Thinking Differently

bl – UR – b n (my definition, go get your own) a short posting on a specific topic

So this is my blurb on airport security. Enjoy.

[blurb]

In the Goroka airport before our flight to Port Moresby, the security guard let me hold his M16 assult rifle for a picture. (Folks, don’t try this at your home airport.) And I have the picture to prove it.

After asking the routine questions (“Anything to declare? How long are you staying? Purpose of visit?”) the security check officer in Japan, handed us back our passports and waved us and our six bags of luggage through without a glance.

And in America, once getting into Dallas, we had to drop our bags and run. Security was so concerned about checking every bag, that only three of them made it onto the flight we were going to catch, and the final three made it onto our rescheduled flight. When we went upstairs to go through security, they pulled my twelve year old little sister to do a complete search on. Way to go on catching the suspicious ones, guys!

Waste of time is right.

Oh, and by the way, the metal detector went off in Japan when my mom walked through with a purse, and after ascertaining that the offending item my mother was carrying was a deadly version of the nail-clipper (the one that terrorists are planning to use when they hijack Air Force One), the Japanese official placed it back in her bag (i.e., let her keep it) and thanked her for her patience and apologized for the inconveinence. The airport in Dallas has a helpful box where you can deposit such heinous weapons before going through security, where they will take them from you by force if necessary.

I felt safer and less hassled abroad than in the States.

[/blurb]

Also entitled, the Joys of the International Date Line

BUT seriously. My travels started Saturday, 25 June. I woke up at 0530 and dragged myself out of bed and downstairs. Outside several of my friends had showed up to see me off. This makes them good friends because there is no way a marginal friend would get up at such a horrible hour. Heck, I was only up because this was my only chance to get out of the country.

(more…)

On the 21st of June, in the year of our Lord 2005, 41 students graduated from the Ukarumpa International School Secondary Campus. I was among that graduating class. I graduated Academic with Honors, and had a cumulative GPA of 3.6 something.

The night before, the class attended a dinner in our honor, at which we read letters given us by our parents, and they read ones we gave them. We also played a game in which we tried to guess who we were from pictures of our noses. After dinner we viewed a slide show of pictures of all of us from our lives. Pretty funny to see how much we had all changed.

The next day was grad day, we went to an assembly in the morning, where they did a special farewell service for us, and had a time for the high school students to say good-bye to the graduating class. That afternoon we had rehearsal for grad, then were able to go home for a bit.

We arrived looking pressed and dressed, and walked in, listened to opening remarks from our principal. After which, we listed to two student home parents read letters from alumni and others, as well as shared humourous tips (also from the alumni) for returning to America. We sang a song, then had two of the classmen share humourous bits from our twelve years. The Religious Studies teacher gave us a sendoff from the Bible, and we finally got our diplomas. After a triumphant reentry, we sat down for for a slideshow (the same one shown the night before). Then each of us shared what we were planning on doing. After a song and a prayer, we were graduates!

Yeah!

We, the Martin family, are leaving PNG at some point tomorrow. We drive to Goroka at 0600, then catch an Air Nuguini flight to Port Morseby, then fly from there to Tokyo. We will spend the evening in Tokyo, then fly out in the morning across the Pacific to Los Angeles. Once there we stop at Dallas, then eventually make our way to Cleveland, Ohio. Whohoo. Fun, exhausting, scary (the Tokyo part, we don’t speak Japanese and have to find our way to a hotel and back), and a little exciting. You will get a full report on the other side.

Cheers.

21 June 2005 was Graduation night. We had a nice ceremony, reception and party, and yeah, it was pretty cool. I’m not feeling like writing now, and most of you who read this will soon see my pictures and video anyway, so, yeah.

Have fun, see you soon.

Hi everyone. I am like really wasted right now, and not too coherent, but when I am, I will write two bits, the first about my HS grad, the other about leaving Ukarumpa.

But do know, I am done with high school, I have graduated.

Thank you.

a tired StormRider

I’m back at the drawing board.

At the moment I am experimenting with different fonts and looks for this blog. Hopefully I will find something I like, and leave it alone.

Formerly I had jest about everything in the “Papyrus” font, but it made some things less easily read, so I wanted to change that. Also, I have a “mariner” theme trying to go on, so I want fonts and colors that reflect that.

So, we’ll see what happens…

“The meaning of America is not to be found in a life without toil. Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.” President Calvin Coolidge

Way back in 1776, a bunch of rebels and traitors to the British Crown signed an illegal document, proclaiming, rather brashly, their independence from a vastly superior and established country. Having been under British rule for roughly 170 years, and having supported the British in their ongoing wars against the French, America was now fighting her sovereign for freedom.

Many good men laid down their lives to purchase that freedom, and many more devoted their lives to the birthing of the new nation, the United States of America.

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The triumphant shout echoed throughout the subterranean temple of Zion, the last human city. Neo had defeated Agent Smith and secured a peace agreement from Deus Ex Machina, and War of Humans and Machines was over! The Matrix had been defeated!

Thus ended the Matrix: Revolutions.

Umm, not sure how that applies, but I have finished my last high school exams. I have no more requirements for graduation. I have completed high school, as well as the first twelve years of my schooling. My education will continue, for as Mark Twain said, “I never let school interfere with my education.”

And neither do I….

Excelsior!

Tomorrow I take my last two exams of my high school career, Physics and Religious Studies. I have a certain tendency to (briefly) become stressed or concerned about exams, but several years ago, I disvovered this song by Linkin Park called “In the End”.

(It starts with)
One thing / I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind / I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time

All I know
time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It’s so unreal

Didn’t look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on / but didn’t even know
Wasted it all just to
Watch you go

I kept everything inside and even though I tried / it all fell apart
What it meant to me / will eventually / be a memory / of a time when I tried
so hard
And got so far

But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

I had to fall
To lose it all

But in the end
It doesn’t even matter

So, in the end, (and within a year) my exam grades will not matter in the least to anybody.

I sleep happy and unconcerned. (Translation: as of 0800 14 June 2005, I do not care!)

Adios