Thanksgiving and a Grimm trip to the druggist.

Dear everyone,

I'm late!!!!! :(

I just got back from seeing Puss in Boots with Amy and Dennis! It was very funny. I also saw Happy Feet 2 with them, and that was fun as well. In fact I've been having loads of fun with Amy and Dennis. They've got the perfect sized house, and go out to do things more often than Garfield eats lasagna. I kid you not. We've gone to the movies, to stores, to other peoples' houses, to breakfast, lunch, dinner, a hockey game... lots! Plus Thanksgiving... of course!

On Friday I was awake until three o'clock in the morning. Then, I was woken up at five thirty and hastily hurried with my packed suitcase to the bus. We left promptly, having been told we were the first ones who had ever left so early and on time. For some strange reason, I didn't sleep on the bus but listened to lots of Beatles music on the way down the hill. Upon reaching my aunt and uncle's house, I fell into bed and snoozed for a long, long time. My sleep schedule was slightly tampered with now, but that was okay. At least I'm alive to tell the tale! :)

Eight days of Amy and Dennis. That's all it took, and I'm sick of them! Haha, just kidding. As I mentioned earlier, we've had loads of fun together. Early in the week we learned that there was to be rain... RAIN... on Thanksgiving, and that was a big no-no. I did say their house was the perfect size, but not for fourteen people. The grassy backyard is more fit for a Thanksgiving meal. Unfortunately we had to postpone Thanksgiving and thank God that our plans were ruined. Then, as it turned out, the rest of the week was sunny with a dash of chill. The clouds did not feel sad enough to tear up in the sky this week. That's good of course but I think they were laughing at us from up there, wherever THEY are.

Amy and I went clothes shopping (before Black Friday, so no trampling occurred), and purchased several new pieces of habiliment for me! Habiliment is clothing-- learned that from Edgar Allan Poe. He was one of the guest writers, and his reading was quite lovely. The guy wrote a LOT of poetry but he did have fiction pieces in there as well. I enjoyed meeting him... but I don't know, he seemed a bit depressed. His face was gray like an old movie or something.

The other day Dennis asked me if I wanted to walk to the drug store. I shrugged and tagged along for the fifteen minute walk. We passed Barnes and Nobles on the way there, and somehow I ended up in that store. Later Dennis found me reading a book and suddenly it was mine-- Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. I ended up reading the shortest story I could find to my uncle:

"Once in the wintertime when the snow was very deep, a poor boy had to go out and fetch wood on a sled. After he had gathered it together and loaded it, he did not want to go straight home, because he was so frozen, but instead to make a fire and warm himself a little first. So he scraped the snow away, and while he was thus clearing the ground he found a small golden key. Now he believed that where there was a key, there must also be a lock, so he dug in the ground and found a little iron chest. "If only the key fits!" he thought. "Certainly there are valuable things in the chest." He looked, but there was no keyhole. Finally he found one, but so small that it could scarcely be seen. He tried the key, and fortunately it fitted. Then he turned it once, and now we must wait until he has finished unlocking it and has opened the lid. Then we shall find out what kind of wonderful things there were in the little chest."

A less-than-two-hundred-word charm. It was insanely uneventful, as you can see. But the other stories are delightful! Haha. You know, all about death and whatnot. :)

I'm going to write more about what's been happening soon, so please bear with me! I hope to be able to do so. I've been having a really hard time lately trying to write things that aren't fictional. Being at school again should unquestionably help with that.

Thanks for reading! Hope you had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!

Love,

Callie

Thanksgiving prep

Dear everyone,

It’s almost time for Thanksgiving, but unfortunately I still have to write a blog next week. Not that I hate doing it, just that there won’t be much to say, will there?

Andrew handed back our detective stories today. I would post mine, but I only got a 97% grade on it, so I do have to fix up a bit. Has to be at least 99.99% to be worth reading at all. Plus, that longass story could put a ghost to sleep (because, you know, ghosts don’t sleep). No, actually, I’m quite proud of it, but I’ve been told that a few of the things I’ve inserted aren’t 19th-century-ish. If you couldn’t tell, I’m not really 19th-century-ish myself. Short. Cropped. Sentences. Were. Not. Considered. Good. Grammar.

That paragraph rewritten in Victorian language (from what I know): 

This very day I have received feedback from Master Andrew concerning my detective narrative. I would love to share it with you dear reader, however I did not earn sufficient praise from my teacher for me to feel at ease sharing such a piece. It is quite possibly long and boring enough, to induce an immortal soul to slumber. Actually, though, I’m rather proud of the results thus far. Perhaps it could be a bit more true to the period, because my writing style isn’t so fair to it. However, I will try my best to correct what errors have been made.

Uhhh... More writing.... in fiction we’ve done like three or four stories already. It’s amaaaazing. I love it. No more poetry, right? Zip! Zero! None! Nilch! NOPE. In Karin’s class today, we started on... Poetry! There goes my fucking luck, right?? Gah. We did poetry. During academic class. I thought I’d gotten through it--- nine hours of poetry a week for what, nine weeks? Ten? That’s literally over, like, three days straight. I think I deserve a break. For a lifetime. But nooooo. More more more poetry, just shoveled in like horse manure for sickly plants.

Ahh, similes. Metaphors. Raymond Chandler used like three per page. It was amazing. We finished “The Big Sleep” and now I have to read “Farewell my Lovely” and some other story over break. Added to the fact that I have to write this, edit and finish my detective story, and do other homework on top of that. Why don’t we add whipped cream and a cherry. Mmhmm.

My friend Ashley wants me to write a story about her. She has a really interesting tale, and I think it would be really fun to write it. I have a shitload of questions to ask her-- after the first ten she said she felt like it was an interview or something.

The rest of my life is currently uneventful, at least public life, you know, what I’m willing to share. It would be awkward to put in everything. Yeah, stop reading this! You stalker.

Sorry. I’m a bit jumpy... tired, is all. Have homework still. Must pack for Thanksgiving. Have to clean room. Don’t have to, actually... but want to clean room. Weird coming from me, huh, mis padres? Español no es dificil, pero hago la tarea por la clase. Hehehehehe, could you understand that? Hehh...

We have this thing called All-School, which is a weekly assembly every Friday during which things are announced. You know, like field trips, deadlines, dance shows, readings. Stuff like that. Guess what, though. This one kid went up to the stage and ten people followed him. Everyone was holding one of those big posterboard things. Then he's all, "-name-" and everybody turned their signs over-- they read: "will u b my gf" And he had the one with the "?" on it. It was the sweetest thing ever. Everybody was talking about it all day, and us girls kept telling the boys that he was a real man. Haha. Anyway........

The hike in P.E. class today was strenuous, but you have no idea how good it felt, physically, when we were done. It hurt like hell during the uphill, three miles uphill I might add, and when I had to walk to my next class right afterward. But then, when I sat down, it was almost excruciating. Then it just felt relaxing. Yaaay exercise.

Jesus Christ, Idyllwild, what have you done to me.

Well, hope you enjoyed reading this. My detective story should be done before 2012. Before I’m fifteen. Meaning I’ll have been fourteen through the whole journey. Yaaaay.

Okey (that’s the spelling Chandler used in the 1940’s), that’s all, folks. Seeya next week. Well... Write to ya next week (doesn’t sound as, um, colloquial).

Love,

Callie

Ohmygoddon'tevenask

Dear everyone,

Whoops... didn’t finish my detective story. Fortunately though, I got to the part where I was planning to, and turned it in. Hopefully there will be a lot of red marks on it so that I can learn... and edit! I don’t want you guys to read it until I’m finished, because a lot of the facts are still a bit... err, made up by yours truly. Another week or two of waiting should be fine, right? I used the UK English spellcheck, which made Andrew happier than I thought it would.

In other news, Harry finally gave my Pikachu hat back at lunch today... it is currently sitting next to me while I listen to classical music on my (one of three pairs of) headphones and type out this lengthy blog thing, waiting endlessly for the Internet to work. They say that the boys in McNeal (one of the main male dorms) are using up the bandwidth by playing numerous online games. And I just got to a huge cliffhanger in this anime I’m watching, and if that’s ever happened to you... I doubt it has... then you know what I mean. It’s the same with books, movies, TV... cliffhangers just suck, period. And when the Internet doesn’t load but you know it’s there and ready on a hundred different websites, your mind can wander.

Have you ever read Sherlock Holmes? He’s a detective who uses a lot of deductive reasoning skills and who has no sexual interest whatsoever in anyone. Don’t believe the movies. That’s all bullshit. They twisted Irene Adler from being the only woman who could outsmart him to being a love interest. Umm, what?? Sherlock only met her like, twice anyway! Whatever. Anyway, we started a new book in class; a new author, new detective, new era, new country. It’s SO MUCH DIFFERENT. Sherlock Holmes was that classy asshole British stuck-up who is so conceited that he claims to be smarter than everyone except for his brother. Now we’re reading Chandler. And one of his detectives (the one we’ve begun with), who is called Philip Marlowe, is a very strange character indeed. As Andrew puts it, “he doesn’t do much detecting.” He basically wanders around, observes what he likes, and somehow pieces together the puzzle. In fact, I don’t even know what he’s doing. But the writing is very poetic. Our discussions are always interesting. We talked about pornography for a good portion of class today.

There’s a trip to Disneyland over the weekend. See how slyly I slipped from porn to Disney? Haaaah. Anyway, yeah, so there’s a trip there this weekend, and I think it’d be really nice to get off the cold mountain and have a good trip to a new place. A lot of kids gave me really weird looks when I said I’d never been. There’s not any snow, is there? Good. It’s been snowing on and off. The black ice is deadly. On Friday, it snowed. On Saturday, EVERYTHING melted (all three inches!). On Sunday, it snowed. On Monday, EVERYTHING melted (all two inches!). Today, it was warm. Monday morning was beautiful. I looked out the window and everything was freshly white with a good blanket of snow. However, walking to class was difficult. I almost slipped twice, but I was good. I treated my boots for the water on Saturday night, which helped. Over the weekend I ended up spending more than fifteen dollars for boot crap. Seriously?! The required spray was eight dollars (I’m rounding down), and the stuff that keeps them healthy was five (again).

AHA! THE INTERNET IS WORKING NOW! Can you feel my excitement rushing toward you like a hungry cheetah to its unfortunate prey?! Faster, even! This is the famous ‘Net! News travels faster than the speed of light!

Obviously, it was too good to last. Oh well, I’m used to it. When I get off the hill for Thanksgiving break you know I’ll load over fifty tabs of TV. At least the Internet does work during the day, usually.

I’ve been going off on random tangents; I’ve barely even talked about my day. And now I’ve reading seven hundred words. Jeez. I’m a rambler. You must be bored. Unless my “easy-to-read, conversational tone” is keeping you interested. I’ve been told I’m very literal minded and have a really relaxed, colloquial writing style. Is that good? Any fun to read? I try not to be too stiff. It’s always been difficult for me to read more than one paragraph with big words in it.

This reminds me of Chandler. But... I shouldn’t... but... I have to... okay I’ll tell you. Apparently he was raised in Britain but his characters are SO American compared to Holmes it’s not even funny. The short sentences, the slangy speech, the way people treat each other... And I can tell it’s American at first glance, even if it is from 1939. Regardless, the writing is still great.

Okay. Gotta get to my week. Okay... my week... well... more like my weekend. And Monday. Which I’ve already talked about. So. I guess my blog post is over. Which is good, because after getting to just under a thousand words in half of an hour hurts my pinky finger. The way I type is weird. I used my pointers and thumbs yet still have the speed of my mother. If you’ve seen her type then you would know. If not, then watch someone who is good at typing type. Dammit, I’m rambling again...

So before I bore you to death, dear readers, I would like to thank you for reading my posts and congratulate you for having gone through it without cutting off your fingers from sheer boredom. Thank you!

Love,

Callie

P.S. Please visit http:lovecallie.com and tell others - THANK YOU!

P.S. The Internet always lasts long enough for me to watch the thirty-second ad, but never enough to allow me access to the anime episode. How upsetting. Shrug.

P.P.S. If I had stopped at the last P.S., there would have been exactly a thousand words. Twenty-five more isn’t that many. I guess.

#7 (or 6, or 8, or something else)

Dear everyone,

Well, yesterday (from the time I'm writing) was Halloween, and for the first time in my life, I did not go trick-or-treating. First of all, there's no such thing as that here at Idyllwild. At the time it starts, 6:00pm, the mountain is already dark, then add the fact that the houses are so spread apart... well, too bad. There is, however, a parade from 4-6. We weren't allowed to go. I had class, anyway. It's depressing, but I know that next week candy will be on sale!! Also, the Halloween dance, which at first I wasn't going to go to, was very fun. There was a bit of candy there. And we watched Rocky Horror afterwards!

Okay. That last paragraph was from Tuesday, which was sunny and warm and nice and safe. Now it's snowing and cloudy and cold and bad and slippery. It's snowing. And it's sticking. There's a full blanket of snow over everything right now. I have to walk to the dining hall soon and my backpack weighs more than ever. Seriously. I'm putting Mackenzie into it so that he doesn't get snowed/rained (this morning it was raining) on. And let me tell you, that added with my three 500-paged textbooks, makes a heavy trek uphill. If I had a boyfriend his only use would be to carry my books. Honestly.

Other than the weather, school has been going on pretty well. My highlight of the week was being too sick to attend P.E., because hiking would only make me even more sick. Today was the last day of poetry class, which we spent in Birchard instead of the library. Bad idea-- it was freezing. We were shivering the whole time. Anyway... I have yet to put that stuff on my boots to protect them from the wet, so I'm going to have to wear my sneakers until further ado. Hopefully tomorrow in town I'll be able to navigate my way around to find whatever I need. An adult can probably point me in the right direction; maybe the driver will even drop me off somewhere useful.

My red hair dye arrived the other day! My roommate says she'll help me out sometime over the weekend. Goodbye auburn, hello red-- again, finally! I really love the colour my hair becomes with the dye. My moment of narcism.

Even though this post is three days late, I still don't have much to say, Unfortunately not much is happening in this small little town of Idyllwild. Since I explained most of my classes in the first few posts, there's not much else to add. In Algebra II we had a "team test" today. It's where the people at the table all collaborate on one test and get a group grade. It's pretty awesome; I actually learned something from it.

Shambo, the World Cultures teacher, has been off the hill since Wednesday. I don't remember what he had to do, but he won't be back until Tuesday. We're only working on posters, so it's no big deal. I have to research the East India Trading Company. Shambo says it's the best but most difficult of the four choices, because there's so much information on it. Apparently the company ruled the country. Weird, huh?

We had a snowball fight half an hour ago... it was short and sweet, and my shoes are soaked (unintentional alliteration), but still. It was fun. My Victorian detective story is coming along quite well... but it's basically stealing everything from Sherlock Holmes. Oh well. My detective is nicer... 

Spanish class is pretty fun. Um, I mean, es muy divertido! Sí, sí. We've just begun to learn the preterite forms of verbs. Merlin help me...

I think that my next blog entry shouldn't be about me; it should be the first bit of my detective story. Here's the first paragraph:

"The summer of 1882 brought me  fortunes for which I am very grateful. My teaching career at the University of Cambridge was going swimmingly, and all of my students were delightful people, some of them as young as eighteen or as old as twenty-seven; two years my senior. They all seem eager to learn about apoplexy, epistaxis, suppuration, apopnixis... medical terms that few people are familiar with. I was very pleased with their final essays, and it was a bittersweet moment when we had to part for the summer break of six long weeks."

Andrew said that it's good because I let the reader know the time, place, and age of the character we're dealing with. I guess that's pretty good. Usually I'm "modest" about my writing but I seriously think this is gonna be good. Oh, I'm also using a UK spellcheck just for Andrew, who's from Britain. I think he'll really like that.

Other than that, not much is going on. I'm waking up, getting ready, eating food, and having class. And writing.

Writingwritingwritingwriting.

I need 10,000 more words over the weekend.

Wish me luck.

Love,

Callie

P.S. Please visit http:lovecallie.com and tell others - THANK YOU!

Week Whatever

Dear everyone,

Today was foggy and cold again. By six o'clock, I could barely see across the street! That's the highlight of today, other than the scrape I got on my knee from Capture the Flag.

Oh yeah, and it's my mom's birthday. I called her. Twice. Facebook didn't have to remind me. God I hate that website so much.

In detective class, we've been reading Sherlock Holmes. Have I said that already? Anyway, we were given the assignment of, gasp, writing a detective story. Andrew said it can be however long or however short it needs to be. He never really gives specifics for this kind of thing; he wants us to write until we feel what we have is complete. My plot for the story is coming along nicely, but I'm having to turn to more logical people for help. There's only so much I can know about Victorian era London. It's very fun coming up with characters though! Especially their names. And since I'm doing something totally, unexpected, my teacher is sure to be pleased.

Poetry is almost over! November fifth. Gotta hang in there and write more crap! Hehe.

Over the weekend I bought milk and Nesquik chocolate powder... all I have to do is fill the milk carton in the dining hall now. Yay!

There's really not much to say, to be honest. I would love to write long paragraphs talking about each day of the week, but I can't remember very clearly. Molly Newman asked me if I could dedicate some of my time to coming to her house to play with Lucy, so I guess that's pretty cool. I've been making friends every day; those who used to be acquaintances. Listen to me, sounding all official. I've been sitting with different people at most meals. It's pretty nice. People here are really weird, in a good way, of course. I'm slowly... very slowly.... getting used to the atmosphere.

We're beginning to learn the past tense forms of verbs in Spanish. It's a pain, but I'm working through it; studying a bit will mold it into my mind... hah.

This week on Saturday I'm "hosting" a movie party with some of the people in my dorm. We're watching Spirited Away, only the best movie in the world.

Oh yeah, and Halloween is next week. I was planning on being a video game character, but it wasn't able to work out. So now it's either a witch, or Pikachu. I'm really not sure yet; I might look in town for some yellow clothes, because I have none at all right now.

Other than the excessive research I've been doing on the Victorian era, not much has been happening. I'm friends with Brian Wilson's daughter, Daria. She's my anime buddy. She's just finished the final episode of an anime that has been in her heart since she was little. Currently Daria is going through some emotional distress around this process and I'm the only one who can relate to her, 'cuz I'm the only other person at the school who has seen the whole anime. That sentence seemed really awkward... grrrr methinks this fog has seeped into my brain.
OH YES - Full circle from the opening paragraph!

I went to bed really early last night, but I'm still exhausted. Walking up and down the hill... man... it never gets old... haha. Well, I'll definitely have more to write next week, seeing as I'll have gone through everything from Halloween and the like. Until then, dear readers, be happy and healthy!

Love,

Callie

P.S. LESS THAN SIX HUNDRED WORDS. I AM A FAILURE AS A BLOGGER. 597 598 599 600!


P.P.S. Please visit http:lovecallie.com and tell others - THANK YOU!

More Magic in the Mountains

Dear everyone,

Hello again! As I type, I'm hanging out in the library computer lab (amazingly, I'm the only one here) with my new darling, Mackenzie. He's doing quite well, and it's been nearly a week since I received him in the mail; he actually came five days before I was expecting. Wow! So far, he's been responding beautifully to my commands and is adapting to the altitude nicely. He has a few flaws, as we all do, but that's what make us unique. Because of Mackenzie's arrival, my poor Gildroy was taken from me. I miss him, I really do, but Mackenzie is helping me heal. I'll give a shout-out to Gildroy now-- hi!!! <33

In case you were wondering, Mackenzie is a Macbook Pro, and Gildroy was an Eee PC.

In other news, I have recently been filmed for an Idyllwild movie, visited by my aunt and uncle, and gone on an all-day hike.

Wednesday was pretty awesome. The sophomores and juniors had to take PSATs, so all morning classes were cancelled. I got to sleep in late, miss breakfast (we have to sign in every morning by 7:45) and still get tons of work done. For a project, my group went down to the library to work on our poster, and we were actually able to make it pretty decent. I don't know how I can say this without sounding like a conceited bitch, but ours was the best. Anyway, just as we were finishing up, my teacher, Shambo, came in the room and asked if we could spare about half an hour. We agreed to, if only we could have ten minutes to finish up. And so in ten minutes' time we wandered down to his classroom, with our things back in the library. Shambo had informed us that a few of the graduated film majors were filming some movie about Idyllwild, so they took us to some rocks and began to film. We just talked about Shambo's class (which is like totally awesome), but their recording was silent. All they needed was footage of a class outside; there were about ten of us. It was fun. Then we went to lunch.

On Thursday, Mackenzie arrived. 'Nuff said.

The schedules had been pretty messed up because of PSATs and Family Weekend, but whatever... by Thursday and Friday, it was normal. We had no class on Saturday. Friday was pretty cool, though. We got to miss poetry class to rehearse for the reading that would take place later that night. I was the door holder! Before the performance, I went to babysit Lucy, which was just so awesome. The whole time we were walking up to their house, she just kept saying, "My toys, my toys!" because she was so excited to show me. Turns out the kid is a lot more talkative than I had first thought; she was really shy. And only two!

Family weekend was fun. It was nice to see my aunt and uncle. We went out to eat twice... well... really once. I guess. Amy and Dennis got some weird smoothies and fruit juice from a weird place on Sunday in the afternoon. It was weird. But the night before, we went to one of the more well-known restaurants with my teacher Andrew and had a good time. It turns out that the house that mi tios were staying at was robbed, but I won't go into details... there are quite a few details, and had Sherlock Holmes been present, the case would be solved in an instant. Perhaps two instances.

Monday was the all-day hike.  We drove down to Palm Springs for two hours, stood in line for thirty minutes, rode the tram for fifteen, and waited to go on the hike for ten. The hike? Well. It was strenuous, to say the least. A lot of what we did was uphill, but since we retraced our steps, the uphill and downhill was even. We didn't even get lost! Actually, that was very likely, too. There we were, sitting and eating our lunches halfway through the hike, when one group decides to leave early. We bid them adieu and lost track of them within the next minute, happily (or unhappily) munching on the chips and gross sandwiches that were provided in the dull brown bags. Since that group was on the same bus as us (#3), we had to wait around for them to come back. They never did. Turns out they hiked all the way back to Idyllwild! There was actually a group scheduled to do that, but it was canceled due to lack of supervision. Oh well, people ended up doing it anyway!

When it's cloudy on the mountain - we live in the clouds at Idyllwild.

Today is Tuesday, and, well, now I've caught up with the present. It seems like a very short entry... perhaps because I'm slightly out of it. My classes are still fun, and I'm super duper happy about Mackenzie. Along with the Macbook I also received a very AWESOME case that makes the computer look like a book. A very old book might I add. In fact, I've fooled many people with it. They all love it! But of course my love is mostly for the computer itself. In the box that held Mackenzie, there were also several other little items: Tinkerbell glitter crayons (mum knows me so well), headphones (THREE PAIRS), my iPod (which I bought from Sophie (for $20) in like JANUARY (I'm not mad, don't worry, hah)), a billion movies that I'll watch again and again throughout the year, and last but not really last, a phone cord (for some strange reason). My memory is failing me right now.

Anyway, this blog post was probably a pain to read. My mind is wandering; like many other teenagers (and I suppose people in general), I'm lovesick.... so.... excuse the manner in which this is written... I'm exhausted from yesterday's hike (for some reason, only the students are!) and amazed by how much homework I've seemed to collect over that past two weeks. Plus my English teacher is teaching things that I, as a creative writer, am already aware of... oh well... that's what I get for being impatient...

Pues... ¡Adios, mis amigos! ¡Hasta luego!

Love,

Callie


P.S. Please visit http:lovecallie.com and tell others - THANK YOU! 




.

Dear Everyone,

I feel like I'll be saying this a lot, but everything's been blurring together. I can't remember what I've written about in these blog things, and I can't remember what I learned this week different from last week. All the exhilaration from the beginning of September is bubbling down and is replaced with stacks of homework. Returning students have told me more than once to get used to staying up until three in the morning doing homework. I really, really hope they're wrong. I've never been one for homework; I hate it. In fact, as I write this, I should instead be writing twenty sentences in Spanish, but I'm saving that for after dinner. I've already got four done.

I bought a stapler today. And glue. And some Sharpies. Right now my desk is swimming with office supplies; pens, pencils, a sharpener, a paintbrush, scissors, rubber bands, tape, Post-Its, erasers, notecards, markers, crayons, the list goes on! And of course we must add all of the books I need for my classes. Every day my backpack feels heavier! Add that pile of homework and BAM, I'll break my back walking up and down this hill every day. My shoulders are always aching! Thankfully, I'm not having any allergic reactions up here, so I'm not miserable. Scratch that, even if I did have allergies here, I wouldn't be miserable.

How could I say that anyone is mean? All the students here are super nice. One of my friends has an X-Box (apparently she and another girl are responsible for the rules against these game systems; that doesn't dissuade them!), and she said she'll let me come over and play some time. My roommate told me that I'm getting a reputation with my Pikachu hat, and I asked her if that was bad. She said no. There's a boy with pink hair (it was purple last month) and he's got that reputation too. The things people do here are amazing.

As the weather gets colder, there's no more guitar or fiddle music to listen to outside. The instruments are all nice and cozy warm when people aren't in the practice rooms (the Troys). Now that Winter's on its way, people are buying boots and bringing out their coats. I heard that it's supposed to snow soon. I hope I get my boots before that.

Last Wednesday (or was it Tuesday? Thursday?), we were living in a cloud. That's how foggy it was. I could barely see twenty feet ahead! It was cold, too-- I wore two jackets, zipped. It's warmer now; sunny, no rain, and birds are still singing. We had a woodpecker outside the classroom once. It was weird, I'd never really heard a woodpecker at it before. The building probably has a hole now just like the hundreds of spots in the trees that are filled with acorns. Our P.E. teacher keeps pointing out the little things in nature. There are berries here with more vitamin C than cranberries and oranges combined... and they're like, smaller than a dime.

In my desk, I've got heaven on earth: green and red apples, Nutella, cereal, and caramel in the fridge. My roommate also had plastic knives. The stunning total of six green apples, a box of cereal, and twenty ounces of caramel was $9.07 including tax. My dessert every night is amazing; I never get the cake in the dining hall. I could get used to this. Oh, come on, quit looking at me like that. Don't worry, I eat it in moderation, and I share!

Today in the dining hall, the cutest thing happened. I'd finished lunch, but some more people came, so I sat with them because it's a Monday, which I'll explain in a minute. Anyway, here at Idyllwild, several small children live on campus, ranging from the age... what, seven months? to about six years old. John and Molly Newman have a daughter named Lucy, she can't be more than two, who is the cutest thing ever. She reminds me so much of Ryann, Teagan, Raphael, Alex... So I sat down in the dining hall again, and she's in her dad's arms, right? Then she sees me and starts to squirm out of his arms and squeals, "CallieCallieCallie!!" pointing to me and grinning.

I almost died it was so cute.

Last week she was very shy, but she really, really likes my hat. I think that's what first made her like me. But now even if I'm not wearing my Pikachu hat, she'll love to see me. I seriously don't understand... but yeah. Same thing happened with a different kid the other week. A bit different, but similar. He wanted to sit on my lap on our way back up the hill from the beach. Little blond boy + Pikachu hat = adorable. I really want to kidnap one of these kids.

The schedule for classes this week is insane. Tomorrow is a "moderated" schedule and I have to have all of them in a row. That's Spanish II, P.E., Intro to Lit, World Cultures, and Algebra II in one day! AND Detective class later! How do they expect me to handle it?! The weight of my backpack will kill me. Thankfully the next day there are no academic classes. Sophomores and Juniors have to take the PSAT. Same with Saturday (family weekend)... but I only have one class. Hello writing all night on Tuesday! Andrew, my writing teacher, explained to me that they couldn't just cut classes on Wednesday without having to fuck up the schedule somehow; "it's Idyllwild, nothing's allowed to make sense!"

My magic day is Monday. I have four classes in a row in the morning, up until eleven fifteen. Then I kick back, relax, and wait till three-thirty for poetry, which, if you'll excuse my bluntness, is boring. I'm not saying my teacher is bad. Actually, I really like her. It's just that I have to read poems. And write them. And talk about them. And write about them. And read about them. I mean, come on... stick a metaphor here, alliteration there, maybe a little rhyming, and BAM, you've got a poem that then has a hundred questions following it no matter how simply it's written.

Wow. I used "BAM" twice in this already. Three times.

Anyway, I suppose this is enough about what's been happening.

I'm very tired. I need to remember that Sunday should be my go-to-bed-early-dammit day. I'll write again next week!

Love,

Callie

P.S. I didn't say anything about the guest writer. David Shook is his name. Graduated from here in '04, I think it was. Or '07. I'll have to ask. Another poet. Translator. He was funny. Had some poems about a modern Jesus.

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