Chocolatey cup of comfort. 93% 

Super Cool Horse Dude

We had a really cool demonstration today in Equine Behavior and Training.  The horse dude (I forgot his name) haltered a horse that before used to kick at his handler.  He established his dominance and trained the horse to come toward him then back off.  It was really neat!  I was really impressed.  The only problem was that class let out 20 minutes late and I didn’t have time to eat lunch until 2:30.  

Guess what today was?

That is correct. It's my birthday. I survived one more year of life. Truly amazing.

Overall I'd say my birthday was very pleasant. A lot of my friends wished me a happy birthday. BUT what really made my day was when the Sigma Phi Lambda girls (both the new pledges and the charter members) sang to me. Jenna even made me a cake! I almost cried; it was so sweet!

Although joining a sorority is something I never in my wildest dreams pictured myself doing, I think I made the right choice. They fill a gap my male, mostly atheist friends can't fill. They are my comforters, supporters, and my sisters - girls I can spiritually develop with. They're the ones who will pick me up if I fall, the ones who will pray for me, and the people I can cry with. I still don't know most of them very well, but it's an opportunity to try to overcome my shyness since they won't reject me. AND it's a way to share Christ.

Stupid horse!!

Haha. I decided to help a friend catch her horse Swayzee (i'm not sure about the spelling, but it sounds like Sway-Zee). We almost had him, and then he decided to run. After about 30 minutes, of trying to get him in a corner and get the lead rope on the halter, Dr. Jack came out an tried to show us a new method. The plan was to make Swayzee run around and work every time he misbehaved (stepped away from Dr. Jack etc) and prevent him from joining the rest of the herd (who were calmly standing in a corner). Theoretically, this is how to train a horse to come to you, because if they start to walk away, you act all scary and chase them away. So they should come to associate not cooperating with having to run like crazy. It was a good plan. It was my job to make sure the horses in the corner stayed in the corner and Swayzee stayed out. An hour and 30 minutes later of "Go away you stupid horse!" and madly waving my hands, I had to leave to go to my next class. Poor Lauren was there from 11:30- 3:00 trying to catch that stupid horse. Haha, in the time i was there, half of my neck sunburned pretty bad. whoops. I'm really glad i put makeup on my face, otherwise it would be burned too.

The result of the Swayzee incident. Happy b-day to me! 

Thirsty babies! 

My baby!!!! 

and running...(3 hours and 30 minutes later...) 

and running 

and running... 

still running... 

Look Dr. Jack decided to help us!  

Trying to catch Swayzee. 

Weekend Adventures with the Mom

This weekend was extremely pleasant. Mom and I went to a movie and ate out and just had fun. Wahoo! Although it's not technically my birthday yet, I celebrated today and yesterday - very relaxing and fun. Today Myranda acted like fools and got chased down the hall by a crazy person (aka Steve0). It was fun. We put little plastic animals on people's doors.

My sanity level has indeed increased to an acceptable level; I'm no longer toeing the line of insanity. BSF will be simply wonderful this year. It makes me so happy. Plus, I no longer feel as lonely as I have been lately. Perhaps that's because the chaos in my friends' lives (namely the Pink Crusader; i hope she doesn't mind that nickname...) has placed other issues on my mind, and I've finally come to terms with my expectations for my friendships. It's good not to think about oneself too much. It's selfishness that led me to loneliness. I've returned to my normal cheerful self, for the most part.

I almost finished all my homework for the entire week.

Now it's back to the madness of school.

More underwater adventures... 

Adventure on a bike 

cool fish 

another "whale." I think maybe this is a false orca whale? It's actually a type of dolphin, I think. 

These are whales? That's what the divemasters said... whatever...  

Other scuba divers. Notice the guy second from the left...yeah... cute dive master. 

Scuba Fun! 

Evil after Midnight

I confessed to Myranda my evilness. Last night i finished my homework and was ready for bed around 1. I crawl into bed, remember something i needed to print, climb out of bed, turn on the computer, print the document, crawl back into bed, and settle down for a night's rest. Unfortunately this is precisely the moment Myranda started snoring (i heart you Myranda, really I do....). So instead of my usual retrieval of the headphones or trying to discretely wake her up, I got my camera. I tiptoed across the desk and recorded about a minute. Then I snuck back to my bed and yelled "MYRANDA!" At which point, I feigned deep sleep. hahahaa!!!!!

All the Crazy Horses!!

Ok.  Blogger for Word is just cool!

A change in the weather is on the way, and the horses know it.  Flint, Felicity, and even my little Felipe were all extremely edgy today.  Felipe tried to step on me multiple times (and succeeded twice.  Thanks goodness for boots) as well as bucked.  When a horse does that, the handler is supposed step in to the circle the horse is bucking around (which is right next to the horse) because you certainly don’t want to be behind or in front of frightened horse.  As long as I am in the center, he can’t kick me.  While you’re in the center and the horse is going crazy, don’t look at the horse, which is really tough since it feels natural to look at what he’s doing to avoid danger.  That’s the first time Felipe has bucked even a little.  Flint is just insane.  Felicity almost kicked Brooke.  The weanlings were too nervous for us to handle and expect any progress (without multiple attempts to kick off someone’s head). So we turned them loose in a round pen, and after they had thoroughly kicked each other (I know Flint kicked Felipe at least twice) and bucked in circles, Brooke and I (the two with the least horse experience) watched as Laurie and the TA chased them around until they were reasonably so tired they didn’t care as much about the wind.  After that, they handled much better.  We worked on the usual: scary tarp of doom, bridge, scary objects (like clippers), and back.  Back is still completely without success.  Haha… unfortunately that’s due to “pilot error” (it’s my fault Felipe doesn’t understand).  But I’ve got a new plan for teaching back, it’s obvious the way Dr. Jack told us to use is not going to work.  SO I’m going to lead Felipe until he’s parallel with a fence and have a TA stand on his other side.  Then, I’ll say Back and walk toward him while shaking the lead rope.  This way he hopefully will decide back is the only way to go rather than towards me or the TA.   After this class I’ll definitely be more comfortable around horses.  

Work slave! Work!

Ack! So much homework! So much to study (which is precisely why I shouldn't be blogging).

"And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret"
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

What you looking at? 

What's that? 

Part of the herd... 

Lazy bones... 

Are going to work today? 

What's this clicking thing? 

LEAVE ME ALONE!!

Today, I actually went to the pasture and caught and haltered Felipe. Previously, Brooke, Laurie, or I would halter Olivia (the mare) and lead her to a round pen with a trail of baby horses following her (it's adorable). Then we would pick out our horses and work around the other horses. Not only did we separate our three weanlings from the mare they've been imprinted to, but we took them to the inside arena, which is a completely foreign environment to them. Felipe didn't freak out at all, and Felicity had only a little problem. Amazingly enough, I coaxed Felipe over the terrifying tarp. It took about 15 minutes, but now he can trample any tarp with confidence (or at least I hope he can). Then we practice putting his two front feet on top of a platform and taking them off (pre-practice for loading). Felipe still has no clue was "back" means, but maybe he'll get it next time. I was a lot better (i think) at not letting him invade my personal space and push me around today.

Poor Felipe's far eye is irritated. I have to put antibiotic ointment on it every time I see him until he gets better. At least he's fairly tolerant of people touching his face. He's a mostly well-behaved baby. But as I was releasing him today, apparently he thought I was too slow removing the halter. So he bit me, earning himself a nice whack on the face. As soon as I got the halter off, he went frolicking back to Olivia and his buddies - very happy to be away from the crazy girl who comes 3 times a week and makes him do completely irrational tasks.

No, I won't work today.

Today was rather an adventure in training. Felipe didn't want to be caught at all. It took five minutes of three of us chasing him to get him to a place where I could put the rope around his neck. Once we caught him though, he was easy to halter. Training started with the usual leading. Then we practiced "back" for a while. He actually took a few steps back this time with quite a bit of coaxing. He still doesn't understand the command, but at least he's showing improvement (or maybe he totally knows what "back" means and disobeys to push my buttons). So after a couple minutes of that, we moved on to the most challenging part of today: the tarp (dum, dum, dum). The tarp is simply obstacle training. It's supposed to represent water. Hopefully, if Felipe will walk over the tarp, he won't balk when asked to walk through water. I was thrilled we got soo close to it. Flint freaked out and dragged his trainer away. Felipe was a bit scared, but I finally got him to sniff the tarp and even place a hoof on it. This earned him a ridiculous amount of scratching and praise. "Oh, you're not stupid are you? What a good boy! So smart! ...." But that was all he had to do with the tarp. After he checked it out, he proceeded to try to drag me around (mostly away from the tarp). Ha! I know he was pushing in to me on purpose. Rotten little guy! Personal space is a big issue. I'm going to have to be pretty rough with him to get him to obey and back off. He pays no mind to elbowing, so I'll just have to jerk his halter instead. Let the battle begin. After the scary tarp, he was pushy the rest of the period. I was suprised when he walked over a PVC pipe no fear what-so-ever. We ended our training session with a long grooming since Felipe likes that. It's important that Felipe associates training with something he enjoys. So we try to end on a positive note. He's so cute while I'm grooming him. He closes his eyes and thoroughly relaxes. There's a spot right behind his ears that he loves for me to scratch. He's so adorable! I'm really glad he's so mild tempered. Flint kicked his trainer today. again.

This is my second art project. Same rules as the last one except this one had to be representational. So I did the only thing I could think of that used no round shapes and no colors. He (as in the TA) liked this project. yay... 99% for me... 

This is my first project in Art Studio. We had to do a random design (not representational) using only triangles and rectangles. I hate doing this type of art. The professor didn't count off of using trapezoids and various other straight lined shapes, but I still only got an 88% on this project. Oh well, I tried. 

Organic Chaos (So what did you learn at school today?)

• Welcome to Organic lab. I trust that you have everything prepared in your blue books. Please get started...
• Never let the person know you are training them.
• Composition II is the same as remedial high school English - 3 Long lecture hours of it a week (Do not fall asleep during AP exams and most certainly don't listen to your "academic advisor").

AAAAHHH! SOOO much reading! Soo much studying!! positive reinforcement... study, play a bit, study, play a bit...

Miscalculation

I believe I am beyond rescue. Insanity is certainly where this year is leading.

In my previous calculations I forgot to include Organic Chemistry Lab (3 steps toward insanity) and Block and Bridle. I skipped a meeting last year and became the reporter... Ahh, responsiblitly, don't you love it (2 steps insanity)? For a grand total of 5 additional steps toward insanity. 5+1=6 steps toward insanity. I'm certainly teetering on the edge.

To add to the insanity...
Even if my friends did decide to include me (which seems to be increasingly rare), I wouldn't have time to do anything, because I've got so much studying and reading to do. Such blissfully happy moments as I experienced last year will be much harder to come by this year. I suspect many in my current group of friends feel left out, but perhaps that's because "the group" has expanded so much, it's nearly impossible for us to do anything together with everyone still feeling like they belong. I really miss Megann. She was the only person last year I could really study with, and since that's probably one of my only activities this semester, I'll spend the majority of my time alone, finding solace in music and pleasure reading between study sessions.

BSF starts next week. Then perhaps some of my sanity will return, but until then...

Update On the Fishy Things

Phibo is a poop head! he's trying to kill Nezzy! Nezzy doesn't look so good now. Phibo has torn his caudal, left pectoral, and pelvic fins and given him black eyes. Poor Nezzy. I'm not sure if he'll last the weekend.... Awww, he was so pretty when I purchased him. Poor guy can't even swim strait now. Is there a prozac for fish? Phibo needs a chill pill.

Poor Nezzy took the Porcelain Express. Goodbye Little Nebuchadnezzar! You were a good fishy.

Day Three of Training for Felipe

It's really amazing how fast horses learn! He's already much better at leading. He didn't invade my space quite so much today, until he got irritated. He doesn't understand what "Back!" means yet, but I'm sure he'll understand what I want him to do soon. He's a fast learner and eager to please. I'm not very confident at training yet; I'm super afraid of mis-training him (which wouldn't be hard to do since horses learn so fast).