Saturday Night

Pretty fun time with Adam. We went to this one restaurant called 800 degrees, pretty good. When we were walking out of the place we felt how warm and breezy it was and concluded that we needed to go to a park or something just to be outside. We went to the environmental center at about 11 pm. I think that's the time when I find it the most peaceful. I recorded a few samples of these birds we kept hearing along with a babbling brook. My favorite sound of all though was when we stopped walking and the birds stopped chirping and it was silent.

Life of Pi (up to page 224)

I apologize for not posting in such a long time. This post will be difficult, I'm not too much into the writing mood at the moment, more the music mood. But anyway....

So many things have happened since my last post. The boat Pi, his family and the zoo animals were on sank on its way to Canada. Some crew threw Pi down into a lifeboat with a life jacket, miraculously not hurting him. It then shows Pi, yelling to Richard Parker, the tiger, to swim harder to make it to the lifeboat, where a zebra with a broken leg already has joined him. Eventually it comes down to Pi, Richard Parker, a spotted Hyena, the crippled zebra and later an orangutan named Orange Juice. The hyena kills and eats the zebra. Pi doesn't know Richard Parker is on the boat under the tarpaulin until after the Hyena kills OJ and Richard Parker kills the Hyena. Crazy stuff. Many days go by. Pi finds that the lifeboat is luckily equipped with many tools and rations for survival, including these solar still devices which convert sea water to fresh drinking water. Pi calculates that he has 90+ days to live on the food and water alone, without making use of the fishing gear that is supplied. But, wisely, Pi fishes. The part that really stuck out to me, and that I could relate to, was when Pi has to kill a fish to use for bait, the first sentient being he has killed, being a vegetarian.

I very much wish that I could say I haven't killed an animal on purpose. There was the time when, young and foolish, I declared war on a large colony of ants living in the cracks of my driveway. I used all sorts of methods to kill them: A hammer, my fingers, my shoes, magnifying glass, water, etc... That incident was probably my low point, the time where I was on the exact opposite side of the spectrum of beliefs where I am now. Then, 11-ish, I was an overweight, Christian, selfish, straight-F's loser of a kid. I'm so thankful for Time's power to change people, though that sounds selfish. Now, 17 going on 18, I am a healthy, happy, open minded, compassionate, tree-hugging vegetarian. Enough about me though.

Action List 4.27.11

I really like Dewdrops on Daisies' blog the best. Her post about the artwork at spring arts week is my favorite. I really like the effort she puts into her blog too. I wish I wasn't too lazy to add pictures like she does to each of her posts.

Tuesday's Action List

I chose to review Dan and Shannan's home. I really love how they take their gardening so seriously. I would love to be able to grow my own food; to do so is like you never existed on earth (in a good way) like, you aren't depriving nature of its food, in a way. I know it's "natural" to eat the food nature presents, but if you have a choice, why not do what you feel is right? That's my motivation behind being a vegetarian and eventually becoming a vegan. But, back to the home. I also love how they really only use the simple, necessary facilities their home includes. The TV in the living room looks unused and the ping pong table the place where they have a lot of their fun. I really was amused by the question sheet the photographer made for the couple, too. I laughed, probably out loud, when I saw the little drawing of weed and the "(sshhhh)" in the diagram of their garden. I sort of figured they smoked.

Life of Pi (up to page 86)

These pages I read on the way to Chicago with Miqueas and my parents. Of course, with my style of memory, it is difficult to really picture what is happening in the book visually because when I think upon a certain happening in the book I see whatever I was looking out the window at when I heard that part, if I wasn't following along. Right now I'm listening to the new Panda Bear song from NPR's website. Anyway, I really enjoyed Pi's telling of his finding of faith, or more like faiths. The mixture of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism is an interesting one; it reminds me the final episode of Lost. He hasn't into his story about Richard Parker quite yet, but I'm patiently following along with what he's telling now. I got this really cool animated kangaroo bookmark from this bookstore in Downer's Grove in Chicago, and currently it marks the beginning of chapter 33 which I will start with again soon enough.