4. Ten Reasons to Live in a Cabin Up North Alone

1. You get to wear earmuffs and mittens and cute winter things.
2. You can have as many puppies as you want, because there's tons of room for them to run around and play.
• If you wanted, you could make sure all your puppies are huskies, and then you could make them your sled dog team.
3. Skinny dipping without the embarrassment. 
4. There's plenty of time to develop hobbies. Always wanted to learn to juggle? Now's your chance.
5. The view is absolutely beautiful.
6. No one's around to tell you your music's too loud.
7. You could pretty much live out The Simpsons Movie in real life.
8. Whatever job you have would require little to no human interaction.
• You may be skeptical on the job opportunities in a cabin up north alone, but there are several. Photography, hunting, logging, and blogging are only a few of the career paths available to the modern-day Eskimo.
9. There's never a bad time for coffee, hot chocolate, or tea because it's always cold.
10. Freedom to do whatever you want, without social constraints.

http://acpe-barry.blogspot.com/2010/08/dog-sleds-and-teamwork-or-how-team-of.html

3. My Baby

Thursday, October 11, I became a mother.

Not really. Obviously. But I adopted a bunny, which is the closest I'll be to motherhood for a while.

For about a year, now, I've been begging my dad to let me keep a rabbit at his house. Dogs are a lot of work and you can't play with a lizard, so I figured something small and furry would be perfect. Finally, he agreed, and we started scouring pet stores and shelter websites.

It turns out, PetSmart and Petco no longer carry bunnies. And I would feel bad going to shelter full of orphans, not adopting any because they weren't cute enough. We found my bunny on craigslist, sketchy as it sounds. The owner was selling him, along with a cage, food, and all his accessories. We pretty much got a Grow-Your-Own Bunny starter kit.

After driving to Saugus, driving back, and getting him settled, I tried deciding on a name for him. That was Thursday, and I still haven't decided. At first I wanted to call him Orpheus (really nerdy, but it's from that Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice), but it's too masculine for a bunny and sounds like a name for a Transformer. Now, I'm leaning towards Pippin (from Lord of the Rings, another nerd reference), but I'm not quite sure it fits. I also like Jamie, just because it's a really cute name, but I'm really bad at making decisions. I'll probably just end up calling the thing Bunny.

He has the same birthday as me, which is really cool, and he's a master escape artist. We let him out of his cage to explore my bedroom the first night, and he wouldn't get back in for almost an hour.

Pippin, a.k.a. Jamie, a.k.a. Bunny

2. Senatorial Debate

On Monday, October 1st, because I'm a chairperson of Student Council, I had to go to the Senatorial Debate at the Tsongas.

Honestly, I wasn't too excited to go. There were some people actually interested in politics that were happy to be given the opportunity, but I just went because I had to. There were rumors that Mark Wahlburg would be there, so that was really my main goal. However, once I sat down and started listening, it was a lot more entertaining than I'd first expected.

First of all, the walk to the arena was terrifying. We met at the high school before walking across the street as a group, so we got to go right through all the picketers. I'm sure that most people didn't think it was too bad, but there were masses of people on either side of me holding up signs taller than I am. It was like walking through a long, narrow tunnel of rabid politically-interested civilians. I didn't like it.

Once the debate finally started (after an hour of sitting in our seats), I actually became a little interested. I know nothing of politics other than that my beliefs are generally democratic, so I had no idea what to expect.

Basically, what I got out of the debate was that Scott Brown spends more time making Elizabeth Warren look bad than making himself look good. Not that I'm all that fond of Warren either, but Brown kept bringing up all the court cases she took to make money. Honestly, the reason we have a job is to make money. If you're a lawyer, obviously you're going to represent the client that offers you more, unless there's some extreme moral issue under question. Elizabeth Warren spent more time trying to state her own beliefs and how effective she would be as senator than slandering her opponent.

The mediator, though, was incredibly biased. He constantly cut off Senator Brown, but had no problem letting Elizabeth Warren ramble on. He'd allow Warren to interrupt Brown, but Brown was scolded whenever he tried to do the same. Clearly, I don't like Scott Brown, but it isn't fair for him to be treated unfairly when he's trying to talk to the people.

My last issue with the debate was when they brought up the Dream Act. The Dream Act is an act currently under consideration in Congress, allowing the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition for state colleges. Here in Lowell, the "melting pot" of Massachusetts, one of the most racially diverse cities in all of the East Coast, Scott Brown admitted to not supporting it. I know that those are his beliefs and he was right in not lying about them, but it was still awkward to say when there are so many immigrants in our city. And, really, what's the big deal about the Dream Act? It's not the children's fault that their parents brought them here illegally when they were younger. A nine-year-old child couldn't stop his parents from taking him here, so why should he be punished for it?

Overall, politics confuse me. I'm still upset I didn't see Mark Wahlburg.

*I was going to attach a picture of the picketers my friend Julian took, but Instagram won't let me steal it*

1. Warped Tour 2012

Over the summer, I went to my first ever concert, the Vans Warped Tour. It was the best day of my life.

Cliche as that sounds, it's the only way to describe it. The past two years of coming to know and love music I'd never known existed finally culminated in one day where I got to see five of my favorite bands. It was fantastic.

Since there were over a hundred bands there, five doesn't seem like that many at all, but it's still more than you'd get at a normal concert. With six bands performing on six stages simultaneously, it's physically impossible to catch more than twenty sets, and most people only see around five to eight.

The sets my friend and I saw were All Time Low, We Are The In Crowd, Mayday Parade, We The Kings, and Pierce the Veil. It was so perfect.

All Time Low played early, at half past noon. We'd only gotten to the venue about a half hour earlier, so by the time we found the stage the crowd was enormous. I could barely see the band and I was kicked in the face by a crowd surfer, but as far as first concerts go, I couldn't have asked for more.

We Are The In Crowd played just after them, on a different stage, so we skipped the ATL signing to see them. I think it was worth it. I'd rather see a band live than wait in line an hour to meet them. I hadn't really heard much of WATIC, but they were even better live than they were on their record, which I think is a really good quality in any musical performance.

Next we walked around all the tents they have set up to sell band merch, both of us spending way more than we should have. I think I spent over $100 on everything I bought that day, but I'd just gotten a summer job and thought money would last forever.

Pierce the Veil was holding a signing around mid-afternoon, and I really wish I'd appreciated it more at the time. As of that day, I'd never heard one of their songs, and yet I got to shake their hands and talk with them. Now, they're one of my favorite bands and touring somewhere half-way across the world.

Mayday Parade performed while we were in line for the PTV signing, but the line was right near the stage, so we could still hear it. They played Kids in Love just as we joined the crowd, which was exciting because it's one of my favorite songs.

We skipped the end of Mayday Parade's set to see We The Kings, who were my favorite band at the time. Even though that doesn't hold true now, their set was still my favorite. It was the only one I knew absolutely every word to, and it was just so cool.

The last show we saw was Pierce the Veil. As I've said, I didn't know a thing about them, except that they were Mexicans. They're my friends favorite, though, so we went, and it was a fantastic show. You could tell without ever having heard of them. Kellin Quinn made a surprise appearance in the set too, which was cool because I actually knew of his band. He's featured in PTV's song King For A Day, and they performed that together.

That day was the best of my life. I don't know how any other concert I go to is going to live up to Warped Tour.

The only picture my friend took of the both of us was of our feet. Which isn't very exciting, but it's better than  nothing. The picture looks blue because we used a disposable camera, and it must have overheated or something.