Reading IV and Music VIII and Anime II

Here's a tip to all you people out there who actually like to read. Do not, ever, never, I repeat, NEVER sit curled into a ball in a car on a bouncy road and read from your phone or other device with the brightness on the lowest setting and font size set to 10. It's not very comfortable.

My stomach hurts.

Anyway, onto the reason I didn't text anyone or call anyone or chat anyone all day till maybe seven pm... ish. My dad and I went snowboarding today, and my phone is out of cellular data. So no wifi = torture. But can you imagine something worse with me for maybe two seconds (I don't know how fast you read).

No wifi, no data, AND no earbuds.

The unfairness of it all! But I'm okay, I think. I'm still mentally stable (or at least as stable as before) and emotionally healthy (for the most part).

I would keep going from there, but I'm jumping all over the place with this story. So, let me start again, from what I guess we will consider "The Beginning".

So, originally, we had planned for my family of five and my biffle's/soul sista's/best friend's/pet alien's/crazy cat lady's family to all go skiing (snowboarding in my case) together in the poconos. But then we realized a fatal flaw to this plan. The Iditaread was happening. That pretty much throws everything out of whack.

Now I realize that a lot of my readers now are probably not from or related in any way, shape, or form to my middle school, so I will go on to explain the Iditaread to you here.

THE RBCS IDITAREAD- Created by the RBCS's librarians to get children into the habit of reading on a more regular basis, the Iditaread happens at the same time as the Iditarod, a long-distance sled dog race run in early March from Anchorage to Nome. Each year, the classes of (about) twenty students work as a team to read the most number of hours. Students also compete amongst themselves to win the "Class Top Dog" award (usually money and a tee shirt) and the "School Wide Top Dog" award (which was double the amount of money, a tee shirt, and a simple nook last year). Student's are required to read at least one hour a day, or else they are practically shunned by their class for being the ones that "made them lose". (I swear I heard those words uttered to the slackers every year, not even kidding.)

Okay, so I know it doesn't sound like that big a deal, but there are some very, very, VERY competitive kids in my middle school. And said kids will wake up at five in the morning to read anything they can get their hands on, and won't stop till past nine o'clock at night. Some of those said kids just happen to live in my house. Last year there were three. Thank god I graduated.

Anyways, because of their want to win, both of my brothers opted out of skiing with their friends in favor of gaining maybe 16 or 17 more hours in the Iditaread in exchange for fun time on the weekends. And since someone needs to stay home to remind them to eat, my mother didn't go skiing either. Which left my father and I.

I enjoy being better at snowboarding. It makes me feel superior.

However, I don't enjoy long car rides early in the morning, so typically I would listen to music or watch anime on the way to the mountain. However this morning was different. I left my earbuds at school on Friday, like a boss.

I was SOL. Sigh.

The ride there was fine. I passed out within the first ten minutes. However, my story takes place on the way back home.

My body was going into a food coma from the chicken fingers and fries I had practically inhaled before stuffing my board in my dad's car and strapping in for the long ride home. But once we hit the road, there was no way I could sleep. I can nap in the sunlight. I can nap in the moonlight. I can nap when there's no light. But head lights? Streetlights?

Oh, hell no.

No earbuds. No data. No wifi. I was screwed. And so, with my father's scratched book on CD playing in the background, I reached out to the last source of entertainment left to me.

I read an eBook off the tiny screen of my phone. 

As if my eyesight wasn't bad enough, I left all of my settings as they were to conserve my battery. Brightness down. Font size tiny. I tried getting comfortable in my snow pants and jacket. Actually, I thought, screw the jacket. It was tossed unceremoniously in the backseat. Boots off, hair down, now all that was left was to find a comfortable reading position. But there were no arm rests to lean on. No table where I could rest. None. Nada. Zilch. 

I ended up in a fetal position with my neck bent at an inhuman angle and my screen maybe three inches from my face. I sat like that for two and a half hours, completely absorbed in the story, not even paying attention to what I was doing to my body. And then we were home. 

My head feels like mush.

Moral of the story: Never go anywhere unprepared. And always bring along earbuds.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have the ninth episode of an amazing anime waiting for me.