Quickly

In just a few hours I'll be boarding a plane with the rest of my classmates and the principal and his wife. We're headed to California!

I'm looking forward to this senior trip, though with a some trepidation. It's hard to imagine that we could spend six days in each other's constant company without really getting on each other's nerves. Especially if one of us will be going without her customary tea time.

The hour is late. I will to bed.

Ag Field Day

It's been a while since I posted last. Things have been insanely busy. I'm enjoying a quiet spring Sunday afternoon and finally have time to write a little bit.

April 28 was a big day for Telly and me. Every year on the last Saturday in April there is an event called Ag Field Day at the Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus. There are lots of other activities going on, but most important to me is the 4-H Seeing Eye dog show judged by instructors. I've always looked forward to Ag Field Day, mostly for that brief contact with Seeing Eye's instructors. They have the awesome job of training my beloved puppies for guide dog work. They know what it takes to train a dog, and they know what a dog has to have to do that kind of work. So their opinion of my puppy and the way I work with my pup is very important to me.

As you can see from the picture, the instructors were favorably impressed! Telly and I placed third out of twenty-five puppies. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. I had daydreams of coming away with first place in her age group and even best in show. It would be a wonderful end to my Ag day experiences, but it was not to be. The instructors didn't deduct any points but an adult puppy raiser who judged her appearance took off half a point because the training collar has worn the much of the fur off around her neck. Such is life. Better that she be well behaved and prepared for guide dog work than she have all her fur. She's gorgeous anyway!

I kept some small hopes of pulling best in show at our own club show on June 2, but Telly went into season yesterday and she is at the kennel. I miss her.

Irony

Sometimes life is very ironic. The other day I was walking Telly. It was gorgeous weather; she was behaving perfectly; life was good. I was actually thinking about writing a post about how much I enjoy walking my dog this time of year when all of a sudden I found myself sprawled on the ground. She saw a squirrel and decided to give chase.

I was thinking recently about one of the reasons I decided to blog. I
quote:

But mostly, I think, I'd like to become more comfortable and confident writing. Except for e-mails, essays for school are the only things I write, and I find them so difficult and laborious that I dread them. And I don't want to dread writing. So I figure, what better way to learn to write than to write about interesting things whenever I feel like it?

I think blogging has helped a bit. I still find writing very difficult, and it still takes me a long time, but I think feel more comfortable doing it. At least I might dread essays a wee bit less. I'm glad about that. But I was amused when I took a moment to compare my essay grades from before and after the birth of Ramblings. I found that my average essay grade has fallen about four points. In fact the last two essays have been A- instead of A+. (The end of the world is coming!) Perhaps blogging is bad for me. Or just bad for my GPA. Good riddance to grade point averages - I'm not quitting.

And the further irony is that in spite of my amazing ability to average numbers and compute differences I still think I'm going to fail the AP Calculus test on Wednesday.