Ever since I got home I haven’t really stopped. Today is the first day I have just relaxed and had timed to blog a bit. I like it though, no time to think about stuff, or get sad. It doesn’t bother me at all that I’m not still at MSA. I’m happy to have my life back. Being at MSA was too limiting, I couldn’t get anything done socially or with my web design. But its all well. It was well worth my time to go and has changed alot about the way I look at things.

The fourth of July I went with Lisa Jess and Gabe to the pool and watched the fireworks show. It was quite. neat, the fireworks were alot closer than I thought. There was one dud that went off right at the ground. It was a big one too. I never heard about anyone getting hurt though. Afterwords we went and got some of Gabe’s fireworks and shot them off at Jess’, then played with sparklers. Me and Lisa swing danced for a while then everyone went home.

I have been to weightlifting every day this week (go me) and, though I did drop alot on my maxes, I’m happy to feel sore again. Me and Nick have been hanging out, which we never used to do so that is cool. We eat all the ripe blackberries every day after weightlifting, and there are quite a few of them.

I have talked to Kay a couple times since I got back. I miss having her to hang out with, but I’m not freaking out about it anymore. She got me tea from England (yay for kayleigh) but she still hasn’t mailed it (boo for kayleigh).

July 14th I am having a party at my grandparents’. from noon till midnight, mainly for MSA people. It will be fun, I dont know if many people will come, but a couple of my friends are so it will be good.

I think I need to not blog my entire life and only blog things that are really cool. I’ll figure it out though. My websites are taking off, 3k page views a day… I love swing dancing… See yall later.

-Live in each of the 50 states for at least 2 weeks apiece
-Visit every continent except maybe antartica
-Live on each coast for 6 months apiece
-Visit specifically: Japan, Greece, Italy, Canada, The Googleplex, E3, Broadway, The Daytona 500, A Poetry Slam, Cornerstone Music Festival
-Own a harley
-Not Kill My Next Bonsai Tree
-Make A Forest Green Cloak & Visit Renasiance Festivals In It
-Work At Google For Some Period Of Time
-Own Google Stock
-Find A Good Compassionate Person To Share My Life With
—Have Children With Them
-Live In Town, Yet Surrounded By Trees and Nature (see my grandparents house) and have a hottub, pool, soundsystem, lots of honeysuckle, and lots of blackberries.
-Learn my guitar notes on the fretboard
-Learn to sing 8_
-Record A Song
-Build A successful webdesign/software-engineering buisness
-Be a good witness to others
-Get a picture on a bottle of jones soda
-Write a good poem
-Learny to fly an airplane
-Learn to dance!
-Stay in touch with…. People

I believe that watermelon with seeds always tastes better than that without. I believe in friends who are always there, even when they aren’t, and in firsbee and fun. I believe that Christ rocked my world and that computer geeks are cooler than jocks. I believe that Google will someday take over the world (and at that time I will own it) I believe in the compassion of the human race and in the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. I also believe that compassion is my new favorite word. I believe in the value of the sound of nature and the peace it bestows. I believe that cats rule dogs and in late night swimming with friends. I believe in the company of your own company and having fun doing nothing. I believe in the trickel of the creek and the rush of a waterfall.
I believe in goodbyes that mean see you in a bit and the silent screaming lights of june floating in the dusky meadow. I believe in Hope, I believe in Believing, and I believe in Fireflies.

The event began with a couple of awards and a skit put on by the acting for non-actors class. Then it started getting sad. The choir sang, well, everyone sang “A Chance to Soar”, our anthem. Then we got to see our slideshow, which actually had good music to it. Then it was our RAs turn. They each shared a quote that had some relevance to our lives, it was nice. After the quotes it really broke down. Under our seats were baggies of beads, we each got 2, a ketchup colored and a mustard colored. You were supposed to give a bead to the one person that meant the most to you at MSA.

They walked us out to the quad in silence, probably the only time we were silent at all of MSA. There were hugs all around, a couple of people were crying. As we walked out to the quad we picked up a candle in a cup. We made a circle on the quad, keep in mind that its 10:00 at night and dark. You could just barely see the person across from you. Ted proceeded to tell us how great we were, and explain what was going to happen. Ted and another, walked to the center of the circle and lit their candles. The RAs then walked to the center and lit theirs from Ted’s. Then each of our candles was lit by the RAs. I don’t really know how to describe it all.

We were told to wonder about and find our minor classes. After finding them and talking a bit we all gave each other hugs. After I had hugged Gina, I thought I heard someone running through the sprinklers with an umbrella, you know the crackling sound. I looked and didn’t see the sprinklers… I think, sprinklers? Look, no… hair?… no, Sprinklers… no… hair!!! It turns out that Gina had lit my hair on fire with her candle. It was a bit ironic too, because I had been saying earlier that I had never smelled burning hair. Wow.

We then found our major classes, and then our houses. Zup showed us his “Not Not” shirt and we had fun lighting our cups on fire. After that we all wondered around giving people beads and hugs. I lost Kate so I had to go back to Twain and find her to give her a hug. It was alright though, it really made me realize that there are awesome people in the world.

—nathan

A week before, I had blown up a bottle using dry-ice during physics. That started our obsession. We started hording bottles, eventually having over 70, and bugging steve to let us. Finally, the day of the demonstrations, we were testing out what we were going to do. He said we could! We went out to an “empty” area of campus to test our plan. We got out rocket launcher from the other day and a small soda bottle filled with water. We taped the small bottle on the top of the rocket and got the rocket up to pressure. As soon as we hit 60 psi Inaam dropped in a bunch of ice, capped the small bottle, and pulled the launch pin. The first two rockets launched fine, quite well actually, but the bottles didnt explode… 8( after waiting on them for 5 mins Inaam, the poor soul, went and unscrewed the caps. He got soaked.

Finally, our last try… Steve is ready to leave, our spotters say its all clear even though people are walking. We launch it, its in the air…. it hits the ground… ok, so were not going to get it to blow in the air. 30 seconds later, BOOM. It blows. All I notice is the grey streak that flies past my head. Garrett, the smart guy he is, goes to grab the mangled remains of the bottle before Steve sees it. I run and grab the top which had blown off, heading straight at us. It traveled a good 30 yards. Boy did this thing blow, the inside is the outside, you cant really tell it was a bottle because the cap is off. Luckily Steve didn’t see it.

That night we did it, after two that didnt explode we got one that did. This was our biggest explosion yet. We gave the tattered remains to Bret. Everyone there cheered, it was awesome. Later, at the closing ceremony of MSA we presented the bottle to Steve. On it we had written “Note the shrapnel”. Steve was horrified and the rest of the day all he could say was, “I fear for your eyesight”. We love you Steve!

—nathan

Now i don’t have any pictures from this activity because of the water (water+ digi camera = bad) but it was fun all the same. We each had a partner, and with them we learned how to fall into the pool, slap, pull hair, swing and dodge, and basically act out that scene. I can definatley say acting is not my strong point but I’m glad I did this. I even got to throw my partner over my head!

–nathan

My name is Nathaniel Mahieu and I attended the Missouri Scholars Academy during the summer of 2005. I am writing to say how this experience has affected me and to display my full support of the continuation of this program. I had read about funding cuts for this program before I attended it and felt that it would be a loss to our educational systems but I didn’t think much of it. To me, it was just another state program. This view is nowhere near the truth of what MSA is like. After attending this program for almost three weeks I must say that the benefits I have received from it reach far beyond that of physics and poetry, these were the two classes I took. By this I do not mean that the classes were less than satisfactory, but to fully appreciate this program it must be understood that it is not only academics that are taught. I have learned much about myself and others, communicating with the rest of the world, cultures, along with physics and poetry.

In my eyes I find that the greatest benefit bestowed by this program is that of being able to explore yourself and others. By allowing us, the scholars, to take three weeks out of our normal lives and look back into it allows us to possibly change things about ourselves or see things we need to change. I believe that many gifted children have more emotionally unstable lives, and this program for the gifted allows us to see and deal with some of the emotions. This is helped along by something called Personal and Social Dynamics. PSD is a class which allows us to discuss our views and personalities with others from similar situations. It is very helpful and really allows those who may be a bit introverted a time to talk freely.

Along with the social benefits we also get a good taste of some challenging school type work. From physics to poetry to Japanese culture, the exposure we receive here in three weeks far surpasses that which I had received in my entire life. The curriculum we covered in my physics class appeared to be that of a semester and a half, covered in only three weeks here. To me, this is very impressive and to lose this opportunity would be losing a lot of future potential from us scholars. The program is so diverse and packed full, after attending it is quite obvious that Missouri is preparing a great future for its self.

Please, if the funding of this program is ever questioned again, know that this program is supported by many, myself included, and I would hope that you would support it too.

Sincerely,
Nathaniel Mahieu

He covered the history of Jazz in a very fun and very very intersting way. He introduced himself and explained what he was going to tell us about. This probably wouldn’t have been very interesting to begin with, but the way he approached it was very flexible, I guess you could say it was like Jazz. Even then, it was well put together, after he explained something he would sit down and show us on the piano. He covered how Jazz was born in the church, a little bit of chord theory on accident, and a little bit of biography of himself.

He was a Methodist preacher, and from what I could tell, he had a very firm grasp on the world. I just had to brag about him, and if he ever sees this, consider it my thank you.

–nathan

Yesterday we had our swing dancing lesson and it was aweosme. My friend, Jessica, had gone to the academy two years before me and thats where she learned to swing dance. At prom and a couple dances she taught me what she knew and we had a pretty awesome time. Ever since she told me that she learned to swing dance here, it had been on my minda as one of my goals of MSA: learn to swing dance.

I love swing dancing, probably because its the only kind of dancing I can actually do. I got the main step down and the basic spin quite easily. Our teachers were quite good. Laura and James demonstrated the moves and then we tried them out. Luckily I had good partners that knew what they were doing, that helped alot in my learning.

So far my move count includes: The step, a spin, the cradle, the crossover, and the pretzel. The pretzel, sounds intimidating doesn’t it. Yes, well it is. Me and my partner both wanted to learn it, but simply could not get it. We stayed at least 30 minuites after the normal session trying to figure it out. Finally, after James helped us about 4 times, we got it down. We were messing up on one part and thats it. It was awesome after we could do it though.

That night Grace and I had a little swing dance session on the quad. Shes pretty good and swing dancing is aweosme. 8D

–nathan

So, because of my lazyness I did not ever decide to invite a teacher to teacher appreciation day. I do wish I would have because I felt bad wasting that honor, but it all worked out in the end. Before the teachers showed up the RAs began lining us up along the columns, making us easier to find I suppose. I was playing frisbee with a couple others biding my time without a teacher. As the RAs begin to herd us into Jesse I see grace and drew and go over to stand with them. Grace has her teacher but Drew doesn’t.

As we walk up the steps Grace notices I have no teacher and jokingly says that I can be her student, pointing. Well, I decided that was quite a good idea and turned around to find a nice lady whom I would befriend for the rest of the night. She was from Chicago and had come with Grace’s teacher to see what the program was like. She was very nice and hospitable and she helped me get some punch without the line 8D. Quite a nice spirit, she definately made my night better. We sat with Grace, Lily, Drew, and Rob, and their teachers. We enjoyed some halfway good punch (no competition with the college fair’s), great brownies, and some dessert I hadn’t seen before.

I just found it quite humorus I played student to someone I had never met before.

–nathan