So, I got a little depressed earlier today because one of my friends, who has been working up at a Girl Scout camp with a horse program part time basically feeding some the horses that need the extra food to keep enough weight on, cleaning and filling water troughs, mucking, and checking on the herd of over 40 horses up there told me that one of the horses out there passed away over the weekend.  This camp is where I was a camper for 6 summers straight and right after I finished the horse program out there, and since I was old enough to work there, I have worked out there for about five summers straight so you could say that I know the horses out there pretty well.  What makes this horses passing more depressing than some of the others who have passed away more recently is that it wasn't a nice natural death like old age, or even a sickness.

Firstly the this horse was a tall mare named Cinnabar and she wasn't nearly as old as some of the other horses we have at this camp.  Also, this past weekend was the Kansas City Americal Royal Parade in which the Girl Scout camp had a float (our farrier had his team of drafts pull a wagon we have and some of the girls/adults that volunteer on the weekends as well as a few of the summer staff and the camp director walked alongside it in the parade) so my friend that works out at the camp wasn't at the camp this weekend and neither was the camp director, and the camp's ranger was recently fired and moved off the property, so I guess no one was really out there over the weekend.  Well I was told that apparently what happened is that Cinnabar got stuck in some mud by one of the ponds in the pasture that the horses are in right now and the bank collapsed which left Cinnabar wedged in a five foot sinkhole.  The really sad part is that since no one was on the property this weekend Cinnabar was stuck in this sinkhole for about four days before she was found by my friend. ;_____;  So sadly she passed away.

Cinnabar wasn't necessarily my favorite horse out at the camp but she wasn't the worst horse out there either.  She was a Missouri Fox Trotter, and like our other Fox Trotters that we've had and do have, she was a speed demon and, possibly because of her size, she was a very pushy mare so we could only assign her girls who were confident enough to "take her on" so to speak and she was quite a pain to stop again because she was so big and strong.  However, if you were up for taking her on she was a fun ride because she was fast AND a Fox Trotter; her being a Fox Trotter was fun because instead of a trot Fox Trotter have a different gait that is kind of funny to watch the horse do but is really smooth for the rider, it's not bouncy at all, and she was also a good trail horse (again if you were up for fighting her speediness and strength).

It's sad that Cinnabar died because she was starting to mellow out this past summer, so she was a little easier for some people to handle and we have lost some of our good horses that we could use for campers and we're starting to only get left with the horses whose personalities aren't the best suited for our younger beginner riders.  My friend also mentioned how in the past our horses deaths have happened in threes and there are two of our older horses that haven't been looking too well for a while now so we're not expecting them to last too much longer, possibly not through the winter.

Now for a couple of of pics that I have of Cinnabar from a couple summers ago.


Cinnabar!


Cinnbar and one of my friends/fellow staff member(she's not the one who works out at the camp part time)

Well that's it hopefully I'll have something a little happier to post later.

So I finally scanned some of the photos that I've taken this semester for my college photo class. Here is one of them.

Right now I give up on posting regularly.  It'll just be whenever I feel like it.

Here's another photo from when I was in high school.

So far I'm not doing very well with the whole posting regularly thing.  Well here's another photo I took of a peacock at the KC Zoo while I was taking photography in high school.


 

This is another photo I did during high school  This is the fountain outside Union Station in Kansas City.

So I've decided to try and do more with my journal than just post random rants.  Now I will be posting random pictures, whether they are ones that I have taken or simply ones that I really like (but I'll try to stick with ones that I have taken).  I took photography in high school and am takong it again now in college, so I should have a fair number of photos to post up here.  I also may post scans of drawings that I have sone, and am not totally embarrassed to share.  So this journal will still be somewhat random.

Anyway, here is what I'll start with:



I took this while at the KC Zoo.  Unfortunately the camera that I had that day was loaded with black and white film so I wasn't able to capture this in color, but, since the peacocks that wander around the zoo aren't always fanning out their tails like this, I figured I shouldn't miss the opportunity to take a picture of it.  Maybe I'll get lucky some other time and actually have color film instead of black and white.

So I got through what I felt was probably my most stressful day leading up to and through finals week.  Finals week should be easy, but you never know.  I still have two more papers to write this weekend, and one in particular is a doozy (not sure if that's how you would spell it, I give up on spelling right now :P).  The thing that has gotten me through so far is watching DBSK's newest CF's for samsung, I believe, with their "HAHAHA" song.  I almost die laughing every time I watch them. The two that have just Yunho and Yoochun are my favorite, though I still love the one with all of the members.  So funny!! XD  Also having good music to jam to is essential when I am working on my projects.

Well now off to relax a bit before I jump into my next paper!

I have only this week left of actual classes and then its finals week.  You would think I would be totally psyched about this, but truth be told its just making my life miserable right now.  Being a senior I had to take my Senior Seminar class this semester in which you basically look at graduate schools (whether or not you are actually planning on going to graduate school), look at possible careers to pursue after you graduate and write resumes, and finally to put together your portfolio and do a senior major project that you must do a 15-20 presentation on during the week before finals week.  This is just one of the classes that is majorly stressing me out right now.  I also now have two projects due by this Thursday in my History of the English Language class, which has been both fun and frustrating throughout this semester.  I also need to catch up on my projects in another class, Tack Construction and Repair which involves needing spare time to cut, hammer and sew many different pieces of leather that are all of varying thicknesses and levels of pliability.  Not to mention, in order to complete my EQS minor I have to pass my Tack Construction and Repair class as well as a class called pre-keeper, in which I must do work out at the barn on campus.  Blah!!

On a not so stressful note, I am so gald to have discovered the kpop boybands DBSK, Super Junior, and SHINee.  Whenever I have been totally stressed out all I have to do is listen to, or watch the MV for, one of their songs and I immediately feel better; they seem to always be able to make me smile no matter what.  I shall be doing lots of recovering after this semester ends by watching videos of these guys as well as listening to long playlists of all of their songs that I own.

Now I should probably go finish my portfolio since it is due tomorrow afternoon. :P

With the end of the semester coming up, not to mention Thnksgiving Break next week, my homework load for my classes has turned into a big ugly mess that I have to sort through and figure out what needs to get done first.  Basically I have a few big papers to write for each of my English classes and then I have alot of more physical work to do for my equestrian classes(horse classes i.e. Tack Construction and Repair, my riding class, and pre-keeper, in which we have to help take care of the horses that live at the barn on campus).  It is also my senior year (one more semester to go after this) so I need to figure out if I'm going to grad school or if I'm going to go out and try to get a job after I graduate.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Blah.

Anyways I should probably try to get some more stuff done before I go to bed.

So yesterday (Monday) morning I fell off my horse during my riding class, as I have mentioned in a previous post, and the shoulder that I basically landed on hurts soo much!  It hurts to lift it too high, so we'll see how it feels tomorrow morning when I get up to go to my riding class again (I only have riding classes on Monday and Wednesday) and hopefully I can make it through at least most of the ride.  Also, I have definitely decided not to show in the show this weekend (can't remember if I already said that in my other post..hmmm).  Not showing has its benefits though, for one thing I save money and I have more time this weekend to get work done for other classes that seems to keep becoming bigger and bigger projects.  I'm really going to have to try to time manage myself well this week and next week.  Bleh.  However, on a good note, I got a 99% on my midterm in my History of the English Language class, which I was a little worried about.  So HOORAY!!  Well now off to finish up a couple of things before going to bed.