Star Party Drama and Knowledge

On Saturday, we had a Star Party where I work. [If you don't know what a star party is, a star party is where scientists or an astronomer at a museum bring multiple telescopes of various models and types. Each telescope is focused onto different objects in the sky: Antares (sp?), Saturn, M13 (Hercules Globular Cluster), Polaris, Arcturus, Altair, Deneb, etc. Visitors can come to the Star Party and look through the many telescopes and learn about astronomy.] The Star Party lasted from 7-10 p.m. My parents didn't like the time that it lasted, since "it was too late at night". And they asked me why it had to be that late. Star? Party? Star. Party. To be able to see stars it has to be late at night. Derderder! XP It kinda irritates me how my stepdad is always cynical and asking me, "Why are you so busy? It wasn't mentioned in the schedule that you would do this or that" or blah BLAH. God, I have my own life now, now that he can't handle that he has to get all mad at me for nothing.

Okay, so during the star party, in the observatory, a staff member noticed that one of the locked cabinet doors were left open. Someone called the cops and brought them to check and see if anything had been stolen from the museum. Other than that, I was hanging out with very smart people that showed me different things in the night sky. I felt surrounded by knowledge! Haha!

If you have a museum in your town, you should definitely check it out, you'll learn so much just by looking at different part of the night sky, and you'll learn how to work your way around stars and clusters and galaxies. :)

Huntington Library and Griffith Observatory trip!

Okay, so on Friday the 10th, I went with my classmates and friends to the Huntington Library and Griffith Observatory! :D I'll tell you all about what happened in my counselor's car, during the trip, and on the way back.

From Work to Huntington

We all left at precisely 9:00 a.m. (It takes around 2/3 hours to get to L.A.) And so on the way, I was in my boss' car. We listened to the radio, sang along with the tunes, and talked about random stuff. There are many reasons why you had to be in our car to have the most fun:

1) Horrible yet amusing singing!

There are many people who are good at singing, some people just have the natural ability to be amazing and leave you in awe when they sing, and others just have the natural ability to be just plain horrible.

2) Good music

From what I've heard, the other cars only listened to music that most teens hate.

3) Games!

Sweet and Sour (Wave to people and see if they wave back *Called a Sweet*. Person who has most "sweets" wins.) ABCs (Find an A, B, C, D, and so on, in every license plate in order *no random letters like A D B G I*. First person who gets to Z wins.)

4) Dances in the Car!

Yes, we dance in the car. That's the whole reason why people are looking at our car, because we all are dancing like wild animals! XD

Huntington!

Huntington was amazing and beautiful. When we left the car, it was extremely humid! I walked into the office/lobby just to cool off. We ate lunch since food isn't allowed in the botanical parts of the museum, and walked with the whole group to the Library Exhibition Hall, where there was exhibits of history (From modern times to the medieval ages) and astronomy (they showed constellations and books from Euclid and Galileo) and more. After checking out the Library Exhibition, we walked around on our own for three hours. With my group, we tried going to the Mausoleum, but we weren't sure if it was open to the public. Then we headed to the Chinese/Japanese Gardens, which was so beautiful. There were koi fish in the pond, little trees that were only past 5/6 feet. They looked like bonsai trees! There were bridges that were significantly designed, a chinese restaurant (i think, but there WAS a restaurant!) and little hallways covered by canopies designed like hallways in a palace. After that, I went to the "Conservatory" or Greenhouse. There were sections made for different types of forests like Bog, Tropical Forest, or ____ (I forgot what it is). It was misting every minute, and it was hot outside so I put my face in the little mister fountain....whatever you call it.

From Huntington to Griffith Observatory

So my boss had a GPS, which was a TomTom. It was bestowed the nicknamed Maddie. Maddie took us to the right place, we made it to Griffith park. But once we got there, we turned right instead of left, and we were driving through different parts of the park and the observatory was still along ways away. Maddie took us from one place to the other, and eventually, being confused, she decided to change our destination back home. So we turned the GPS off. Goodbye Maddie! So we went to the left side of the park, and we finally got there, and the other car groups have been waiting for us for the past 20-30 minutes already. But we were able to make it, and boy it was worth it! Griffith Observatory was a three domed building with many turrets and telescopes. It was perched on a cliff overlooking L.A. You could see all of L.A., and the Hollywood sign was not very far away. We bought tickets to a planetarium show, and we watched (I forgot what the name was) a show about the beginning of the science of astronomy, and how big the universe is, and what dark matter is, etc. It was amazing! But the guy there was a paid actor, and at times he overdid the enthusiasm and sounded totally fake. But other than that, it was very exceptional show. After, we were released at the observatory, and we walked around in small groups to different exhibits. We gathered at the cafe at a certain time, and ate our dinner. Soon after, we got a ride back to our car (Our car was parked way downhill. It took like 15 minutes to get from our parking spot to the observatory.) and we headed back home.

From Griffith to Home

It's basically what we did on our way to the Huntington Library, but with excessive singing and dancing and games. :)

So it was a good day, and I loved being with my friends and going to all those beautiful places and learning more about astronomy.

Twilight Magazine Need and Overwhelming Little Young 'Uns

Okay, so Barnes and Noble has the Sexy Stars of Twilight magazine. Today, I had my work shift today at the Sea Center, and so right after, I shot to the store and bought the magazine! It was the last one there, and making sure, it was the last one in stock. :) It was my lucky day today!

Little kids... you might have them as children or siblings or cousins and such. Mentioned previously, I had to work a shift. A camp shift. With little kids. 4-6 years old. Yes, they are all adorable and interested in the ocean and such. But....If you look at it this way, I would rather be in the library shelving books than have a migraine coming from the little kids' screams that comes at least thrice every 5 seconds. It's overwhelming how much energy little tykes have in them. I didnt' think it would run out!

Lemme give you a little scenario on the kids and what they're like. Names have been changed to make sure their parents don't track me down and persecute me for this.

Jordan - Interrupting, screams in a high pitch when enjoying an activity.

Geoff - Has two girlfriends but doesn't want to hurt their feelings by breaking up with them.

Sandy - One of Geoff's girlfriends. Pores over him in every thing. Attempts to hold his hand multiple times. (Remember that they are only - like what - 4 to 6 years old?!)

Kelly - One of Geoff's girlfriends. Behaves more. Doesn't quite pore over Geoff like Sandy does.

* Together, the three just made their own love triangle that irritated the counselors including me*

Melanie - Quiet. Behaves extremely well. Shy. Very bright girl.

*It feels good to know that one of the kids knows how to behave*

So you get the idea. One of the counselors was always saying to me, "Man, I'm done with these kids. I'd rather work with 8-10 year olds. They are so tame compared to these kids."

Yeah, I had to agree.

At Work: Stolen Items! D:

I was at work yesterday (Not necessarily work, but somewhat like it) for a meeting that was mandatory for all newbies like myself to go to. While we were there, a bunch of old people came in with huge cameras and tripods. My boss had booked a time for use in the hall which is required if you want to use a building for any group meetings or classes or all that. So when they came in, my boss checked the calendar, and the "Camera Club" hadn't booked anything that day.
Apparently they were trying to sneak in here without paying the fee.
So anyway, our counselors talk to the Camera Club, and they don't take them seriously. So we called the security guards and they escorted the Camera Club away from the premises.
We use our office, and almost always there is someone in it. During the time periods of the meetings and the games, no one was in here. So someone had probably come in here around those times.
Obviously, as you can suspect, we think the Camera Club had something to do with this burgalry. Think about it.... Elderly people irritated with teens, and decided to take revenge on us innocent teens. :( Urgh.

Facebook? Twitter? Myspace? Quasar pressure and Fourth of July Peeves

My friends are pressuring me to get a Facebook, a Myspace, or a Twitter. GOD it's killing me how social sites like those are so common among teens like myself and apparently if you don't HAVE an account of any of those said social networks, it will just shock and amaze your friends. GRAHHH!!! X[

I joined this program, Quasars to Sea Stars, and it's like... work. But for teens. The pressure to be on time and remember EVERYTHING is a bit overwhelming at first, but it's good to get used to it now. :)

Okay, Fourth of July pet peeves. XP

I was by a park, sitting down and watching the fireworks with my family. This family comes up, and they are all quiet at first, taking videos of the show. But then a girl murmurs to her sister/niece something, and then all of a sudden, she's saying "Ooh!" and "Aah!" at each firework that explodes. She goes on for at least 10 minutes doing it, until her son or young brother says, "Shut up! Some people are watching the fireworks!" I sighed with relief, and was grateful someone had told that annoying lady to be quiet.

I only have a few pet peeves since I'm not easily annoyed:

1) Annoying bursts of laughter, comments, etc.

Funny laughter could be amusing, but after a few minutes of it, it could just get so annoying!

2) Rude interruptions

I hate it when someone would just go up to you while your doing something (like performing) and interrupt you for some meaningless reason.

3) Naturally crabby, mean, nasty, (you get the point) person

I'm an upbeat person, and I would like to stay that way. But if someone would just take one look at you and scoff then say, "I don't like you" (Ahem, A.A.*) Then that just plain says to me that you're a prejudice person, and you have some problems in your mind/life that you are just too stupid to fix.

4) People who don't like you for no reason

Yeah, well this one girl doesn't like me for no reason, (and I've heard it from a reliable source that she said so) which is totally pointless, because, if you don't like anyone, you might as well have a good reason for it. You're just totally making a statement without any backup reason for it, and you'll sound like an idiot.

Yep, so I just wanted to put it out there. If you have someone who just anoys you, maybe a stroke of luck will be with you and they will just stop whatever they're doing and go away :)

FAILURE! Hilarious :)

I am currently up to my eyeballs in homework: studying, reading, blahblah. Blah blah. Blah Blah. blah. My friend - whom I am thankful f0r - pulled me away from studying to give me a break, and showed me this hilarious website: http://www.failblog.org/

It shows totally hilarious mistakes that people do. Here's a few examples to get the gist of the site:

I had to admit, I'm cracking up looking at this site XD