We are babysitting our piano teacher's two dogs this week. That makes three dogs that must be fed, walked, and scolded.  This morning Chewbacca Fatone (get it?), who slept with me, decided to get me up at 6 a.m.  Now he is sitting on my bed sleeping.  Bad dog. 

Dogs are like children.   The only difference is that when a child pees on the floor you can't scoop him up and plop him outside.  Also, children are intelligent, so they can choose whether to be bad or not.  Watching dogs takes the same skill set as watching kids.  You have to be quick, patient, filled with caffine, and on alert at all times.  Also you have to know what you're dealing with so you can have a plan of action;

Dog #1
Name; Chewbacca
AKA; Chewy or Baccy
Description; Full grown grey/brown cocker spaniel with brown eyes and no tail.  Short hair.  Pudgy.
Motivation; food
Notes; If food is out, he will find it.  His tracking capabilities are unmatchable.

Dog #2
Name; Charlie
AKA; Baby
Description; Ruby red Calvalier King Charles Spaniel.  Buldgy brown eyes.  Long fur and tail.  Looks something like a teddy bear.
Motivation; Affection.
Notes;  If he's being held, he's content.  He gets anxious when no ones around.

Dog #3
Name; Pippin
AKA; Brat
Description; Nearly grown ruby red Calvalier King Charles Spaniel.  Short silky hair and a long tail.
Motivation; Envy
Notes;  If you want to get his attention, pick up one of the other dogs.  He doesn't like it when his people give affection to others. 

Preforming daily activities with these three stooges is difficult.  Each has their own special dog foog.  Charlie and Chewy get their's with lowfat yogurt on top.  Pippin can't be fed with Chewbacca because he eats slow and Chewy will eat his food.  Also there are only two food bowls so you have to wait for one to finish before feeding another one.  When they go out to the yard to do their business Chewy has to go on a leash because he'll eat the plants in the garden if he goes unmonitored.  Throughout the day Pippin will yip and nip at Charlie.  Sometimes he needs rescuing.  They all insist on sleeping with us.  So, we each get a dog.  I get Chewy, Em gets Charlie, and Ethan gets Pippin. 

In short, I feel for Mr. Fredrickson...

He had a kid and dogs to deal with.. not to mention a bird.

Nothing

Sunlight flows into my room along with the unusually cool summer air (global warming? right).  My dog barks from downstairs. The spoiled thing is cross with me for leaving him in his pen.  He'd rather be here, getting his muddy paws all over my pink sheets.   Birds tweet outside, my fan slowly turns above my head.  A train's whistle sounds in the distance.  The world goes on just like it has for centuries.  And I sit here, lounging in a moment in time.  Trying hard to resist its flow. 

I have driver's ed, Spanish 2 and Biology to finish (yes, I am a procrastinator and have an unfinished 10th grade course).  I have a bed to make, a collage to finish, and a stomach to feed.  But I don't take care of any of those things.  Instead I sit here on my bed and write a bog post about nothing.  I don't want to move.  I don't want to face the rhythm of the day.  I just want to sit here quietly and listen to the birds chirp and my clock tick.

I have nothing interesting to say really.  This is just another day in my life.  Nothing monumental has happened to me recently.  I haven't had any God sent epiphanies.  So what's the point in me blogging? Why not?  I say.  If I waited for something interesting to come along, then I would never blog.  This is just a post that proves I am alive and content. It is a post that I liked writing.  It is a post that you might not like reading.  It is a post about nothing.  Farewell.

How To Be Happy

My friend Scout once told me that the key to happiness is getting excited about everything. 

"For example," said Scout, "Here I have a glass of water."  I looked at her blankly.  "You see, generally we would take such an object for granted, but think of it like this; more than half of your body is made up of water.  You need water to survive.  You can kill someone with water.  You can use water to save lives by putting out a fire.  It is made of hundreds of molocules.  We swim and splash and play in it.  There would be no life without it, and you have it in a glass!" 

Scout, you are absolutely right.  It's time we started getting exited about everything.  So, this summer, I will get exited about things. When I go to the beach, I will lay on the sand and wonder how anything so soft can be made up of millions of little pieces of rocks! When I let the waves crash over top of me, I will remember that I am sharing that water with sharks, and dolphins, and sea turtles!

When I play with my dog,  I will examine his little paws and feel his soft snout and think how crazy it is that God made animals to look cute to us (honestly, our dog is the cutest in the intire world)!  When I curl up by a summer bon fire, I will contemplate how the same thing that destroys forests and homes can give me such comfort.  While I stare up at the stars, I will not even be able to fathom how far away from me they are.  I won't be able to fathom how much God loves me (or why for that matter) or why he placed our world in the perfect location to view the universe. 

That is all.  Toodaloo :)

Ok, I Will

*No, I am not getting married!

Lately my mother has been asking me what I think I was put onto this planet to do.  That simple question is a lot harder to answer than you would think.  There are so many things that I want to do and not enough that I can do.  I've changed my mind countless times.  But now,  as my senior year stretches before me, that purpose has become clearer. 

When I was little I always said I would be an elementary teacher,  like my mom.  I pictured myself in a big class room (picturing myself was always difficult. When you're 8 it's very hard to imagine what you'll look like at 25), writing things on a chalk board, answering questions, smiling at my eager students; teaching sounded so fun!  I thought it would be a good idea to practice. So I did.  My sister and I made up a little "school" for my then three-year-old brother.  We taught him his abc's and how to count.  It was fun, but then I started Irish Dance and my priorities changed. 

Now my dream was to get my Irish dance teacher certificate and teach little girls (and the occasional boy) how to point and stretch and jump and spin.  The wonderful thing about this job, my 9-year-old self mused, was that I wouldn't have to go to college.  I could escape the grueling 12 page papers and the awful presentations that college professors dream up.  There was nothing worse in my mind than papers.  If I could escape that evilness, life would be so much better.   I could just go take a few buisness classes, get my certificate and start a school!  This dream stayed with me right up to my freshman year of highschool.

That freshman year was when realization started to settle in.  It was slow, but steady.  It started with encouraging feedback from my writing coaches.  One said "You should write children's books when you're older!"  Another said "I love your writing style!"  My awkward freshman brain started to realize something, I liked writing.  Sophmore year passed and I still liked writing.  Then came Junior year.  My friend Scout started a blog.  My friend stephanie started a blog.   I read my friends' blogs and said "I want to do that."  So I did. 

It was here that I formed a new dream.  Why not be a journalist?  I could write all day long for a living! No interruptions, no assignments, just writing!  But then I realized something else,  I got bored of writing very easily.  Infact, keeping up with my blog was very dfficult.   The busier I got, the more weeks and months went by with no posts.  And here was the really strange thing, I liked school better than blogging.  I loved learning to speak Spanish, I loved reading classical literature.  I even kinda liked Algebra 2! "Alright," I thought, "I'm going to college after all." 

During all this learning, something else was quietly growing in the background.  At the start of Junior year, I started teaching my piano teacher's daughter in exchange for free lessons.  At first the idea of teaching terrified me, but after a month or so I found that I liked teaching.  I liked seeing Kate progress through her lesson book and I liked the relationship I formed with her. So I asked my teacher for more students, and she took me on as an assistant.  I grew to love all of my students.  I praised them when they practiced, and encouraged them to keep going when they looked at me with their big eyes and said the forbidden words "I can't!" At first I only taught students under my teacher, but soon other people were asking me to teach outside of my teacher.  So I did. 

Junior year was drawing to an end.  I started looking at colleges and at different degrees.  It was overwhelming.  So, I decided to just get into a school and worry about the next step later.   My friend told me I should get the SAT over with. So I did. 

I dont remember exactly when, but one day my mom mentioned teaching.  I hadn't really thought about teaching in a long time.  I mean I thought about working with kids by being a guidance councelor or a child psychologist, but the idea of returning to my childhood dream hadn't really crossed my mind.  I looked at various interdisicplinary programs.  And slowly, the idea of me teaching grew more and more appealing.  I again pictured myself at the front of a classroom, this time knowing what I would look like.  I imagined walking around desks, kneeling next to little girls in polka dot dresses and pigtails and little boys with dirt and scratches on their faces.  And I smiled. 

The other day I was in my room, collaging.  My sister was struggling over an algebra problem.  "Rissa, will you help me?" She said.  I walked over to the wipe erase board.  I looked at the problem and started writing it out, "Yes, I will." 

It's Been a While...

I decided it's time for me to slip back into the world of blogging.  Summer, with it's cool green grass and warm, sandy shores has returned.  With so many other things returning, it seems fitting that my blog posts should also.

I learned today that every animal with a brain has a certain activity that it specializes in.  The part of the animal's brain that operates that activity is larger in comparison to the other parts of the creature's brain.  For example, the bony fish was designed to use it's keen sense of smell to sniff out food, so its olfactory lobe (part of the brain designed to aid in smell) is larger than the other brain sections.  It turns out that the Cerebrum (which controls thinking) is the biggest part of our brains.  Infact, it takes up about 85% of our brains.  We were made to think.  

If I was made to think, then it's time I started doing more of it. I have a blog.  I should fill my blog with things I think.  So, I'm going to go totally random and just make a list of things that I think right now. 

-Zits are agents of the devil.
-Summer is creatively stimulating.
-Online driver courses should be much less difficult to understand. 
-My room is awesome.
-The future is enticingly terrifying.
-People lie all the time. 
-French people just have awesome style.  I mean berets are adorable!
-My parents are awesome.
-Stars are inspiring.
-I am incredibly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, which means my mistakes will not mess up the world.  That gives me the oddest sense of comfort.

I suggest doing that.  It feels really good.  Thanks for reading.