valadan_freed

Just so I can be on a roll with posting things!

1.This survey gets a little personal; can you handle it?
...No, I cannot. in fact, I think I shall flounce off at this point and sob in a corner.

2. If you married the last person you texted, would you be happy?
That would be my mum, so, NO.

3. Were you happy when you woke up today?
Pretty happy, yes.

4. When were you on the phone last? And with who?
With Ryn, on Monday, because I was late.

5.What is the last thing someone bought you?
My dad bought some Magnesium Supplement for Fairway yesterday...

6.What’s something that can always make you feel better?
Reading, usually. Or someone complimenting my horse (or my riding)

7. What are you excited for?
Helping out at Pony Club Camp tomorrow! (Yes, I am sad)

8. What were you doing yesterday?
Either homeworking, procrastinating, or riding.

9. Honestly, who was the last person to tell you they love you?
My mum, yesterday night.

10. What's the last thing you put in your mouth?
A chocolate digestive!

11. Have a best friend?
Group of, yes.

12. Are you scared to fall in love?
Not particularly. But then I seem to have no hormonal drive in this direction so far, so...

13. Do you think teenagers can be in love?
Yes - why should they not be? Considering that in teenagers hormones are rampant, they're more likely to be in love than others, really.

14. Last person you wanted to punch in the face?
Um... *tries to think* probably Bernd. He's usually a safe bet.

15. What time is it right this second?
6.54pm

16. What do you want right now?
Dinner.

17. Who was the last person you took a picture with?
Rhi, I think.

18. Are you single/taken/heartbroken/or confused?
Single

19. When was the last time you cried?
Over Bridge of Terabithia, so... a while ago.

20. Father or mother?
I shall be evil and refuse to answer this question.

21. Do you find it hard to trust others?
Depends.

22. How fast does your mind change?
Again, it depends. Mostly on the subject.

23. I bet you miss somebody right now.
...you bet wrong.

24. Can you honestly say you're okay right now?
Yes, honestly, I can honestly say that I'm honestly okay.

25. Why do you think so many people cheat?
Cheat on/at what? Poker? Exams? Generally so they can be better than other people.

26. Tell me what's on your mind.
'Gosh that advert at the side of the page is incomprehensible. Also, this question-writer has the attention span of a butterfly.'

27. What are you looking forward to in the next three months?
Uh... FEI dressage competition, Christmas

28. Have you ever worn the opposite sex's clothing?
Yes, relatively frequently given the size of my feet and where I live.

29. When did you last talk to your number 1 top friend?
The way this is phrased just makes me think of the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency book series.

30. When is your next road trip?
If your definition of road-trip is a holiday where one drives a lot... wherever my family end up going next. We like driving.

31. Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell anything to?
Does Fairway count? He IS male, even if he has been gelded.

32. How's your heart?
In a jar on the shelf.

33. Have you ever felt like you weren't important?
Well, yes.

(And, really, we aren't. If you consider the universe as a whole, we're just little blips. So thinking of yourself as unimportant might be the first step to realising your place in the cosmos.)

34. Do you think somebody's in love with you?
Well, I like to think my parents...

In a romantic sense, nope.

35. What are you planning on doing after this?
Hopefully eating dinner. And then sorting out the items of my grooming kit I'm taking along tomorrow just in case.

36. When will your next kiss take place?
Let me grab my crystal ball and tell you! *rolls eyes*

If were counting horses slobbering on one as kisses, then tomorrow.

37. Have you told anybody you loved them today?
Yep, my dad.

38. Who do you not get along with?
Uh... some people.

39. What does your 3rd recent text say?
'You can use my bridle when I get back from hacking now.' From Melissa, my riding instructor.

40. What are you wearing right now?
A t-shirt, shorts, and the generally required underwear.

41.Are you wasting your time on the person you like?
Don't like anyone romantically, so this question is null and void.

42. When's the last time you had a grilled cheese?
As in a sandwich? About six hours ago.

43. What's your favorite boy and girl name right now?
Male: Rupert
Female: Julia

Actually, I don't really have a favourite name. I just kind of like Rupert because it makes me think of bears, and Julia because it's plain and sounds good with most surnames (so is good for creating roleplaying characters).

44. How did you feel when you woke up?
'Why is my cat on my pillow?' - is that an emotion?

45. Do you wish someone would call or text you right now
Nooo. Unless they were offering me millions of dollars. That would be nice.

46. Do you crack your knuckles?
Argh, no! Hate the sound.

47. What were you doing yesterday at midnight?
Sleeping.

48. What are your LEGAL initials?
CSL. Yes, like the phone company, and the author.

49. Who's the first B in your contact list?
On my phone, I have no Bs. On my MSN list, Becky.

50. When was the last time you laughed really hard?
Depends what your definition of really hard is... I was certainly chuckling away yesterday when Ryn was showing me THE MUSIC MEISTER!

51. Your number 1 top friend walks out of your life, do you go after them?
Again with this awkward phrase. Uh, depends why they're walking out. If it's because I tried to throw them off a building, I'd probably accept they have a reason to leave.

52. Last awkward moment?
With the french riding instructor (Philippe) at Beas River. I'm good at having awkward conversations with people at the stables.

53. Are you afraid of the dark?
Not so much the dark, as shadows in the dark.

54. Do you have good vision?
I wear contacts, so no.

55. Have you ever tripped someone?
Not on purpose, accidentally, probably.

56. Have you ever slapped someone?
Probably. can't remember at the moment

57. Are you Irish?
On my mother's side, back a few generations, yes.

58. Do you use chop sticks?
Yep.

59. Do you have any scars?
Yep.

60. Is there someone you will never forgive?
Not really.

61.Do you laugh off embarrassing moments?
I like to think I do... I don't think I do, though.

62. Name the last person to text you?
Micheal Leven

63. Would you marry someone 8 years older than you?
Possibly, though not at this precise moment in time.

64. Can you go in public looking like you do?
NO, because I'm actually a Venutian and my tentacles might scare people.

65. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
The side my cat isn't occupying.

66. Is it easy for someone to make you smile?
Yep, usually.

67. What's the first thing you'll do on your wedding day?
Wake up, hopefully. Unless I plan on sleepwalking

68. Do you fall for people easily?
Considering I've 'fallen' for no-one, I'm guessing I should say no?

69. Has anyone put their arms around you in the past 5 days?
Yes - Rhi, my mum, my dad, Nelcy.

70. Do you miss the way things used to be?
*strums guitar soulfully*
Oh, back in the day,
When things always went my way,
Why, life then was perfect,
though now I feel that I'm a reject!
*more strumming*

Sometimes no, sometimes yes.

71. How often do you hold back from saying what you are thinking?
Probably quite a lot. Though it depends who I'm with, really, and whether they'd get my sense of humour.

72. Song you're thinking of right now?
THE MUSIC MEISTER SINGS THE SONG THAT THE WORLD WANTS TO HEAR!

Blame Ryn.

73. Want someone back in your life?
Uh. Not off the top of my head.

74. Will tomorrow be better than today?
They always used to say this in 'The Wind Singer'. "I promise to make tomorrow better than today" as part of their oath (they lived in a very rigid city). Good book, if slightly odd, as are the sequels. Why does this thing keep having strange references to series I've read?

And, possibly.

75. What’s the color of you’re shirt you are wearing?
Purple

76. Has anyone ever sang or played music for you personally?
If we're counting my friends singing Jesus Christ Superstar to annoy me, yes.
Actually, they sing a lot.

77. Does it bother you when someone lies to you?
Oh, no, I LOVE IT when people lie to me! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

I wish sarcasm went across better on the internet.

78. Is there anyone who understands your relationship status?
Most people, given that (if we're talking romantically) it's non-existent.

79. Are you a naturally happy person? Or is your happiness forced?
Pretty naturally happy, I think.

80. Is there anyone you wish would fall in love with you?
Nope.


This thing is incredibly random. Short-attention span, question-writer!

So, know we've gotten that confession out the way...

In the weeks (months) since I last wrote anything, I've: been to Cambodia on the school CAS trip; gained a bunch of minions due to the Environmental group (okay, shared minions, but still!); competed Fairway for the first and second time; had a week of school when it shut because of swine flu; had about a million zany conversations; considered a Halloween costume; and had many more similarly exciting occurrences-  oh, and I'm currently on half-term.

Tomorrow, and then the two days after that (essentially all my time until I'm back at school) I'm helping out at the Non-residential Pony Club Camp at Tuen Mun. Which should be fun, and I'm hoping it'll count as a CAS major? Or minor perhaps, I'm not entirely sure. but given it's going to be around thirty hours of work, I'm kind of hoping it'll be a major!

In other riding news, Fairway has officially competed twice, now! And both times were rather tremendously nerve-wracking. I've never actually physically thrown up before a competition before. Felt like doing so, yes, but never actually done so. It's so different competing on a green horse who's never competed before and who is - let's be honest, here - a bit of a basketcase, though... Despite the nerves, both times ended up rather well! The first competition I did two preliminary dressage tests, and the collecting ring was the scariest bit. Seriously, I think he almost had me off about three times because he was all 'OMG A HORSE COMING TOWARDS ME MUST SPOOOOK!'. Didn't fall off, thankfully (imagine getting the dust out of my coat!) and though we were both very tense for the first test, in the second one we got 57.8% and were third! Well, joint third with Anson (who'll have to be talked about later...), but still - third, in his very first competition! Then in the 50cm clear round the next day, we had one refusal in the double, but he was so much calmer in the collecting ring and throughout the whole experience that I was very pleased with him.

Then, last weekend, we competed again, this time doing the FEI Preliminary test (in preparation for the FEI test proper on the 7th/8th of November) and did surprisingly well. 56.2%, but no rosette this time, but he was so much calmer - no almost dying in the collecting ring! And I've now qualified for the FEI, so *crosses fingers* I'm hoping I might not do too badly this year! We also did the 50cm again - and went clear! Personally, I thought it was a very nice round, and, gosh, Fairway was so calm it was bizarre! As my mum said, 'it was like he was on prozac the entire weekend!'

In many ways, I'm amazed at how quickly he's come on, especially when I think what he was like when I first got him! So, okay, he still has his moments when he's a twit, but at other times he's wonderful! And, no, I'm not biased. Honest.

Anyway, I'm going to try and actually keep this up regularly from now on - here's to that wish! *clinks glass*

So that's unfortunate for anyone born on a Wednesday, isn't it?

My Wednesday - contrary to birthdays - was actually pretty good. School went pretty well - Spanish not too taumatising, TOK actually quite enjoyable, Chemistry understandable, and the form photos/individual photos we had in our free period were fine - and riding was very good!

So far, this going straight from school thing has worked - we were five minutes late for the lesson, but Melissa seemed okay with that, and when I'm allowed to leave school during my free period, I'll be able to have it earlier - though we've only tried it twice so things might be very different the next few times. The boy was very good today - calm throughout the lesson, not a hint of idiocy - and though he seemed a little lame in the right-fore to begin with, that passed after we'd warmed up. We were only doing more (!) tiny little jumping, but Melissa had decided to work mainly on my jumping position: essentially, I go up rather than forward, hunch my back and shoulders, and clamp my knees, when in fact I should be opening my knees to allow my lower leg to wrap around the horse, hollowing my back, and not going up so much. I'm definitely going to have to consciously work on that, as I don't even notice my position is slipping half the time! (But Melissa did say my position improved through he lesson, so yay!)

Fairway is, i think, beginning to figure himself out over jumps much more, and seemed to be quite enjoying it by the end - he also managed a few changes of lead leg in the canter, which impressed me greatly! I hadn't known he was balanced enough to manage those! He's also getting better at landing on the correct lead, and he seems to be pretty calm again over jumps, so I think he (and I, I guess) have recovered from our setback. melissa certainly doesn't seem to think it's dire, and that he's back to where he was - phew!

ALSO, I should be competing in the FEI dressage again this year, though not the children's competition. Apparently they've got an adult preliminary test, which Melissa (and, apparently, Nick and Julian) think we should do okay at. Maybe not really well, but not disgracefully, either. So that'll be interesting.

Anyway, off to bed now - more school tomorrow (and no handy free periods!).

Not that I know anyone born on a Tuesday (at least, not knowingly) so I can't comment on the falseness of Tuesday's supposed attributes.

The most exciting thing about today was PE. Yes, you read that correctly. PE, in which we all played (well, not the whole class, just our little madcap group) played Musical Table Tennis and Table Tennis of the Accents. Both varieties are commonly subscribed as stress-relievers, for the amount of laughter the provoke, and I can inform you that they do work. Even if they make you lousy at the actual hitting the ball part because you're ither singing, or laughing too hard.

Chemistry was fairly boring (three Lewisisms used today, though: 'geezer', 'just for a laugh' and the ubiquitous 'er'. Yes, I keep track.), English was interesting in an analysing poetry kind of way, though I do wish our teacher would stop choosing Sylvia Plath's poems about motherhood (if I hadn't been fairly put off already, these poems really put me off the idea of having a kid - they address the issue in quite a... creepy fashion) and Geography was, well, fine. Though I'm convinced we learnt half of this population stuff last year....

In other news, my dad apologised for blowing up at me last night, which is all well and good, but I am slightly troubled by the fact that this is the third argument we've had in two weeks (the other two about riding). Considering we've hardly ever argued before... I am slightly worried. *shrug* I'm thinking (hoping) it's just a phase we're both going through.

Tomorrow involved the joy of TOK, the slightly greater joy of Spanish and Chemistry, and the fun and half-pointlessness of a free period. And then I get to go ride my horse, which'll be nice. Melissa said she jumped him today and he was very good, so I'm hoping he'll be in a similar mood for my lesson tomorrow! Of course, this riding does mean I have to hope I don't get too much homework tomorrow, as I might very well be completely shattered (figuratively, I hope).

I'm also starting to get back into a poetry writing mood - not limericks, you'll be glad to hear! - so you may be inflicted with some of my attempts fairly soon.

So the most momentous thing that happened since I last posted was that the rest of the GCSE results came out - finally, what took the exam board so long?! - which was nice, as it took away that little niggling worry I'd had, subconsciously, at the back of my mind for a while. And, even better, I was very pleased with them, so, life's good on that front.

Life's also good on the riding front, today's lesson - and yesterday, when I lunged him - being far more successful than when I last rode on Sunday, when things went fairly abysmally. I hope I haven't damaged him permanently, and though he did require a little time to settle himself into jumping again today, by the end of the lesson he was far calmer. Mel doesn't seem to think I've caused irreversible damage, and not being terrifyingly German, hasn't killed me for the way I rode on Sunday (which, I admit, wasn't very well. I do think, though, that the boy was also slightly off... and both of us not being on form resulted in an experience I'd really prefer not to repeat). But today was good, so phew!

Friendship wise, too, it's all good. Ryn, Rhi and Laura (who really needs a codeish-name to be used in my journal entries) came round to my place for a change, where we D&Ded quite successfully. No-one died, and despite a distressing conversation about catsuits, we did actually achieve something. Just wait until they see what's next in store! Muhahaha... We also watched 'Big Fish', which was a hughly surreal experience, 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' because Ryn - horror of horrors! - had not seen it, and 'Dungeons and Dragons' again, for the benefit of Rhi and Laura, who needed to know how [i]not[/i] to play the game! Just as bad (and amusing) the second time, though we did skip over  a boring bit in the middle tog et to the dragons. We also laughed insanely a lot, failed at playing 'The hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' Game, and generally had a good time. I also think Mandy enjoyed it, which is very important.

On the school front, I'm not changing any of my subject choices, and Tuesday and Wednesday (Thursday and Friday we had off on account of results coming out) were pretty good. I think Biology and Chemistry might turn out to be distressingly rather boring, but I shall have to persevere. At least I have Flora to blow things up with in Chem! English was quite good fun, and I have high hopes that IB English will be much better than GCSE English - both more challenging and more entertaining! And our free period on Wednesday (which most of our year seems to have) was highly amusing, though not very constructive. So far, though, the year hasn't been too bad so far, and I think having the certainty of knowing which classes one is in next week will be quite nice. I can see routine setting in very quickly!

So, overall, life's pretty good right now! Yay!

If I ever feel inclined (as in, when pigs fly) I may type up my slightly rambly, rather incoherent and somewhat incomprehensible notes about the rest of my American trip, but as of now, you'll have to use your imaginations to fill in the gaps and I can continue with the Chronicle of My Life. Which really deserves capital letters.

So, school's started, with IB, non-uniform and all the other fun things that entails. The first two days were deathly dull, filled with rather patronising talks about time management and such things, which was all part of our induction (which reminds me, must hand in cheque). By far and away the best thing was Dr. Lofthouse's Relaxation techniques thing, and I'm rather disapointed to learn that I don't have him for Chemistry, which would have been quite fun. Oh, yes, and there was seeing everyone again (so tempted to colelctively call them 'the gang' but I shall resist for now) which was quite nice, too.

Prior to the first day of school on thursday, we'd all invaded Ryn's house again (but left packets of crisps as payment) to watch Watchmen, which was... very true to the graphic novel. Except more graphically violent and bloody, and had several cringe-worthy bits. And left one feeling a bit depressed and 'oh-the-world-is-doomed' kind of feeling. But I'm very glad I watched it. And then I had the fun, upon returning home, of explaining it to my mum. So yes. Ahem. We also watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which made very little sense, but had Tom Sawyer painting the fence (he grew up, you see, and ditched poor old Huckleberry Finn somewhere on the Mississippi, a guy with a giant submarine that could somehow get to Paris and up teeny canals in Venice, and Moriarty with a pretty nonsensical plan in it, so it was good fun. And not very depressing.

Oh, and Bridge to Terebithia which was slightly oddly set in modern day America, and was incredibly depressing, I think we were ALL surreptitiously wiping our eyes by the end of it. And we also played Roulette of the Accents, which is far more fun than normal roulette (and includes such conversational gems as "I need a key to open this door" and "Paint my fence while I gamble!").

School today at least involved no induction, and I got my first free period last thing (or 'study period' as we have been instructed to think of them as). Of course, one has to feel that these first few days are rather pointless as we don't have half our results yet, and apparently about half the year change when we get our results, so one has to wodner why we're in school anyway, but it is giving us quite a nice, gentle introduction into things. Which is, I guess, good.

More new lessons tomorrow, so I'll have to see how that goes!

.Three states and two completely different types of landscapes, and we're only two days in (welcome to our family holidays - come back exhausted!).

The flight was incredibly boring, mostly because it was a daytime flight and I found it impossible to sleep. This resulted in several chess games (two of which I almost won, but ended up with a stalemate), watching parts of The Pink Panther II and 17 Again without the sound and trying to figure out what was happening; neither of which made much sense, and reading Dune. Which, so far, is fairly surreal.The most exciting thing happened about three minutes after we got on, when the pilot comes in over the intercom and goes (I paraphrase) 'We appear to have a broken window in the cockpit, which could go BANG! when we fly and we could ALL DIE. Please be patient while we fix it, which should take the short time of a couple of hours." At least they let us off the plane, but I was slightly worried by the fact that I learnt, by eavesdropping on the person behind me (who was talking very loudly, so it wasn't very hard to hear) that something very similar had happened when he'd been flying to Hong Kong. Design flaw in the plane, much?

It was actually only a twelve hour flight, but because of the extra shenanigans at either end, it actually ended up being about fifteen hours of traveling. And then when we got to San Fransisco, we had to get a connecting flight to Denver, having missed our original one because of the delay. So that involved standing in queues and racing around the airport (and the US has this weird system where, if you're transferring through an airport, you still have to get your luggage back, and then get it checked in again. Which makes no sense), but then at least I managed to sleep on the flight, despite the fact that the staff kept trying to give me food and drink.

FINALLY arriving, we managed to get our hire car pretty quickly, and headed north, to the town of Estes Park, on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park (I fell asleep again). We were all in bed by ten that night, after a surprisingly good dinner in the motel restaurant, and though we woke up about two thirty, we slept pretty well.

Of course, the best thing about flying to the US is that you arrive before you've left (time travel really does exist!). We left about 2.30pm HK time, and arrived about 11.30am San Fransisco time. And Thursday went on forever. I think we had about forty hours of Thursday, or something like that. The downside to this is that coming back, we're going to lose a day.

The next day, which was Friday, we were heading into the National Park, mostly birding. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. All these deep gorges, and sheer cliffs, and pine and spruce forests blanketing the less steep sides if the hills, the tops being covered in windsept tundra and patches of snow (even in July) that shine in the sunlight. In the morning the sky was clear, clear blue and went on forever  - the horizon was about fifty miles away, and when you were up high (which most of the park is, our highest point was about 4000 metres!) you could just see everything. And there were absolutely textbook corries and pyramidal peaks, and these expanses of tundra with really interesting rock formations twisted by the wind into bizarre shapes, and little brightly coloured tundra flowers with a growing season of about eight weeks.

And gosh, the wind! It blew an absolute gale so despite the fact that the sky was crystal clear, and the sun was wodnerfully warm, it was still pretty freezing cold. The wind chill factor was enormous, and you could really see why, on the tops of these plateaus, there weren't any trees and it was just tussocky plants and lichen. Walking was really difficult at times as the wind pushed at you so much, but it was all very spectacular and atmospheric.

The birding wasn't the best, though we saw some nice birds, but not the main one we were looking for (a ptarmigan), but the mammals were brilliant! The best was American Badger, found when mum said 'Let's take pictures of scenery - go on Katie." I thus leapt out the car, saw these things moving, went "Hang on, those aren't deer, they're not moving right," and managed to get dad onto them, where he managed to identify them. Definitely not a species we were expecting especially in braod daylight! Other mammals included several species of ground squirrel, Mule Deer, White-tailed Deer, Elk (which look very different from Red Deer in Europe, even though they're the same species - much bigger), American Pike (which are absolutely adorably fluffy) and Marmots, which were very abundant on the tundra.

We also made it to the Continental Divide, the point at which the water on one side flows to the Atlantic, and on the other side flows to the Pacific which was oddly rnough, about the lowest point we got to in the park. It started to rain soon after this, so we headed back.

I managed to drag my mum to a horse show late that afternoon, after the park, which was good fun, though a bit incomprehensible. The Americans run their jumping competitions (or at least this one) very differetly from the way they do in HK or the UK! It was a Hunter Jumper thing, but it seemed to involve both mounted and in-hand equitation classes as well, so we really had no idea what was going on. The biggest difference between the horses and our racehorses in HK was their balance - one of the main arenas was incredibly tight, and none of them had any problems whatsoever. I coveted some of them XD.

So, that was Friday.

On Saturday, we set off quite early, and drove out of the mountains, along a beautiful road through this gorge, with the river running along side it, and the slopes sweeping up, carpeted in pines. The change from mountains to plains was incredibly sudden - one minute you're thinking, 'Oh look, it looks flat ahead' and the next you're in this rolling country of grass.

The major thing about the plains of the US, I have decided, is that they're big. No, really. The horizon stretches away from you miles away, and the air's co clear that you can see forever. And the roads go on in straight lines for miles, so you can just dive and drive and drive.

The main birding today was in the Pawnee National Grasslands, an area that was formerly part of the Dustbowl, but had been reclaimed by the government into a prarie, and was managed to support both cattle and the natural animals. Personally, I think they should be farming bison on them, because that would be far more natual, and you could still sell the meat to make a livingIt would make sense especially because they're managing the cattle to act like bison herds, fulfilling the same role they would have done naturally.

That was good for both mammals and birds - Prarie Dogs and Pronghorn all over the place (though we actually saw more Pronghorn outside the park when we were driving down the motorway - they were everywhere!) as were Lark Buntings (very smart, but so numerous they got rather tedious) and Lark Sparrows (which are actually buntings, as American Sparrows are buntings). Can I say that whoever named these birds had no imagination?

Driving around there, and taking short walks took until about noon, and then we began our long drive, which was made gratuitously longer so we could go into Nebraska and tick off more states.

This involved lots of driving through plains thinking 'OMG it's all so BIG and VAST and WIDE and where's the end?!' but the scenery changed a surprising amount, actually. There were different sorts of plains (the grassier ones, and the drier ones, and the ones that were flat for miles, and the steeper, more rolling ones...) and often rather random outcrops of rock, sculpted by the wind into interesting shapes, and several hill and mountain ranges we either bypassed or drove through the outskirts off.

And then, of course, there's the human element of it all, driving through these little towns (which all very proudly tell you that they have a population of 510, or 246) wondering why it seems to be a tradition to dump all your farming equipment haphazardly in fields. Or why some places have bizarrely English names - does Totteringham sound like it should be in Devon to anyone else?

We had lunch in this absolutely brilliant diner in Nebraska, which was so archetypally your movie American diner place. The best bit was the sign outside which read 'DINER - open dailey!'. I just had to take a picture.

Crossing from Colorado to Nebraska was more exciting than from Nebraska to Wyoming, as there was a sign and stopping place at the former, whereas at the latter there was only the town of Henry (population 105).

We drove about 550 miles which took about eight/nine hours, and it was brilliant, for all the above reasons and more - the natural landscape, the human idiosyncrasies, having music playing very loudly and driving very fast on these straight-as-a-die roads that stretched into the distance (in the words of Tolkien 'the road goes ever on and on').

Arriving at Sheridan, in Wyoming (which isn't 'The Big Sky State' as we first thought, but either 'The Cowboy State', for obvious reasons, or 'the Equality State', because women got rights here earlier than in other places) at about eight, we just managed to grab dinner at the Historic Sheridan Inn, which was built in 1893, and is still the same building! It's a quite attractive clapboard and gabled windowed building, with this huge wrap-around porch on three sides.

And that brings me to right now, where I'm about to go to bed, even though it is only ten. Maybe one day this holiday I'll stay up to eleven - won't that be exciting! Tomorrow we're heading off down to Bitter Root Ranch, the place where me and my mum are having three days riding, while dad heads off up to Montana to do some birding. Quite a late start tomorrow, which is nice, as we're having dinner about seven so hopefully I'll get a decent night's sleep!

Main thoughts about the US so far? Big, and like a geography textbook - you can actually see geography happen, and go from glaciated valleys to volcanically upheaved plains in about an hour.

Anyway, I hope you three are all fine, Ryn, Rhi and Laura, and haven't blown up any major landmarks... =D. I saw a Lawnmower dumping ground (or, at least, large amounts of lawn mowers haphazardly scattered across a field) so if you ever need another mower, here's the place to come Laura!

So, off on our Yellowstone-Wyoming-that-part-of-America trip tomorrow! YAY. Lots of riding involved (of course) both a trail ride into Yellowstone looking for animals (mostly mammals, hopefully wolf!) and then a few days at a ranch for some more serious riding, where I hope to get in some cross-country. My dad's doing the former, but not the latter, so that'll be fun getting him on a horse, even if we are only walking. Though I do malign him, rather, as he did go on a horse (pony) in Mongolia... where the pair of us then spent most of the time racing each other, while mum and the guide watched in amusement.

It's not all riding, though - there's the customary small brown birds we have to look for, and some compulsory hills to climb up, and then of course all the geysers and things in Yellowstone, so it's looking to be a good trip! If I have internet, I shall entertain/bore you all with it!

While I'm away I'm supposed to be writing some of this WWII radio-play thing me and Ryn have decided to do (and, probably, some of Invasion! as well) so at least if I'm jetlagged or we get stuck at an airport I'll have something to do! And then I'm also supposed to be learning shorthand and rearranging the bookshelves into some semblance of order, but they'll have to wait until I get back. I think I procrastinate too much, which is going to be totally doomfull when IB comes along. Which is distressingly soon.

On that topic, my mum came back with my textbooks today, which got me terribly excited (I'm sad, okay) and distracted me from doing my packing until my dad threatended to make me take the maths one with us to the USA. I went off and packed, then, as I wasn't sure that he wouldn't. But still - new textbooks!!

In other news - WHY does the stable hate me?! Whenever I go down to ride, they always seem to be doing construction. As in, making lots of loud scary noises which make it hard to get anything constructive done with the pony, as he's not known for his unspookiness.  Luckily (relatively) they didn't start bashing pipes together until I'd at least done something. I gave up after the pipe-bashing and drilling seemed unlikely to stop, and took him out for a hack instead. Where we promptly ran into the very loud little open truck thing that chugs around with the seemingly sole purpose of scaring the pony. Oh, woe is me...

Well, on Sunday, we continued our tradition of doing first a dressage test, then the clear round jumping. Different dressage test this week, and it was held on the grass again, which certainly adds an extra element (as in, the pony stumbles more than when in a paddock). I like to think it was better than last week. He was more up to the contact, and though he was sometimes behind the bit, it was less than previously. And if my scores are anything to go by, we're getting better! Though I do think Melissa marks very nicely, especially compared to some dressage judges, the relative improvement each week (we figured out the percentages) is certainly very encouraging!

Then with the jumping, we first did the really tiny round (30ish cm) which went okay, but not brilliantly - my canter definitely died in places - and then went round again when the jumps went up to about 50ish. That round - oddly enough - was much better. I'm not sure if he woke up when the jumps were higher or I did, but whatever the reason, the second round was much perkier. And less half-asleep. So that was all good.

I really, really need to work on my position, though. I slump terribly to the left, and the worst thing is that I don't notice! And, of course, I need to continue to fix my old habit of leaning forwards. Argh.

Then, in the afternoon, I had my Lo Wu lesson, which was also a success. I was riding an interesting horse, who you had to keep your leg on all the time. But he had quite a nice rhythm, once you had you leg on and kept it, and we were working on that, so that went well. The exercise we did I think I might have to try with Fairway -  three poles a stride apart, then a jump a stride away from the final pole. He needs practice with his rhythm, and it's good for making me keep my leg on, which is something else I need to work on.

Monday I met up with Ryn in Tai Wo, and we randomly wandered around Festival Walk, then came back to my place (so she should get a prize, or something, as being the first in our little group to successfully infiltrate) where we watched one of the stupidest and lolziest films on the planet. I think we listened to about two lines of dialogue, in between wishing that the main characters would die (or at least stop being on screen, especially the woman who could not act - though, actually, the only one who could really act was the evil guy, who was the same actor who voiced Scar the lion and, according to Ryn, a sexy German chap. And there was an odd appearence by the Fourth Doctor, as an elf who, for some reason, decided to save the life of the main character. I know I probably wouldn't have bothered), wondering what on earth half the characters were wearing, debating why the evil henchman had appalingly bright blur lipstick, and complaining that the dragon's wings were too small.

Fun times. Though I'm still trying to figure out whether everyone really did die at the end because, if so - o.o . If not, then what on earth did happen?!

Then today, I lunged the pony. Which involved an awful lot of trying to get him to walk. And ended up in him being totally exhausted because the getting him to walk involved an awful lot of trotting (I never knew he could trot that slowly....). But eventually - eventually! - I got him to walk. I think I may have to ask Melissa about what I was doing wrong, because when she was there supervising/helping me, it wasn't nearly as difficult to get him to slow down! Maybe I was waving the whip around too much. Hmmm.

And I have no idea why I just rabbited on about this for so long, because no-one but me cares. Hrmm.

I shall now shut up.

And there were lots of people standing around staring intently at the clouds, in the hope that the persistent drizzle (interspersed by heavier showers in which umbrellas did little to keep one dry) would stop, the clouds would clear, and the sun would actually be visible.

Their hopes were unfulfilled, as the eclipse came and went completely behind the blanketing clouds. it did get very dark, though, when totality occurred, for about five minutes, and the speed with which it darkened and then got light was fairly spectacular. I am totally NOT grasping at straws, honest.

Fine then, yes, it was rather disappointing, and we've decided we'll have to definitely try again for another eclipse.

Easter Island next year only has a 30% chance if it being visible, so it's unlikely we'll go there, but there's a total eclipse in Australia in 2012 which looks good. And it's in  deserty bit so hopefully it WON'T RAIN. And there's an annular eclipse (which is where the moon goes in front of the sun but isn't big enough to cover it fully) in Hong Kong in 2012 as well. Good year for eclipses, that so - hopefully! - we'll be able tog et two sorts of eclipses that year, one in our very own home city!

After our failed eclipse, we wandered around Suzhou a bit, and got wet. Going up canals on boats and wandering around streets/gardens in the rain is - you may be surprised to learn - a rather soggy activity. When it began to really bucket down - and my umbrella began to leak - we retreated back to the hotel, and contemplated the rain in a contemplative fashion.

It continued to rain all day, and as we were flying back to HK (it was a very short trip for the sole purpose of seeing the eclipse... on which it RAINED) there were some quite impressive views out the window of lighting amongst clouds behind us, and the most amazing sunset - all gold and apricot and tinted clouds - in front of us.

Very pretty.

But an eclipse would have been prettier. Or at least more spectacular.

But at least we werent as badly off as these people who'd come all the way from the Netherlands, and then failed to see it because the whole of that part of China decided it would be fun to get everything wet. I also felt quite sorry for the local astronomical society, who'd set up telescopes and everything... which they then had to hastily bring under cover when it began to pour.

Ah well - 'man proposes and nature disposes' and all that.

It's raining.

Some backstory is required to understand the full irony of this.

We're up in Suzhou at the moment, about 100km North-west of Shanghai, for one sole purpose (though the sightseeing we've done wasn't horrible by any stretch of the imagination) - to see a total eclipse of the sun. This is the longest one in the twenty-first century, a full six minutes of totality, so you can understand why we wanted to go and see it.

And then it rained.

And it hasn't stopped yet.

SO - our brilliant eclipse seeing trip is going to turn into a soggy not-so-eclipse-seeing trip. OH WOE IS US.

I think we're going to have to start booking tickets to Easter Island, where the next one is.

Now please excuse me if I go and do the opposite of a rain-dance, in an attempt to placate whoever has decided to rain on us at the most inconvenient moment.

I'd be complaining about this on facebook as well, if facebook didn't appear to be one of the things the Chinese government blocks. Which is rather odd.

Anyway. This situation is almost funny.

Almost.

In response to a complaint that I never write anything, here goes...

Rode the pony again today, and he was oddly worked up. Lately he's been fairly sensible - I think the heat is making it so he's not bothered to mess around or be really spooky - but today he was leaping around a bit when I cantered him. After about five minutes of sticking on his sporadic moments of 'wheee! let's go faster!' and 'omgscary let's spook!' I came off when he jinked towards the thing that I thought he was going to spook away from (some golfers doing weird things with golf-clubs and bells). Not hard, though, so I felt more stupid than anything else.

Melissa then got on and cantered him around a bit to calm him down (and, I think, so she only had to fill in one accident form) which worked, so when I got back on he was fine. After this, we finally managed to get to the jumping, and ended up totally tiring him out. Which was totally his own fault for being a twit at the beginning of the lesson.

Very pleased with the way he took the combination (jump, a stride, another jump, then about fiveish strides, another jump). Okay, so it was only tiny, but he actually looked at the first jump and jumped over it, instead of concentrating on the last one and falling over everything in front. Still need to work on quick changes of lead leg through trot, and keeping up a good, active jumping canter.

I'll probably just hack him around a bit tomorrow, then on Sunday I'll be doing the clear round jumping again. Hopefully I'll be able to do two rounds - the really low one, and then the next one up. Though, the Tropical Storm supposed to be making landfall just East of here on Sunday could affect things - the weather report is saying it'll bring heavy winds and lots of rain on Sunday, so it might not happen.

On the stable-name front... Mum suggested 'Nibs', as a shortened form of Nibbles (which he does, all the time) but I fear that if we do call him Nibs, I won't be able to resist calling him ' 'is Nibs', complete with heavy accent XD.

And in other news... Rhi makes me do weird things on Youtube, and my thoughts on the Half Blood Prince film are mixed.

"Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you."

The words that ryntha_doghare gave me are as follows: Horses, Red Hair (:D heehee), D&D/DAD, Sha Tin College (unfortunately), Fo Tan Four

Horses
My one and only hobby =D. And the second thing that will get me willingly into a shop (the other being books) so the consumer trade has them to thank for that.

And they're cute and cuddly and (sometimes) intelligent and (often) fun and (hopefully not very often) terrifying and (usually) very satisfying to ride... and I may be mildly obsessed. And horses are probably the thing I shall witter on about on this lj most, mainly because then I won't have to bore my friends with it all.

Well, maybe I will - I'll just do it less.

Red Hair
Which does not make me a Weasley, despite the number of children my friends want me to have. Other than the oh-so-subtle nicknames, it makes it difficult to hide in a crowd in Hong Kong (though I do my best at perfecting my wall-flower technique) so if I ever rob a bank I shall have to make sure to do it in Scotland.

But it does give me a good excuse for not wearing bright pink because it clashes horrible (and I would so hate to conduct such a fashion faux pas) so it's highly unlikely I'll ever dye it - though I will continue to refute questions that I have, in fact, done so. Somewhat depressingly, though, it's an awful lot darker than it used to be (which does mean that carrot-top is less appropraite) which I fear means it'll end up brown someday.

Well, at least that'll help my potential bank-robbing career.

DAD
Yay for geekiness! It's fun, though, and so far I've enjoyed both being a player, and a Dungeon Master (for those who don't know, the DM is the person who plans the adventure the others go on), though admittedly my DM experience is rather limited. Ah well, I'm sure we'll manage some time to get together all again!

I would, however, like to register my complaints that two people (out of three, and I'd like to thank the other person for choosing a nice sensible cleric) I'm DMing for decided to play a thief and a assasian, and have a total of six hitpoints between them. This makes it very awkward for me, not only because they very easily, but because I doubt this alliance is going to last very long (I see the thief stealing from the assasian and the cleric, and then the assasian killing them both... and then I won't have any players).And if you die, it's your own fault, and I'm making you have fighters as your next characters.

Sha Tin College
Personally, I like the school... Though I do wish it was somewhat more spacious - surely no-one would notice if we leveled the Junior School and planted a field instead?

I agree, though, that it's rather unfortunate that Ryn associates me with this above many other things. I'll just have to hope it's because my wonderful personality makes maths lessons (among other things) so much more fun!

Fo Tan Four
Complete with rather fluid membership.

This isn't going to make sense to anyone who a) wasn't there at the time, or b) hasn't had it explaiend to them at great length by all of us (and they're more confused than anything) or c) seen the video. Which is rather traumatising so I'll advise you not to bother. (Unless you're in it, of course, in which case you're a lost cause).

Well, under severe prodding from friends (or, rather, prodding from one of them) I have been coerced into writing something on here.

Of course, this kind of rests on the hope that I can actually think of something to say.

*a contemplative silence fills the space*

I shall be reduced to rambling.

It proved totally impossible to hand in all my textbooks and regain my book deposit today, mainly because the Geography Office had turned into a localised form of the Bermuda Triangle. I went in three times, once after I was sure I'd seen a geography teacher go in, and yet failed to find anyone. Clearly they have a carefully constructed portal to the tenth dimension in there. This means I shall have to trek all the way back into school to do so. Hmph.

In other news, my horse was frisky this morning, as Monday is the rest-day at the stables. As result, we did a lot of trotting in circles, and I had the embarrassment of falling off when he leaped around particularly energetically. I clung on better after that. By the end, though - after eons of trotting - he was going quite nicely, and I managed to get a fairly nice canter out of him. Until it started thundering, at which point I gave up and we skittered back to the stable. I was glad I rode when I did, however, as people who arrived later had to ride in the rain, or squish into the indoor school.

Am considering 'Monty' as a nickname for him - it's better than 'Pony', anyway!


I hope that was enough rambling for you, o friend of mine.