Lunar Eclipse

Hm... I was going to put a funny quote here, but seeing as how my english teacher intends to "totally stalk my blog," as I believe she put it (and I'm doing nothing to disuade her- in fact I'm going to send her the link later tonight), perhaps I don't want that particular quote being the first thing she sees...
Don't worry, though. It'll come in a week or so. It's just not something I want as a first impression. :)


As I'm sure most if not all of you know, there was an eclipse last night, made super-extra-special by the fact that today's also the winter solstice.
I got up at about 2 a.m. to watch.
Clothing that was worn: 

• Shirt
• Dad's giant awesome fuzzy sweatshirt
• Coat
• Gloves
• Dual pairs of socks
• Slippers
• Hat-like thing
• Harry Potter scarf tied around nose and mouth

Dad never went to bed, so when he woke me up, he'd already placed an old queen-sized mattress on the driveway with the cushions from our old couch at one end to serve as pillows, and we brought out a few blankets as well. So me, him, and my sisters lay there in our bundles like sardine hobos, as we put it then. I didn't feel cold, but I was shaking like mad, so I guess I must have been.
Later, Dad and I got up and stood in the backyard away from the streetlight. That was after totality started, so the moon looked really cool and red and so close that we might have been able to pluck it out of the air.
I figured with an English project to present first thing in the morning (which I feel went well, but we'll see once I get the rubric back), I should probably get some more sleep, so I went inside...and ended up watching YouTube videos until a bit after 4. Oops. They were good ones, though. Such as The Uncultured Project's Project for Awesome video, which was the most awesome one I've seen out of the entire project.
Fortunately, someone gave me a piece of Dark Chocolate Infused With Expresso at lunch (and I love coffee-flavored chocolate), plus I had a cup of Sunkist at dinner, so I'm not feeling tired. Ha.


Dad ended up staying outside and awake wearing his Doctor Who scarf wrapped around his face along with more clothes than I knew he could fit on his body at once until 5-ish, at which point he came in and went to bed before getting up again at 6 to take me to school. He's on vacation from now until the end of the year, so he could sleep all morning (which he didn't).


My cousin (who is in college except also on break) and his friends drove out to a nearby lake to watch the eclipse. Apparently it was pretty cool, except it got cloudy so they went to someone's house and hung out until morning.


In conclusion: totally worth it. I can't wait for the total solar one in South Carolina in 2017. We're going to make hotel reservations well in advance.


Also, Emily (rougewriter Emily) and Daniel, I had a dream you guys came over to my house to celebrate the solstice with me...except you didn't bother waking me up. You just got out candles in the middle of my floor and I happened to get up and notice and you said "Hey! Want to join us?" 

Project For Awesome 2010

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" - Henry David Thoreau


For those of you not familiar with the Project For Awesome: http://projectforawesome.com/aboutp4a

My video:





This is not intended to offend any nuns, or people against Harry Potter, or Christians who AREN'T against Harry Potter. This is just intended for laughs and to raise money for a charity I support.


In addition, the HPA is not by any means the only good charity out there. In fact, I recommend that you donate to other ones.


Charities I donated to:

• Partners In Health 
• The Make A Wish Foundation

If you click through to the pages I linked to, you will see that I donated to PiH for the raffle prize (not that PiH is a bad charity. I just had ulterior motives.)
Make A Wish, however, was not for the prize. A length of time ago so large that it is rather shameful, I raised a bunch of money by crocheting and selling scarves and promised to donate the money to cancer-related stuff. Then I never actually donated it. So I donated it to Make A Wish earlier this evening, and the possibility of Star Wars novels is a bonus that I actually secretly hope I don't win. Not because I don't like Star Wars...but because I don't have the shelf space right now.


So am I selfish, donating simply because I want the prize in the first case and out of duty in the second? I couldn't have lived with myself if I transfered the scarf money from its envelope into my wallet. Therefore am I not doing it to help others...only to help myself? Is any charitable donation selfless, if it's just to make us feel good?