Back to School, Unfortunately

After a somewhat relaxing one week off of school, I am back to the usual. The "usual" being sitting in a brick building for 8 hours a day trying not to fall asleep or cry. Such is the life of an average high school student.

My mom gave me a ride to school this morning, and we listened to some CD of hers, and she was explaining to me her favorite songs and it was all quite nice and relaxing. Trouble didn't strike until she pulled her car in front of the school. I carry a three-ring binder around school filled with all of my notebooks, papers, and folders. I only keep my computer and textbooks in my back pack. As I tried getting out of the car, I didn't quite have a tight hold on my binder, and it slipped out of my grip and flew apart on the asphalt. I hastily scrambled to gather all of my possessions  then I booked it into the school with as much grace as I could muster.

What a way to start off school again, huh? 

Haha I'm so Pathetic

Every time I've felt sad the past three days I just open a new tab in Google Chrome and play this gif until I start to feel better:

I am kind of fed up with life in general at this point. I'm so glad that I'm on Spring Break. Maybe being completely isolated is just what the doctor ordered... 

"The Stash"

As you all are well aware, I've made a few decisions in my life that might make one stop and ask "Hannah, you're an intelligent, quick-witted, and sensual woman, what could have ever made you do that?".  I would just have to say that I have a complicated psyche that is just not understood this day in age. In other words, I make a lot of stupid decisions that I regret later.I think the most recent incident was the Tic-Tac Fiasco, but this one I'm about to tell you about, even though it took place awhile back, definitely takes the cake.

 When I was a sixth grader, I had very few friends, and the friends I did have were also going through the uncomfortable growth spurt that shows up right before middle school. We were all just bopping along, sort of doing our own thing, trying to create a facade that we were totally cooler than we really were. I regret a lot of the decisions I made in sixth grade, but the one that makes me cringe the absolute most was a string of events that I usually sum up by calling "The Stash".

The origin of the stash was sometime in the middle of the  school year. Summer had been long forgotten, but Spring Break was still just a distant dream. Since all of the kids I went to elementary school with were absolutely avid talkers, the teachers gave us seating assignments at the lunch tables to try and cut back the amount of chatter. Unfortunately, they chose to seat us alphabetically, and while some kids got put next to their best friend, I got put next to the grossest kid in our grade. Maybe even our whole school. Let's call him Shawn. The problem was the Shawn probably showered about 5 times a month, so he SMELLED. Imagine trying to enjoy your lunch sitting next to someone who smells like B.O. I would all but gag on my food, so I had to come up with a better way to eat lunch. Since switching seats with someone else was out of the question (you better believe I tried, though), I had to come up with something else that could remedy the situation.

After about a week, I figured out the best possible solution my twelve year old mind could come up with. The idea hit me one day while I was at recess. Since the sixth graders were the biggest kids at the elementary school, we had to walk down a huge flight of brick stairs (71 steps!) to the baseball diamonds, which were surrounded by a big track for recess instead of playing on the playground. Most kids would walk around the track or play kickball, or just sit on the hill. I was one of the track walkers, wasting away many recesses by playing truth-or-dare with a group of cackling girls. While walking around one day, I stopped and took a break on one of the two baseball diamonds, the one that was rarely used. Kicking up the dirt of the baseball diamond, I walked around and I eventually ran into home plate. After some inspection, I realized that I could pick it up, and it wasn't stuck to the ground as I had originally thought.

The funny thing about the home plate was that the sides were thick and stuck deep down into the ground, creating a little air-pocket in between the ground and the top of the base. It was probably about three inches tall. Suddenly, what I thought was a stroke of genius stuck me. I would sneak my lunch outside and hide the remains under home plate!!!


I can't exactly remember why I thought this was a  good idea, but I quickly told all of my friends, and they thought it would work! Of course, I can't blame them for what happened next, it's all on me.

For the next two weeks or so, I'd hide bags of food in my coat pockets each day as we left the cafeteria. Since I hadn't eaten during the actual lunch period, I would sprint down the stairwell to the baseball diamond, and eat my lunch hastily in the dug out. When the coast was clear (aka, no teachers were around), I would run over to home plate and quickly stuff the wrappers underneath it. Home plate became known as "The Stash" to my friends and I, a name that was much too cool for what it was describing. Hiding the wrappers worked for the first five days or so, but in the second week, things were starting to get a little bit cramped under home plate. For some reason I didn't have the foresight to remove the trash once it started getting packed, so I just left it in there.

Then on one cloudy day the jig was up. I knew it from the moment I ran down to the field and saw all of my trash of the last two weeks blowing gently in the wind and across the baseball diamond. The teachers as well as the students were all nonplussed, and everyone was trying to figure out why so much trash had magically appeared on the field. I, for one, ran the hell away from where everyone was, which I didn't realize made me seem really suspicious. Luckily, the event blew over after a week or so, but I'm fairly sure that if you ask some of those teachers if they remember the day when a hoard of mini pretzel bags and half eaten PB&J sandwiches littered the field, I'm sure they would have a very funny story to tell you. 

Back to School

If there is one thing that I can guarantee, it is that I totally squandered my Spring Break. Rather than trying to explain all of it, just take a look at this pie chart I constructed to shed some light on how I spent my time.

As you can see, I spent about half of my time online. What is most concerning is how little of the pie is devoted to the time I spent bathing. All in all, I suppose this is a strong representation of why I shouldn't be allowed to have such extended periods of free time, because I never get anything done. How does my Spring Break compare to yours? (Lizzie, don't even answer that question, because I know yours was awesome ;]). 

Tales from a Blogger's Childhood

Growing up in the middle of the Midwest offered me many opportunities as a child. Without any sizable theme parks or other attractions to speak of nearby, my companions and I had to come up with... unique ways to occupy our time.

Really, though, before I get too far ahead of myself, I should mention that most of the adventuring started around the time I was in first grade and a new neighbor named Alex moved in. Three years my senior and one year older than my brother, we idolized her. Not too long afterward a boy my age named Sam moved in down the street. We all befriended one another and became a sort of motley crew in my neighborhood. Alex, the oldest, became our self-appointed ring leader. Sam was loud, arrogant and obnoxious and liked to think himself a rebel. My brother was the most lax out of all of us, leaving me to be the capricious whirling dervish.

We all had our own psychotic tendencies colorful personalities, and despite our differences we managed to spend the dog days of summer and the long winters together without killing one another. Which, in retrospect, I find quite fascinating. I spent about five years of my life with these friends. Two of those years found me being a lovable ragamuffin. I spent the other three years being a vindictive, meddlesome, slightly more entertaining ne'er do well. What caused this change, I'm not sure. I just remember the last three years of my friendship with those kids ended up with many acts of vandalism, trespassing, and straight up truancy, which I don't think I'll go too far into the details of those right now.

I have many fond memories from those years, where I am certain that I could be defined by modern definition, as a punk. Most worthy of note, in my opinion, is the summer night where we found an old bike in Alex's garage. Upon further inspection we discovered it lacked brakes. I can't remember who exactly dared me to ride that bike down a hill, but I remember I took the challenge unflinchingly. By the end of the night I had cuts and bruises all over my arms and legs, after ramming into a fence.

Another story that I love to tell friends is about the human sized elmo doll Alex bought at a garage sale. He was the outlet for many spontaneous beatings, and we ended up breaking both of his softball sized plastic eyes. I'm not sure what was so satisfying about beating up an elmo plush, but it was somehow entertaining. We also loved to use the elmo doll as a prop for our movies we'd make, in which he acted as a stunt double (most notably when we tied him to a wagon and let him free fall down a hill). Though, and this is really my favorite, is the day where we sacrificed elmo by creating a noose with my jump rope and hanging him from the pine tree in my back yard. My father immediately put a stop to our sacrifice to the gods, and we were severely reprimanded (namely, we couldn't play with jump ropes anymore).

I realize that these tales might make me sound like a lunatic, but hey, don't we all have stories about sacrificing plush toys as kids? ...No? Well, you certainly didn't have much of a childhood then, did you? Just kidding, I know everyone has their own stories, but this is mine, and I don't think I'd change any of it.

My Blueberry Hands

Today I helped out my friend Leah...

This is her. Look at that cute face. 

Anyway, her parents are opening a dollar store, and they were in need of some help. Her mom asked Leah and I to paint cardboard letters purple so they could be hung on the walls and say things like "Jewelry" and "Pet Care". What I want to know is how such a simple task could go so horribly wrong. 

The type of paint we used was acrylic, which most of you probably know stains clothes. What I discovered today is that it can also stain your body. Since I most unfortunately lack the fine motor skills it takes to use a paint brush and not get paint all over me, the staining of my hands was inevitable. The more concerning aspect is how it ended up all over my legs. As far as my hands go, it looks like I spent the better half of my afternoon picking blueberries in good old Farmer Brown's blueberry patch. My fingers were stained an exquisite purpley-blue that is apparently unique to only blueberries and purple acrylic paint. No matter how much I scrubbed, the stains would not come off. Upon further inspection it looked like I had slammed both of my hands in a door, and sustained some major bruises. 

My legs are another story. The paint that managed to find it's way onto my legs looks like scrapes. Seriously guys, if I went out in public I'm sure about half the people I saw would approach me and ask if I needed medical attention. Really, though, I'll let you all be the judge of my situation. Just... here. Here are the pictures. 

Palms of my hands had it the worst, I think. 

My nails. Oh God, the paint will probably become part of my nails soon enough. 

I was hesitant to post a picture of my leg on here. I think that the paint that looks like claw scrapes on my thigh are worth noting. 

Photos curtesy of Leah and her camera. I hope this paint comes off soon. I want to be able to wear shorts. 

Glimpses from a Friday Afternoon

Friday was sort of not fun. I had a Biology quiz that I didn't actually study that hard for, and I'm pretty sure I failed it. This fun interaction took place shortly after I finished the quiz.

Setting: Biology Lab, lab table two. I take a seat next to my friend.


Me: I think I just failed that quiz.
Friend: Yeah, me too. 
Me: God, sometimes I hate Biology so much I just want it to die! (slams table with fist to prove point. Knocks over a container of plant leaves.)
Friend: Uh... are you going to clean that up?
Me: (crosses arms across chest) No. 
*Five minute intermission where nothing exciting happens*
Biology Teacher: (walks over to lab table two, examines leaves strewn on table.) Gosh, the kids in the period before you guys are so lazy. I'll clean up their mess.
Me: Uhmmm... (looks at friend, not sure what to say).
Biology teahcer: (picks up leaves, throws them away.)
Friend: aren't you going to tell him it was you?
Me: Not today... not today. 


Yeah, I feel sort of bad about this, but I feel like some things need to be left unsaid in this situation.


The following period my Economics teacher saw I had Homestuck pulled up on my computer and got all on my case about it (Okay, not really, he just was all, "What is THAT?"). Then I went to math, where my teacher noticed that I had written "Math Is Stupid" along the top of my paper the day before, and acted insulted by it. So many awkward interactions, so little time. Luckily I'm on Spring break right now, so I'll be able to blog everyday! Loljk I'm really going to be catching up on Homestuck. See you soon, my lovely readers!

P.S.- Happy April Fool's Day!