Adieu (which is a fancy way to say farewell)

Farewell is a fancy way to say good-bye

Storm Grey

As many of you know this blog is a school project. The 2014-2015 school year is coming to an end very soon. At the end of this week on Sunday May 10th at 11:59 PM our blog project is over.

Blue and Grey
Photo Courtesy AlphaCoders

Storm grey is a mix between blue and grey. I specifically chose this color for my last post because my feelings are also a little mixed.  Grey is a kind of sad color. I am sad that this project is going to be over because I really enjoy writing this blog. Blue is my favorite color and it is kind of a summery color and I am really excited for summer and school to be over.

For this final blogpost I have to answer a specific question...

How have I changed this year? 

Looking back on the year I am amazed with how much I have grown as a person and a writer.

Today I was reading my very first post of the year, Thinking In Pink, and I found myself cringing with each sentence that I read. Even though I linked it, PLEASE, whatever you do, do not go read that post. I will die with embarrassment at my awful writing skills.

My second post, A Color For all Seasons,  was a lot longer, with more pictures and an improvement over my first one, but it still didn't really sound like me.  By the end of first quarter with my fourth post, The Nature of Brown, my grammar dramatically improved, though my writing remained factual more than being entertaining. I still hadn't realized that blogging was less about writing and more about self-expression.

My very first post of second quarter, Once in a Blue Pool, is probably my best post to date. It is a more serious post but I really put a lot of myself into it. Blue it turns out, represents a lot about me. I suggest that you read it because I am really proud of it.  Something clicked, and since then I have really worked at making my posts more personal, which actually made them better. I began to tell stories about colors and how they relate to things that were happening to me.

This year has been all about change, and blogging isn't the only new thing I have learned...

I now know how to be a high school student.  This was my first year in public school since fifth grade so the first couple of weeks of school were pretty nerve wracking. I was going into high school for the first time and I had no idea what to expect. It turns out though that high school is like anything else,  once you know what is expected of you, it's not too bad.

I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to make new friends. This year I have become more outgoing, so much that my long-time friends think I'm becoming sassy. I have learned so much and made so many new friends and even reconnected with old ones. The best part of living in a small town is that you can make friends with someone you played with in preschool!  I really think that if I were to see myself from before this school year started, I would hardly recognize her, but I think I like the new me.

Sometimes endings can be a little stormy.  However, I think I will share a couple of my favorite pictures and memories from this year with you guys as a fond farewell.

Sunrises and Sand in Death Valley
Photos Courtesy of Me
From my post Sands and Sunrises

From the same trip I bring you whale watching!

I love this picture it makes me laugh. It is from when my brother went to Disney World without me (you can read more about it here).

Ok here are a couple more pictures I want to show you guys (notice most are blue too!)

As some of you know my birthday was over spring break and I went to the Bahamas (read more about it here). I mean what can get better than that?

Well I am really sad to say it but this is the end of the very last post that I will post on this blog. Thank you readers for sharing this fun (and colorful) journey with me.

So without further ado I say adieu (or farewell or goodbye, whatever floats your boat).

-Sabine

MUD

Yes that is all this post is about,

MUD

In case you didn't know mud brown is probably one of the ugliest colors on the planet.

There is, however, a reason to acknowledge this awful color.  It's related to a recent trip I just got back from to Zion National Park.

Let me explain...
For the past three years my family and our friends go down to Zion to run a weekend-long relay race. The race is a Ragnar. If you have not heard of it, the concept is pretty interesting and involves camping, running, and lots of fun.

But back to the color of mud.  I know that most people think of Zion, they don't think ugly, brown mud.  Zion is unique, majestic, and one of the most beautiful places on Earth,  and not too far away from Park City.

A picture of Zion National Park
Photo Courtesy of Fodor's Travel

Ragnar is also pretty unique.   If you have never done a relay race,  it's better than most kinds of running.  You have eight people on your team and each person runs three different runs. The first one is a 3-ish mile one, then a 4-ish mile, the last one is about 8 miles; and you run in cycles: person 1, person 2, person 3, and so on until you get to person 8.  Then you start the rotation over until all of the runners have run all of the runs... it takes about 24 hours.  While you are waiting for your turn you sleep, eat, swim, and hang out. It sounds fun, right????

The Ragnar start

Well, we have a bit of a Zion Ragnar curse going.  We have started the race three years in a row and haven't finished it once.

The first year that we did this race it was promising; warm and sunny and everyone was having a great time, until... our very last runner on her very last leg got heat stroke.  We were all waiting at the finish line only to see her being brought in on a cart and off to an ambulance.  She ended up being okay after some fluids, but our Ragnar ended there.  Oh well, we had next year, right?

The runner that got sick and one of our other teammates

Fast forward 364 days... The race started well and it looked like our team would redeem itself, until... it snowed, not jet a little, but 10 inches in fact, in about 3 hours!  Several runners were lost on the trail, everyone was frozen, and search and rescue were kept busy for 20 hours!  Obviously, they canceled the race. Defeated yet again, our team went home wet and cold and without another finish.

A picture of some teammates braving the snow
Photo Courtesy of Joni Hemond

Fast forward 364 days... So finally this year we were all like "OK, we are going to finish this time no matter what!" It was only supposed to rain the day after the race ended, perfect right?  Until...
About three hours into the race my brother and his friend (on the left) had just started running, in their shorts and matching tee-shirts,

They look so happy, little do they know... 

when it began to downpour and the temperature dropped like ten degrees. When they got back to camp the kids were soaked through, freezing, and really, really muddy.  It went downhill from there. We all just waited, miserably, for our turn to run while the rain just kept coming.  I wasn't running until the next day so I ate dinner and went to bed early. It took me hours to fall asleep because the minute I got into the tent it began to downpour again.  The rain was pounding down so hard that it sounded like bullets!

It probably looked a little like this
Photo Courtesy of Berkley Lab

When I woke up I was really surprised to find that it was still dark out and my dad was still in our tent. In fact, everyone was still in camp.  He was supposed to still be running. Did I mention it was still raining? It turned out that the rain did a number on the trails and they were impassible in the dark.  Ragnar decided to force a delay by skipping all legs of the race that were that night and early the next morning. There was too much rain and people weren't safe and kept falling.

If you are going to fall you have to do it in style
(superman style that is)
Photo Creds

You can guess, dear reader, what happened next.  We DID NOT FINISH THE RACE.  Again.
My mom tells me there is a psychological phenomenon called the Sunken Cost Effect.

1. The sunk cost effect is the tendency for humans to continue investing in something that clearly isn't working. Because it is human nature to want to avoid failure, people will often continue spending time, effort or money to try and fix what isn't working instead of cutting their losses and moving on.      Courtesy of What Is

See you in 364 days.