Hair Depots and Tulip Bulbs

“Luckily it was sunny outside so I could follow the lines.” “Way to go Melvin, you did a great job!” I say kind of unsurely. Melvin is a funny neighbor who has lead me on many adventures, and has taught me many lessons.

Melvin is a great guy who can make you laugh just by acting fairly normal. He wears a funny hat that is like one of those Swedish looking ones from the 80’s (it looks really cool), he loves to wear it rain or shine, and it’s kind of his trademark. He loves to wear jumpsuits that range from red to blue to gray. Those combined with his hat make him look pretty spiffy. You can always see him wearing them when he does his yard work though he normally does it when it is sunny outside so he can see to mow or weed. It’s kind of like when you start thinking to yourself in dialog. And you say; Melvin, one of the coolest people in my life, is probably one of the funniest. And the language he tends to use can make you laugh also; because it seems that a lot of the time he knows what he wants to say and expresses it in a way that only people who have known him for a long time can understand. Like when he says “Momma” you have to know that he is talking about his wife; or when he says “The Hair Depot” you know that his wife is getting her hair done. Another one he loves to use is “Don’t mind if I do!” But some of the adventures he has sent me on are almost as funny.

Over the span of my life Melvin has sent my family and me on many adventures. He has told my mom literally how to get from one end of Utah to the other. She is always saying, “Well this is what Melvin told us to do!” And the directions are always precise and accurate. Quite a few times we’ve gone to Southern Utah to go to the National Parks and have been side tracked by the awesome places Melvin has told us about. Like when we go rock hunting, we get to the place and if the rock isn’t really abundant we have to pull out a piece of paper with Melvin’s description of the rock. Many of these adventures have taught me lessons, although some closer to home.

Some of the lessons I have learned from Melvin are rarely seen in youth today. One year Melvin and I had to help his wife plant over 1,000 tulip bulbs. This, and other occasions have taught me much about gardening. Also patience, some times where solutions are obvious Melvin needs to consult with his wife, and it is always easier for him to make up his mind then to fight it. When doing things that might no normally be appealing Melvin always seems to brighten up situations. Whether it’s decorating for Christmas, or weeding the gardens, it is always more fun to do it with Melvin than anyone else. All these lessons and many more have proved useful in my life.

All in all Melvin has taught me a great deal, through some of his adventures to his odd humor. He is one that you would rarely see in the world anymore, he is one that is full of knowledge and shares it non stop. It kind of makes me wish we all had someone like Melvin in our lives.

So let me know if any of you guys have someone like this in your lives.

As School Wears On

Well school wears on, its grisly grasp pulling us all in. It’s amazing how fast school has been moving, you can hardly tell we’ve been going at it for almost a term. By now most of us have all settled into all of our classes. Though we sometimes hear of those who aren’t quite happy about their own schedules. We have all had a few funny moments in our different classes from Mr. Thompson telling us about the tiny faculty men’s room to Mrs. Vanvleet’s sixth period humor. All of us have also already had our own truckload of home work. I know for a fact that the Munnses have been loaded down with tons of it. Our (the Munnses’) kitchen table has also probably been put under more stress than it should have to bear in 200 years! All of us around this time are most likely doing our blogs for the week, or blogging on the discussion questions. (Have you guys seen Hannah Hendricks’s avatar?) Some of the blogs are really decked out, like Nicole Ly’s, hers is really decked out. Although Brady’s is kind of pimped too, his has a cool video on it. Although Honors English isn’t the only class that we are all taking, we all have to take Science and Math for what seems the rest of our lives after they changes the qualifications and make us take another year of each. Besides our day to day classes we all probably have extra- curricular groups we’re in. Some of us are in Science Olympiad, others volleyball, some NAL and others. Just the other day we were all finding out if we mad Olympiad and NAL. Good job to all those who gave it a try. It is a lot of work to get to try out on either team, from all of the paper work to two hour tests on a computer, to dressing up for interviews. And now we can look at all of that as the easy part as we all have another year of training ahead. And many of us will be juggling this around with already busy schedules. For some it will be many sleepless nights followed by packed days just to accomplish what they love. Most will notice all of the schools’ students go into overdrive for the next three terms. A lot of parents will probably start to worry about their kids, as they always do. But for the most part we will all settle into a routine and turn into a sort of homework robot. All of the teachers’ minds will tune out complaints of pain and worry and just lay on more homework. They will all consider it a privilege to torture us, that is until they have to grade it all. Hopefully though we will all, teachers and students, be able to wear out yet another year and be able to look back on it without distaste. Though most will find that difficult we will all have to face years that will wear a lot more.

The fun of Olympiad.

This blog happens to be about Science Olympiad. As most of you know it’s is time to try out again. Now I don’t know if I’m actually going to make it, but this is to tell those of you who don’t know what Olympiad is all about.

Olympiad is pretty much a competition to test skills in different areas of Science. Such as Physics, the Metric System, Terminology, Geology, and much more. One of the events is “Simple Machines,” in this event you have to be able to put together simple machines find Actual Mechanical Advantage (AMA), Ideal Mechanical Advantage (IMA), and the Efficiency of the machine. All of this has to be done in a certain time period which makes you rush everything, therefore you have to split tasks with you partner to get the event done within the time period. Another event is “Metric Mastery”, in this event you have to be able to take any given object and be able to find it’s mass its surface area, its area, its volume, its density, etc. Well you might think that is easy, but here’s the catch, you have to be able to estimate all of these by just looking at it and feeling it before you use equipment to measure it. All of this is moving so fast that you and your partner are very easily, well, it is very easy to start fighting we will say. And yet another event is “Rocks and Minerals”, in this event you have to be able to identify a rock and tell the event coordinator anything that they want to know about that rock OR mineral. Sometimes you don’t always get to see the rock, you just get a detailed description of the rock OR mineral. And once again it is timed so you are constantly under stress. (Ask Madi Randquist about Amethyst and state!) But we cannot forget about “Wheeled Vehicle”, some of you will be saying what? Because it is not on the event sheet for this year, but for the past two years it has. This event is pretty much building a vehicle that can travel anywhere between five and ten meters. You might think that this is pretty easy but there is a catch, it has to be able to go straight within a millimeter and it has to be able to stop within a millimeter of the marked distance. This sometimes requires over 50 hours of calibration! The funnest part of Olympiad though is state, and if you are lucky enough Nationals you just get to have fun with all of your friends. Most of you have heard about the grueling test, you know the 2 hour ball of fun! It’s like part ACT, part Mensa, and there was another part Greenaway used to do about like estuaries. All of you will most likely score wonderfully on this test and it is normally tenths of percents that decide it. It does sound really intimidating but the best way to get through it is to just grin and bear it! Good luck to all on Wednesday!!

My First Official Book Review

I know that it is funny but I just read the books “Eragon” for the first time in my life. I don’t know how many of you read my response to the discussion question #2 but it fits this book exactly. I think that “Eragon” was, in a way, and outlet for me. It was one of those books were I could just loose myself in a different world and not worry about any of my problems, but instead, just read about the problems of others. I know that it sounds kind of mean, but sometimes it is just nice to read about others problems and not you own. In this book (for those of you who have not read it) the main characters are Eragon, and Saphira, they start this epic journey at a very young age. The meet many people and things that most of us only dream of. Their journey starts at a little village by the name of Carvahall, from there an old story teller by the name of Brom leads them through the massive empire to escape from the evil king. When they finally escape they join a rebellion named the “Varden”, during their stay with the Varden they are attacked by an army sent by the evil king. The army comprised mainly of urgals, weird ram like beings. During the fight Eragon fights a Shade, which is a being that is possessed by an evil spirit. In the end he manages to run his sword through the Shade’s heart which killed it instantly. This provided the distraction needed for the Varden’s army to turn on the Urgals and overturn the battle and win. This is about where the author lets this book off and continues into the next book, called “Eldest.” This book mainly comprises of Eragon’s cousin’s problems with the empire, as well as the Varden’s. But mainly it tells of the training that Eragon and Saphira go through to prepare for the next battle against the empire. Overall these books are probably some of the best that I have read for some time. I think that these books are extremely well written, and that the author has done a very good job expressing some of his imagination- no matter how wild it may seem. But I personally can’t wait for the third book in this series. I think that it will answer many questions that people may have come up with in the two books that he has already written. Although I personally wouldn’t mind if he kept going on for many more books, maybe into a fourth or fifth book. The kind of world he has created in these books could go on forever and many books, but I think there is a limit on how far you can stretch it. But I wait excitedly for the third book.