Rising Part 2

Apologies for the late post - I was too busy enjoying a view of the BIGGEST. TREES. ON. EARTH. in Sequoia National Park. Of course, with great enjoyment comes great sacrifice - I had no service or WiFi for four days.

I realize that I should finish my no-plot/no-effort/no-idea-umm-what's-going-on-guys story I started last time. It was all just an excuse to write down a cool setting and a half-hearted attempt to add plot to it.

I'm lazy. Sue me.

---

Yes, a cliff. A cliff roughly 200 feet in the air to where it met the lip of my cave, and then extended about 100 feet more above me. It was a long one-way trip to the craggy rocks the sea washed, but I had conquered my fears a long time ago. I considered myself a very rational person, and told myself I did not have a fear of heights, just a fear of falling, and time had acclimated my senses to my airy loft.

Of course, I couldn't hide away in my cave all the time. I would surely starve. The same man who helped me with my doorway curtain had built and hung a sturdy wooden platform outside the opening of the cave that I could step on. A pulley system allowed me to  lift the platform up to the top of the cliff. When it was first built, a rail had stood on the two widths and the length farthest from me, enclosing me on three sides and leaving the cliff wall to be my fourth rail, but a strong wind had blown up from the sea a couple of months ago and smashed my platform into the cliff. Luckily, I wasn't on it at the time, but the rails had broken off and I hadn't the skill needed to repair them. I reassured myself with a doubly strong grip on the ropes and continued using it.

I reached out and pulled the ropes to me, my toes still clutching the rim. The platform swung a bit as I stepped on, but I had come to enjoy the vertigo of the sheer cliffside. It was a short fifteen seconds to the top, and when the platform stopped just below the top of the cliff I had to haul myself over the edge.

By this time the sun was a good ways above the horizon and the birds were out in full force. I stood up and surveyed the flat green plains that stretched for miles in each direction. There was a small town to the east, but I avoided it whenever I could. I didn't like the stares the women there gave me, muttering about properness and civilization.

I pitied the people in the cities. There was no quiet, no privacy, no breathing room. This place was all mine. I breathed in a deep lungful of air, exhaled, and watched the smoke dissolve into the rising sun.

---

I'm bored. So much for that.

Since I spent so much time at the national park, instead of researching a cool animal/plant I'm going to regurgitate everything I can remember about Giant Sequoias from reading/learning from the park rangers.

• What I think the Latin name is: Sequoia sempivirens giganticus. What it really is: Sequoiadendron giganteum. Ah well.
• The biggest living tree IN THE WORLD is General Sherman (biggest meaning volume, not height). It's about 2,100 years old? Idk, you'll have to check that yourself. The person who discovered it named it after Sherman of the Civil War because he had served under him. However, some other socialists bought the land it was on and wanted to call it the Karl Marx Tree. In the end, since this is 'Murica, the park people went with General Sherman.
• The seeds look like flakes of oats. 
• Fire is necessary for sequoia growth, as the heat rises up and makes the cones open and drop their seeds, as well as killing harmful insects and fungi and clearing away the duff on the forest floor so the new seedlings don't have to compete with dead debris.
• The third largest tree IN THE WORLD is the General Grant (Ulysses S.) Tree. This baby is the National Christmas Tree, in case you were wondering, and also a national monument in honor of the US soldiers.
• Their bark contains tannin, the same as redwood, which is fireproof and mostly bug/fungi proof. However, unlike their redwood cousins, sequoias have soft heartwood, making them less than ideal lumber choices. This is why so many of them were eventually saved - because people couldn't make money off them.
• The National Park Service badge/insignia -
                        
  
  
  has a sequoia on it as that tall tree because 3 of the first 4 National Parks were created to protect sequoia trees.
•  The Centennial Tree was cut down in 9 days by two men (I think, I get all the days mixed up, there was another that took 13 days) in the 1800s, cross cut and cut even more into smaller pieces for shipping, and shipped over to the East Coast to show them how big the trees were in California. Their reaction? They said it was a "California Hoax" and was assembled from many different trees.

Oh yeah, and I guess it's New Year's Day. Whoops. Happy New Year's!

Last thought: My grandma got me the book I Am Malala for Christmas, and I finished it last night. The book touched on a poem that really got to me.

     First they came for the communists,
     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
     Then they came for the socialists,
     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
     Then they came for the trade unionists,
     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
     Then they came for the Jews,
     and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew.
     Then they came for the Catholics, 
     and I didn't speak out because I was not a Catholic. 
     Then they came for me,
     and there was no one left to speak for me.
                          - Martin Niemöller

Niemöller had lived in Nazi Germany. Make of this scrap what you will.

See you next year.


***PUNNYPUNNYPUN SONG:*** 

The Final Countdown, by Europe

Rising

The first thing I saw when I came to consciousness was nothing. Strangely, it's what I always do first, I try to use my eyes above all other senses. I snuggled deeper into the folds of my blanket, tucked my head further under the edge, and kept my eyes closed, enjoying the warmth and security of a good comforter.

I had a long moment to use my other senses while my eyes enjoyed their prolonged break.

Next sense - touch. Not much use, I couldn't feel anything further than fabric. My hand brushed up against my face whenever I curled into fetal position, and I could feel one foot resting atop the other leg, pulling the leg of my pajamas askew. I felt my hair slanting messily across my face - I resisted the urge to blow it out of the way. With me on my side, gravity would pull it back down, and it wasn't like I was trying to see anything, so I let it be. The longer I focused on my sense of touch, the more I became aware of. Not so useless, after all.

I took in a deep breath and inhaled a lungful of crisp, clean air, the kind that's so cold it feels like it's purifying your lungs before your body temperature warms it up and expels it as a cloud of wispy smoke. The air didn't smell like anything, so I took another breath and this time detected something tangy and sharp that momentarily made my nose wrinkle up a bit. It was a smell I knew well, though, and I easily determined its source. I stuck my nose out from beneath the blankets, then quickly drew it back in. No more smells, as far as I could determine.

I couldn't taste anything other than my own saliva, which is basically tasteless since it's in your mouth all the time, so I didn't dwell too long on that sense.

Lastly, hearing. I could hear the wind whistling, very very softly, as it blew past my front door. Beyond that, nothing. My shelter is the strongest there is - even a concrete skyscraper can make grinding noises in a tough wind. My abode was perfectly silent. Beyond the wind, I thought I detected a gentle washing noise, but I couldn't be sure. I had buried my head after all, and that created an effective sound barrier.

I sighed. Even with everything else, so much was out of context without the luxury of my eyes. I hoped I would never go blind.

Just as I thought this, a faint reddish glow appeared. I finally opened my eyes, looking through my long hair at my hands, and beyond that, the bedsheets and a rocky wall. I watched blurry lines sharpen as the sun came up behind me, throwing the crevices in the wall in sharp relief. I smiled. My favorite part was coming.

I sat up, my hair tangled and sticking up in many odd directions. Am I usually so focused on the way my hair looks? It didn't matter. I turned to my right and stared straight into the growing glow of the sunrise.

My house is the best.

I pulled my legs up until I sat cross legged on my bed and watched the sun laboriously heave itself over the rim of the ocean. Most of the sky was still indigo blue, but it brightened to green, then to what I call seashell pink as it got closer to the sun itself, which was surrounded by a halo of cream and the shade of golden maize. The stars were hanging on until at last the green expanded to take them, and they went as silently as they had come. It didn't take long for the sun to fully emerge and change the sky into a riot of scarlet, mauve, and amber streaks, with a little bit of lavender underlining the bellies of the clouds. The ocean, eager to share in the sky's glory, took on a dusky golden hue.

And to think I woke up to this every morning. I may have mentioned, my house is the best there is.

The sunrise was shedding copious amounts of light around my little room now, and I could finally use my eyes to scan the area, making sure everything was as I had left it. My room was essentially an oblong cave that was about 20 feet across, 12 feet tall and extended 40 feet back. I had situated my bed at the very back parallel to the wall (well, as parallel as I could get it along the curved face), along with a delicate wooden nightstand next to where my pillow lay. My favorite shells lay arrayed upon it. To my left and closest to me was a modest little vanity table, with precious little scattered on its surface. Further along that wall was my dining table, a little wobbly on the rocky floor but still very stout. It had a white tablecloth draped on it, and my only vase with withered wildflowers. Dammit, those weeds never lasted very long.

My right wall was dominated by my birchbark canoe. It lay face down, its paddle next to it, and was surrounded by neatly organized boxes and crates - some stacked on a shelf (it was whipped together with driftwood and 8 nails. It's a miracle it hasn't fallen apart yet) - filled with anything I could find or afford: food, clothing, rope, cutlery, dishes, and the like. One box contained my oddities, like my bright strands of ribbon or a silver pendant without a chain. Above all  this I had hung a long rope, supported by two poles in the "corners" of the room. On the rope I hung my dried garden harvest, away from the dirt on the floor. I didn't have a place to cook it in this cave, because a fire gotten out of hand could easily trap me in a heartbeat, so I had a campfire above-ground that I hid with long swatches of grass, in case a curious backpacker came by.  In the middle of my cave lay a braided cotton rug of medium size, undyed but, for some reason, still as clean and creamy as the day it was made - which was quite a while ago. Two rugs of a more modest earthy color lay in front and behind it; the second one was close enough that my feet brushed against it when I scooted forward and stood up.

I enjoyed the warmth of the sunrise as it intensified and drove away the chillingly cold breaths I enjoyed a few minutes ago. My entire cave was bathed in light, because I had chosen last night to leave the curtains pulled back from the mouth of the cave. Someone, a long time ago, had helped me hammer brackets from which to hang the pole and the curtains - a dangerous job. He was the only one who knew about this place other than me, and he had disappeared long ago.

The sky turned a brighter blue as I brushed my hair, and my cave lost its ethereal golden glow. I set the brush down, put on some proper clothes, and walked to the mouth of my cave. My toes felt for the edge and gripped the rim like a vise, to stop me from toppling as I leaned over and stared down the craggy rock face of a cliff.

-----

I will finish this little blurb next week, as I already wrote far to much for a standard blog and because, well, I just don't feel like it. I do what I want.

Question: Why does the sky turn colors during sunrise and sunset only?

No animal summary this week, also too lazy for that. Maybe I'll add one as an edit?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Can't Look Up

What are the characteristics of a bad student?

1. Doesn't do/put effort into homework.
2. Doesn't show up to class.
3. Sleeps/dozes/daydreams during most of the day.
4. Refuses to study.
5. Procrastinates constantly.
6. Rude and distractingly loud.
7. Often refuses to follow/ignores directions.
8. Sasses the teacher and laughs about it afterwards.
9. Tries to pass off a missed deadline on a lame excuse.
10. Cheats off other students.

According to my list, I am 35% bad student. Nope, nope, nope, from what I remember of freshman year I was 15% bad student. My life has gone from average student to borderline SENIORZZZ mania. It's only a few more months before I start cutting class. Oh god, never never never. I can't believe I would even think that. What is senior year doing to my mind?

But in all seriousness, my academic life has taken a nosedive and reverse engines are failing to initiate. I'm praying that I make it through my finals. I'm praying I get into a good enough college. I'm praying I make it through my finals so I stay in a good enough college. Why do I feel so much pressure to get into a good school - and not just a good school, but a good one that people have heard of? You hear what everyone says, "just because they aren't as popular doesn't mean they're not as good." Well, yes, they can be acceptable, but the whole reason that you hear about good schools is because they produce good students, and you don't hear about the "good" schools because they don't produce as many.

I would count it as a failure on my behalf if I didn't get into a reasonably well known school, and instead got into some place out in the nowheres. When people ask me where I'm applying, I don't want to feel a sense of shame listing my schools that I applied to; I want to say a reputable name instead of having to tell people in which state a college is when they ask for my list. But I can't help it, I can't tell people the name of a high-ranking college without feeling like I was being judged, like they're thinking, "Wow, that's a reach for her. I wonder why she's shooting so high for a place that's obviously going to reject her." I wasn't good enough.

It's shameful feeling like I'm the person with the lowest intelligence level in my close, immediate group of friends. The best places judge you on your grades (which is the definition of intelligence level in this case), not so much your personality, interests, dedication, so forth. Sadly, to me, those grade-oriented ones are the only universities that count.

I want so much. I wish for the day where I can be genuinely happy in my first choice college. I wish that my closest friends will get into colleges/universities close to mine, or that we stay in close contact for many years. Or that we even end up with a happy ending.

Call me Miss Sunshine.

Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis)

On a past post I put this as one of my favorite plants. Now you get to know why!

Take a good look at that picture. How many leaves do you see?

The answer is two.

It's generally accepted that it was named after the Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch, who first documented it. An adult welwitschia consists solely of two leaves, a stem base and roots.  Its two permanent leaves are unique in the plant kingdom, because they are the original leaves from when the plant was a seedling, and they just continue to grow and are never shed. As you can see, they instead bundle up into a deceptive octopus mass. The two leaves are leathery, broad, and strap-shaped (I can't think of a better comparison word) and they lie in a heap on the ground. The leaves shred at the ends into length-wise strips, due to time/wind/etc., but it soon grows back The stem is low, woody, hollowed-out, and sturdy. It usually grows to about 500 mm in height. The welwitschia is endemic to the Kaokoveld Centre in Africa, spanning part of the coasts of Namibia and Angola.

Cool Facts:

• Informal sources refer to it as a "living fossil."
•  It is the only genus in the family Welwitschiaceae and order Welwitschiales.
• This succulent plant (SUCCULENT KAROO, LOOK IT UP, IT'S AN ACTUAL PLACE) can live up to 1,500 years.
• It's thought to be a relic from the Jurassic era. It hasn't changed much since.

I want a relaxing song tonight, since I have too much homework to stress over, so have the first Italian song I ever heard. I assume you ( the reader) speak English, so I found a video with English subtitles. If you are a native-speaker of Italian and are learning English, yay, practice! If you don't speak English at all but speak Italian, then that last phrase was completely redundant. Enjoy one of the best songs of your language.

Vivo Per Lei, by Andrea Bocelli (feat. Giorgia)

Derailing from Track to Track

Winter is finally here! At least, as close as it gets to winter in California.

Senioritis has really hit me hard. Despite the fact that every single one of my classes are AP, I have no inclination to study or do the homework, as long as it's not due the next day. A lot of stuff gets piled up last minute, and sometimes I don't even finish all of that. I just turn it in partially finished, or find a way to make it look finished. I do feel bad about that - I've never been one to easily cheat. But I'm growing fed up with school. I've been continuously waking up much to early for too many years, studying hard for subjects I will never touch again in college, and putting up with the stress of confining myself into social acceptances, as every single teenager has done at least once in their lives. Yes, First World problems. For an angsty, angry teenager, that doesn't mean they're still not problems.

It's getting too cold to go back to Roost. As much as I love it, I love the warmth of my bed and my cup of hot chocolate better - especially when it's coupled with a good book. Lately I've started more books than I can finish. I checked out a book last week, and before I could finish it, checked out another one yesterday. This doesn't include the unfinished two from months ago, or my English Lit book Frankenstein, or the book I have yet to choose for my independent reading for school. OR the many others I have on my to-read shelf on Goodreads.

I never thought I would say it, but there are too many books in my life right now.

I also wish I had the motivation to continue a small side project story that I started with my best friend at the beginning of summer. It's wonderful to work on, but unless it's started right, I'll never have the energy to finish it. This has become blatantly obvious - I haven't touched that Google Doc in over a month now. I've always known about this flaw of mine, though. It happened whenever I was given a new piano piece to start on that I wasn't super enthusiastic about, and especially now in AP Studio Art, where we have to churn out top-quality work in a mere two weeks (when we are used to having two months to produce top quality work. What are stress?) I come up with an idea, but if it starts out looking funky, I give up almost immediately on fixing it and leave it lying around until the deadline the next day.

If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me, and just forget the world?
-Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

*As I was re-reading my post, I realized how scattered the topics are, so that explains my title. It was taken from another one of my posts, I don't know which.

Glaucus Atlanticus (It has no commonly used common name)

If this is not the most beautiful thing you have seen today, then you need to tell me right now what was more beautiful (excluding your significant other/idol/pet/yourself).

Please, have another picture. Can I just show you a bunch of beautiful G. Atlanticus pictures and not list the facts?

Okok, I'm done.

The glaucus atlanticus is a species of sea slug. And as most sea slugs are, these are poisonous - a human picking one up may receive a very painful sting. How do you feel about the picture above now? There are also serrated teeth in those appendages. Talk about the thorn within the rose.

This nudibranch can grow up to 3 cm, and lives in temperate/tropical waters, mostly around the East and South Coast of South Africa, European waters, the east coast of Australia, and Mozambique. It preys on assorted sea snails and such, and the dangerous Portuguese Man o' War (it's ability to do so lies in it's concentrated venom, which is more powerful than the Man o' War's. Also, it's immune to the Man o' War's venom, and instead takes it in and saves it in sacs for its own usage). Occasionally, given the chance, g. atlanticuses are cannibals.

Cool Facts:

• Due to it's unique feeding habits, the g. atlanticus cannot be bred or held in captivity without quickly killing it. 
• Due to a gas-filled sac in its stomach, it floats upside down on the surface tension of the ocean.
• Much like the great white shark, the g. atlanticus has counter shading, which means (since the g. atlanticus floats belly up) the stomach is a darker shade, to blend in with the ocean's surface from an aerial POV, and the back is lighter, to blend with the sunrays shooting down through the water.
• The not-common-enough names include the sea swallow, blue angel, blue glaucus, blue dragon, blue sea slug and blue ocean slug.

 Because I was talking about not being grateful about my First World status, here's an appropriate song:

You, Me, and the Bourgeoise, by The Submarines

Turkyturkyturky

This post is super late, so I will put no effort into it, other than to say the movie Frozen was absolutely amazing - possibly the best Disney movie to date because - well, no spoilers.

And Thanksgiving reminded me why I'm such an awkward introvert - I found myself hiding in my room from a cousin and his girlfriend.Yes, I hid from my own family. In my defense, I hadn't seen him in a while and his girlfriend was completely new. I'm mature, I swear.....

Don't forget to name your food babies.