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Ok, so Tuesday, I had a field trip. A field trip to... NATURE!!!! Yes! I went to Brown County State Park with my Environment class to get some soil and water samples to test for a lab report we have to do.

And I was so totally pysched for it. No. I was super gung-ho nerdy about it. I love nature hikes, especially those WAY off the beaten path.

And so, Tuesday morning, I got to school, and you know, I chat with my friends, you know, the standard, "I'm excited, are you excited? Did you remember all your crap?"

Finally, one of my friends comes up to me, and says, "I brought a peanut butter and turkey sandwich* for lunch. What'd you bring?"

Apparently, my face fell.

She asked, "Cujo, did you even remember to pack a lunch."

"Yes!" I shouted. "I stayed up half the night making crabmeat onigiri!!! DUR!!!!!!" And indeed I had made them. The only problem is--

"Did you remember to actually BRING them with you?" she said in a belittling tone.

"YE~~S!" I said mockingly. But then, with my eyes down cast and looking at my shoes, "...No..."

She sighed. "I knew it. Call your mom."

"'S too late, she's already left, she doesn't have a cell phone, and it'll take her a good twenty minutes to get home, and another twenty to get back, and the bus leaves in five minutes, whether I'm on it or not." Then, I remembered something. "I think I'll go buy food from Mr. World Theology teacher."

Yes, wouldn't ya know it?! I've been blessed with a money grubbing world theology teacher who sells candy everyday in his classroom. Over priced candy, but candy nonetheless! So up I went, and I bought, well, lets see. Some M&Ms, a Snickers, a couple different kinds of granola bars, some gum, some sour candy straws (I love those things), and a juice box. My total was just under $5. I figured, hey, it's food, and I can trade it for at least a sandwich, if not a sandwich and a twinkie.

So finally, with lunch in tow, I board the bus.

I was super gung-ho nerdy about the trip.

So, for the most part, the bus ride there was uneventful, except I realized a certain someone would be coming with us. Yes, that one teacher. You know the one I'm talking about. That teacher who's always on your case about the superfluous rules, who always annoys you and spoils your fun whenever possible, who gives you a dentention, for no reason whatsoever**! Yes, that teacher. MR. SWEENEY!!! THE NAVAL OFFICER***!!!!

To give you an example of his evil: A week earlier he had followed me into a classroom silently, only to stop me just seconds before I sat down. What was my offense? In his words: "Miss Cujo. Your shirt's untucked. You're ruining the integrety of our B-ranked Catholic school. That's a detention."

But, that's ok, I thought. It's a field trip. There won't be that many regulations on this trip. I pulled out my iPod to listen to it on the trip.

"Miss Cujo. You DO realize that carrying an iPod is against school policy." The freak popped up outta nowhere!

"Um, yes, but you see, I thought that it would be ok, seeing as how it's a two hour long bus ri--"

"BUT IT'S AGAINST SCHOOL POLICY. Do you like ruining the integrety of our schoo--"

"Sweeney, let her off this time. She's my most trusted student, afterall. And she has a point."

SAVED! Oh, Nealy-O (that's what everyone calls my environment class teacher), you've saved my a** how many times now, 40? 50? Simply because Mr. Sweeney would rather give detentions to people in his own classroom (next door) than in yours.

"Trusted, my a**. Do you know I caught her chasing some poor girl down the hall with a squirt gun screaming something about the hunt being on?" implored Sweeney.

"Yes," said Nealy-O. "Afterall, I'm the one who told her to do it."

Indeed he was. You see, Abbey (Squirrel-Girl)**** was being an idiot, and wouldn't shut up while he was trying to teach. So, being his most trusted student, he tossed me a squirt gun and told me to go "hunt me some squirrel". I willingly obliged. However, it seemed that Sweeney was not all that impressed with my hunting techniques. He gave me a detention, without letting me explain.

"Are you serious???"

"Yes." said Neal. Then he called out: "HEY SQUIRREL-GIRL! Didn't I tell Cujo to go chase down a hallway with a squirt-gun?"

"YES, YOU FREAK!!! AND I'VE NEVER FORGIVEN EITHER OF YOU!!!!"

Sweeney blinked his eyes in disbelief. "OK THEN. She can keep it, but she better not try it again." He walked back to his seat, while I scribbled something ("PWNAGE!!!" wink on a piece of notebook paper and held it up for all to read (and succeeding in making Nealy-O crack up). Then, for the remainder of the ride, I listened to PANIC! At the Disco in quiet rebellion.

2 hours later, we arrived at the park. And we came face to face with... THE HILL. Yes, the hill. We had heard of its evil, its steep, slippery evil.

The day before, Nealy-O had given us a bit of a briefing on our trip. He plotted out basically all the dangers. And the one he had spent the most time on was The Hill. Allow me to explain. The Hill is an interesting bit of geographic intrigue. It's about fifty feet very nearly straight down. Yes, any steeper, and we might have to call it The Cliff instead. Now, Nealy-O says he hasn't "lost" anyone on The Hill, but some poor fool years ago got a nasty concussion from falling down it. Of course, we were told, it was all because he had decided to be all Macho and refuse to have help on the way down.

And now we were about to attempt it.

But I was still super gung-ho nerdy about the trip.

So, we just decided to suck it up and go. Afterall, if the crazy middle-aged fat man can do it, so can a bunch of youthful highschool students all full of pep and vigor, right?

Wrong. I can safely say that I (as well as quite a few others) traversed at least half of it sliding on our hips, and the other half shutting our eyes and gingerly walking down sideways while yelling "GOD HELP ME!"

I feel bad for my friend Kitty. I eventually fell right on top of her, probably breaking at least one of her ribs.

But, in every group of klutzes, there's one not so klutzy. And in our group, that would be Chai, the Korean exchange student. For the record, I would like to say that I do not believe he got a speck of dirt on him the entire trip (compared to me, who fell in almost every mud puddle I came across).

But, with the hill behind us, we went on.

I was STILL super gung-ho nerdy about the trip.

For the most part, the first half of the trip was uneventful. But I would like to say that a good chunk of the girls were unhappy about their mudencrusted states. Some of their comments were just painful to listen to (oh, the wimpy-girlness!)

But I have to say Abbey's were among the hardest to listen to. "OMG! That bug! It's moving!" "GAH! I broke a nail! MR. NEAL! YOU OWE ME A NEW ONE!" "s**t! I STEPPED IN WATER! Gross! My BRAND NEW shoes are all wet!" "GOD I HATE NATURE!!!"

After a while, I just had to ask it. "Abbey, if you hate nature, may I ask WHY you took a class called ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE?"

She pondered that for awhile. Finally: "It's because I hate changing classrooms all the time!"

Yeah, I don't get her answer either.

But I was still super gung-ho nerdy about the trip.

Afterall, these difficult little comments were going to be the worst part of the trip, right?

WRONG! It wasn't til after the first three samples were collected that it hit me: That big hill we came down, we were going to have to climb back up. Why? Simple answer: Our lunches were still on the bus.

But... When we got to the point where we were going to climb up, I saw that it wasn't as steep as the first hill. In fact it wasn't very steep at all! It would be easy! After all, I'd climbed worse.

You see, the previous summer I had went on a tour of Italy through my school, and had to go up hill almost every where I went (such as Assisi, Palantine Hill, ). It was grueling, but I made it!

This hill would be a piece of cake.

Or so I thought. What I didn't realize is that I would have to exert more energy wading through 2 feet thick leaf litter, and that though it started off nearly level they quickly became much steeper than anything I encountered in Italy. Ten times I stopped to try and catch my breath (but this would prove futile as my breath would keep outrunning me).


Urg... Attention wandering! Gaia eating what I've already written! I'll try to finish this tomorrow!