Kalypso The Odyssey

(wow… i haven’t blogged in a long time) Over spring break, my family and I went up to Omaha, Nebraska. The reason was one: visiting family and two: my dad was having a punk rock band reunion. In case you don’t know, my father was in a punk rock band ‘back in the day’. Their name was Apathy and the band consisted of Seth Kirshman (singer), Mark Blackman (drummer), (my uncle) Jim Homan (guitarist), and my personal favorite, (my very own father) Michael Homan (bassist). The band was pretty well known and CDs were sold over seas. My brother and I were able to attend the concert and thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Although, it was sort of strange to see middle aged men jumping up and down and playing punk music on stage. But, being sort of into the whole punk thing myself, I enjoyed the whole event. My dad’s band was the best by far and you can see a video of the whole thing here:

This is a picture of the band on stage taken by my mom, Therese Fitzpatrick:

Another Photo:
Here you can see the drummer. I love my dad’s hair in the pic.

At my school it’s the end of the quarter and that means two things. First, Exams are randomly being thrown at us. Because of this our schedule is changing constantly, confusion is everywhere, people are so stressed that they seem to be at the point of exhaustion, and otherwise there just seems to be a catastrophic sense of evil and mayhem throughout the halls of our school. (I personally enjoy watching pitiful students running and screaming across the school, simply because I find it funny and the lack of pointless homework is also a definite bonus.) The second thing that it being the end of the quarter brings is that we are about to have a break!!! I’m happy because this specific break happens to be Christmas and we (my immediate family) are going to go to Omaha, Nebraska to visit family. Lets see… today is the 19th so there will be six days until Christmas. I guess it’s time to bring out my Christmas list. And here it is:

1) Amazon gift cards
2) Cosmetics (mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and nail polish)
3) Wii Games (Boogie, Mario Galaxy, and any other game that you might think I like)
4) Coconuts and pineapple wearing santa hats

Lots of stuff has happened in the past week. First yesterday was my brother’s Birthday. We went to see BeoWulf in an I-max theater. The movie was great, but my dad said that they changed a lot of stuff in the original story and refused to tell me what so I’m gonna’ read it. And now, it’s Thanksgiving!!! We are going to celebrate everything tomorrow, on the 23rd. Today we also went to help our friend Keith clean up his backyard. So, that pretty much sums up what’s happened in the past week or so, so bye.

This year’s Halloween was fun. We went trick-or-treating and I got lots of candy. So did Gil. Our costumes were also fun. Personally, I like my brother’s. He looks cool with the demonic triton.

This is my costume. Due to the lack of supplies and time to go shopping, I had to resort to being a cat (I wanted to be an evil bunny). But the costume was still nice and with a little help from my mom, we were able to pull the costume together.
So, it’s sort of to late for this now but HAPPY HOLLOWEEN!!

This weekend has been a blast! On Saturday I hanged out here at our house. On Sunday we went to our friends Keith and Jeffrey’s house for shrimp grits which I must say were fantastic. Monday me, my brother, and my dad went to the beach in Waveland and after at 2:00 we went to a Labor Day party at one of our neighbor’s houses. So now to top it all off, I got to stay home today too because our teachers had a class today. It was probably another class on how to use the smart board that each of them got installed in his or her classroom. So it has all been great. Tomorrow I go back to school.

Today is my 12th Birthday, and on a day that would usually be spent eating cake, I will be watching movies and sleeping on a plane. My dad is trying to convince me that the whole thing is worth it by telling me that I will get an actual 32 full hours of birthday because we are the other side of the earth and will be traveling with the sun. It will be a nice present to get back to New Orleans and to see my friends and family.

I have, once again conquered another boring book on the summer reading list and will be wonderfly happy to cross this book off the list. My Brother Sam is Dead is a book about the little brother of a soldier in the Revolutionary War. I personally just don’t seem to like American history so I didn’t find the book that interesting or exciting but it might be better for you if you find that history is just a bit more than names, places, battles, and dates. My dad says I will like history more when I get older. So now I shall start the more known rumored-for-being and supposedly good read, The Count of Monte Cristo. Today I also went to the beach with Kesem, Mike and Sharon’s (the people that run the Bistro on the kibutz) daughter. We had a good time. The waves were extrordinairily strong and the beach was amazingly clean (well, at least compaired to the ones in NOLA.) It was a good day swimming in the Mediterranean.

According to the Hebrew Bible, on the seventh day, the Israelites rested from their work. Shabbat is that day. So on Saturdays in Israel, the people, including we archaeologists, spend the day relaxing. In the evening on Friday, we go to Shabbat dinner here at the kibbutz. We eat nice food up at the kibbutz dining hall and wear dressy casual outfits. Afterwards, we all head down to the patio for coffee and cake.

Before we go to Israel for the dig we stopped in New York to visit my Uncle Craig and Aunt Jennifier. Today I went around New York with them looking the city and many of its tourist attractions. The first thing in the morning we went over to Coney Island. It’s an old amusement park that they might tear down so went to see it before it might be gone. We went on the Topspin which is a ride that turns around in many different directions making you very very dizzy. We also went on the Wonder Wheel, a giant ferrris wheel. And after that we went to the Water Flume. After that we went to the Staton Island Ferry and road near the Statue of Liberty. Then we went to the World Trade Center site. Directly after we took a subway to Central Park. The Natural History Museum was closed, but we went to a dog run. It was an open gravel field with many dogs running around. Next we went to Lincoln Center, and walked back down to Columbus Circle. Then we took a train to the Empire State Building, walked to the Chrysler building, and then took a train home again. I’m tired, but I had a great day in New York. Thanks Uncle Craig and Aunt Jennifier.

Well, it was another great year for Mardi Gras. I caught lots of stuff including approximately 5 Super Muse comic books, 3 bendy spears, 10 normal spears, and lots of other great stuff. I love Muses and Zulu and every other parade! Muses is so awsome. I love how they the weirdest stuff like makeup, nail kits, and shoes! So to sum up all that I have said in one sentence, Mardi Gras ROCKS!!!