Polar Plunging

Hey y'all, this is the last blog post of the year! So I never did one of the cool poll thingies to ask what I should blog about for my last blog post (actually this probably won't be my last blog post, I'll probably get lonely over the summer so resort back to my friend, the internet), but I actually did have something interesting happen to me this week.

THE POLAR PLUNGE

If you're in my grade or somewhere in high school and you haven't heard about this, you probably live under a bigger rock than I do. No offense or anything. ;) This is a challenge that's kind of gone viral and it's where someone calls you out (someone who already did the challenge) and you have 24 hours or however many specified to go completely submerge yourself in cold water. Then you can pass it on to up to three people, and if those people don't do it, they have to donate money to charity or give you money (I'm not quite sure. I completed the challenge so I didn't discover the consequences).

As lame as this sounds, it was actually a blast. And I think the whole idea is pretty funny and cool. Get it? Nope? Okayyy....

I jumped in this

The day Ashley and I jumped in, it was sunny all day. The funny thing is that we were actually semi-concerned whether or not the water was going to be cold enough. Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah, there was absolutely nothing to worry about, let me assure you.

So when Ashley and I got to the marina, we thought we were going to jump off the dock like a normal person would do the challenge. But here comes the problem, "What if it's not deep enough?" Well it was a marina, therefore boats came into it and docked there. So of course it was deep enough, but our compromised brains didn't realize that at that moment. Instead of jumping in, we ran in. Yup, cool people, coming through.

So you can imagine us, explaining our names, who we were gonna call out, who we were nominated by, yada, yada, yada, and then us conveniently running awkwardly through ice cold water. Yes, lovely to watch.

You can't really hear me because the wind, so I said, "My name is Pauline Kneller, I'm going to do the cold water challenge. I was nominated by Ashley Farquharson, and I'm calling out Paige Billow, Meredith Lawing, and Sydney Oraskovich.

Well I enjoyed this year of blogging, and I probably will post occasionally, but if you're not going to be checking this page anymore, see you next year (or the rest of this year since it's not over yet, or see you over the summer, or maybe I don't even know you)!

Fun fact about Pauline: I have a new anti-talent: golf.

Sore Throats and Snooze Buttons

I've been really stressed lately and one night pushed me over the edge so now I am sick. Like I have one of those colds where it feels like your head is about to explode because of the pressure, where your throat feels like someone is dragging a dagger down the middle of it, you can't breathe hardly at all because your nose and throat is blocked up, and where it feels like your whole skeletal system might just collapse into powder because your own weight is too much. Anyone know the feeling? Most of  you probably do. Let's just say a few mornings this week I managed getting out of bed at the fourth time of my alarm clock ringing, but one morning I think I broke my alarm clock by hitting the snooze button too many times that I just stayed home.

Yep, this is my week in a nutshell.

As well as being sick, let's just say a few of my teachers have given us maybe a little more work than we bargained for. I mean, from the tests, essays, science fairs, math finals, makeups, and missing out on the barn, I'm done with this week.

During French class, my teacher sent me outside because I was feeling so awful. I felt so bad so I was thankful that I was released but I almost started crying in front of the class. And I didn't even know why. I mean I was really miserable, but not that miserable to start crying in front of a bunch of guys. Like, c'mon Pauline! Really?

Tonight, on a completely different topic, was amazing! And then I had to write an essay. Tonight was the Sweetheart Gala which is a fundraiser for Park City Bands and the Varsity Jazz Band plays three hours of music while anyone who buys a ticket enjoys the night. All of the band kids work the program, and we cater to the people so they have a wonderful night of food, socializing, music, and dancing. It's also a blast for us kids! Any of you fellow band kids would know! ;) I will go more into this later, as well as my thoughts on Valentine's Day, more school complaints, new ways to describe the taste of cold medicine, and more! Sorry for such a boring and informative blog post (I was totally crunched for time), I will try to keep these to a minimum! Night, y'all!

Butterfingers

Hey guys! If you read the title (which I am expecting you did, because that would just be silly not to read a title), sorry, this post isn't about my favorite candy, which by the way, is swedish fish.

The reason the title is what it is, is because that's the only way I could describe the varsity girls' team tonight. Butterfingers. Normally we’re not that bad (I don't think we could be necessarily called good...) but tonight was just a fail. A big fat one.

Pause

I play in pep band, and it's absolutely a blast. We get the game 10 times more riled up than it ever would be with just basketball, and we encourage some... Uhhhh... Not-so-friendly confrontations with the other team. But yay! We get the people to focus more on us than they were focusing on the game! One point to the Park City pep band! Anyways, we watch the whole game, and provide the real entertainment.

This would be us, except we had a lot less people

Un-pause

Since we were up in a loft watching the game, we had a nice easy view of the whole court. So basically, we had our losing team up in lights being displayed very nicely for us. How thoughtful. Plus, barely any people come to see the girls’ games, so it’s almost depressing.

Mmmhmmm, yeah no.

You think it would be easy to always play and sound happy, but playing for a hopeless cause game, it's very draining, it's more like a chore, and there isn't nearly as much energy behind it as there should be. On the girls' team, everyone just had butterfingers (thanks Amelia and Morgan for the term ;) ). They always lost the ball, couldn’t make any free throws, their defense wasn’t prime, and to top it all off, the other team was having a really good night.

Well we lost that game by I think at least  28-44 (or something like that. I stopped paying attention and I don’t remember the score, I just know it was in that range and we were losing badly).

When it came time for the boys' varsity team, well that was a blast! The team was so pumped when the first quarter started, that we couldn't help but play stronger than before. Plus they had tons of people show up too, which helps. The game was really intense and everyone was riled up. In the fourth quarter of that game,  the lead switched teams, and within the last two minutes, we got up one, and we held it the rest of the game. 

Very intense game, with lot's of this

You can imagine the screaming, stupid uncalled for moves by the players, fouls, sore throats, and angry coaches and refs.  Basketball games are fun. Especially when you’re in pep band. Yay band!

We saw this a lot too

Band Concerts! Yay!

Rockin' On Top of the World! That's how I feel right now! We had two band concerts in a row. Let me repeat myself, TWO! I'm like super duper excited and I'm feeling really rejuvenated (and nap-worthy). I feel so Christmas-y right now because of listening to so much Christmas music and seeing so many Santa hats! I didn't get to go to the barn again (ug!) but the band/orchestra/choir festival and smooth performances more than made up for it! By the way, when you put a good orchestra, a good band, and a good choir together, it is the most heavenly sound and music you will ever hear.

There was a "little" incident in our band concert. First of all, let me explain that the whole two days were pretty much complete chaos because we've never done a concert like this. The bands playing were just as confused as the audience. Mr. Taylor, our band director, told us to not do what the eighth grade band did. And that was to not go on stage too early and sit there without any idea what to do. Anyone, can you guess what we did? Yup! We got on stage too early **facepalm.** Even earlier than what the eighth grade band did. We can skip the fact that we were all sitting in our spots on the stage, cracking up and sharing equally puzzled looks with our fellow band people.

As things got even more awkward, someone stood up to tune us because it could be pretty nasty playing without tuning. We then tried to do an exercise to check if we were in tune. Well, the person who tuned us had no idea how to conduct (it's easy! Floor, door, window, ceiling, people! Floor, door, window, ceiling!), but thank goodness for him anyway. If he hadn't shown up, it would've been a multiple-train-trainwreck rather than just a singular-train-trainwreck. After we tried to tune, someone gets up to apologize to the audience for our band director not being there yet (he was still conducting another band in a different room). He starts his very speech with, "Well I'm probably going to flunk this class for doing this..." Classy. What was even funnier, no later than thirty seconds after that person sat down, someone else came from the hall and apologized to the audience, again. Once Mr. Taylor walks onto the stage, he looks to us, laughs and smiles, then shakes his head. Go Thursdays!

One last thing, my good friend, Molly, well she and I listened to Varsity Jazz Band (they are amazing) together on Wednesday. When they started their last tune, Baby, It's Cold Outside (probably our favorite tune), she and I turn to each other and give each other the most priceless looks of creepy happiness.

We smiled smiles very similar to this one.

I hopefully will be posting a video of me on Gambit on Saturday so you can finally see me ride!

To Do or Not to Be

Well you are probably thinking, "Now that ain't right." And no it ain't. Okay, I'm done with the bad grammar. Well to do or not to be, that is the real question. Back to my little issue, music or horses? Well, I'm still figuring it out, but I haven't had a horseback lesson in now three weeks. That's awful for me. Think of something you really love. Reading, video games, art, sports, chasing children, whatever makes you happy. Now think about not doing that for THREE WEEKS. Or for any of you music people out there, imagine not going to band or a lesson for three weeks. Well now you feel like me.

I'm shaking out of my own skin, wanting to have a dinosaur step on anything that comes in my way of the barn, etc. Oh and look, what conflicts with the barn? Music. Hey look, I like music. Wow, this is just dandy. I have two band concerts, two weeks in a row, ON THE SAME DAY I'M SUPPOSED TO GO TO THE BARN! So now, the question, to do or not to be? Or to be and not to do? I'm either going to do band and music lessons, and not be at the barn. Or, I will be at the barn and not do band.

Well the answer ended up being to do and not to be. I'm going to the concerts. I love music. I love band, most of my friends in school are from band, and my grade depends on it. So music ends up being my Wednesday plan for the next two weeks.

I have a solo at my jazz concert (if you go to this link, they might have videos of the concert) tonight (which I am planning on jumping out a window before so I can have a reasonable excuse not to go). I'm terrified. The only other times I soloed in front of everyone was the last jazz concert. Most people you would expect a solo to be like "Ba da ba da ba da ba da ba doo waat. De be da bah da doowat-doowat doo ba da doo wah-daht," and so on. But I was like "Garble de farble de doowat garble, squeak, breathe, garble dee," and so on.

The irony is, I'm much more comfortable on a horse that ways at least ten times as much as I do, jumping over things that are 1/2 to 3/4 my height, speeding 25 mph towards a gate and doing everything I can to not slam into it, than I am standing up, playing about a minute of improvised music to people, and sitting back down.

This is 2 feet six inches...  Back when I used to go to the barn..

Don't get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE music and jazz, but it's easier to listen to it than it is to play. I just scare myself by inadvertently comparing myself to people way better than me in music. On horseback, people dare to compare to me. 

What's Worse than Bio Class? (Beware of TMI)

What's worse than sitting through bio class, listening to your teacher drone on about stuff, repeat the unnecessary things, miss the useful information, sharing looks of pure misery with your class mates, and waiting for the clock to reach 9:03? Missing bio class. Let me tell you, it's not just biology. Every class is hard to make up, but especially biology, because who wants to come in after school to make up a lab assignment all by themselves with your teacher telling you it's on canvas? NO ONE. And this is exactly what I am going to have to do. I have been sick for three weeks in a row, and not just a wimpy little cold. Like full on asthma, huge cough attacks, sinus infections, and toilet hugging. That has been my hobby the last three weeks. Delightful, huh?

I've been in and out of school like every two days, and this was the last day of school before the break. And hey, I get to worry about making up class all over my four day weekend. Oh and being sick and missing even more horseback riding lessons. So this weekend that I have been desperately needing and looking forward to, I will be getting to know my toilet. I love this.

Well, even how awful this was, I got to sleep in until 10:30 this morning. That never happens. Normally I'm up, rushing around, throwing on makeup, shoveling food into my mouth, accidentally swallowing toothpaste, grabbing my backpack and three instruments, and rushing out the door, sprinting back in, grabbing my phone, and darting out the door again once 5:30 am starts. Now that I've had a relaxing morning (well as relaxing as nausea lets you get), I have now gone through three episodes of Sherlock, cleaned my room, painted my nails (which did not make my stomach feel any better--tip, never paint your nails when you are sick), and updated my blog.

Sherlock and blue nail polish

One would think that you could be able to sleep when you are sick, but I'm not that type of person (which is probably why I am still sick after three weeks). Thanks to this thing known as an internal clock and this other thing called school, there's no such thing as, "Hey! You're sick, so take a day off and get better!" It's more like, "Hey, you're sick, and I don't care, you have three excused absences a quarter!" For all us overachievers out there, this means, "Hey! You're sick, but since all three of those absences are used up, how about you come back to school and don't get better and get the rest of our beloved children sick! Yaayyy!!" But hey, my nails are blue, my room is clean, my mind is full of very happy images (thanks a lot Sherlock), and I get a five day weekend!

Oh, where are you John, I've missed you.