Hannah's Random Thoughts #12: Things I Learned the Hard Way

Listen folks, as you will, allow me to tell you of certain things that I happened to learn in a more difficult way than, perhaps, if someone had just told me.

#1: Plastic is not so different from aluminum.

One time my mom asked me to empty out a bottle of Coca Cola that was in the fridge... I think that she got it from the airport or something. Well, as a dutiful daughter would, I went upstairs and pulled the plastic bottle from the fridge. I was probably around... Oh, nine or so, and I hadn't ever experienced the thrill of shaking a carbonated drink, nor seen the consequences. But, as I took the drink to the sink, something planted a seed in my head that got me thinking. Surely the bubbles only happen when the can is aluminum, after all, it must me some reaction with the metal that causes it to overflow when shaken.

Actually folks, this is not the case. Aluminum is not what causes the reaction, and plastic won't stop it from happening. But, little as I was, these useful bits of information had not yet been gained.

So, the curious child as I was took the bottle and shook it. Everything seem okay. So I unscrewed the lid just as I poured the bottle into the sink. But the Coke did not go down the sink, it actually went all over the place, including some half open drawers that might not have gotten fully cleaned from the disaster.

That is one of those things that I look back on and think oh how silly of me, but, hey, sometimes nine year olds don't quite know how aluminum cans and plastic bottles differ.

#2: DON'T CLICK FORMAT

Another thing that would have been nice to know... If you are playing around on your camera and you've just taken some really nice sunset pictures not to mention a whole spring break load of pictures, then it would be better to not actually click that format button on your camera. It happens to delete all of them, so why it's called format beats me, but if I had known this like all you do now, then I wouldn't have cried. I might have been very happy, actually. What if those pictures made me famous? Well I guess I wouldn't be writing this now and I might not have told you this because I wouldn't have known and then YOU might be famous soon. (So I get the credit guys, c'mon.)

#3: Save. Save. Save. Save.

I don't really want to dwell too much on this one... (To many stressful moments and much frustration) but always save your work on the computer 'cause if you don't..... Well then Papa told ya so.

Other random tidbits: Um, don't eat an orange after drinking milk, uh, it's always a good idea to bring fingernail clippers, bug bite gel, and aloe vera with you on a trip. Hmm.... If you have a sip of water when you have a retainer in and then you go to bed you wake up with worse morning breath than if you take the retainer out to drink the water. (Sorry if that was too gross... It's just one thing if I've found.) oh and spicy food, garlic, and broccoli tend to lead to vivid dreams, at least in my experience.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #11: hee hee

Funny story:

The other day, (actually it was more like several weeks ago), Sarah and I were at school and we were walking down the hall and there was some guy a little ahead of us. He had sort of a big baggy sweatshirt on (you know the type) and obviously a little too big of a shirt because his shirt stuck out from under the sweatshirt just a wee bit.

Sarah kind of laughed a bit and whispered to me "Tuck in your tail, little duck" , and we both quietly stifled our laughter. (That quote is from the Hunger Games. And this certain young man did not seem at all like a "little duck")

I meant to write this a long time ago but anyways there ya go.  

Hannah's Random Thoughts #10: It is rainy and I like it

Last spring break we went to the Grand Canyon but the day before we got there we spent the night in Las Vegas. I remember waking up, looking outside and the first thing I saw was how blue the sky was. I said, "Wow! It's so sunny! Look outside!" and for about 30 seconds I was awestruck at how amazingly blue and clear the sky was.

Then I realized I was not actually in the Pacific Northwest, and in Las Vegas it is sunny a lot of the time.

Ham Fact: Las Vegas has sunny days 80% of the year.

That made me kind of sad, because for me, I would see such a gorgeous day and be really excited and happy but then I realized that people here would wake up and just see a typical sky and probably not even think twice about how awesome it was and just continue their day. So I was sort of sad that nobody else in the city would be as excited about the sky as us Bellinghamsters.

But, today it is rainy and overcast. Welcome to the end of November I suppose. (Although really, this fall has been not the typical crazy windy one we usually get). But I LOVE it when it's this weather. By the end of the summer all I want is lots of rainy overcast weather. I suppose I live in the right place. I just love it because it just feels so cozy and lazy but it could also be wild and adventurous too. It's the best.

I know a lot of people get all sad with all this rainy weather but I like it. I also had a dream last night and I ran outside because it was snowing and the snow was so heavy that if I opened my mouth to catch the flakes by the time I closed it it felt like there was a snowball in my mouth. It was quite nice.
But anyway, hope you like the weather today.

oh and a Ham Fact is just a nice little fact that you can ponder for the day or laugh at or use in an argument someday because they're always true and then you'll win.

Ham Fact: Celeste came up with the name "Ham Fact".

have a great rainy day.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #9: Imagination

This morning I was doing my normal routine, ya know, making weird faces in the mirror and all, and I pretended to fall down on the floor towards the mirror (hey, you do it too) so that my head and my reflection were really close and I thought how weird it would be if something in my reflection was... different....
I think if it was something really subtle it would be the weirdest. Like if an eyebrow was 1/2 and inch higher than it should be and you weren't raising it. That would be weird.

I also was thinking how cool it could be if you could walk into mirrors too. :) I imagine it like the time-turners in Harry Potter... don't let yourself see your self or you'll freak out!

Sometimes when I'm in a car ride and listening to awesome music that makes my heart beat faster I imagine that I'm on a horse galloping away from the bad guys or something.

Sometimes when I am in a very busy, person-filled area (say, the farmers market) and I have a task to complete (say, to get some cheese), I feel like I'm a spy on a mission or in National Treasure...
(Do you know what the preservation room is for? Delicious jams and jellies?)

Or the good ol' run away from the mailbox as fast as you can because the cars passing by are shooting arrows at you and if you don't get to the driveway before the car passes, oh no! That's a good one.

In 3rd grade I remember pretending I was in a movie. I was looking at a poster of a seal and I think I was imagining that the scene of me looking contemplatively at this seal would end and then the music would be dramatic and it would show me 20 years later as a marine biologist or something working with a seal. (Not that I wanted to be a marine biologist, but... I mean... it was a seal.)

Well that's all the thoughts for tonight. I can imagine a lot more I just don't really feel like writing it all out right now.

*giggles nervously, backs away slowly towards door. Lighting dims and antagonist narrows eyes toward Hannah, her head slipping slowly away from view behind the door. Close up shot on antagonists fist, clenched. Door knob turns and door is shut with a soft thud. New scene, Hannah on other side of door exhausted and relieved to be out of the dim room with the scary eyes.*

Now you can imagine whatever events follow. Use your imagination.And don't forget to make weird faces in the mirror.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #8: Memory

I was thinking today as I was eating some Nerds (the candy, guys, not the people), and it was grape flavored. For some reason, that taste brought to my head a picture of me and Sarah really little in the Atlanta Hello Kitty store. So I think we must have gotten some grape flavored candy there, because it just tasted like that memory.

Sparkling apple cider tastes like Christmas Eve. Orange Creamsickles remind me of family reunions. All-dressed chips taste like Canada. I can always remember the taste of those good, Mickey Mouse-shaped lollipops from Disneyland.

A rubbery chemically smell reminds me of some goo Sarah and I had when we were little that came in a pineapple-shaped container. Sometimes when I smell oak trees it reminds me of Atlanta. The crisp foggy air smells like snow and Christmas. A nice musty, lived-in smell reminds me of our old car, "The Explorer". Sweaty hats remind me of Mount Baker.

And on more random notes, I also associate for some weird reason the color yellow with happiness (which is not too abstract) and the letter "e". I have no idea why. But people who's name starts with "e" I just picture wearing a yellow dress or their name in yellow, or something. I don't really know why. Also, it's weird when you see one thing and then you can suddenly remember all of your dream that had that one little thing in it, even if the dream was one that you couldn't remember before. Oh! And then when people hum or sing like, 3 notes, and then you can suddenly think of a whole song (even if it wasn't the song that the other person was humming).

I kind of like it when you can relive all of a tiny memory with a split-second interaction with something random.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #7: Why I Laugh

I really love laughing.

I believe there are 3 general categories of how I laugh (other than a typical haha):

-While running
-With happy tears
-When trying to hold it in

Picture a group of runners, about eight, say, all looking very serious, 3 or 4 abreast running down a trail. Then, a few paces behind is a girl looking back with an embarrassed and annoyed expression. She is looking back at another girl who has several meters of separation between herself and the group. This particular girl is doubled over in laughter, her "heehees" trailing behind her, as her head lolls about her shoulders with an expression of pure insanity across her face. (That girl is me, if you can't tell. And the one looking back would be Sarah.)

One of the best (and worst) times you can laugh is on a run. Sometimes I'll be running and I just have this huge urge to laugh. It's so much fun and so terrible at the same time, because somehow it makes it funnier when you are just laughing your head off behind all the other runners, and then it's kind of awkward after a while. And it also feels like you've done about 100 sit-ups.

My running-laugh is really odd, too, which makes it even more awkward. It is usually really repetitive and weak-sounding, since I'm all out of breath from having to run and laugh at the same time. ("Ha ha ha heeheehee..... Ha ha ha ha heeheehee!.... HA HA ha heeheehee!!!...") I can't ever really tell if the other runners are weirded out when it happens... I sound sort of crazed. (Interjection from Sarah: They ARE weirded out.)

I also love getting to the point when you cry because you laugh so hard. It's a nice when you wipe away tears as you gasp to catch your breath. Proof of your investment in an emotion.

Then there's the good ol' hold-in-every-breath-because-this-is-a-situation-where-you-shouldn't-laugh-anymore type of laugh. This usually happens if I pick up on something sort of late, or else we all laughed about it for a while and I still think it's funny, or it's something subtle that most people didn't notice but you and your one friend are trying to supress the giggles. Sarah and I call this, "Internal Chaos".

But overall, I think laughing is just dandy. Here's some funny stories that make me laugh: (most of these have to do with Sarah)

The Picture
Being a twin has it's odd moments. One of these moments occurred when I was trying to take a picture of Sarah on an iPad. I started to get the camera ready and she grinned, ready for her close up. I opened up the camera app, and, to my annoyance, she had stopped smiling. I just wanted to get the silly picture taken, so I took my eyes off the screen to tell her to smile.... but she was. I glanced back at the screen. Again, Sarah wasn't smiling. As I opened my mouth to say "Can you smile?!?" I realized I had been looking at myself through the front-facing camera but I had just thought it was Sarah. We laughed about it for a long time.

The Bubble-in-the-Throat
So, it just happens that we were going to watch Monsters, Inc. with our cousins. Sarah was feeling like, I don't know... conversation should be started while the previews were still going. She was going to ask if our cousins liked Mike or Sully better, but she only got as far as "Um, so, do you guys," when all three of us (me and our two cousins) looked at her with our eyes wide with a mixture of humor and confusion. Sarah had a ginormous, massive bubble in her throat that made her "Um, so, do you guys," quite funny. To this day I have continue to tease her about it.

The Arm
(Why are all these stories about Sarah!?!) When Sarah and I were little, we were sitting at a table in our playroom with our arms in the middle of the table alternating (Like Sarah left arm, Hannah left arm, Sarah right arm, Hannah right arm). Sarah got mad at me or was feeling silly or something, and she wanted to draw a smiley face on my arm. But she got confused with the amount of arms on the table, (four was a big number back then!), and she drew a blue smiley face on her arm. I escaped unmarked.

The First Drive
The first time I drove by myself, I just did a short drive to a neighborhood up the street. I guess I was feeling all nervous and only focusing on the road, because as I continued down the street to come home, I thought, "Wow... seems like I should have passed our driveway by now..." and I looked out the window as I saw our driveway flash by. But I was going 35mph, folks, and I had no time to stop and turn! After a brief application of the brakes and a heavy bout of laughter all alone in the car, I managed to turn around and make it back home. But I just kept laughing at myself and thinking "You missed the driveway! You missed the driveway!"

Hannah's Random Thoughts #6: Running Lightly

I generally consider myself a fairly quiet runner. I find it almost disruptive when someone's footsteps hit the trails with the same thunk thunk. With quiet feet, the pattern is varied and  changes from inaudible pat-pat-pats to the soft crunch of leaves under my shoe. And I think it's cool when you can be in the forest undetected if you so choose...like a hobbit! :)

I remember reading Hunger Games -I think it was the first one- and I can still remember Katniss' annoyance at Peeta's clumsiness in the woods. After that when Sarah and I went up in our woods or ran somewhere trail-y I tried to Katni-fy my steps. It was kind of fun.

Running lightly makes you feel like a spy or a hobbit or... like you know all parts of the trail with your eyes closed.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #5: Textbooks

As I was reading my chapter for AP US history, I was thinking.... What if the school gave out DVDs of textbooks, and a nice voice read out all of the text (maybe in a British accent!! I find reading in Professor Snape's voice helps me memorize) as the screen showed accompanying images or maybe the text also on screen. 

Then it wouldn't take as long to read and then copy down, you can copy down as you listen! And then at the end of each chapter it ran over the highlights again. It *would* be more difficult to study at school due to less access to a tv, etc, but along with the normal textbook it might be helpful.

 I don't know. Just some genius I thought of as I was doing my homework.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #4: Facebook

I was just thinking what if Facebook had a little meter and it timed how long you were on Facebook? I wonder how quickly you would start to rack up days/months/years(?) (hopefully not!!) and then how people would feel about seeing "So-and-so has spent 6 months on Facebook" on their home feed. I think it would make people go on less. Or at least I would probably go on Facebook less.

 And what if we were "sentenced" by Facebook to spend all that much time AGAIN on facebook consecutively... like in a room with only facebook to be on for, say, 6 months. No sleeping. No real interactions with people in real life. No eating. (Ok, you can eat.) 

I'm not saying I'm quitting my facebook or anything, (Don't worry folks, I'll still be there to entertain you!! ) I just think that people would lose interest in Facebook pretty and really see how addictingly-boring it is.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #3: Dreaming

Ok, as many of you know, I love dreaming. I love dreams. It's so weird when you start to think about it, because it's almost more of a "you" brain than when you're conscious, because there's none of those distractions of everyday life and it's just your own brain having it's own ideas and not being interrupted. 

I have noticed over time that the small things that you don't really "have time to think about" in real life are usually the topics in your dream. The eraser that broke in 2nd period might be your pillow in your dream (that was a made up example). The random man you might have seen in a grocery store suddenly becomes your uncle (the uncle part was true). It's just odd. 

So really, if those ideas that you don't have enough time for in real life are the things you really focus on in your dreams maybe the real you is in your dream.... o_o wow. Isn't that weird?!

Hannah's Random Thoughts #2: Perspective

Isn't perspective weird? I mean, take a sandwich for instance. We have a slice of bread or too, some cheese and some meat and call it a sandwich. If you were just snacking on a piece of bread and then ate three slices of cheese and then popped some meat into your mouth, you'd probably not think of it as a meal, but suddenly when you stack them all up it's decent enough even though separately your stomach would still have the same amount of food in it.

I don't know. Just some thoughts as I research for a Mock Trial.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #1: Harry Potter

So the other day I was thinking about all the Harry Potter pins on Pinterest that say "we are the potter generation" and how it's kinda cheesy but true, and then I was thinking how what if schools 50 years from now read that book for some project but it's considered like a fiction classic or something awesome, and if the kids will like it or hate it because they have to read it.

 And then what if years from now people from nowadays will always say quotes from Harry Potter, and then what if they become as things that we say all the time like "out of the frying pan, into the fire" but instead we would say things like, "you're going to get yourselves killed, or worse, expelled!" When our kids do something foolish. And we'll try to say it in a Hermione voice but it just won't be the same. And then overtime people will be like "what's that from?" And then I'll say, "THAT'S FROM HARRY POTTER!!!" 

And then we'll have some great conversation and then we will watch them or read them again and the magic will live on.....