Tennessee

Going back to Tennessee was like...visiting a place that had dissolved into pure memory. It was an odd sense of deja vu as we drove through Hendersonville: a town that had at one time seemed exciting and big but now appeared as a simple, sleepy, and small Southern town. As we climbed over hills or turned corners, it was weird seeing places that I recognized yet had seemed to have forgotten. It's like these mental pictures were dug from the bottom of my memory and brought into clearer focus. Fuzzy places that I had seen in my dreams were now reality, whether it was a corner on Old Shackle Island Road or a hill on Timberlake Drive. We passed the roller skating rink, our old house, Shipley's donuts, the pool where I learned to swim, and so many other places that were a part of my (somewhat brief) childhood. We even went to Kid's Kingdom, a community playground that had been a mile long ten years ago but has somehow shrunk in my absence. In the five years since I've been there, so little has changed. The South is so constant it's almost relaxing. I realize that I've missed more than just the mild winters. It's the gorgeous autumn weather, the laid back lifestyle, and the rolling hills that shape the layout of civilization.

Happiness in a List

According to the UN, the following countries are the top 10 best places to live, in chronological order:

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. Iceland
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. the Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. France
9. Switzerland
10. Japan

I don't know about you, but this list is hilarious. It also makes me kind of really happy. I want to live in at least seven of these places.

Iceland is number three. Perfect. Two-thirds of the Scandinavian Peninsula is on this list. What's up with Finland? Slackers.

What's at the bottom of this list of 182 countries? Niger and Afghanistan. Apparently, Norway makes eighty-two dollars for every dollar Niger makes.

Eva Braun

I think Eva Braun has to be one of history's most interesting figures. Anyone who was lucky enough to date Hitler already makes them extremely interesting. She was his "companion" since they had met when she was 17. He was 40. Eva's sister had been Hitler's mistress before she committed suicide. Braun lived a life of luxury, unaware of the difficulties that came along with World War II. She was spoiled, allowed to read American and European magazines when the rest of Germany was cut off from the outer world and suffering from food shortages. She was fond of nude sunbathing and photography and often combined the two. She had no interest in politics but her loyalty to Hitler technically makes her a Nazi. Hitler, however, didn't quite find her to be acceptable in society. They were rarely seen together before his rise to Fuehrer. After being his wife for only 40 hours, she committed suicide by biting a cyanide pill. Apparently, the German public was largely unaware of her until after her death. This was not her first attempt at suicide. She had tried to kill herself twice during her 16 year long relationship with Hitler. Honestly, I don't blame her.

Oh, the joys of quiz bowl projects!

Deutsch Klasse

You know you're in Herr Baldwin's German class when you associate anything German with...

• Trogdor, Mummra, and the Pantones
• Das Taco: the German-Mexican Taco Restaurant.
• a mini-Starbucks that sells Pantones paraphernalia
• speaking German in Indian, valley girl, English, Australian, and Southern accents
• good intentions but a failure to act on them
• Disco Pogo, Das Geht Ab
• "Hey, Misser B-Win, I found a mistake! Can I have a red pen, please?" -Tim Reimers
• Hannover 96
• a disliking of people who live in Bremen and Russia
• "Uh, I think it's das. Let's ask Tim."
• Boshaft!
• "So...I was going to grade your papers, but I went to a concert instead. However, I got a super cool T-shirt!"
• Mallorca is more than just a small island owned by Spain

Are you sad you missed out on the awesomeness? Yeah, I would be, too.

You Don't Know Me...

That's got to be one of my favorite songs ever. It's by Ben Folds, featuring Regina Spektor. Just in case you were wondering.

So the other day, Mrs. Volansky posed a question to us in AP Lang. She said something along the lines of:

"Do you know someone whom you have a tense relationship with? No matter what you say, you just always feel stupid for saying anything in the first place and half the time you don't know what to say. Someone who-no matter how hard you try-you just can't seem to figure out? Someone who you can't follow their line of thinking whatsoever?"

Ha-YES.

I hate it. So much. (Referring, mostly, to the first two sentences.)

But that's not the point.

I feel like, no matter how hard you try, you'll never understand someone so completely that you can guess what they're thinking. No matter how hard you try, you'll just never be totally in sync with anyone. You don't know what I'm always thinking. I don't know what you're always thinking. So deal with it. I don't feel the need to know absolutely everything about you. As a matter of fact, I don't want you to know absolutely everything about me. It's something of a disappointment when you know someone so completely that they're no longer an enigma. I will never really comprehend why you believe that all aliens are green, that Al Gore is a great politician, that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy. And-quite frankly-I'm fine with accepting your beliefs the way they are without fully understanding them. It makes the world a more interesting place to live in.

Right Now

Right now, my sister is having a wedding with her friends here....who's getting married, you may wonder? Two elephants. One is blue, one is purple.

Apparently, they drew tears on pieces of paper and as they were getting married, held the tears up to their faces. And then someone interrupted their wedding, but alas! love has prevailed and these two elephants are now married. There was-of course-a bridesmaid, a person to marry them, etc. For the honeymoon, my sister and her friends are "sledding" in our backyard. And they also ate cupcakes. Probably the most unique wedding I've ever heard of.

Right now I'm listening to "Disco Pogo" in German. It's really just a song about people at a "disco tech" which is popular in Germany. It's about a bunch of people partying, dancing, singing.... and yeah.

Right now I'm extremely bored.

Right now....I'm trying to get in the "weekend" state of mind. I'm still kind of frazzled from school. I'm contemplating all these things I have to do but thinking how I do not want to do any of them....

Last Year (which was really only a few days ago...)

Two nights ago, I lay in bed unable to fall asleep. In honor of it being New Year's Eve and the pathetic fact that I was in bed by 9, I decided to review my past year. This took me all of-not kidding-two minutes. After the brief reflection, I lay there wondering, "Why does it feel like I wasted a year of my life? Why is it that the New Year always sneaks upon you?" But then I have to remind myself that I didn't waste a year. I saw good movies, went to Quiz Bowl Nationals for the first time, took my AP Euro test, made new friends, got a driver's license, had a golden birthday, a lovely Christmas, and went to Europe. Even though I didn't do a bunch of things that were majorly epic, it was the little things that made 2009 a decent year.

It wasn't great, it wasn't perfect. Just a solid decent.

And I can live with a solid decent. If I were to give it a grade: B+

I think 2010 can pull off a B+ or better.