All this past week, I have had the urge to sit down before my laptop and "pen" a blog...but every time I have sat down before my computer, I have suddenly become blank and disinterested and turn instead to more amusing web pages. I have no idea why this is, except maybe the fact that I seem to be most often inspired to blog during Philosophy, and I obviously can't blog at that time and have to wait until later thus ageing the juices.
Anyway, the first five days of Junior year have been survived,  with a fairly positive future lingering in the distance. It scares me to think that I am really in my second to last year at Central. When I started high school, I think sub-consciously i thought that high school would last as long as grade school would, and therefore I would know the people for the same length of time. It has been somewhat of a shock realizing that no, it is in fact really only four years of schooling, and in a little over a year and a half, I will graduate and I won't see the same people that I've known since freshman year and there's no guarantee that I'll stay friends with people I've met since I started here, if only because we all go to different schools and become too busy to get together much of the time, thereby decaying connections; something that has happened with a few people from my grade school and junior high. I wish time would slow down and these next two years will be awesome and the end will never come...but time always has a way of speeding up when you really want it to pass in a stately manner...as everyone well knows.
I would just like to say that I am proud of myself (in a not too egotistical way) because I actually went to my first Central football game last Friday. It seems like a small accomplishment, but I had soooo much fun! It was especially cool because it was the annual Battle for the Musket which is a yearly game against our arch-enemy over an actual musket. I really felt like I was part of the school, standing there in the rain shouting and screaming, and cheering our team onto VICTORY! I actually stood for over two hours straight without getting tired...part of which because I was running high on adrenaline ;). I plan to actually go to Homecoming this year (yay!) and I really hope to get to at least one of the soccer games this season...seeing as soccer is my favorite sport.:)
Ok, well this blog didn't go exactly as I was thinking it would, but that's ok.
<3
Slán go fóill
B

T'is the last rose of summer...

Hey there!
So, it's has finally come, no matter how hard I've tried to push it away, the last weekend of summer. In two days I have to wake up at 6 and get on the bus and walk into that prison school by 7:30. No joke, the school was built in the untilitarian style of  prison. Anyway, aside from seeing friends that I havn't seen in three months, I am not looking forward to starting junior year. At least, my last week of summer has been fun even if it's been less than relaxing. For the last 11 days, Minnesotans and other Mid-Westerners have been experiencing and tasting the delights of the Great Minnesotan Get-Together, or the State Fair, one of the biggest in the country. :) I love the state fair, and I go every year, almost always more than once, an I plan to keep going until I die...maybe from  cardiac arrest caused by excess grease intake. ; ) One of the best (and the most annoying) things about the fair is that on each excursion to the grounds, I always always see someone, usually more than one person, that I know. It was really cool on tuesday, because I got to see one of the guys that I went to grade-school and junior high with and I hadn't seen in over two years. It was a little awkward, but it was still great to see him. The one downside was that for the next few days, I kept thinking about 8th grade and all the preceding years and all the experieces that my class shared. It was really sad to think that we'll most likely not see eachother all together again. :( I was thinking maybe I'd put together a reunion but I don't know because it's a lot of work to put one together. Anyway, the rest of the week was pretty fun becuase I got to go to the fair again and we went up north and visited Glensheen Mansion, Gooseberry Falls, and Split Rock Lighthouse. I love it up by Superior, it's so beautiful even if it was pretty chilly for August.
Hasta la vista!
B

Our Fathers Brought Forth, Upon This Continent, A New Nation

Do you know what it feels like to be a part of something? One of the reasons that I love being a part of LHS and going to Pipestone is that I feel like I'm a part of something. It's like a dream down there, what with all the tourists around and being surrounded by a rustling cloud of hoop skirts and such. While at an event, I feel like I belong, becuase the people are gaping at all of us :). We don't just put on a show for an audience; essentially we live it. Period conversations, period food, period almost everything! Victorian Society (which I'm also part of) feels more like just dressing up and gong out...LHS is a group that teaches. The period accuracy might be a pain in the butt sometimes, but it makes it real.  I mean, I've been going to these types of events ever since I can remember, and although I got tired of them and took a break for awhile, I really do enjoy it. I've known some of the other members for my entire life and in a way, LHS is almost almost like a second family....well maybe a third family.
 Fashion Program Picnic on the egde of the battlefield Watching the battle August 14 Battle August 14 Tea with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln August 15 Watching the battle August 15

Enjoy the pictures!
♥ Bridget

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

Tonight my family an I returned from a weekend long Civil War reenactment. This Civil War Days festival takes place every two years an we have been going since I was four...so essentially we've been going for twelve years even though we've only been there six times. This time was different slightly for me because I am now supposedly "out in society", therefore I can't be running around with my bonnet hanging down my back like I used to; that's not to say I didn't try though :). This means that I had to be chaperoned anywhere I wanted to go outside the LHS (Living History Society) tent, and if my dad wasn't around, then my younger brother had to take me...even if it was to walk the fifty feet to the shop where my dad was browsing. This dependence was kind of annoying, but it also gave me a chance to drag my brother around and make him pick up things that I dropped and couldn't bend to pick up because of my corset. It was really fun in Pipestone because someone that we kind of grew up with (doing this reenacting) was there and so we all kind of "hung out", in as much as we tried to have as much fun as we could while still being pretty period accurate. On Saturday it was pretty hot, but I had on a silk sheer dress, so what breeze there was floated through the sleeves and skirt which kept me relatively comfortable. Saturday night there was a dance on the lawn of Pipestone City Hall. It was pretty fun but I wish they'd done more dances rather than stopped after 5. Anyway, I did a reel with my dad which was rather difficult because my dress somehow ended up floor-length, so it was rather difficult stepping backward and sashaying. Then later this like 7 year-old kid asked me to dance. He was so cute that I had to say yes, even though I'm terrible shy especially near a dance floor. Unfortunately there weren't enough couples to make another square in the quadrille so we had to wait for the next dance. When the next dance started, Katurah switched out with me and dad switched with the little kid, so we weren't actually partners but we were in the same square...i got a tall, awkward soldier. I noticed that subconsciously I have matured since the last Pipestone. While consciously I shy away from the idea of dancing with a stranger, subconsciously though, I think that if some other guy had asked me to dance, I would most likely have said yes. Getting me to dance is like pulling teeth, but once I'm dancing, I have a ton of fun... I love to dance ;P. Well, it's almost three, so I'm going to have to finish this another time.
♥ B

After all, tomorrow is another day!

And so, this well known final line of a great literary work, begins my post.
Today, August 3, 2010, at 3:35 am, I finished what I believe to be an amazing if bigoted piece of literature; Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I have seen the movie numerous times, but lately I had an inclination to read the original work from 1936. Having participated in Civil War reenacting since I was quite young, this story has always held some allure for me, let alone fulfilled the needs of my Hopeless Romantic Syndrome. :) Anyone who has seen the movie adaptation of Gone With the Wind must agree with me that Scarlett O'Hara (Hamilton, Kennedy, Butler) is not a lady under any circumstances. In fact she is quite adequately labeled by other names which decency prevents me from typing here. ;) In the movie Scarlett is a spoiled brat who, due to the Civil War, is thrown with the rest of Georgia into the throes of poverty and is burdened with the almost certain death sentence of starvation and despair. Although only nineteen when she is loosed to survive by herself and presented with the care of her beloved plantation Tara and all it's occupants, Scarlett manages to pull through, although the hardness she developed during the hard years was never to truly leave her. She later becomes a wealthy snob and lords over all her old friends in their prideful poverty that the war left them in. The movie stayed pretty true to the book (which is, as all book lovers know, quite unusual), but the one thing that sets the book apart and I think makes it more appealing in some ways, is that in the book you see what goes on in Scarlett's head; you truly understand the hardships that make her the character that she is. You also begin to sympathize with the Confederates and realize that the Yankees were not all they were cracked up to be...but that's for another post. Anyway, while reading the book, I actually felt genuine sympathy for Scarlett at times because of the cruelties of life that she had to endure at such a young age. That sympathy of course turned once again to disgust and hate when Scarlett begins her marriage with Rhett Butler, since as all my close friends know, he is my favorite character....the poor sad fool who was the only man who ever really loved Scarlett and had his heart broken and trampled on because of his useless ardor. My fascination and preference, stems mostly from the fact that I am in great admiration of Clark Gable's performance as Captain Butler, but I do actually like the character, for all his bad traits, if only for his hopeless love....thus crying out to my Romantic soul. :) Although the lack of conscience in Scarlett sometimes makes you shake your head in disapproving amazement, I don't think that she is quite as unfeeling and bad as the movie portrays, because like I said, you don't see her internal/mental struggle. Besides, if we were nineteen and had more than ten people looking to you for food and comfort and the Yankees had stolen everything from you including your mother, and we had been brought up in a sheltered life without being taught the necessary survival skills to bear life on our own, what would any of us have done? We would have made the best of it and done anything we could to provide for our families, no matter how scanty the provisions. This is exactly what Scarlett did. So despite her selfishness and her cruelty, I have to admire her spirit and her strength...and her Irish refusal to be trampled on and destroyed.  

The Literary Genius of J.K. Rowling

I just want to say flat out that I love Harry Potter!
A few years ago, I was obsessed with Twilight and I assured my friend that it was definitely better than Harry Potter. I have since recanted as I have awoken from my fiendish stupor. I finished the 7th book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for those who haven't heard) last saturday; once completed I literally sat in my chair for ten minutes marvelling at the masterpiece that I had just experienced. Okay, so I'm dramatizing a bit, but hey, I love the books! :) Anyway, I have of course read the books before but each time is a magical (hehe) experience. Besides the brilliance of of the series itself, I have great respect for J.K. Rowling's writing ability and talent. One thing that I especially admire is that way that the authoress ages the characters. As they get older, the humor changes, the emotions are more mature, and the general plot of each successive book becomes deeper. While the later books are much darker than the early ones, personally I think that it takes the series to a new level.  According to Stephen King "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages"(Stephen King). Although the movies based on hte books are great, they are nothing compared to the books. I have heard people agree with my view that Harry Potter is beyond amazing who have only ever seen the movies and I cannot understand how they can base their opinion on films that barely scratch teh surface of the wizarding world. It's a shame, they are all missing out!
Anyway, Harry Potter nerd signing off,
Mischief Managed
B

Letting Go is Hard to Do

Letting go is hard to do. For some reason I have a particularly hard time with it. Old friends, old classmates, relatives and friends passing on.....I just can't seem to stop missing them. It's going to be hard at the end of the summer again becuase The Lake is being sold. The Lake is lakeside property (no duh) that has been in my dad's family for nearly 70 years. My grandparents owned it and then sold half to my aunt and her husband and half to my uncle and his wife. When my aunt passed away in 2004, her portion was passed to her husband who never really cared about the lake. He wanted to sell right after she died, but he kept it because he couldn't sell without my uncle's consent.....which he wouldn't give becuase his wife was suffering from cancer and he didn't want her last days to be without the lake. When she died and then my uncle died, the lake passed to their six children, but my uncle told his eldest "when He wants to sell, sell". Now this guy who cared nothing about the lake and really about this family, wants to sell, and indeed has sold the lake. I get that he's protecting his assets because he was still paying taxes even though he never used the place, but still. The loss is like losing both aunts, my uncle, and my grandma all over again. All my childhood years, The Lake has been their...all my memories,,,gone. It's gonna be harder on my dad becuase he's known it longer, but still.....I'm not really sure how we're going to all get through this. Last sunday my dad's side of the family celebrated the Fourth at The Lake just like we always do; as it's been done for generations. (The family meets on Memorial Day, the opening of the season; Fourth of July; and Labor Day, the close of the season). The festivities were understandably subdued, seeing as it was our last Fourth. I've decided to make a scrap book with leaves and pictures from the lake, get a jar of sand from the beach, and collect some rocks just like i did from the cottage in Ireland. Anyway, it's getting late, but I just wanted to get this off my chest.

B