i'm at school...i should be happy...

so i'm at school now...in the midst of endless training for my hall government position, which i had imagined would be more entertaining than it is. we were off campus yesterday till today...and now the training resumes on campus and in hall. i was just informed that i will be running the floor meetings...that was news to me, which means that i have a lot of regulations and rules to go over and be familiar with. i'm suppose to be working with the CA's, but i was given a huge packet of information today about the meeting with the freshmen, and then the all floor meeting...and agh, i just have a lot to do. and the true joy of being here was going to be this high speed internet...haha...what a joke. first of...because i am my haircolor i guess, i forgot to sign up at resnet to actually get internet in my room, so i had to wait till today, when we arrived back on campus from training, to go get my cable. so that's all fine and good, i got my cable, set up my computer, go to run the registration scripts...and i can go no further. it keeps telling me over and over again that i need to run my virus scan, which i have done about 50 times...ahhhh!!! apparently others are having problems too, but dang it all, i currently have no tv in my room, no internet...no freaking anything! it's a good thing we're gone all day long at training, cause i just sit at my computer getting exceedingly annoyed. but yeah, in other news...wait, i really have no other news. hmm...*thinking*...yeah, pretty sure there is no other news from my end, or at least nothing worth posting on here and this computer lab that i'm in is really cold, so i think i'm going to end here and maybe go read a book...or go to bed early. what a weird concept...going to bed at 10pm! so bubye for now

aren't we cute...

this is me and Shelly all dressed up and looking nice. for the national judging contest we got black suits and red shirts so we'd match as a team and we all looked so good...so for one of the programs at the fair, we were asked to dress in our suits, so we did and this is the result. and then shelly framed this picture for me. i don't know what we're going to do now that we're going to different schools...we were together for basically 4 weeks this summer! i'm going to go through withdrawls of her and linda! but at least i have this picture...cause we look cute and i like it!

i'm a hero!

i'm a hero for tonite...a wet one, but a hero nonetheless...to 3 helpless little kittens which are absolutely precious. i suppose one might be wondering what heroic thing i did for these kitties...so i will enlighten you. i was up in my room, listening to music, listening to the pouring rain and attempting to pack when i thought i heard a faint crying outside. so i went downstairs, flipped on the light and listened. then i heard it again, very clearly. so i headed out in the downpour to find the owner of the distraught crying. shortly thereafter, i found a poor drenched kitten huddling against the house, behind some flowers. so i scooped it up and went inside to find a towel for myself and the kitten, as we were both quite wet. i then went back to my room, with my little companion, waiting for it to warm up and dry off and we had a jolly time. i was sitting at the computer, again listening to my music and typing away at some stuff, and the kitten was happily sitting on my lap, playing with whatever moved (namely my fingers), attempting to crawl onto the keyboard and purring whenever i touched it...as i said, adorable. then the power went out, cutting out my source of music and making any further typing quite futile. so i decided to head out into the rain to the garage to get a cage for the kitten to stay in overnight. well, when i got to the door, i heard a familiar crying, so i grabbed the flashlight to find the owner of this new set of meows. well this time i found two kittens, now completely soaked to the core..and under the deck, which required me to pull away the lattice and sorta crawl under there, all the while joining the kittens in their sogginess. i repeated my previous drying efforts, doing my best not to drip all over the house as i gathered stuff (yes, i was that wet). then, being soaked already, i venture out into the rain once again to get a cage from the garage. once all the kittens were dry, i snuggled them into their cage for the evening and now i'm here...recounting the tale of my heroic deeds, and noticing with a hint of annoyance that the incredible downpour that i had to be out in, ceased shortly after i got insided for the final time. but anyways, i am a hero in my book, and since none of those kittens can talk, there shall be no dispute over the actuality of my hero status. so just let me have my happy little moment. well that's all there is for this evening...till later...bubye

the fair is over...

so my week at the dodge county fair is complete...well it was actually over on sunday night, but it has taken me this long to get onto this. the week went pretty well. it was lots of work and my younger brother didn't quite feel the need to spend lots of time in the barn watching the animals, so consequently, i was stuck there pretty much all the time, when i wasn't running around to the other things i need to make appearances at. being on the dairy judging team that won nationals made me a small celebrity around fair so i needed to show my face at a few different functions throughout the week. all in all the week was good though...the dairy show went well and all 5 of my animals did well and i walked away with a reserve champion with one of my cows. that was a crazy day, very hectic, and quite tiresome, but i still love showing. i showed a handful of rabbits as well. i had every intention of being rid of them by now, but mom seems to think she likes them...thus they still find residence in the shed. anyways, i did very well with them as well, gathering another trophy and making it into the auction where i sold my purely evil rabbit for $85...which is a sweet deal for me cause i hated her cause she hated me, thus i would make less than $5 selling her elsewhere. other than that, nothing too exciting happened. saturday night i spent the night in the barn. my brothers decided that they wanted to go home at like 10pm, and i had finally had some time out of the barn that evening, so i went to the concert and then wanted to hang out with some of my friends, so when the boys said they wanted to leave, i wasn't ready, so the next best solution was to leave me there to fend for myself. Ty and Kayla were staying there overnight too, so i figured i could manage. i had a mostly jolly time hanging out with Linda and Mandy till they went to bed, then i hung around with Ty, talking till the wee hours of the morning. then when Ty and i were walking back in the barn, i noticed the some kid's cow had had her calf...so i had to drag the slimy little thing up to the mother so she could lick it off. and when i say slimy...i mean slimy...it was tough to get a hold of it and my hands got covered in that pleasant goo. anyway, that calf kept me occupied at random times for a few hours. i tried to get it to nurse too, which sorta worked. so finally, at about 3:45 i headed to my not so comfortable chair to sleep. well by that time, i wasn't tired, and i was very cold and the random noises kept me awake. so i'd drift in and out of sleep randomly. then i woke up and saw a calf walking out of the barn, and thought, 'hmm, that's not good...uh, Melanie, wake up and go get the escaping calf!' so i was half awake, standing in the isle of the barn, holding some strangers calf thinking, 'where the HECK does this thing belong, please somebody come take it away from me and let me go to sleep'...but of course, there wasn't a soul around to take it away from me, so i stood there like a lost dog, trying to kick my brain into gear to find a home for the escaped beast, which i did at long last. so then i went back to my chair, wearing about 3 sweatshirts and still freezing, where i stayed, again fading between sleep and half consciousness for the next hour or so. so that was a short, very cold night. and then i had to do morning chores by myself too. but anyways, that was my week...mostly a lack of excitement, with a few entertaining moments in there. i did enjoy some good concerts though, which was a plus, though i'm generally not a real concert going person. so i think that about sums it up...for now at least, until i remember something else, but we'll leave it at this till then...bubye

this is great fun! i may get carried away pretty quick just to warn everyone. now you all can see me and my good looking brothers...there will probably be more of these when rachel sends me the rest from our 'photo shoot' cause there are more that i may feel like showing off.

so i finally figured out how to post pictures...believe me, i'm no computer genius, but also know that i have not tried since my first and last attempt back in may, but anyways, this would be me if you hadn't guessed...now somebody tell me how to post a picture in my profile and we'll really be making some progess...

my day...as told by me...

why am i still awake? its after 2:30am and i'm still here...anyways, here's what kept me busy today. i walked my cows...i washed calves...i bailed hay (straw to be exact, but hay is more easily understood by the general populace), actually, i sat on a tractor driving for 2+ hours watching my dad work, but it's all good. dad then tried in vain to teach me how to back the tractor and bailer into the shed...that's impossible and i just can not do it. i felt so dumb! anyways, after that jolly fun was done, i went to the woods to retrieve the lazy cows that hadn't come home, then tied up the cows in the barn, then went out to make my heifer with a sore foot come home and get some water, then i walked home and realized that I had a dirt tan...quite nice. I fed the hungry creatures that were complaining at me, walked one of my calves around, then enviously admired brendon's friend jason's new crotch rocket...such a nice bike! i'm totally making him take me for a ride sometime! he's a sweet guy...he'll do it. after jason left i got into a water fight with the most unlikely person...my mom! she had the hose and just randomly decided that my face needed to be watered when I was walking past her...i was dirty yes, but not that bad. so from there things just went crazy and in my vain attempt to take the hose, or stop the flood of water being directed at me, I got soaked. eventually I got a hold of the end, but mom kinked it and we stood face to face, about a foot apart for a good minute and half, laughing out heads off. finally mom begged to be allowed to escape and i said i would follow the rules of water fights and let her go. well when she turned her back and made it to the deck, i soaked her back, all the while laughing about how there are no rules in water fights! she was complaining about it wasn't fair cause i have so much more practice with water fights, but it was jolly fun and she seemed to enjoy it. i spent a long time on the phone tonite with a good number of people and now i'm here and that's was my day...the end. i'll refrain from doing this too often cause i know no one wants a play by play of my days, but i lacked other interesting stuff...bubye for now.

state fair...

i have officially lived through and returned home after another year of showing at the wisconsin jr. state fair, and this was my final year as a junior…talk about feeling old, i was the only one from my county who was on their final year. i got a blue with my calf, we looked awesome out in that show ring together, but it wasn’t nearly the week i was looking forward to. it was really quite bland…the word blah pretty much sums up my opinion of it. getting that blue was wonderful cause i didn’t expect it, but the rest was just blah. getting up at 3:30am and going to bed at 11:30pm is not a pleasant thing. i think most of my problem was that the chaperones were on my list of people i don’t tolerate well…there was too much favoritism, too much bossing around, WAY too many stupid, pointless, obnoxious rules that we were required too follow…just too much drama. nothing was any different than past years, but now that i’m older, i see the injustice more and lack the patience to just ignore it and deal. and…this being my last year, i thought i would be a sr. herdsman (4 older kids who are kinda the second level bosses…the go betweens)…but i wasn’t asked to do that. it’s not that i really wanted the job, but i wanted to know that i had the respect of the adults showing that they realized i was capable of filling that role. But, they didn’t pick me…they picked shelly over me, which was like being kicked in the stomach when i found out cause she has 3 years left to show. i think sarah, one of the chaperones, hates me. i can assure you that i am none to fond of her, but i don’t believe i’ve ever done anything outright to make her dislike me. she’s just crabby and bosses us around constantly. she makes a big deal about no one being allowed to sit down during chores, which mostly makes sense, cause yes, everyone should be working, but if someone sits down for a moment, she’s all over them about it, and then she goes and returns to her seat. that’s right…she does not help us…ever. she sits back and watches us, looking for any opportunity to boss us around. anyways, the whole week was filled with sarah’s crabbiness, and other people being stupid, moody and annoying. of course there were people that I thoroughly enjoyed being with. sunday night was our annual pizza party/water fight, but it was weak this year and nothing to talk about. linda and i had to do nightline Sunday night (stay out in the barn all night watching the 37 animals from my county). usually something fun/funny happens, but there wasn’t much this year, other than kyle just being weird. right now i’ve been awake for over 25 hours and had probably about 7-8 hours of sleep in the past 58 hours. i feel ok, but i’m sure i’d be out in a moment if i went to bed. i really screwed up my shoulder this week doing who knows what. it hurts when i move it in most directions and any kind of lifting or moving things is hard and painful. Unfortunately, with county fair coming up next week, there is no chance of it healing up any time soon. i really thought i would have something fun to write about…but i guess i really don’t. oh, i did have great fun with the ‘little boys’ from my county.they’re ranging in age from 15-12 and i could get most of them to do anything i wanted. ben is definitely the biggest flirt i have ever encountered and i got a lot of laughs at what all he’d say to me. actually, all the boys were really nice to me this year, so that was cool cause they can make things a HUGE pain. maybe they were just afraid of me, cause during the water fight, zach asked me to let him get bekah to the washracks to get wet, and he said that if i let him take her, he wouldn’t get me wet, and i said that he wouldn’t get me wet anyways, to which he responded, ‘you’re probably right, you punch too hard.’ i swear i never touched that kid but he was still afraid of me! i never really hit anyone that they would know, but i must just be intimidating enough that they were afraid, and zach is like 6’3”! how fun! but yeah, for the most part i love that group of kids, they’re cool, i just wish our chaperones would lighten up and let us make the work some fun. Ok, I’m out cause I’m literally falling asleep at my computer now…bubye.

fun stuff...

what a fun weekend i had. my mom, brothers and myself went up to my grandparents vacation trailer about 2 hours north of here in wisconsin dells. it was so relaxing. we didn't have anything we had to do, nor anywhere we had to go and it was just wonderful. i got in some time at the pool, swimming and soaking up some sunshine and reading...i haven't had any time to do any pleasure reading all summer and it was heavenly. we went to the drive in to see a movie which was great fun. it started to rain, but it was still cool...especially when the lightning started to streak across the dark sky behind the screen. i had a jolly time with my brothers. we haven't really had any time to connect and have fun together this summer. at home we mostly just live in the same house cause we're always running all over the place doing this and that. i was quite determined to make brendon have a fun weekend since it had been his birthday on friday. well, things ended up being very fun, but very rough, but every bruise i returned home with was fully deserved. brendon made sure to tell me that if get a boyfriend, i need to get someone who is tough enough to put up with me and then later he was telling ethan that if i couldn't be taken out by a horse, then there was no chance they were going to take me down. smart guy! oh, and speaking of being taken down by my horse, my black eye is getting much better. it's still very evidently a black eye, but it looks so much better. even my dad said that i had by far the worst black eye he'd ever seen. well, i don't have much else to say. i'm getting ready for state fair now. i and my calf go in on wednesday morning. i just washed her a little while ago, so for the moment, she's spotless. i did get stepped on, so my toe is a little sore now. i don't quite know how i managed that, i haven't been stepped on a great while. i was scrubbing away on her hooves, trying to get them clean and i guess she just stepped into me and since i was basically crouched down, almost beneath her, she just caught my foot. oh well, it happens. that's what you get for working with big animals. that's all for now...i'll write more after state fair. i know for a fact that there will be something fun to write about...water fights and other random hilarity. till then...bubye!