Eye On The Birdie – Post #25 Little Bits Of Life

Hello! Sorry I haven’t written in so long. My mom just pointed out that it would be better to do a short post than no post, so here is a short post (maybe)! Since I haven’t golfed for… oh shoot… twenty-eight days, I’ll have to write about other things. For instance, I recently went to a homeschool camp (even though I’m not technically homeschooled) and still have a splinter in my hand! Also, high school is a glorious torture. It’s also a tortuous torture. Anyway, this post won’t have anything to do with golf. It will simply be a summary of bits and pieces of my everyday life—hence the title. I’ll start by explaining what I was doing at a homeschoolers’ camp in mid-October. As some of you may know, I was homeschooled from 3rd grade to 8th grade, and have just reentered the public school system. However, that does not mean I’m going to stop enjoying the perks of being a homeschooler. Instead, I’m living in two circles. The camp lasted three days and included activities like a high ropes course, canoeing, and team-building exercises. I really like the canoeing. I don’t get stiff most of the time, although this year my legs got strangely stiff afterwards—you don’t even use your legs, so that made no sense. Anyway, I paired up with two other girls in my group, and we spent most of the time bumping our paddles into each other’s paddles. Eventually, one girl was relocated to a different canoe to make our boat less crowded. After the counselors made sure we could avoid capsizing (or in some boys’ cases, fail to purposely capsize their boat) we played boat tag, which is like normal tag, except in boats. The part I remember best is when my partner and I failed to turn and/or slow down in time and rowed into a tree that was sticking out of the water. Since my partner was in the front of the boat, she had to fall flat on her back in the bottom of the boat to avoid being grabbed by the tree branches. It was so funny! We laughed about it for the rest of camp. The high ropes course is also fun, mainly because you go down a zip-line to get to it. It is a very challenging activity, and always makes me very grateful that I’m not afraid of heights. That was where I got my splinter! I was climbing up a wooden post to get to the actual tightrope-like activity I was going to do when my hand slipped off the handle I was supposed to be holding and slid along the post. I must admit, I considered turning around right then. I have no problem with heights, but I can’t stand removing splinters. Then I thought, Birdie, you already have a hand full of wood. You can’t change that by giving up. So I kept climbing. After I finished, I checked my hand and found one smallish splinter. It didn’t hurt, and I didn’t feel like having a mental breakdown, so I left it alone. That was exactly a week ago. It still doesn’t hurt, so I am ignoring it. Best way to deal with a problem, right? I am going to skip the other activities because those three were my favorites this year, and I don’t have time for much more. The team-building exercises weren’t half as good at building a team as the other activities were, anyway. I am of the opinion that team building is best left to the team, with mediation only if needed, but the activities can be very fun. The lectures that go with them are somewhat less fun. That was longer than I expected. As such, I will save my school life for a different post. I simply can’t do it justice in the time I have. However, since today is Halloween, I would like to note that at school today, I saw the most cats. Witches were the second most prevalent costume. Some others I saw were two zebras, a rabbit, a nun, two girls dressed up as nighttime (one for certain, the other probably), what I think was a monkey, a skeleton, a teacher, and Sybil Trelawney from the Harry Potter series. I did not dress up. My costume is a hoodie, and I didn’t think that would be approved because of the dress code. Tonight, I shall be a hummingbird, for there will be no school regulations to restrain my whimsey! Bwa-ha-ha! Happy Halloween!   -Birdie