Category: Uncategorized

I try grass volleyball

788280 on

I play on a beach volleyball team. Last weekend most of my team was in Alabama for a tournament but I stayed back with my friend and we were just going to do a local sand tournament. Unfortunately, we tried to register too late. So we ended up finding a grass volleyball tournament to play in. We were playing in the Women’s BB division, so it was my first time playing against women and my first time playing in grass.

I was expecting the people there to be pretty old, but it was mostly women in their 20s that were really really good. We lost pretty much all of our games but it was still really nice. In the morning the grass was super wet and I kept slipping around. I thought that grass would be way easier than sand but I was wrong because most of the time when I ran up to hit I just slipped and fell or I had to take a really slow approach. Also I got an allergic reaction all over legs and arms so I had little red dots everywhere. The dots turned into little scratches and it was very bad. But overall it was a good experience and I had a nice time. It was great to see how there was a little community of older volleyball players that could continue playing the sport after college.

Here is my partner and I about to lose a point

New things that I did during Spring Break

788280 on

Over spring break I went to Hawaii with my family. Here’s some of the new things I did while I was there.

I fell off a rock and into the ocean. I was climbing on a lava rock with my brother and I followed this crab and then slipped and fell. I got a lot of scrapes on my hands and legs but it could have been a LOT worse. I would recommend always staying on the dry side of a rock. Keep away from anything that looks slippery.

The rock my brother is standing on is the one I fell off of, I fell on the back side that you can’t see in the picture.

Saw lots of sea turtles. While I was snorkeling I came across a turtle every few minutes, and it was so nice to get to swim around them.

I also saw a rainbow eucalyptus tree. The tree is rainbow because the bark on the tree peels in different parts of the tree at different times. When the bark peels it reveals a green layer, and overtime this layer changes color creating a rainbow look on the tree.

Tried lots of new food. My favorites were papaya, macadamia banana french toast, I forgot the name of it but its pretty much sushi but instead of raw fish its spam, and raw coconut.

I touched an octopus. I saw an octopus twice while snorkeling, and after the first time I talked to one of the locals about it. He told me that I should just try to grab the octopus, cause that’s how he catches them so he can eat it later. Of course I wasn’t gonna try to grab it, but the conversation did help me realize that I could touch them without being hurt. So the next time I saw an octopus while snorkeling I pet it. The octopus would change color and texture in like a second, and it went from being white and ridged to purple and smooth really quickly. It felt exactly like you’d expect, and unsurprisingly I scared it and it swam away and spewed out ink. After that I felt really bad for bothering it, but it was still one of the coolest experiences of my life.

This is the kind of octopus I saw. It’s called a Hawaiian Day Octopus.

I did a lot other things in Hawaii that were not really new but they were still really amazing, so I’ll include some pictures in another post when I can (right now lcps blogs isn’t really letting me upload any more pictures).

putting random foods in air fryer- pre blog

788280 on

This weekend Im going to put random foods into an air fryer, which is this cooking thing that looks kind of like a grill on the inside. Like a circular grill.. I will show a picture. It works by swirling hot air around the food which sounds exactly like a toaster oven or just a normal oven but my mom insists that it is not. I am very skeptical of the air fryer and I think it is a waste of money. My mom tried to make broccoli in the air fryer and it made the broccoli inedible and made my whole house smell really bad.

Formally, I plan on testing if the air fryer actually works, but really I just want to throw food in it and see what happens. Im going to try to put foods in there that wont start a fire or break the air fryer.

fully vegetarian meal out

788280 on

This past weekend I went out to ‘authentic’ and ‘non white’ Indian food with ANUSHA! (check out her blog it is very nice). I’ve wanted to try different vegetarian foods recently to see if I could actually have the will power to commit to being vegetarian, and going out to eat with my friend was a great opportunity to try.

The restaurant was buffet style, so I served myself just got everything Anusha got. First we got things like naan and different sauces to dip it in as well as cooked vegetables, lentils, and chickpeas to put in between the naan. I really liked this so I got it again. Then Anusha showed me this thing called pani puri, which were like little hollow crispy balls that you poke a hole into and then you put chickpeas and spicy sauce in it. These were cute and fun to make. I found out I like interactive food.

Heres a picture of pani puri

For desert we had a fruit custard with syrup soaked fried dough type things. This was my favorite part, the desert was so good.

Overall the food was great and in the future I may actually try to be vegetarian. I want to go to this restaurant again too.

Top ten things to do with a stick (part one)

788280 on

 

I found this article called 20 things to do with the humble stick, and I decided to try all of them and rank them. I did this outside with my friend (878351, check out her blog) and it was freezing, but I can say that I gained a lot of extremely useful knowledge on stick related activities.

Im ranking these from greatest to least. This is a little unconventional but I think that the ones that I ranked the least are just so bad that I don’t want to start off with them. Actually, Im going to leave out some and only rank like ten or so. PART TWO COMING SOON.

  1. (Highest ranked) Add some string to make a fishing pole. – You know, I think that using a stick to make a fishing pole is a great idea, but I think that to make it actually effective it needs more than just string and a stick. I wanted to add something that would make it sink at least, so I tied a walnut to it. Unfortunately this didn’t sink either. After this I gave up. However, making it was nice and I enjoyed myself

Picture on left= walnut. Picture on right= walnut in action

  1. Roast a marshmallow on a stick over fire pit- I didn’t actually try this but Ive done it in the past and it is very nice.
  2. Try nature weaving with a Y stick. – This was also nice (in the context of what I was doing), I think that it could have been better if I had woven more stuff into it besides string and a leaf.

4. Get into the holiday spirit by creating twig stars- I didn’t actually do this one but it is on the craftier side of the spectrum so it provides more entertainment than like banging a stick against a tree.

5. Play Pooh Sticks- This was a game where you throw a stick over a bridge and another person does the same then you run to the other side and look to see whose stick made it past the bridge first. Cora won.

Here is us about to throw the sticks.

TUNE IN FOR PART 2

pathetic Christmas present for brother

788280 on

Usually for Christmas I get gifts for my friends and that is about it. My parents are really great with presents and they usually buy something for themselves and my brother and say that it was from me. This year though, I decided that I was going to try to get something for my parents and maybe even my brother. The parent christmas present thing kind of fell through the cracks, but I did get a bath bomb for my mom.

A few days before break I got a huge box of a dozen cup of noodles from a secret santa for one of my classes. Instead of keeping them for myself I decided to wrap them all and give them to my brother. Instead of wrapping the whole box though, I wrapped them very stealthily. I had a box that I filled 2 cups, wrapped some individually or paired with one, and put others in a huge box. I was so excited about this because I thought it would be hilarious when he sees that there are a bunch of presents for him but most of them were just cup of noodles. I was also pretty proud of myself because I spent no money on it at all. Now I’ve started a tradition where we get each other crappy gifts, and hopefully this is a good start getting actual gifts for my family as well.

Being a part of a play

788280 on

So after high school volleyball ended I had no clue what to do with my time. I talked to my friend about my issue and she suggested helping her as a tech person for the school play. And so I decided to take a risk and do something that I hadn’t really considered doing in the past. I thought that tech was a great idea for me because it was a lot more low maintenance than having to memorize lines and be in front of a bunch of people, but I still got to be a crucial part of the play. I was a light technician, meaning that I helped create light cues depending on where people were on stage, and then had to listen and press a button when the cue came. This sounds easy but it was probably the most nerve racking thing I have ever done. Lighting is the kind of thing where it is hard to notice when it goes right, but when someone messes up it’s super obvious.

I worked on creating light cues for a few weeks (with the help of others), but they didnt come together till like a day or two before opening night, and I was super stressed about if they were going to work out or not. On all of the days we had the play, the techies would first have to spend 15 minutes or so putting a microphone on all of the actors. The mics we used were super crappy and some just refused to work or always said they were at low battery no matter how recently the batteries had been replaced. After we had mic’d everyone, the techies went up to the booth (room in the back of auditorium with all the tech stuff) and got ready to do our jobs. I felt super fancy because the head tech had us put on headphones so we could communicate without disrupting the show. Walking around the auditorium and saying stuff urgently into my headphones made me feel like I was on a mission or something, though I’m sure that I looked a lot less cool than I felt. A few times I did a light cue early, but really the only super noticeable mistakes were when I changed a cue in the computer and it decided to make that change to like 5 other cues. The computer was so finicky and annoying but it was still nice to learn how to work the lights. 

After we finished our weekend full of shows the cast and crew went to IHOP and I had a great time talking to all the new and interesting people I had gotten to know. Drama is the kind of program were you’ll always meet an extremely unique and fun group of people. Though when I first joined I didn’t realize it would be such a large commitment, I didn’t really mind having to stay at school late and put so many hours into the play. I love the people that I made friends with and I’m going to continue being a part of the program for sure.

Image: “Theatrecrafts.com.” Theatrecraftscom, www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/glossary-beginners/.

Making Clay Tree Ornaments

788280 on

For a project for school I needed to make a tree ornament. I decided to create little clay figurines and attach a tree hangy thing on it so that it will count as an ornament.

To create the figurines I used this recipe http://thenewnew.blogspot.com/2011/07/baking-soda-clay.html

It was super simple, just baking soda, cornstarch and water. I mixed it all in a pot and then heated it up while stirring, then let it cool in the fridge for a few minutes. It was nice to make clay from scratch because it was cheap and easy, and I felt accomplished when I was done.

To mold the ornaments I used a fork and water to help mold the clay. It was super easy to manipulate and I finished it all in an hour. They took about 3 days to dry, and after they dried I hot glued string to the figurines and then tied tree hangers to it. Though I doubt anyone will feel the need to make a tree ornament anytime soon, I recommend using the clay recipe if you have to mold something and don’t feel like spending money on clay. 

The picture I used is pretty low quality but I promise they look less bad in real life.

fried plantains vs. fried bananas

788280 on

Today I decided to test if I liked fried plantain or fried banana more. I’ve never made pan-fried banana before but I’ve had it in restaurants. I just added a little olive oil to a pan, heated it up, and added sliced banana. I tried to let it cook until it was golden brown but forgot about them so they were a little burnt. The fried banana did not have enough flavor to eat plain so I had it with vanilla ice cream, honey, and some peanuts. Plantains are like bananas but a little bit more dense and are much more sweet. I get them frozen in this box from trader joes and I make them all the time.

What I discovered from this experiment was that fried bananas’ flavor is so subtle that really all I could taste was the oil. They can’t just be pan fried using the same methods for making fried plantains and are best deep fried, though that takes way too much time and effort. If you’re ever at a store that sells plantains get them. Frying plantain is an easy and healthy-ish way to make desert.

I just looked up banana and plantain and that image came up isn’t it amazing

 

Hi this is my introduction post

788280 on

Doing something completely new has always been one of the most fun and exciting things for me. I am going to enjoy myself way too much while writing on this blog. Every week I’m going to try something new and then talk about how it went.

As a reader I hope that you will be able to learn from my experiences as well!