, I don’t think lucky is exactly the right term to use. For moths I have been hearing the planning and organizing that is put forth in the effort to make the fair run smoothly. At the dinner table we hear the latest updates and catastrophes involved as well. I watched as my house filled up with shipments of American food that were to be sold at the event. So many people contributed so much to the fair, and I believe that it was completely worth it.

                I will try to summarize what the fair is like. Since I go to an international school, there are many different citizens from all over the world. At the fair the country groups join together to honor their country. Booths are set up that are decorated accordingly and filled with food and goodies that are native to those places. Most everyone comes from my school to eat and socialize. The food is one of the biggest attractions, but also there are the games and sports that are played as well. Some of the teachers are sadly the victims of some adolescent fun with the pie throwing.  Teachers are either forced or volunteered (not sure which) to be targets for pies. This year it seemed as if the “pie” was just flower and water, and instead of throwing the whole tin, the kids would throw the mush with their hands. Along with pie, there were balloons too; the one problem was that the balloons were not fully inflated. I watched as one teacher god slapped in the face with a water balloon that didn’t pop, but left a nasty looking smack mark on their cheek…ouch teachers, sorry about that.

                The international fair lets people see aspects of other countries that they normally wouldn’t be able to see. People can praise their country and feel at home, even while living thousands of miles away from where they are from. Walking amongst the different booths made it feel like walking through different parts of the world. It makes living abroad better, and lets everyone have some fun. 

127 Hours

Growing up in Utah there are some experiences that most people don’t have, one of which is hiking in southern Utah. Unless you have actually been hiking down in the Zion slot canyons, or walking along the great red rocks hunting for Moeraki Marbles, you have no idea what it’s like. Let me try to explain what it is to be a southern Utah hiker.

                For one, there is hardly anyone living near the slot canyons. Sure there are hikers going in and out frequently, but it would be a killer place to actually live. The heat is intense. It’s not a humid heat like in most Caribbean places, but heat from the sun heats the red rocks and can overcome the hiker in heat waves and sweat. There is a reason the slot canyons are named as they are, and that is because they actually look like cuts or slots in the middle of a great big rock. If one was looking at the slot canyon from a bird’s eye view, it would look something like a waterless river flowing through a huge empty rock. My dad (a frequent hiker) always told me the two most important things about hiking in southern Utah were: First, NEVER go off by yourself.  Most trails aren’t marked and it is easy to get lost. Second, ALWAYS have enough water. If someone is caught in the middle of the red rock desert without water, they would most likely die of dehydration in about a day, and if you’re lucky, two.

(Me rock climbing in Zion)

                Keeping all this in mind, imagine what it would be like to be hiking alone, with one water bottle, in the off hiking season, in the southern Utah slot canyons….Most people would never take the risk, but one man did. Aron Ralston went hiking by himself and found himself “stuck between a rock and a hard place” literally.

                Everyone in Utah grew up hearing about this man. He was, as I previously said, hiking alone when he got into a narrow gap in the canyon. What basically happened is that it was a tight squeeze; there was a rock, and a man.  While the man was trying to get over the rock and through the gap, the boulder moved and rolled onto his arm, trapping him. Running low on water, and his arm dying under the weight of a huge boulder, there was nothing that Aron Ralston could do. He waited for other hikers to pass, so they could go get help, but no one came. At this point in someone’s life, most people would just give up, and say that they were done, but not him. He had with him a Swiss-Army-knife, and with that he cut off the dying trapped arm. Someone has to have a lot of motivation to live in order to cut off their own arm. But now, he lives on. He managed to hike the rest of the way out of the canyon with only one arm. His story is legend, and now a movie.

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                127 Hours is the story based on this event in Aron Ralstons’ life. James Franco plays Ralston, and does a fantastic job. This film moves everyone, but especially those that know this story, and have been to the same place where Aron Ralston was stuck.

                I would like to remind you all to be safe hikers and explorers. I would also like to recommend to everyone to check out the movie 127 hours. 

Enjoy