Random thoughts

[run4theworld]

I just went through the YFU volunteer system and found 5 students that are within 1 hours drive that makes me so happy and 3 that are within 20 minutes, plus I am an area representative for a German boy. I get to meet him and his family on Monday. yippee!

[hurricane_chelsea]

i hate america so much right now, when i see people like sarah palin looked up to as heroes and when hate spreads like some reasonable gospel. it breaks me down. it's just not worth talking to people in the general public. it's exchange students or a vastly filtered group of other people (though, actually, the person who posted that on Facebook did several summer exchanges in Japan...)

[Rebecca]

That dipshit brought a concealed gun to our club meeting. I'm going to borrow it to shoot him if he ever does it again.

[hannah_22]

Originally Posted by littlehodges

Seriously, party on boats. You get your boaters license in drivers ed, so officially at that point you're allowed to drive boats and other watercraft. But we all drive them from the time we're like, 10. Most everyone who goes to the lake either has a boat or knows someone who does so you party with them. It's pretty awesome

My school has like 600 people...

We don't. The only boats that can go on the lake are big ones, only rich people have big boats, and my school is poor. Sounds fun though..

I've only driven a boat once. It was in Paraguay/Argentina. That without a doubt the most ridiculous day of my life. [not that ever I drove a motorized vehicle on exchange. ]

Originally Posted by littlehodges

To answer you both, my school just teaches the boating safety course with our drivers ed. You start boating during the second week of 10th grade and by the end of the month, everyone has earned a state recognized boater's license. You just take it with you when you get your license. The city schools don't do it because they're lame Go county.

We don't teach drivers ed. We have to pay like $300 and do it on our own...

[julieRD]

I don't know why but I'm starting to like my uniform a bit!
And the fact that we have congé almost every 2nd week

[hurricane_chelsea]

Originally Posted by Rebecca

That dipshit brought a concealed gun to our club meeting. I'm going to borrow it to shoot him if he ever does it again.

I love that post coming from you!

[Rebecca]

Originally Posted by hurricane_chelsea

I love that post coming from you!

He really scared me- this is somebody I've had a few run-ins with in the past and he tends to be volatile. I didn't see the gun, but apparently everyone else did. My best friend/our treasurer passed me a note about it and I almost swallowed my tongue. I felt sick for the rest of the meeting. I was afraid I'd piss him off and he'd pull it on me.
He's that mean, I don't know that I'd put it past him. It was a nerve-wracking hour. Fortunately, he was otherwise on good behavior and it didn't ruin things for our new people.

[Jessamyne]

Oh wow, Rebecca, I can't even imagine how terrifying that would have been. Is someone's going to do something about him? Behaviour like that can't continue!

[hurricane_chelsea]

Originally Posted by Rebecca

He really scared me- this is somebody I've had a few run-ins with in the past and he tends to be volatile. I didn't see the gun, but apparently everyone else did. My best friend/our treasurer passed me a note about it and I almost swallowed my tongue. I felt sick for the rest of the meeting. I was afraid I'd piss him off and he'd pull it on me.
He's that mean, I don't know that I'd put it past him. It was a nerve-wracking hour. Fortunately, he was otherwise on good behavior and it didn't ruin things for our new people.

Eesh! Wow, that would be horrible. I thought you were just talking about a douchey kind of person who's all "HEY YALL IVE GOTTA GUNNNNNNNNN" the way Stephen Colbert sometimes does on his show, or the way some people do with their cars.

[Rebecca]

Originally Posted by Jessamyne

Oh wow, Rebecca, I can't even imagine how terrifying that would have been. Is someone's going to do something about him? Behaviour like that can't continue!

At this point, I'm still kind of trying to digest it. I know I wasn't the only one who was scared... I had a long conversation with one of the other girls about it. This guy is just mean, and I don't know whether I'm blowing it out of proportion or not, but I see him as unpredictable and as having something he'd like to prove, and that with a gun seems like a very bad combination. He's always made me nervous, just because he gets mad easily, but until tonight I was never actually frightened of him, not like that. I guess the difference is, I never felt unsafe. Him with a gun, though, makes me feel very, very unsafe.
He swears it's not illegal (the girl I had the conversation with is his girlfriend's twin and she confronted them about it) but what I want to know is why would he need one? Even if he'd been doing something legitimate with it, why bring it in?
Fortunately, he graduated and he was only at the meeting because he was chaperoning some antique Civil War-era guns we wanted to show off. That was legal and there was neither powder nor ammunition involved, so it was okay with me.
The modern gun which he was obviously trying to hide? Not so much. Ordinarily, Chelsea, he *is* kind of that douche-bag type guy, but this was serious. He wasn't bragging about it, he just had it, mostly hidden.
I'm hoping he'll never come back. When everybody's cooled off, I'm going to try to address the issue, but his girlfriend is my Vice President and apparently she got really defensive when her sister tried to talk to her. I'm gonna give it some time and then try to mention casually that it made us all nervous, see if she takes it better that way.