The Tragically Hip and more!

For my choice blog, since I had no other good ideas, I decided to write about my favorite bands. My favorite band ever, more than all the others, is The Tragically Hip. They’re a Canadian rock band, so I don’t know of many other people that have heard of them. My dad is the main reason I started listening to them, because they are also his favorite band. I have really early memories of just chilling with my dad while he listened to Tragically Hip songs, and I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember. Similarly, my dad and I share other favorite bands. We have such similar tastes in music, we share and iPod. For real. When mine is dead or broken, I use his iPod on road trips or when I work out. We recommend songs to each other and learn about new music that the other happens to be listening to at the moment. He introduced me to Third Eye Blind a couple years ago (which became another one of my favorite bands), and I recently introduced my dad to Foster the People. He ended up loving them! My brother and I also love a lot of the same music! We have this thing we do where we both go through our iTunes and tell each other our favorite songs at the moment. It sounds really strange, but I think it’s fun; maybe it’s one of those “you have to be there to understand it” things. But it’s definitely a fun time. He got me to like some of his favorite bands, like Sublime, Nirvana, and the Foo Fighters. Oppositely, I got him interested in bands like Band of Horses and Drake. I think that’s why my taste in music is so vast. I get all these bands that I now love from my family, and I also have my own taste in music.

Intense Kan Jam in Canada

A great moment in my life, though it may seem trivial to some people, was in the summer of two thousand and eleven in Crystal Beach when I slotted it in a game of Kan Jam for the first time. This is an achievement not to be underappreciated or underrated! For anyone who had seen my play Kan Jam previous to that night, would have agreed with me saying that I was terrible. Just awful. My Frisbee throws either hit the cottage or nearby cars rather than going anywhere near the can. My best friend and partner would literally get mad at me because I was so bad. This night, we were playing her father and his friend, who were undefeated, and it was getting intense. They were antagonizing us and trying to get us to choke and lose the game. This must have subconsciously motivated me, because after that, my game significantly improved! I miraculously started to throw the Frisbee where ever my friend wanted it to go. Thanks to my valiant efforts, we were able to come back from a huge deficit and tie the game!!! It was turning into a nail biter. At this point, people had gathered on the sidelines to see how the game would end up. My friend’s brother watched anxiously, and our friends couldn’t believe what they were actually witnessing. Also, my friend’s dad and his friend were beginning to get worried. They also couldn’t believe that we had come back and were about to beat them! That’s when it happened. I let go of the Frisbee and it soared flawlessly through the air to the can. I was expecting it to hit the side, but what it did was even better. It sailed into the slot, and won us the game! I was ecstatic. Not only was it my first slot in Kan Jam ever, but it had won us a very important game, and that’s why such a small achievement is a great moment in my life. And if you learn anything from this blog post, it should be that Kan Jam is taken very seriously in Crystal Beach.

Sweet Summertime

Oh my. My favorite season, which just so happens to be summer, is something I could talk about forever. There is so much I could say to try and express my love for the beautiful months of June, July, and August. Ever since I was a little girl, summer has always been my favorite season of the year. My mom has things that I brought home from kindergarten that had pictures of the beach on them and stories why I loved summer. I’m so lucky (in my opinion) because my uncle is the President of Bay Beach Club in Crystal Beach, Ontario. Therefore, my childhood summers were spent at Crystal Beach in Canada. That’s why I think I have such a love for Canada and the beach embedded in my soul and it’s a part of me. So ever since then, I’ve gone to Crystal Beach every summer with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin. Crystal Beach to me is the epitome of summer. And even as I grew older, I continued to go to the very same beach, and I started going with my best friend and her family for weeks at a time. We get the same cottage and hang out with the same people every year. It’s like my summers in Crystal Beach are like their own little lifetime that’s separate from reality. The days are a blur of swimming to the pier and lying in the sand, and the nights are just as fun as the days, with bonfires, hide and seek, and bike rides to the beach. So that’s why I consider summer as my favorite season. Crystal Beach technically isn’t my whole summer, but it might as well be. I spend scattered weeks there through July and August, and as soon as someone asks me what I did over the summer, I can gush about Crystal Beach for hours!

Facebookin'!

It seems like people either love or hate Facebook. I do have a Facebook and I use it, but it’s not like a second nature to me like it is to some people. Yes, I do check it as soon as I get on the computer, but I’m not on it for hours at a time. I thought about deactivating it because it seems like I spend a lot of time on it sometimes, and sometimes I just think like “What’s even the point of this?”, but I do use it for some useful things. I use it to keep in touch with my older cousins that I don’t get to see all the time, and also with family that lives out of state like in California and Michigan. It’s also nice because I feel more “in the loop” by reading things on my News Feed, from family and also from people at school as well. The list of positives, some of them I’ve already mentioned, is quite large. It’s entertaining, informative, and useful. Not only is it useful for keeping in touch with your friends and family, but it can also be used to keep up with homework assignments and projects from your teachers, if they choose to use it that way.  It’s also convenient. You can access Facebook from almost anywhere nowadays. However, there are definitely just as many negatives associated with Facebook. It’s so time consuming, and sometimes you can spend hours at a time on Facebook before you even realize how much time has really gone by. And if you are like me, you might frequently find yourself checking your Facebook during homework, and taking little “breaks” that turn into thirty minutes at a time on The Book.  It also becomes an issue when people use it to bully people over Facebook. There are always going to be extreme negatives along with extreme positives with anything you do, so it’s totally personal opinion on the whole Facebook topic, I think.

What I feel comfortable writing about

When it comes to writing, or almost anything in my life, I will feel comfortable about it as long as I have some kind of connection to it. Literally everything I do has a purpose and a reason behind it, even if it’s just a small connection. I’m an Aquarius, and that’s just what I do! So as far as writing and things that interest me, the list is pretty large. My interest inventory consists of summertime, basically any beach (although Crystal Beach in Ontario is my favorite), Canada, Buffalo and Chicago hockey teams, fashion, healthy living/lifestyle, and definitely music. I listen to literally every genre of music, but my favorites are alternative, rock, and nineties music. I love The Tragically Hip, Third Eye Blind, and Oasis. Some of my favorite artists from other genres are Jack’s Mannequin, Kanye West, Kenny Chesney, but there are many more! I could write about my love for Canada and specifically Crystal Beach endlessly. It is my favorite place in the entire world, and I have so many good memories and connotations in my mind. As far as the other things I listed, they are just big parts of my life that I enjoy and would feel comfortable expressing. 

Fifth grade and why it was the best

Out of all the thirteen years I have attended Alden Central Schools, I think that fifth grade has been my favorite. My teacher was Mrs. Ciezki, and there are countless reasons why that year of schooling was my favorite. I think I enjoyed fifth grade so much because it was my last year of Intermediate school and I was comfortable with my surroundings. It was like my “senior year” of Intermediate school. My three best friends were also in that class, which made it incredibly fun! I think it was fate that we all ended up in that class together, but the rest of the class probably wasn’t happy about it because we caused quite the scene on a daily basis. I remember the last day of fourth grade when we all found out that we were going to be in the same fifth grade class, we ran down the hall screaming and hugged each other. It was all one big celebration after that. Even when we had to do some pretty intense work, we found a way to make it enjoyable and amusing. Mrs. Ciezki was super laid back about everything too, and she liked us. This allowed us to somehow be able to do our homework in the halls every day, and run errands for her during class. I think that this year of school was my favorite not only because I got to have fun with my best friends in school every day, but also because it was like a bonding experience where I got to form strong bonds of friendship that will last a lifetime. It was the start of one of the biggest aspects of my life, which are my closest friends. That year in Mrs. Ciezki’s class, we built rockets, had parties for pretty much any holiday we could think of, ordered food from John and Mary’s on Fridays, and even hatched chickens. For years after that, my friends and I even went to Mrs. Ciezki’s room after school to visit and reminisce. Fifth grade is the year of school that I will never forget.

School Year Accomplishments!

In my senior year of high school, I am hoping to accomplish a lot of things. I am hoping to be successful in the college level courses that I am taking this year, as well as the other classes and electives I am signed up for. After I graduate high school, I want to become a paralegal and attend Hilbert College, so I took classes that will help me get as much knowledge and experience as I can get before college in that area. To help myself get further, I and taking Law in Society and Social Studies Honors. Both of those classes deal with topics and information that a paralegal would want to know, so I am going to try my very best to be as successful as possible in those classes. I want to get as much credit and knowledge as I can before I leave for college. Also, I did not do my usual sport of soccer this year. Therefore, I am hoping to fill that void and do a winter or spring sport that I have never done before. In doing this, I want to step out of my comfort zone, meet some new people, learn a new skill, and enjoy my afterschool time as well as a good portion of my senior year. It would be a great accomplishment for me to try something new and succeed at it. Also this school year, I think it would be a nice accomplishment if I branched out and made an effort to be more outgoing and talk to more people than I usually do! It would make other people that are possibly new to the school or the area feel more welcome and at ease in the new environment, and I think it would be interesting and rewarding for me as well! I’m very excited to see what my senior year has in store for me.

Summer 2011

My past summer was one of the most eventful and entertaining summers that I have had so far. Since it was my last summer of high school, I wanted to break out of my usual boring ways and have a fun and productive few months. I did however come across some obstacles. My yearlong job search has been unsuccessful, so my options of what to do were limited. Luckily, I had made some money babysitting and my parents were nice enough to lend me money for various things, as long as I make sure to pay them back. With their generous money donations, I was able to begin my summer activities. In July, I went to one of my best friend's house warming party, because she just moved to Hamburg. I went to Hamburg beach with her several times this summer. An interesting day in July was when I went to the Buffalo Sabres prospect camp in Niagara. I like watching hockey and supporting local teams, so my friend didn't have to ask me twice to go. I also attended a few concert this summer, but my favorite was by far the concert and the Buffalo Harbor where I was able to see my favorite band, The Tragically Hip. Watching the sunset over the water with my family and friends was definitely one of the highlights of my summer, and I will always remember that beautiful night. Moving into August, my festivities continued. At the end of the month, I took my yearly trip to Crystal Beach in Canada with my best friend. We go every year to the same cottage and stay with her parents and their friends. Crystal Beach is my favorite place in the entire world, and it's always the best part of my summer! Arriving home from Canada marks the end of my summer, and I can look back and say that I made the best out of it.