Amy’s Journal

Hey everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I have written but I have been so insanely busy since I started school! I’ve had to adjust to living without my parents (I keep my freezer in my dorm room stocked with Amy’s), all of the homework, classes, new friends, etc. There is just so much to do in college and so little time. I live in an all freshman co-ed dorm but on an all girls floor. I love the students here…everyone is so smart and amazing! We just had a halloween party this weekend, and we dress up every week with a different theme for dorm meetings. Thats why in some of the pictures I am posting we are all wearing costumes (Yes, we are dressed up as nerds in the last pictures. Contrary to what you might think, Stanford students do not usually look like that). I want to say more but I have to go write a 15 page paper, so I am going to post a bunch of pictures of me at college and hopefully you can get a feel for how everything is.

-Amy

That’s me, distressed and confused, amid my piles of clothes that I have to sort through to figure out what I am taking to college. I am moving in to Stanford on Tuesday, which means that my entire room has been torn apart and is covered with various cosmetics, toiletries, clothes, bags and accessories that I am going to take. Not to mention bedding, hangers, drying racks, first aid kits, toolkit, electronics, books, etc. For most people, this is no big deal. It might even be fun for some people, like my insane friends who actually enjoy organizing and packing things.

I am not one of those people. Throughout my life, whenever my mom pulled out the suitcases before a trip, I would have a panic attack, similar to the way my boyfriend starts hyperventilating when we get to the parking lot of a mall. I am not a neat person. I can’t fold very well, I don’t organize well, and I lose everything. I also can’t think ahead–to predict what the weather will be like, whether I will have to wear something dressy, what mood I am going to be in, etc. One of the skills that amazes me most in life is some people’s ability to pack “outfits”, i.e., things that go together…the pants, the shoes, the shirt, the jacket, everything, so that they can bring less things. For me, visualizing an outfit is worse than calculus. So what I usually end up doing is bringing everything that I think I might wear, and greatly overpack. It usually works.

Not this time. If I had my way with this whole college thing, I would bring ALL of my clothes. But my dorm room closet space is smaller than my suitcase(a very big suitcase). And I have enough clothes to fill three. So I actually have to DECIDE things (I hate decisions). Then add to my already frazzled brain the traumatic fact that I am packing this stuff up for good to leave my beloved family and dog, and you’ve got me pretty close to a good old fashioned toddler-style melt down.

All I can say is, thank god for moms.

Click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger.
-amy

Ok, so when is an Acorn Squash ripe? I have about a million of them, and they are all white or very very light green. Most of them are still small though. Someone said its ripe when it is dark green…but this one in the picture is bigger than a cantalope and it is still white. Maybe a different kind of acorn squash it is? Perhaps a white one, maybe? Should I pick it? No-one in my family even knows what an acorn squash is, so they are no help…

help?

My Honda Civic Hybrid finally arrived at the dealership last week, which was all the way in Ukiah (the only dealership that was getting one in the right color in a reasonable time). So I drove out into the boonies to Ukiah to pick it up. I love it! So cute, and great gas mileage (50 mpg highway, 50 mpg city). It has GPS, and is surprisingly roomy inside. Good acceleration too, which I wasn’t expecting from a hybrid.

My favorite thing about it is that I can command it to do things outloud. I push a button and say, “radio on to AM 740″, and it does it! I can say, “Air conditioning on, off, up, or down,” and a gazillion other commands. The absolute best commands are the “find nearest gas station, restaraunt, atm, etc.” You can even say, “findest nearest shopping” (!) and the gps will find all the closest ones, and guide you there. My dad said he’s going to have the dealer to unprogram the shopping command so that I won’t bust the bank. I’m not worried though, I don’t need a GPS to find the closest mall.

Crap. (Am I allowed to say that?) I just went to see “An Inconvenient Truth”, the documentary by Al Gore about global warming. You all have to see it — this is our world, and our problem, and we better do something soon, or the world won’t be here for our kids, at least not like it is today. Not only that, it won’t be here for us! The website is www.climatecrisis.net. But go see the movie, seriously. It is not hopeless, we CAN change this, but in order to do that we have to understand it. Man I feel so restless, like I have to do something or change something but I have control over so little. But I guess I can change those few things I have control over. I am selling my car and buying a Honda Civic Hybrid at this moment. I am also bugging my dad about getting solar panels to provide energy for our house. So we’ll see how that goes. And I’m remembering to turn off the lights and all the appliances. If one person goes to see the movie because I wrote about it here, that would rock.

These are my feet, barefoot and wet, just as feet should be. I have never believed in shoes, and I think I am the only person at SA to ever get detentions for not wearing shoes at school.

I haven’t written in a while, because, well, nothing is happening. And that is just the way I want it to be. There is nothing I HAVE to do, except the occasional TV program interview (we are going to be on California Country and on the Food Network, “The Secret Life of Quick Fix Foods”) and my summer reading list for Stanford, which I haven’t started yet. I was supposed to go off to Greece a few days ago but I got a sinus infection and decided the change in pressure of the airplane would not be a good idea. So instead I have been floating on a floatie (is that what you call it?) in my pool with my many books(of course, not the one’s I have to read), my bottle of 30 SPF sunscreen, and my delusion that skin cancer is the kind of thing you hear about, but won’t actually happen.

Occasionally I am joined by my other best friend Sarah, (my other best friend Ryn does not enjoy the sun) or my boyfriend Andrew when he is not busy with homework or summer school (he is trying to graduate from college in 3 years instead of 4). Andrew, though, does not float and read with me but instead swims laps for thousands of yards back and forth and back and forth, while I lay there feeling lazy and out of shape and thankful for good genes that make exercise optional. (I know I know exercise is very good for me and I do stay in shape most of the time…but give me a break, I just graduated from high-school with almost all A’s…it was really hard…I deserve a little R&R.)

And then when I get tired or hot or burnt (very rarely, once again, thankful for dark skin genes), I go inside and watch a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is my latest obsession. You see, I grew up without television and felt somewhat deprived until this year when I discovered that they put TV on DVD’s! Without the Commercials! Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-fi channel (known by fans as BSG) was my first obsession, and I watched every episode religiously until the kickass season finale in May. But the next season will not start again until October so I have been watching Buffy (I am not actually as much of a sci-fi/fantasy nerd as all of this makes me sound, or maybe I am). I am currently on season two(There are 7), and I just cried because a friend told me that during season three Angel (Buffy’s Boyfriend) is going to leave to go start his own show with Cordelia! Oh the horror!

As you can see, I am having a very productive summer.
-Amy

Hey everyone, sorry I haven’t written in a while, but that’s because it was getting close to the end of the year and I was super busy with finals and senior pranks and everything. Guess what? I graduated! It is so crazy that I am actually done with high school. It is really exciting, and know I am going to have a lot of fun at Stanford, but I am also really sad. I made some really incredible friends at Sonoma Academy, and I got really close to some of my teachers and some of the staff. I know I can come back and visit, but SA is a really close community and losing that is sad. I cried through all of graduation…even when I was getting my diploma(you can see it in the picture if you look hard). But anyway, its over!! Yeah ‘06!!!!!!!!

This is me and my best friend Haleryn and my good friend Danny after graduating.

This year, a few flocks of wild turkeys have decided to make our ranch their home and mating grounds. They wander around the hills together, splaying their plumes of feathers and making that horribly loud noise turkeys are known for. It isn’t that bad in the daytime, but when they decide to sound their mating calls all night long the night before a big test, I feel the urge to break my vow as a non-killer of animals and go strangle them. Of course, I have never acted on that urge. Stormy(my dog), whenever she sees them, barks and starts to run off into the hills after them. I have always called her back because, although she is a vegetarian dog, I figure her instincts would take over and she would go on a turkey hunt. I am not home all the time, however. About a week ago, our web director Michelle gave me a ride home from school. As we were driving down the driveway, Michelle pointed up on the hill and said, “What is going on?” I looked up at the hill, and there were two flocks of turkeys, about 14 turkeys in all, on the hill in a small clump. Running around them was Stormy! She was herding them together and nudging them across the hillside. The turkeys, looking completely calm, willingly waddled in whatever direction Stormy pushed them, although the larger ones seemed to ignore her all together and simply follow because that was where everyone else was going. Turkeys can fly, so if they had felt threatened, I’m sure they would have picked up and flown away. I was right that Stormy’s instincts would take over, but they were her shepherding instincts, not hunting instincts! Now I let Stormy go into the hills whenever she wants so she can herd the turkeys. Poor girl, I need to get her some sheep.

When I was a little girl, we had a big organic vegetable garden behind the house. I have faint memories of picking snails off broccoli and eating plums and tomatoes fresh from the garden. Oh, the good old days. In third grade, our vegetable and fruit garden was, sadly, bulldozed away and replaced by a lot of concrete in the form of a swimming pool. I was thrilled. I still am. But a couple of months ago I started missing fresh vegetables and felt the need to get my hands in the dirt. Then my boyfriend Andrew teased me for being the Amy of Amy’s Kitchen and not even having an organic garden. He said that I talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. That was the last straw. Last weekend, we built three raised beds and had some dirt trucked in. I decided to start with starts (baby plants) instead of seeds. I know that’s kind of cheating but it is a little late in the season and I am not very experienced. I went to the nursery but they didn’t have very much. I bought what they did have and planted it in the freezing weather. You wouldn’t think it was late March /early April with the weather we are having right now. I will plant some more when I get back from Mexico and will let you know how my plants are surviving, and what variety I planted. So far I have bell peppers, cilantro, strawberries, green tomatoes, and all different sorts of lettuces. (My picture is from mid-May…my plants are starting to get bigger).