Tuesday, April 26, 2005

toads

I think I am sick again, so I home from school. I found the strangest news article....

BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.

Photo
AFP/DPA/File Photo

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet).

It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.

"You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding."

He said the bodies of the toads expanded to three and a half times their normal size.

"I have never seen such a thing," said veterinarian Otto Horst. So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed "the pond of death."

Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00 and 3:00 am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang.

Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds", attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.

There seems to be a lot of strange things that happen in Hamburg. Hmmmm... should be an interesting year. haha

Thursday, April 14, 2005

the latest.... i've been busy

ok, so i need to get the picture viewer thingy up, and get my computer to stop switching to german randomly (especially the keyboard, omg... i type y's and they do z's and the dash is a ß, and aaaaahhhhhh) , and it's so sad that the musical is over, it was hotter than hot... and my paper plate award was "I heart germany"... because I apparently"love the man and the county", wut an embarresment. This upcoming weekend is our Rotary district conference and it should be tons of fun. But that means i miss all the earth day celebrations tomorrow, *tear*. I need to learn german. More german, faster, faster, faster! Oh... and I am officially going to the college of Wooster in ohio when i get home. I am so excited. In the middle of amish country. Yeah!

I helped sell candy for the foreign exhange club... and that was really fun. French and spanish candy. Denis sold all the german chocolate. Lost of stuff to do this week... thank god i don't have to babysit. I just have to do half of my art AP protfolio and learn german, and fill out some scholarships with some "personal essays"... doesn't that sound sweet?

Last weekend we had cougar creations. It was awsome. I have been looking forward to it for many many years, because I could have a senior board! Oh yea, an entire board with my name and my stuff. I had the best stuff and the most desturbing. hehehe. I think it is the skeleton theme. random bones and body parts scare people. but today i desected an owl pellet with the girls (babysitting) and found lots of deer bones too. Mrs. Agar gave me some skeletal remains too. I even got to borrow TWO Mr. Skeletons from the art department. 'cept dad broke one, so I go to fix it.

I feel really bad that I am sorta phasing out of the youth bureau. I mean, I love it and it has been one of the most influential things to happen to me... but I am starting to feel like it is hopeless. Kids just don't care. I feel like I'm growing out of the group. I don't fit in anymore. I have been so busy, and still so tired, that its hard to keep up with anything anymore. and now that I can, the school year is almost over, and I'm leaving. Its sad and really depressing. Maybe I just need to hang out with my EDIFY groupies sum more... it'll fix me. I had a blast with Donny last saturday (not that kind... it was like old times, chatting).

So I guess it is ta ta for now. Auf Wiedersehen.

Monday, April 04, 2005

so much about germany comes up these days I don't even remember to remember them to type about them. I discovered that one of the Rotex members, Anthony, that I met at the interview weekend, lived in the Bremen area, so i'm really excited about that. I have no energy to do anything school related. I'm so tired of being tired. It sux. The musical went amazing. And it is so sad that it is over. But at the same time, its like, omg, i'm done with the only thing that really mattered in my senior year (except cougar creations, finalizing my college choice which is probably wooster, and the virginia beach trip which are all this month) so its like, omg... its all down hill from here. I'm already making mental notes of wut to learn, to do, to see, to take pictures of... even wut to pack. I have to sort thru all my stuff and make 4 piles... germany, college, trash, and keep at home (until i have my own place and i'm married, omg). 4 and a half months. I have to learn the language. My goal is to have a conversation in german with denis b4 i leave. He leaves for home a month b4 I leave. I can't believe I will go, it like all hit me really, fully, today. I must get some sleep. The end of the marking period is friday, I miss school on thrusday to set up my cougar creations board, and I pretty much couldn't care. AP's aren't looking to promising.