LBI Essentials

Over the summer I took a week long vacation with family and friends to Long Beach Island, New Jersey. It was eventful, lots of fun and very hot. This summer marks my 13th time vacationing in LBI, so I like to consider myself  a veteran of the area. With that being said rather than blog about my most recent stay there I wanted to explain some essential things, foods and places I've discovered over the years.

The Beach/Ocean-Obviously the main attraction of LBI that cant be ignored. LBI is a relatively small, only around a mile wide so you can get to the beach pretty much anytime and anywhere. The beach itself tends to be fairly spacious so you will have no trouble finding a place to stay. The ocean is almost always cold but you'll get used to it quickly. It can have pretty rugged conditions, whether its jellyfish, an undercurrent or monster waves but that's just part of the fun. All in all the beach and ocean are musts if your going to LBI


Seafood-While LBI does have its fair share of quick eats and ice-cream you cant pass up on the seafood. There are many places to get seafood throughout the island but my personal favorite was Neptune's  Market, a great seafood deli. Out of the seafood options even though oysters, fish and clams may seem appealing the crab is the best. You cant go to LBI without trying it.

Biking- Make sure to bring bikes with you! Almost all of LBI is completely flat making biking an easy and fun way to travel around the island. Also a great way to burn calories after ice-cream.


Barnegat Light House- On the north tip of the island stands a 170ft  historical light house. Barnegat is a great location to bike or drive too and offers a small light house museum and a long walk to the top for some great pictures. As well next too Barnegat is a jetty of rocks which you can climb far out to and fish. But be careful for high tide the waves get crazy and dangerous, I was once caught out and I feared for my life.

Chicken Or The Egg- A great diner and place to eat. It also features great art and a theme to go with its name. However be warned its almost always packed with an insane wait list.


The Sand Box-A-semi outdoor restaurant with vibrant colors, statues everywhere and some solid food that will make it worth your time.


Fantasy Island-Better for younger kids but still an exciting place to go Fantasy Island is an amusement park with your classic rides and if those aren't for you there's also an arcade. However the whole experience will be fairly pricey.

The Bay- Getting a house on the bay of LBI is like having your own private beach. Its always there, great to swim and sail in and easily accessible. The bay tends to be a great place for crabbing and fishing with little waves or disturbance. My personal preference is the beach, but the bay is still relaxing and fun.


 Towns- There are many towns in the 19 mile stretch that makes up LBI Harvey Cedars, Love Ladies, Barnegat Light, etc. I've stayed at many but they all seem to blend together into one. So deciding where to stay comes down to you, but I'm sure anywhere you choose will be a great time and will you give the overall feel of LBI!

One Day, One Day by Liv Przydzial

And sometimes I venture to a special place in my mind, a special place that takes me to where I want to be more than anything. 

* * * 

I'm in a Volkswagen camper van, one covered in tie-dye peace sign stickers and painted in colorful shades of the happy colors. Although the van might be blue, we were anything but that. All the windows were down and the pleasantly warm summer breeze drifted by as we wound our way around the Pacific coast. Music blared from the radio, replaying old songs from our childhoods. Everyone knew all the words, and we all laughed as we attempted to reach a high note. Everyone wore a smile on their face, and the slowly setting sun cast golden glows upon our sunkissed faces. The ocean just a hop, skip, and a jump away reflected the rainbow of colors infecting the sky. 

As we climbed our way to the beach, songs by the Beetles blared. Our hands in the air, our wrists crowded from all of the friendship bracelets from old and new friends, we danced our way down local streets. A blur of people milled up and down the boardwalk. The ocean's salty aroma wafted to us, mixing with the chatter of the people and the seemingly distant crashing of the waves. 

Perhaps the stereotype of the recklessness of teenagers was true, but maybe a part of the story was forgotten. Why didn't anyone talk about how liberating it felt to ditch the heavy burden of material things behind and live for the moment? Why didn't anyone talk about how much more meaningful each day was when you lived in and for every second of it? Why didn't anyone ever talk about life as the new, colorful, make-it-what-you-want-it entity that it was, rather than the monotonous, day-after-day blandness that society made it out to be? 

Regardless, as soon as the van rumbled to a stop, I flung open the door and essentially spilled out. My legs like that of a newborn fawn, I stretched from the long ride down here. Even the pavement was covered in sand carried here by a million people, the thought of which made me happy, because I was now a part of this too. I was already in my bathing suit, as where the rest of my friends. We would race to the end of this world and the next together, all of our steps in synch, our feet creating a dust storm behind us, each footstep resonating within the earth. The sand between my toes was so fresh, so raw. I understood what it now felt like to be in touch with nature, myself, and the people around me - all at once, and it was simply exhilarating. We plunged into the warm water, emerging with salty hair and laughs. 


It was liberating, to be swept off your feet and into the sea. The ocean was such an unimaginably huge entity of unknowns, a seemingly endless expanse of secrets that would never be fully understood. Perhaps some would find this terrifying, but I was actually rather entranced. To me, the ocean was full of contradictions. The waves crashed with vigor and anger, while all the life dependant on it hung in a gentle balance that something as simple as a minor breeze could sway out of control. As unknown and scary the depths of the water below us seemed, I felt nothing less than free, with nothing dragging me down but gravity, which didn't even feel as heavy as it normally did. 

* * * 

With our salty lips and soaked hair, we sat side by side on the beach, watching the sun rest atop the horizon. How big was this earth? What was beyond that line? Perhaps I would never know, but the beauty was not in knowing, but in speculating what wonders one could find in such a mysterious thing such as this. 

It was easy to feel satisfied. Feeling exhilarated, wild, and free, and ultimately falling asleep happy all at the same time was a challenge so simple in nature yet so unattainable and out of reach for those afraid to break the chains of the weights on their shoulders. 

As the sun dipped below the cloudless sky and the first stars unmasked themselves, my fingers strummed the ancient strings of my mother's guitar, the vibrations flowing through each of my veins and into everyone else's. We sang whatever songs came to mind and laughed when we all forgot the lyrics and came up with our own. 


* * *

Although I dream of such a mental, physical, and soul-quenching liberation, I know that the value in such a phenomenon is only understood with a background in the opposite. To be free, you need to be in bondage, an unfortunate cycle that nobody has strayed far enough from to break out of. I hope that maybe one day, maybe just one day, I'll be the one to go far enough into the darkness to find the light switch to happiness in everything I do, but for now, the most I can do is at least attempt to be happy in as much as possible, until I reach far enough into the dark to light up this world.

Dog Eye Surgery

Dog Eye Surgery 

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     This summer my mom and I needed to have the left eye of our 6 month old puppy, Odin. He cannot see in his left eye because someone, most likely his breeder, hit him in the head. Why they chose this is most likely due to him having a mutation that made his tail nubby meaning that,  although Odin is a purebred German Shepard, they cannot sell him. Despite this Odin is a happy and outgoing puppy but, we still need to get his eye removed to avoid further injury or infection. I have decided to document his recovery.

Day 1

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    On the day of the surgery Odin was a first shaking and very scared, but our belief is this was mainly due to the original cone he was in, so we switched him to an inflatable one. After that he was much more upbeat, though it was hard to tell because we had a long trip back home from the vet in Maryland. He drank plenty but unfortunately barely ate, luckily that is enough for him to take his pain medication.

1 Week Later

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     About a week later the swelling had gone down a lot and you could better see what Odin would look like when he was fully recovered though, it was still a bit swelled up where the eye once was. Odin still wouldn't lay on his bad side despite him usually doing so, so that he could see his surroundings. He was still mostly cheerful but was upset that he had to be separated from our other dog so that his stitches didn't rip. We mainly kept Odin the inflatable cone but when we could keep a good eye on him we took it off so that he could groom.

Ten Days Later

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     After another 3 days Odin was laying back on his bad side and acted mostly normal. Due to his missing of our other dog, Psyche, and her missing of him we let them see each other. These interactions didn't last for log but they did help with making their attitudes much closer to normal. Odin's stitches now are safe to dissolve and his fur has noticeably began to grow back. We also let Odin have the cone off without strict supervision because he was acting good with them and almost entirely ignored them.

2 Weeks Later

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   After 2 weeks Odin has entirely recovered, except for the short hair around the surgery area, and is acting entirely normal again. He now never has to wear the inflatable cone and is back up to being a mischief maker. Odin is now also able to see and play with his sister as much as he wants, granted that they aren't in the way. Something notable is that he has become a lot worse behaved since his surgery, this is probably due to the sympathy he garnered. If your dog is to have surgery like Odin, especially if they are an adorable puppy, I would recommend still being strict with their behavior to avoid this consequence.

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Normal

This summer was a fairly normal summer. I tried to do more, but it ended up being just... normal. One of those normal activities was the Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp, which is one of the highlights of my summer.

MDA summer camp is a 5-day sleep-away summer camp, for anyone under 18 with disabilities affecting their muscles. It has many activities, just like a regular camp. It has arts and crafts, a pool, a talent show, laser tag, and many more. It's a lot of fun, and I wish it was longer.

It's one of the normal things I do in summer.

And at camp, I'm normal.

A picture of campers and counselors doing arts and crafts at MDA summer camp this year.

Everyone at camp has a disability, and everyone gets their own counselor who helps them and takes care of them. The activities are inclusive and accessible, so that everyone can take part. They had wheelchair soccer, which basically turned the chairs into bumper cars, and bazooka baseball, which was regular baseball except the ball was launched by a pressurized launcher which the camper aimed. They even made a "flying squirrel" activity, where you get launched into the air attached to a pulley system, accessible to everyone.

All of these adaptations aren't just for me. They're for everyone. At camp, I can hang out with people who are like me, and I can feel comfortable and do everything just like everyone else. I'm not special there, and that's okay.

Lots of people take being able to do things for granted. And at camp, I can too. Living with a disability is far from normal, and I'm okay with that. I've adapted to it, and I have fun with it, despite all the obstacles. I'm not saying that everyday life is a struggle. It's fine most of the time. But, every once in a while, I like to be normal, to just relax and not worry about the accessibility side of things.

My summer was a normal one, and that's okay. Normal isn't always bad.

Beginners Guide to a THIS Summer by: Mikayla Flanz

Well. We're finally back from that whole one and a half month we had off and administrators are trying to pass off as summer. Let's see what you missed...

I don't think people understand how long six hours are. Especially when they are spent sitting on uncomfortable plastic chairs, in the mid day summer sun, attempting to keep eight year old brats from drowning. Last February, I got my life guarding certification and I some what knew what I was getting myself into, but man, I was NOT paid enough for the amount of hours I wasted sitting on that god forsaken life guarding chair this summer. Personally I don't believe nine dollars an hour is the value of a child's life (even though no one drowned, I swear I'm good at my job... please hire me).

Stranded. I'm stuck in Sparta, New Jersey, alone. Sure I get people go on vacation and have summer houses, but it seems every time my friends were in town, I was on vacation, leaving me lonely the majority of summer. Overall, I'm relatively certain the best part of my summer was my college trip to Brown. Since I was little, I've always known that I would play soccer in college, and now it's beginning. Even then, a college visit for soccer should NOT be the highlight of my summer, to be honest I'm slowly becoming more and more disappointed with my standards.

Vacation in the North Carolina Outer banks, sounds great. Wrong. I'm not trying to sound like a brat, I get that I was lucky enough to go on a vacation, and I'm grateful that my parents booked the trip, but the things that went down were kind of out of both my hands and theirs... The weather, day one through five of our week long vacation, the Carolinas were hit with what is called a "tropical depression", which in a nut shell is rain. So. Much. Rain. And I could have even looked past that, but day two of our trip I got sick, and I spent the next few days of vacation sleeping, it was miserable. But I finally got better for the last few days of vacation, and the last three days were beautiful, until the last day of our trip. Somehow on the final day of vacation, I wound up in the ER. Since it was such a nice day, I thought I'd take my board and go surfing for my final day, you know, go out in a bang... So at some point in the time I was out there, I got up, then was knocked off, and landed onto the ocean floor on my head. Five hours at being in the ER later, I had a concussion. Yay.

The summer of 2018, wasn't terrible, but it also was not memorable, it was kind of just there. As much as I love not utilizing my brain cells for about a month and a half, IT WAS ONLY A MONTH AND A HALF. I'm sorry, but that's not summer, that's a glorified and more humid version of spring break, but without the Easter bunny. Yet, even then it wouldn't have been that bad, but because I made the personally choice to play high school soccer, my summer ended August 6, 2018, the beginning of heat week... I'm pretty certain I questioned a good portion of my life choices during that week that lead me to do this for a second consecutive time in my life. Anyway...

Rest In Peace

Summer 2018

June 30, 2018- September 6, 2018

(You won't be missed)






Image Citations:
Bennett, Clay. “The ‘Abstinence Only’ Lifeguard. Don't Go in the Water!” Clay Bennett's Editorial Cartoons, 2008.

First Vacation in Years by Zachary Merold

Life just gets better and better as time goes on and everyday has the potential to be the best one yet. This was definitely true for me this summer. Before I tell you why, I suppose you should understand something about family. We almost never go on vacation, and it isn't so much by choice that this is, but rather because of responsibilities, pets being a prominent one. Our family of five has owned some bizarre pets over the years, from parrots to chickens. And as you might think, it isn't the easiest to find a chicken-sitter in New Jersey. Since I hadn't ever been out of the country before (besides that time I went to China when I was like 2 and have no recollection of) I was so excited to discover that I was going to Israel, but less so when hearing my mother and younger sister had to stay home because of those "responsibilities". Then came the worst part of the trip: the airplane ride.  While I'm not afraid of flying, being on a 12 hour flight still rattled me a bit, especially the landing. Once we were there, there was so many things foreign to my everyday life in Sparta, like the cuisine, languages, and religions. Overall, I would say the best thing about the trip was our tour of Petra, the "Rose City," earning this nickname because of the reddish tint in the sandstone it was carved in. Just for a little bit of history, Petra is one of the 7 World Wonders and was the capital of the Nabatean Empire which went through its prime from 9 B.C. to 40 A.D. The people of this city were experts in water manipulation and when carving the city into the sandstone walls, they made many irrigation tunnels to trap rainfall. The most interesting building I saw during the tour was definitely the Treasury. Below there are some pictures of it, and just look at how well the carving in it were preserved over the thousands of year it's been around. To get the picture from above we had to climb a rock face, which was an adventure in itself. The most tiresome part of the trip was the sweltering heat, which reached 120 degrees some days. Maybe next year I will be able to have another fantastic experience, but until then I will have to focus on my school work. 

The Summer Everything Changed~ By Julia McEllen

           Every summer I look forward to those gorgeous days on the beach, tanning under the sun and swimming in the ocean. I look forward to those lazy nights, sitting by the campfire and roasting marshmallows. I look forward to those girly days, getting my nails done with my mom and my sister, and going shopping as we slurp down our Starbucks iced teas. But all of that changed this summer, when my sister, Madelyn, went away to the University of South Carolina. Soon all those days became the "last time". The last time we would ever have a girly day during the school year with her. The last time we would ever be able to come home from the first day of school and tell each other all about it.

          My sister and I are both really close, and we love to do everything together. When those last few weeks of summer were approaching, I knew she would be leaving soon and it was hard. I knew we wouldn't be able to have movie nights or talk in her room for hours on the weekends. I knew she wouldn't be there to drive me to school or pass me in the hallway anymore. When the day finally came for her to leave, my brother, my mom and I packed up all of her things and drove ten hours down to South Carolina. We thought of it as a fun family road trip to end the summer, trying to distance the fact that Madelyn would not be coming home with us afterwards. Although it was hard for me to leave her, I knew it was even harder for my mom. The first day home without my sister felt strange. I remember waking up and going into my sister's room to see if she was awake. Walking in and then remembering she wasn't home was probably the strangest part. It took awhile for us to get used to the fact that we
won't be seeing Madelyn 24/7.

         Every summer after the first week of school my family and I go apple picking with my cousins. We meet at the orchards and after picking apples, they come back to our house for a sleepover. My cousin Kara is my age and she has an older sister Cailin who is my sister's age. Despite the fact that my brother is sort of the odd one out, we are all still really close. To not have Madelyn there for our summer apple picking tradition was hard for all of us.
        Although I won't be able to see her all of the time, we write letters and call each other almost every day. She will have the time to come home a lot in her school year which makes me really excited. I think knowing that she is happy and loves her college and her roommate makes it easier to handle the fact that she is so far away. Honestly, she couldn't have picked a better place to go to college because now when I go to visit her, I get to go to the beach!

A Mediocre Summer by Miranda Doller

Summer... three words to describe what I did this summer: work, swim, and more work. You could say that working over the summer is great because you get paid. Even getting paid minimum wage made me feel accomplished. I was a lifeguard over the summer at the Lake Mohawk Pool. Let me say this one very important thing: if you're going to choose lifeguarding as a job, make sure it's at a busy pool so you don't fall asleep on stand. To be honest, it wasn't the worst job ever. My friend, Mikayla, was a lifeguard there too, so if we had shifts together, it wouldn't suck as much as it did with the other guards, although we did get in trouble for playing rock, paper, scissors on stand. I made a couple friends that went to Sparta High School, other high schools or just needed a summer job to get money for college. There was a staff party one night and we played water polo for an hour or so. That was a lot of fun and I was bummed that there wasn't another one planned out. Lifeguarding is a pretty simple job, but sitting in the sun for 4-6 hours is not fun. Especially if there's less than 30 people in a 50 meter pool. This pool had nothing interesting about it. Just two diving boards and one lame water slide. That's it.
Exhibit A:

It would've been nice to work somewhere that had a tall water slide and one of those cool fountains that had water spewing out of it.

Not only did I work, but I swam too.
My summer schedule went like this:

4:45 am. Wake up
5:00 am. Leave the house for swim practice
6:00-8:00 am. Swim practice
8:00-9:00 am. driving back home from swim practice
Then either a 12:00- 6:00 shift or a 10:00-3:00 shift.
That was it for most of the summer.
On the weekends, I had swim meets that were for my club swim team, MCSC. Those were pretty stressful to say the least.
On some Wednesdays, there were swim meets for Lake Mohawk Pool that I would swim in (Go Hawks!!). On a couple occasions, I would have to lifeguard and swim in the meet. So I would get up on stand, swim, and get back up on stand.

Overall, this summer was somewhat fun. I experienced what it was like to have a job and the responsibilities that come along with that and the fun of it as well.

How My Summer Was Wasted

As I sit here, writing my blog post the night before it’s due, being told to write about summer, I tried to remember what I did all summer. A thought entered my head.

Did I even leave my house at all this summer?

The answer, not to my surprise, is no. I did leave my house a few times, but only to go to music lessons and a cyber security camp. Other than that, I spent most of my summer in my basement, staring at a 21 inch LCD screen all day.

Most of my interests either require more than one person, or require a 45+ minute drive to get there, plus they’re rather expensive, meaning that I did not have much to do this summer other than use my computer for hours on end. I don’t even know if that's healthy. Probably not. On the bright side, though, my abilities in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects have improved a lot.

My summer mainly consisted of me staying in my basement for anywhere from 8-16 hours a day, doing nothing but playing games, messing around in Photoshop/After Effects, and…

That's pretty much it actually.

I spent most of my time in a basement on a computer, when I could have spent it doing things outside, but who cares about going outside? On the other hand, I did learn how to crash an Apple TV with one command line prompt. I guess my time spent doing nothing but messing with the command line on windows wasn’t a total waste. But let's be honest, it pretty much was.

Where I wasted my summer

My Favorite "Season"

          Everybody loves Summer, Spring, Fall, and sometimes Winter, but my favorite season, is Football Season. Starting in early September, this season is full of fun, excitement, and zealous fans smashing their TVs over a bad play. With my favorite team being the New York Giants, this happens more than occasionally. Don't get me wrong, the Giants are a decent team having won 2 Lombardi Trophies within the past 10 years, but recently they have been playing like they belong in the Puppy Bowl. My family and I are die hard Giants fans, but they are just getting hard to watch. Last year they barely managed a 3-13 season. The worst in Giants history by far. However, being the 2nd worst team in the league, (next to none other then the Cleveland Browns), the Giants would get the 2nd overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft. The Giants would go on to select Penn. State phenom running back, Saquon Barkley, (probably the best decision they made all year, next to releasing head coach Ben McAdoo). After Pat Shurmur took over as head coach, and with the return of Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard, the Giants would look like they were heading into an outstanding season. Or so we all thought.

     
          After managing a decent pre-season, the Giants would face off against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a good team with an outstanding defense. Unfortunately on opening week, after a long game, the Giants would receive a tough loss of 20 - 15 in the final. They played fairly well, and considering their intense week 1 match-up, Giants fans still had high hopes for the season. Well, until week 2 came. During week 2, the Giants would face their division rivals to the south, the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys also coming from a bad loss, gave Giants fans higher expectations, expectations that would not be fulfilled. The Giants could barely get a first down through the entire course of the game, after the Cowboys obtained a 3 possession lead late in the 4th quarter, the Giants finally started to play with 5 minutes remaining. With a desperate last minute attempt, the Giants would concede a devastating 20 -13 loss which would push them to last place in the NFC East.

          Finally, after Giants fans everywhere started to lose faith in their once proud team, the Houston Texans traveled to East Rutherford, New Jersey for their week 3 match-up against the 0-2 New York, Giants. This game would hopefully be the turning point for the Giant's, so far, disappointing season, and it was. The Texans were stopped halfway down on opening drive and were forced to settle for a field goal. They would hand the possession over to the Giants where they would march down the field and score a Saquon Barkley touchdown, to obtain the first lead they've had all season. After that, the Giants doubled, then tripled their score, and even with a last second gain of 13 points in the 4th quarter by the Texans, it still was not enough to overcome the Giants 3 possession lead. The game would end 27 - 22 restoring my faith in the team I grew up with. The team I watched win 2 Lombardi trophies against the infamous New England, Patriots. The team that I always routed for.




          Now here we are, the Giants are 1-2, and my faith is still sturdy. Today they are up against my second favorite team, the New Orleans, Saints. A challenging adversary. Nevertheless, I have no doubt the Giants will play to the best of their ability, well maybe a little. Now that fall is underway, there will be games every week. Games that I'll heed with pride, and games that I'll watch through my fingers. Either way, I won't miss a Giants game, it's impossible.

Summer's First Breathe to the Death by Reagan Rech

Finally yet again there is life,

An end to the yearlong strife.

Freedom that feels as though it will never end,

But let’s be real we can only pretend.

Excursions to the beach,

Not one more boring speech.

Vacations to exotic places,

Spending time with friendly faces.

Not a care in the world,

Until my mind whirled.

I could tell this freedom was almost gone,

When I was walking on someone’s lawn.

I felt the leaves crunch under my feet,

And I felt cold from the lack of heat.
There were no more open pools
And children were fleeing to there schools.

Before I knew it Summer was dead,

Killed when the leaves turned red.