Don't play with it

Beijing used rockets to keep the Olympic ceremony dry.

I didn't even know this was possible, and I didn't dream of the possibility of man being able to control weather like that.

It says in this article I stumbled across they would fire artillery into the sky to create rainclouds, which could increase rainfall by 30%, and then the rain would disperse over a different area leaving the location that they want want to be dry, cloudless and rain free.

They apparently do this around times of celebrations and such.

The Independent

China's cunning multimillion-pound plan to manipulate the Olympic weather seems to be yielding results. While rain drenched the capital yesterday, the downpour that should have fallen on Friday night was averted; Olympic organisers fired a barrage of 1,110 rockets into the evening sky to make sure the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony was precipitation-free.

...Making rain
How did it begin?
It may sound like science fiction, but cloud-seeding was developed in the 1940s by US chemist Vincent Schaefer.
What is cloud-seeding?
Particles injected into a cloud act as nuclei to which water vapour freezes. The resulting droplets fall as rain or snow.
How does it work?
Silver iodide is fired at the clouds from aircraft or artillery batteries.
Cloud ownership
Occasional rows break out between countries over who "owns" the rain from clouds.
The debate...
Some meteorologists say it can boost rainfall by up to 30 per cent. Others disagree.

*several hours later*

Isn't that interesting...

Anyways... Shelli out.

Today was my Godsister's birthday. She had a dinner and a small gathering...

I'm super sleepy.
I'm out.

Brace yourselves for cliche Saturday...

***

It's been an eventful past few weeks.

A day last week I believe it was... a Wednesday... Yours truly code-blue at the hospital. I can only assume what this "code-blue" is.

Essentially, I have this incredibly stupid fear of needles. However it was never this bad before... Normally I just hate getting any blood work done on me, and I look away during the process. This time though they took 3 vials of blood from my skinny petite constitution. This is the most blood that's ever been removed from me at one single time, and I did it on a foolishly empty stomach (I only had a glass of Orange Juice before I left... I hadn't anticipated that blood work was going to be done that day).

So... I fainted. Or well that's what I keep hearing... All I know is that I very conscious, but I just felt very very weak. My legs and arms cramped up. I suddenly felt very very cold to the point of trembling.

So they "code-blued" me. Next thing there's a bunch of doctors, nurses and equipment in the room and I'm mumuring weakly that all this isn't necessary. I end up getting ANOTHER injection, or rather prick to test my blood sugar which was like 76 or 79. This is pretty low, it should've been in the 90s. My heart was racing. I don't remember about the blood pressure.

I was wheelchaired down to a room back in pediatrics and monitored by my doctor periodically for about half hour to and hour. I was given heat packs to make me warm. Lots of drama.

Now my fear of needles has heightened from all this unnecessary response. *mutter grumble mutter*

However, 2 days later I went to get my vaccines and that wasn't too bad. I got "magic shots" from my Doc, and it was done before I could say "Pizza, pepperoni, mushrooms...."

***

I started my first week of school.

Boy don't I feel awkward. My classes are quite small - about under 30 students in each except for Intro to Business.

I haven't formulated a real opinion on my views on going back to school as yet, so depending on what time and mood I'm in, if I'm asked "How was your first day/week at school?" the response varies.

I just think it's weird being a student again after being a teacher. The classes remind me there's so much more to learn. On some levels, I wish I knew the material already... And in some ways I'm doubting my capabilities..

But take it one day at a time right? Don't rush things... As long as it's my best effort, that's all that's needed.

***

Mom left this morning.

I feel quiet. I'm not sure if I'm sad or if it has set in that I'm by practically by myself here for the next couple months.

Then again, this is something I've wanted a while now... and it's not like it's permanent...

*hums the song "I'll be home for Christmas"...*

***

Tonight I have a dinner to go to by my godsis Devianne. It's the second dinner in her law firm or something like that... awesome.

Then I'm trying to decide if I want to go by Nads Sunday... My aunt was telling me that Brooklyn is quite unsafe during Labour Day parades... I wanted to go since I never saw it or experienced it before...

***

So yea.
Shelli out.

It's really strange how things happen.

Everything happens for a reason.

My allergy season with b.s. peaked to new levels.... It's amazing what you learn with very little... It all proves life is quite elementary. All you need is the right questions... they would be keys, they would open doors.

...


***

It feels good to be freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....!

Ok.. i'll stop for now.

Shelli out.
I'll elaborate later.
Maybe.
And I'll talk about my eventful past couple days.

Friday, Aug 22nd, 2008 -- You might feel so at ease with what's happening that you slip into unconsciousness, only to suddenly wake up as your mind lights up with a brilliant thought. You may not know what you want, but you are sure that you want something beyond your current situation. Once you realize how bored you are, then you are capable of turning your life upside down so you can at least try to have some fun.

Everything happens for a reason -

Or so they keep trying to convince me.

I've officially reached a point of being tired of hearing "think positively".

People say you must avoid things that stress you, for life has so many natural stresses everyday. Yet I find myself, in order to make everybody happy, taking on everything that would ultimately stress me. I find myself taking the routes to stress me out, and take one for the team... you know, sacrifice yourself for the sacrifice of it all... You know, hope that this all counts for something in the end.

The amusing part is that after all this sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice, in the midst of others sacrifices, I'm hearing I have a choice in the matter and 'Life is stressful, deal with it'... I don't have a choice in the matter. Choice is an illusion. Choice is a mirage in dessert from dehydration.

I don't even have the comfort of being between the rock and the hard place.

***

Two words.

One meaning.

"Fed up."

***





***

I'm exhausted. Life exhausts me.

I've got a headache since I've been here and I have the sneakiest of suspicions its going to last a while longer.. that's as positive as my thinking is going to get. I've succumbed to reality.

Are you happy now Universe?

Despondent Shelli out.

***

I had many an inspired thought to type but they have all fled me in this moment called "now". So... instead I shall post photos from my trip to PA yesterday...

***

I've been fighting what I think could be the flu for the past two days. I took two Tylenol so far... Every time I take the tablet, all my symptoms fade away to the point of my forgetting I was sick to begin with. But give the tabs about 3 hours, my eyes start to get warm, my skin starts to feel cold and hurt, and my headache eases its way into acknowledgment. I woke up this morning with a sniffle.

***

Today I'm going to try to organize and get a cellphone... and then this week try to start weighing pros and cons of my options to stay.

I spent the night at Nad's flat last night. It's pretty nice. I like it. She has a very eccentric colour scheme in all the rooms which I love. The master bedroom has a watermelon vibe, green and magenta, and the two other bedrooms, one is pink and one is purple. Nice sized living room and kitchen. Pretty blue bathroom and tub.


















***

That's all for now.
Shelli out.

***

I just love myself sometimes.. Like really really really love myself. Like I would run up and kiss me on the cheek with a big hug love myself.

Hmm... I wonder if I should be so happy... it's over something really trivial...and something I could have simply done a long long long time ago.

oh shelli.

***

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have
succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have
eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will"
work."

So think positively... I lost my train of thought.

***

So I've officially... 2 or so hours later reached back to Earth. I'm no longer pleased with myself. I feel horrible.. Oooo the cleverness...

Oh my...
Oh Shelli..

***

Seeing that I've changed area codes in a semi-permanent way.. I think this calls for a new, mid-year list of resolutions.

This week I shall sit and complete at least 12 (because I think 12 sounds cooler than 10) resolutions to make Shelli a better person and to get me closer to where I need to be to be who I am supposed to be...

And hopefully, when I am who I need to be, I can get the things that I want...

Who knows if the things I want would be the same, after I become the person I need to be, to be the best version of me..?

Oh how I miss...
And oh how I dislike you when you're right Nata.

I hope that all this makes some kind of sense...

***


Shelli out.

***

I miss Grenada.

For perhaps all the wrong reasons... I'm sad I'm missing all those parties in August.. NOT that I would've been able to go to them all, or even made it to half, but the mere fact that I couldn't even if I wanted to.

I miss the beach....

I miss my friends. I get to speak with some online... and there were some I used to talk to more in person or on the phone... and now.. well... yeah.

I miss cussing about high school (my job). I had a dream last night where I saw Ms. Greenidge and she was like "Aw.. you couldn't even tell anyone you were going?" and Ms. Henry was happy to see me in her usual merry way.

And I was driving along the road by Hanky's going down by the market. And the car kept going...

***

Nostalgia is a bitter, sweet taste that lingers for a while.

Shelli out.

I know that they warn against posting too often in your blog... But it's my blog and I feel like posting.. and hell, it's not as if that many people read it anyways...



***



After talking with Daniel last Wednesday, aside from realizing how melodramatic I had become... I also realized how negative I was too. I only had a bunch of sad stories, or a story that had great potential to end sadly. A few to probably depress beyond tears, and a couple others to just dampen your spirit.


Around the near end of that conversation with Dan, did I start to reflect on these past couple months. Maybe not as thorough as I needed to have been doing, but reflection none the less. It wasn't as if I was delving and gushing out my life story to Dan, it was just how the smallest of things factored into such detrimental monumental impediments to me.


Perhaps I'm thinking too deeply into that one Wednesday. I realized that too, I think too deeply into most things. Too much affects too deeply. Afflicted by the wounds of the infliction by those who have been inflicted to share the affliction.

Anyways.... At the end of it all, I decided I was going to be happy. A couple months back a darling friend Shawn lent me a book called "Life Expectancy" by Dean Koontz - the moral of the entire book was, expected the unexpected, things will happen to damper your spirit, but always try to live and enjoy the simple things in life, and be happy.

At the end of the day... no one is saying you mustn't have a sad story, or that bad stuff won't happen to you/people - good or bad. Its what you choose to do consequently is what matters...

The question isn't, whether the story is a horrible tale, or one of a series of unfortunate events that needs to be related. Relating it relieves stress and is fun and all...

But after what do you do? Do you get stuck in the moment? Every time you retell a tale, it grows in importance and value and seriousness in your mind. Every time the words and thoughts are expressed they become re-etched constantly and act as glue. Before you know it, you're stuck in woe-is-me/how-the-world-has-done-me/society-wrong and you can't grow beyond it, because you're holding onto the emotions of the situation.

The longer you hold on to it... the more stuck in your situation you become. You cut off your growth and you promote negative thoughts.

According to "The Secret"... I'll post on that later... Just click on the "The Secret" on the sidebar or bottom of the page...

Anyways... You are what you think. And you'd go no further than your thoughts. Let go of stupid things. Make room for important things. Get your act and life together.

Oh what a beautiful concept... at least to me.

***
I'm out. I'm done my melodramatic rambling for now.
Shelli out.
PEACE

I have a backlog of updates to update on that I keep promising myself to do...



***



I got through to school in NY.

***


So I've accomplished half of another thing on my list of things to do before I die...

Be a MANHATTAN CHICK...!!!

For now, I'll settle for being a Manhattan student. -.-



And two other things on that list...
I travelled for the first time in all my years of travelling... by MYSELF.
And I went to the club by MYSELF. *gasp* It was a bit awkward at first... But I saw people that I knew... And I met up with other friends that I knew might/would have been going. It was a fun night. I don't remember when last I enjoyed myself like that. I was soaked when I left...
That's before I slipped and fell down Karma's alcohol covered tiled exit stairs. *mutter grumble mutter* I could've hardly walked properly for days. I spent most of the time laying in bed with an ice pack on my lower back... It still hurts a bit all now.. *mutter grumble mutter*
***
I rushed to Barbados to get my student visa week before last week Friday, came back Saturday. Went to White Out Saturday night at Karma (by myself... first time I went clubbing solo). Chilled and packed Sunday. Went to the beach one last time Monday, and chilled for a bit. Came home, had a small farewell get-together. Flew out Tuesday evening. Went to the school Wednesday and Thursday. Came to the Bronx, where I am now, Friday night. Relaxed Saturday, went to church this morning Sunday.



That's my week in a nutshell.



***



I got through to Baruch in Manhattan. After years of constant cussing and complaining about T.A.M.C.C. and their continuous state of disorganization, I came to a developed country where hundreds of thousands of students must've tread through the doorways for decades in order to build their existing good reputation, only to realize disorganization isn't limited to just one little college on a little island in the Caribbean.



I had to first arrive in the department of Undergraduate Admissions to find out that they need copies of my transcripts from high school and college again. Mind you, they could've sent me emails over and over and over and over and over regarding financial information and requirements for the i-20 form BUT they could NOT just as easily sent an email saying "Hey, we need this too?"



I told them I sent these documents MONTHS ago at the desk... then I was informed that those documents since it was sent to and processed by CUNY, and thus, now property of CUNY. Pray tell how was I supposed to know this? I assumed the information would just be sent over to the relevant schools or copies made or something of the sort... I wasn't informed otherwise.

*sigh*

They need the information before Aug. 27th. T.A.M.C.C. still disorganized by spite... and let's not talk about the hell it took to get the transcript from high school... -.-


Positive thoughts Shelli... positive thoughts...

***



Anyways, I think I could grow to love my new school. It's pretty big. But it feels welcoming nuntheless.



My only worry is that it might be awkward going back to school after two years. I feel as if my IQ has dimmed and dropped a couple notches since college even though I was a teacher. I guess, to me, it was like repeating things that I had mastered at one level over and over rather than learning something new. I started to become stagnant and comfortable... and lacked the willpower to push myself into new things to develop other skills and such.



So... now it's back to school.



Let me try to cultivate positive thoughts... I will do just fine. A little bit of adjusting but I will do fine.

















I have last days beach pictures....








I miss the beach already. *sniffles*

I saw Daniel. We went to the beach a day.. I think it was Wednesday. He insisted that we lay in the HOT sun. I insisted I didn't need a tan. He said there's no such thing as too much tan and not needing one or something to that effect. I don't regret laying in the sun that day... I now rock tan lines on my shoulders... muAHAHAHAHAHA... *sniff sniff* My souvenir..

Shelli out.
I'll be gone till November, gone till November..