what kind of world is this?

I read a story today about 2 teenagers were kissing on the school bus. result? they were both expelled. I guess the school board feels that kissing another person is such a heinous and unnatural act, that anyone guilty of it doesn't deserve an education. If anything the school board aught to be applauding the social and emotional development of these teenagers. I can only conclude that they are bitter old men and women who are so depressed and disapointed in their own lives, they can't stand the thought of happiness in the world. This of course is not an isolated case. I've also read about schools where all touching has been banned. You can't give someone a hug, you can't give them a high five, you can't give them a freakin hand shake!!! what kind of a world is this where 2 friends can't give each other a high five after a good play in gym class, or have a secret handshake, or have any kind of hand shake?!?!?! Who is it that thinks this is good for education. I have an idea of how to help kids learn more. Ban them from all human contact. If people are this concerned about human interaction maybe we should just stop having public schools. Clearly children are not fit to interact with each other, so they should all be home schooled. Soon we can a society similar to the one Asimov envisioned where people would never have to be in the same room with each other and would lead entirely solitary lives. what kind of world is this anyway?

May i please have 2 hours 45 minutes of my life back.

I don't know who else is dancing in Svente, but hopefully you guys use your time better than we do. We had practice last night and accomplished a grand total of nothing. We are in the process of learning 2 dances, but one of the instructors wasn't there, so that narrowed us down to 1 dance. You would think with the entire practice focused on a single dance we could get a lot accomplished. NO. First off we had several people who missed the previous week so we had to relearn all of that (all things which should take no more than 20 minutes to learn, but took more than a hour last week, and another 45 minutes this week.) We started learning the complicated part last week and there were 2 guys and 2 girls missing from the 3 couples that have the most complicated parts. Instead of changing around who has to learn those parts, we all stayed in the same places and extra girls plugged in the parts for the guys. So this week we had to do all those complicated parts all over when most of the people came. But one of guys, who will be regularly missing practice for a different dance practice, was still not here. So next time we have to learn all those parts all over again when he's here. It would be too easy to just put another couple in that spot, then where would the challenge be. Secondly our instructor had no idea what people are supposed to do. She seemed incapable of reading the directions properly and kept getting confused as to which part we were at. I understand that those directions are almost universally poorly written and difficult to understand (although why that is i can't imagine) but isn't it possible to look them over at home before rehearsal. And so we kept dancing the entire dance over and over again even though everyone knows the first half. the end result. We learned 15 seconds of a 5 minute dance. and it was a super easy 15 seconds. 4 lines, guys, on the 2 outside lines, girls in 2 inside lines. guys switch with partners, switch with guys, switch with other girls, girls switch, switch with partners, guys switch again, switch with other girls, girls switch. That may sound complicated here, but it really isn't. In a group that is chronically pressed for time, and we are constantly kept late we spent 15 minutes of actual learning.

Studentu stovykla

I have already posted this identical post on studentu thoughts on the so called studentu website, but as far as i can tell that site has only 1 dedicated poster/commenter, me. This site has at least me and one other loyal reader (hopefully more who are too tired or stricken with carpal tunnel syndrome to respond) so i'll post my same thoughts here. I plan to post more thoughts in the future, but given the lack of feedback who knows.

Since coming back from Studentu Stovkla I’ve been thinking about our experiences, and when I think I about studentu, I touch myself (in an emotional and spiritual way.) Anyway, here are some of my recollections of this year’s stovykla.

Best Moment: Punching Vytenis in the face. The only thing that could have made this moment better is if I could remember it. Unfortunately I was asleep at the time. Vytenis tried to wake me for more mischief and mayhem, but I gave him both barrels instead.

Runner up: Talking about politics with Ieva and Dovas. The first night we got into a deep political discussion, and Dovas and I became so embroiled we continued our discussion even after going to bed and after everyone else had to sleep. Then we resumed our discussions the next night. Upon my advice they will both try to read Atlas Shrugged if they remember, and or aren’t put off when they realize the immense size of the book.

Best Activity: Skiing. I haven’t been skiing in a long time so I was super excited to go. Although the mountain wasn’t the biggest ever, and the snow was the best ever, and the easy hills were far too crowded, it was super duper fun. I got to ski both with the first time skiers a little, (I tried to help Gaja, but wasn’t especially successful, I understand she did much better after freeing herself from my tutelage) and ski with the more experienced skiers/snowboarders who were considerably better than me.

Runner-up: Board Game Night. We played board games or cards probably daily, but there was only one night when we all played together. Despite some minor kinks in the game play, and a few slight disagreements between myself and the board game's creators about what the rules should be, I think everyone had a fun time. Everyone except for the losers (Vytenis’ team) who had to wait on for the winners all night (my team.)

Most disappointing: Not making a movie. Although we did get some funny movies of people just having fun, we did not manage to plan out any plays/skits/fake interviews, etc. as I had hoped to. It’s not really all that disappointing, I guess that just goes to show how few disappointments there were.

Runner up: Not managing to properly plan out a discussion of my thesis. I failed to determine ahead of time what would be appropriate and interesting to talk about. I went in thinking I would talk about essentially all aspects of my thesis only to realize part way in that most of it wouldn’t be all that interesting. Luckily, Rasa saved me and started up a conversation on her own about what’s important to us as Lithuanians and students.

Random thoughts: To the best of my knowledge nobody threw up all during camp. Quite an accomplishment during flu season with everyone walking around outside and skiing.

Tuna fish artichoke bean dip.

I don’t know exactly what went into financing our various camps but given everything we were able to do this year, it seems vastly price superior to Neringa. The skiing/food/beverages/lodgings/bacon content of this year’s stovykla were all phenomenal.

Final thoughts, the ballroom dancing was super fun, and a good way to lead up to New Years Eve, but next time I think we should do some Lithuanian dances, too. Either just dances that would be pretty easy to teach, like suktinis or gyvataras, or making up dances like we did a couple years ago.

The legend of Zelda

As some of you may know, the best video game all of time is The Legend of Zelda for NES. For the rest of you, you might as well stop reading, go and play the game, cause that is way more important to your life than reading this blog. On the Wii, which my father got for christmas, you can purchase old games online and play them. So far he has purchased only 1 game, the legend of zelda, so i've been playing it a lot. My goal is to beat it without dying once, which is not quite as easy as it sounds, but ultimately worth the effort. The really frustrating part is when you get to a part from which you cannot continue or go forward. That happened to me today. I got trapped in a room with 3 dodongos and i only had 1 bomb. I was trapped in the room so i had to let them kill me. That was in the 4rth dungeon on the second version. Although technically i can start again from the start of the second version with no deaths, as my father pointed out i then couldn't claim i had gone from the start of the game to the end without ever dying. You'd think he'd want me to spend more time on my job search, but i guess he wants me to just keep play zelda, so he feels the need to point out details like that.

All crime solved.

So I was driving towards a week and a half ago and at the start of the highway there are signs about construction ahead slow your speed. So i slow down to the normal speed limit, but not all the way to what you are supposed to. Then i see a cop in the distance so i slow down all the way. I get past him i start to speed up again and what do i spot another cop car in the distance so i slow back down. I get past him start to speed up, and what do i see? another cop car so i slow down again. I start to speed back and what do i see? a sign that the construction area has ended. You know what i didn't see that whole time? any construction!!! Maybe there is some construction going on at some time in the day, but there certainly wasn't any then. Just 3 cop cars containing either 3 or 6 cops (i don't know if they have partners for this job) accomplishing nothing except slowing traffic for no reason. So i'm driving back to Meriden this week what do i see? 4 cop cars, no construction. I drive home, back to meriden a couple of hours later. 3 cop cars, no construction. These cops are being paid for what now? I assume this is happening because all crime has been solved in Connecticut. And while that's reassuring, and nice to know, there's no reason to keep having a police department once all crime has been solved. We should at least trim it down and cut off some of the useless fat.

Tomliepa Tomfoolery

As some readers may already be aware my sister has already flown out of the country, but before doing so she managed to create some trouble. She and my mom went shopping, and once they finished shopping headed back to the car only for my sister to realize she no longer has any keys. They go back to the store ask at the lost and found but no keys. Well that's no problem, she's got a cellphone so she can call someone to pick her up. Except oh wait, she had recently lost all of her phone numbers so she has no numbers. No problem, cause my mom has my phone so they can use the numbers from my phone. Except oh wait my mom let that phone run out of batteries several days ago. So my sister calls me to find out if i know anyone's phone numbers. I of course do not. i found some people's home phone numbers online, but of course no one picks up, and i don't know how to find cell phone numbers online. So there's only 1 thing to do i have to ride a bike to the store with another key. Of course all of our bikes are broken down. I found 1 that looked in decent condition except that the tires are flat. luckily we have no working tire pumps. We have 1 semi-working one which will pump most of the way, but once there's any air pressure it stops pumping. So i start riding my bike with flat tires to the store. After about a mile some piece breaks off and i have to listen to it clacking the rest of the way. Eventually i managed to get them the spare key and we all lived happily ever after. Or at least happily ever until now.

Why do people drive these cars?

Apparently people in CT now drive cars that require you to lift a 30 pound weight or complete a complicated computation in order to use a turn signal. That's the only reason i can think of why people refuse to use their turn signal. In my car i don't even need to take my hand off the wheel, it's just a little flick of the wrist. As a result i can easily use my turn signal even if nobody is following meanwhile. People in these new fangled cars don't even use their turn signals when I'm following close behind them, and they are going to turn off in the middle of the road. I can understand why people wouldn't use their turn signal if they need to lift a large weight, or can't complete the calculation in time, but what i can't understand is why people would buy cars like that in the first place.

Tomturkey Tomfoolery.

Once again i took an extended vacation from blogging to finish up studying and passing my exam, huzzah. And then it was hard to get back into it, but now we'll start with the story of a turkey. This seemed like a pretty ordinary turkey, it was planning to be eaten on thanksgiving just like most turkeys, but this particular turkey was ordered by my mom on the internet to be delivered to our house the day before thanksgiving. Now i believe you can order a lot of gourmet food to be delivered to your house, but the whole idea seems ridicioulus to me. As i suspected the turkey did not arrive and at the last minute we had to go get another one. We got our money back, got a new turkey had a delicious thanksgiving and I, in my naiveness thought that would be the end of the story. But roughly a week later my mom gets an email that turkey has arrived and i go out to see if there is in fact a box out there. Well i don't know exactly how long the box had been sitting out on our driveway, but i do know that i was long for the cardboard box to be seeping wet and for one of our dogs to have torn the top off and started to try to eat the turkey. The turkey had of course gone bad from it's week plus in transit and the dog had little success in consuming or digesting it. After the being infected by the horrible smell of the rotting turkey we managed to dispose of it. So everyone lost. Even the turkey. Lesson of the story. Don't order food on the internet. At least not a thanksgiving turkey.