The past two weeks…

I did not jump back on the weekly challenge band wagon which I am okay with. The past two weeks have felt crazy, and I can hardly believe it is two weeks til spring break, the halfway point of the semester. This semester is flying by, but in a very good way.

I’ve been thinking tonight how precious the very idea of life is. I was reading about a girl I know whose older brother died several years ago. That is the second girl I have met that has had that happened where the older brother died leaving them the only child left. I wonder how that affects family dynamics. For that matter I know a lot of people who have two kids with a male and a female in that order. I wonder what our family would have been like if they had stopped at me, and it was just me and my older brother. Things would be very different especially when it comes to the role I play in the family. I feel like one of the oldest children that has many younger siblings that look up at the behavior I model and a lot of my life choices reflect that. How different would my life be if I was the youngest child with just an older brother to look up to? Would that make me more or less of a family person? Just things I’ve been wondering… I know I do not appreciate my older brother as much as I should. Our relationship has been kind of strained and we’ve inadvertently taken some time spent not talking to each other which in the long run I think it was a good thing. Over the break we had a long conversation which I feel is a step in the right direction toward reconciliation. I’m trying to think of it in Baby steps.

Songs I’m loving:
Brandi Carslile – The Story
Beach Boys – Wouldnt It Be Nice
Fredric Chopin – Nocturne No. 20 in c# minor

Thankful list…

When I went home for the break, I remember having a day where it felt like everything was wrong with the world. My friend Lauren told me to make a list of ten things I was thankful for even if they were super minor things.  This list is a couple of months old but I decided to share it here… maybe it will inspire you to make your own list.

1. Knowing how precious air conditioning is because the air conditioning didn’t work one summer.

2. The fact that I have a way to travel 5 hours home to be with my family… Cuz a couple times I’ve gotten really close to being stranded at school

3. I’m thankful for the fact that I have the opportunity to go to a huge university and get an education.

4. My whole family is healthy.

5. As a family we stick together and love each other.

6. We have unlimited Internet.

7. We have enough warm bodies and blankets to always stay warm.

8. Right now there are six of us on my moms bed which is a California king. We are allenjoying each others company.

9. I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my mom when I am at home. When I wrote the list she was in bed with a hurt back and we just hung out in bed all day with each other.

10. Having two working cars that can take us where we need.

Last weekend….

I hate putting titles on things. Hence the reason my blog post titles aren’t that exciting.

Anyway just wanted to put some thoughts into writing about last weekend.

So basically it was my birthday weekend, and Philip was supposed to come up here and be here for that. He had kidney stones that didn’t pass so he had his surgery about the time that his flight was supposed to be landing in Lubbock.  I was super bummed but then…

…one of my friends was in a car wreck that was supposed to be at our birthday gathering. Usually when I hear about car wrecks that involves someone my age it’s usually someone I don’t know, or I only heard about it from a friend who knows them personally. This one really affected me because it involved somebody that I knew, and the passenger who died was someone that my friend had told me about so in a way I felt like I knew her.

I went to see my friend in the hospital and a few things that stand out in my mind…

The first thing he said when he saw me was Happy Birthday, and told me that he was going to be there which to me most people who’ve been in a wreck where they were rushed to the hospital they would not have even thought about that, and honestly if you were in a wreck we all understand why you weren’t there.

I ended up listening to his dad talk about what had happened and it sticks out in his mind about how he kept repeating that it was very sad but there is a reason through all of this.

When I was talking to my friend he brought up the female passenger who he knew rather well and the way he talked her death, he focused more on how her family is and he wished she didn’t suffer rather than focus on how all of this will affect him.

Also the girl’s family had visited right before I got there and they told him that their number one priority was him healing. That was amazing to me how they approached the situation without condemnation, anger or bitterness.

Either way it was a weekend that really put into perspective what is important in life to me. I can sit there and feel like Philip not being there is a complete weekend downer or just be glad that he is alive, that he is doing fine and is safe. A girl who didn’t make to my birthday gathering apologized profusely and my thoughts honestly were, it doesn’t matter. You are safe and that is what matters.

At the end of the day I declare, God is good. Next week I plan to return to regular programming of weekly challenges.

Songs I’m loving

Bruno Mars – Locked Out Of Heaven

Family Force 5 – Cray Button

Linkin Park – Burn It Down

30 week challenge… Day 10

This weeks blog challenge is to mention the last five people you’ve texted.

Kate – my friend from Texas Tech, who we do everything together. Well except sleep and go to class, but it seems like we can and do do everything together because she’s that awesome.

Philip – we are making a trip down to Austin and as the Austin resident we are visiting he is head of the planning committee and we are texting about that.

Lauren – my friend who has proven to me that time and distance is not reasons friendships break up. It’s very possible for them to stay together as long as you both want. She’s headed to Florida for a Disney internship on Saturday which is a huge venture on her part.

Christy Carrol – my boss’ wife who made Jacob and I cookies while we were working camp this weekend. It was very sweet of her and her baking might possible rival my moms.

Mom – I don’t think this needs an explanation but I’ll make a shout out to her for being the best mom in the world and I’ve very grateful to have her for a mother.

30 Week Challenge… Day 8

This week’s challenge is to name your top ten pet peeves.  I dug deep in my brain to find these because in general I have a lot patience and tolerance and very few things piss me off, but when something does piss me off, I get really pissed off. So here goes.

1. People being rude to others

2. People not respecting my time

3. People who can’t be flexible

4. Coworkers that don’t fulfill their job duties because of laziness

5. People that judge other people purely based upon physical appearance

6. People who can’t see anything beyond their own needs

7. When people chew with their mouth open, especially if I can hear that they are or I can see the food

8. Boys that try flattering you to win you over. I’m not stupid.

9. When people try to talk to me when I’m playing the piano

10. chalk or nails on a chalkboard

I see a pattern of people HA! Take that to mean what you want.

30 Week Challenge…Day 6

Today’s challenge is to name five favorite websites.

1. http://www.sammyadebiyi.com – favorite blog in the world. He takes simple Christian concepts and writes about them while cutting the crap and being honest.

2. http://www.youtube.com – a place I can listen to music, share videos with people and watch videos that my family posts.

3. http://www.twitter.com – here I just kinda write my thoughts out within 140 characters. I try not to only write when I’m in the same mood all the time.

4. http://www.captainawkward.com – a website where people write in for advice in awkward situations with people. I find myself in those awkward situations sometimes and it helps to read other people having such problems.

5. http://www.questionablecontent.net – a web comic I like a lot.

30 week challenge…Day 5

Our weekly challenge for this week is to post a picture from our last social outing. Technically I’m still having his outing. Tonight was the Carol of the Lights, which is a tradition at my school where they have a little ceremony and then turn on the Christmas lights strung all across campus resulting in the whole campus being lit. Then some carols are sung by the choirs (which I was a part of) while accompanied by the trombone choir and off to the side there are a few people from Silent Raiders, the sign language student organization, signing the Christmas carols as they are sung. Afterwards there is a Christmas concert in the music building which I was a part of singing with the University Singers. This is a picture of a few of the girls from choir and I. I’m the girl in the front row with the dark hair.

30 Week Challenge… Day 4

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday we voted that it didn’t matter if your post was late, which ideas like that are always bad because I always end up taking advantage of the extra time.  My Thanksgiving was pretty awesome.  I really don’t have much to say about it because I feel it was one of those visits home where it was awesome but not newsworthy.
This week’s question is: Hypothetically it’s your birthday, write out a five item gift list.

1. chocolate

2. Red jeans

3. Long board

4. Plane ticket to Fort Worth

5. People-be-gone spray

I generally struggle with coming up with gift wish lists but hey I gave it a shot and I used my imagination at the same time.

30 Week Challenge… Day 3

This week we are supposed to include three pictures of us from the last three years.

It was really cool to go back and look at pictures and see a bunch of old ones that I had forgot I had.  The first picture is my senior picture when I was ready to head off to college.

This picture was my first day on the job as a camp counselor the summer before my second year of college.

and this picture was a “first day of school” picture for my third year.

Lookswise I don’t know how much I’ve changed but for sure I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot.  As time went on I didn’t notice it, but looking back… wow

30 Week Challenge…Day 1

Supernerd, insanedrspock, frogthots and I have decided to try a 30 day blog challenge but do one post a week, making it a 30 week challenge.  Each post is due Saturday at midnight. You can view their blogs at

supernerd64.wordpress.com

mcb2014.wordpress.com

insanedrspock.wordpress.com

Today’s weekly challenge is 10 random facts about yourself.  Supernerd and I had a whole discussion about how we hate this because we don’t like coming up with things, and who says that those things are interesting or random? Either way I’m giving it a go.

1. I don’t know if I could give you an accurate representation of myself in 10 facts or even 1000 facts.  There are so many different angles plus I don’t even know myself sometimes.

2. I am definitely an introvert.  I think a lot, or more like all the time and just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I’m upset.  I’m probably just thinking.

3. When I get stressed out, I don’t turn to food.  I’m the opposite where I tend not to eat which always makes things worse of course.

4. I would like to study abroad at some point, just to have that experience.

5. I’m not very assertive or confrontational but that is a skill I am slowly developing.  Such as the idea you don’t have to text people back if you don’t want to talk to them or talk at the moment.

6. I have more patience then most people I know.

7. I love visiting libraries, museums and health food stores.

8. I love music that I can sing along very loudly to.

9. I cry a lot.  Crying doesn’t mean I’m sad necessarily.  I cry when I’m happy, angry, sad, excited etc… I am however one of those people that it’s hard to tell if they are crying even if you stare at them straight in the face so most people don’t notice.

10. Writing is a way for me to get my thoughts together.  Often when I’m upset I’ll text my friends rather than talk to them because the writing out my thoughts helps me figure things out.

It’s the small things…

Life sucks.

Life is unfair.

Life isn’t always fun.

Life is hard.

Life is not a basket of roses.

I would agree with all of the above statements.  I honestly believe they are true.  If one thinks about those sentences regularly you are bound to catch yourself in a very depressed mood.  For me personally I may believe those things, but I have to take the time to see all the little things in life that make it happier and worth it.  Last night I was leaving the music building and was almost to my dorm when I realized I had lost my ID. Part of me wanted to scream in frustration because it hadn’t been the best day. When I went back to look for it I did find it.  I could have easily spent HOURS searching for it, I could have easily never found it and been even more frustrated.  If I focus on the losing my ID part then that’s hugely frustrating, but if I focus on the part that I found very easily that helps not to stay in a bad mood.  It really is a choice. You can be that person mad about everything, always in a bad mood, or you can choose to have a different attitude.  A bad attitude by far is the easiest to fall into and keep, but a better attitude is worth it in the long run.

Also as a little rant here, I’ve seen people say things such as “depressed people see life like it is”… that is NOT true.  Depressed people see life through lenses that are greatly negative.  Usually it is because of stress of brain chemicals but they do not look at life correctly. Along those same lines, people say “I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist”. Realists aren’t people who take everything in life and find the most negative way to view it.  That is pessimism.  Let’s not get confused with all of that.

Songs I’m loving

Train – 30 Ways To Say Goodbye

Phantom of the Opera – Point Of No Return

Demi Levato – Give Your Heart A Break

Today…

…was a thinking day.  As an introverted person I need days where I can think about things and figure out things otherwise it seems like a big confusing blob of mess up there in my brain. Today I did that.  I finished the book I was wanting to read and I thought a lot.  I didn’t write in my journal as much as I wanted to but I got the thinking done which counts.

This weekend is Labor Day weekend so tomorrow we are off of school.  That means an extra day to catch up with things and make sure everything is in order, including sleep schedule.

I didn’t go to the football game yesterday.  Big shock since that seems to be the only sport my school can think about.  I did however go to a soccer game on Friday.  Our women’s soccer team is pretty good.  We won 1-0, scoring that one goal in the last ten minutes.  Winning? I think so.  I meant to go to a volleyball game but it slipped my mind.

In other news I have now watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, something a lot of people have been telling me to watch.  It was all it was cracked up to be and I’m sorry I haven’t seen it sooner.  I’m typically not a fan of British humour because I find their accents hard to understand, but now seeing Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I can now say that I love that particular series of movies, and a small portion of British humour.

Hopefully next time… and this paragraph is a reminder for me to do so… I’ll blog about people and how they classify people as their friends and how it baffles my mind.

Songs I love:

Nelly Furtado – Manos Al Aire

Skrillex – Bangarang

Fun – Some Nights

Olympics are over

The Olympics are always over waay before I feel they should be. I was still working at the summer camp for the first two days of the Olympics. That’s when DVR came in handy to enable me to watch the opening ceremony when I got home. It was incredible to see all these different countries come together for a common goal. It gives me hope for the future.

Some of my all time favorite events to watch…
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics – the power they can put into the tumbling elements they do, the way they seem to fly on the bars, and the way they manage to flip about on a four inch beam amazes me. It’s always sad when nerves get in the way but it’s a truly remarkable event.
Rhythmic Gymnastics – this event almost seems more like dancing rather than like the artistic gymnastics. In this event the women seem to be almost contortionists as they dance around with their apparatus. They never cease to amaze me.
Track – the races are exciting. Watching the athletes run their hardest. There is no bias of judges giving points. It’s just plain old who-crosses-the-finish-line-first. The athletes run so fast it seems like an animation sometimes.
Diving – How in the world they can manage to create such small splashes amazes me. The little smack their plans make when they hit the water is something else I like.

Some new events we watched this year that I now love…
Synchronized swimming – wow. Is all I have to say. To me it was like rhythmic gymnastics but with a whole team and in the water. When they do the sections with their legs in the air and their bodies are just straight down in the water… It’s incredible.
Women’s volleyball – they hit the ball so high in the air it makes sense how they have time to run underneath it and hit it. The number of spikes that were blocked amazed me. It inspired me to go play some more volleyball.
Trampoline – something I didn’t imagine the Olympics would have, but it seemed to me to be just another gymnastics type event, which I always love.

NBC announcers annoyed me several times. The way they decided they always needed to point out mistakes the athletes made, or comment on how distracting a synchronized swimming teams costumes were (it had no effect on their score), or putting in a little special about the Republican VP announcement. I feel they do a bad job of broadcasting the Olympics but I’m not sure how they could improve.

As a college student, there were several of my fellow Texas Tech students that competed in the Olympics. One of them I personally knew, his name was Julian Wruck and he was a discus thrower. He placed about 25th in the event. But to think that I’ve met someone who has competed in the Olympics… It makes that whole event seem less like a place where superstars compete, rather just regular people like you and me who have a passion for their sport. The whole event inspired me to workout more and to see where my body can go. Also to grab on to my passions in life and see where those can take me.

The home stretch…

Summer is almost over.  Two weeks before I head back to school and three weeks until school actually starts up. *gasp* Yes, but I know I have enough energy to tackle this school year. I feel I had a good chance to evaluate myself and where to move forward in life.

1. I want to balance eating cheaply and eating well.  I don’t plan ahead very well. I’ll end up eating three times in six hours one day, or on another day I’ll eat breakfast but not eat for ten hours. I don’t listen to my body as far as when to eat, how much to eat or what to eat.  I know there is a better way to do this.  I’m going to think less about money when it comes to eating, and more on what my body is telling me.  Not necessarily submitting to sugar cravings…

2. Related to number 1, I haven’t been exercising well either because half the time I don’t have the energy to get myself over to the gym and do something other than go to sleep. But I’m planning to get a locker at the gym… that’s how I got myself to practice more.  That way I don’t have the excuse of “I have to haul all my stuff to the gym”. It is just there which is awesome. Plus Amber and I have officially decided we are workout buddies which will definitely be motivating.

3. I like learning, but too often I get in a bad mood and spend more time in the bad mood then trying to learn something, or study for my classes.  This year I’m going to concentrate on taking some time to learn something everyday even if it is not stuff for my classes.  It could be a self assigned project or something, but it has to be learning something. 

4. I think spiritually I just needed sometime to step back and look at myself.  See myself lash out with my ugly sinful side, see the parts of me that I don’t like, see that I’m not a great person honestly, and accept that.  Accept the fact that no matter what I do, I will never be a “good” person, or be satisfied with myself. But have the right attitude about it. Not letting that be a depressing thing but also not letting it be something where I just give up on everything and let whatever happens. I want to be a change, but I can’t do it myself as a measly human.  I want to speak up on behalf of the people who don’t have voices, who need help etc… but without taxing myself to the max.  That balance is where the challenge lies.  I will be trying it out this school year and I’m excited to see where it happens.  

To add a side note to the change thing.  I want to support people in their own betterment. I don’t mean force people to change, but help people take the things they want most, and help them stay motivated and on track. Something I’m good at… I’ll see exactly how this idea takes shape. 
Life is a journey, not a destination. I find some of the best ways to make progress is to listen and seek understanding so that you can work with people and see where they are coming from. People come and go, but a few stay forever.

Songs I love:
Hans Zimmer – Discombobulate
Outkast – Hey ya
LMFAO – Take it to the Hole

Camp is wrapping up…

Camp is wrapping up. I haven’t updated much. Honestly it has been a whirlwind and I don’t even know where you start blogging. Sam and I obviously failed at our challenge of posting once a week. I just have soo much running through my head. I really need to have some facetime with Kate or Lauren… Oh wait, Kate and Lauren don’t have FaceTime on their phones. So I’ll just have to wait to talk to them in person… which will happen within the next month. Now if only that time would hurry up and get here. Not that everybody here is a terrible person, but they are just too subjective and I’m not like BFFLZ’ with them and I really miss them. It’s been over two months…

Other than that, there have been some super super awesome coworkers here. I also feel like I’m learning a lot about myself in general and I’m getting really excited for this next year, rooming with Janay and reaching out to the girls on our hall and just other things in general. The Texas 4-H center was always a place where I could recharge and I honestly feel like home here. It’s my third home… Lubbock, Saginaw, and now Brownwood.
My sister Olivia is coming to camp! I’m soo excited! It’ll be her first time and I know that she is uber psyched! It’ll be cool to introduce her to my coworkers and watch her experience camp for the first time.

I think I’m going to go to sleep… this was a really long week, but I felt the need to update this blog.

Songs I love:
Spice Girls – Wannabe
NSYNC – BYE BYE BYE
Jefferson Airplane – We Built This City

I get a good feeling

I’m listening to the Flo Rida song “Good Feeling” which is awesome. Mainly because he included old tapes of Etta James singing in this song. I mean who does stuff like that?? It had Allie and I fooled. She had told me it was Adele. I’m inspired to listen to weird classical music. All of that serialism, minimalism and all of that weird stuff that composers wrote in this century. We went to the scholarship concert the school of music held. It was odd because name was in the program for scholarships. However, all four choirs performed Mozart’s Requiem Mass which was AWESOME! Especially the Kyrie. Most of Mozart’s music is super giddy and happy, or as Philip said “elevator music”, but this Requiem Mass has some deep and very emotional parts to it. I think I had a musicgasm while listening to it.

This week seems like it has all been about music. Which is probably a good thing since it is my major. The more things I go to outside of Intervarsity/music events, the more people I realize that I know. It is slightly scary. People keep throwing the world “popular” at me, but it I think it is just a bunch of BS. Being popular is different. I just am nice to people and try to be a really good friend and I have a warm personality. Hence my INFPness… For those of you that don’t know what that is, go and take the Myers-Briggs test. One common thing that I don’t think people understand in our extroverted world is that I’m an introvert. I just generally don’t appear like one because….check this… my personality type is able to act like the opposite, but it is very energy draining.

I’ve noticed a hierarchy of status with people in my life. There are the people that I know who they are and the people that know who I am. Then there are the people I know a lot about because I’ve listened to them talk and I’ve facebook creeped. Then there are the people that when they are finished talking, they listen long enough to hear what I have to say. That is the three levels, it is not complicated but that’s the way it is. Everybody has their spot and I love people a whole lot. I think there is good in everybody, even the people we think are complete idiots, or douchebags or others such things. You just have to look for it.

Songs I love:
Flo Rida – Good Feeling
Skylar Grey – Invisible
Pink – It’s All Your Fault

ONE MONTH

Today it rained and hailed. Shocking I know… Of course that means it is super windy, but it’s Lubbock so we all expected that.

One month is left of school. That’s exciting but really crazy. Today we went to the music store and I got some sheet music because they were having a big sale. Two Beethoven piano sonatas, Alberto Ginastera American songs and some Christmas music. I’m singing in worship for church now and I really like it because my singing I learned by ear.

Big research paper, recitals and composition are coming up!! D:

Songs I love:
Fun – We Are Young
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
Gym Class Heroes – Ass Back Home

Challenge accepted…

So in order to encourage more regular blogging, me and my friend Sam have decided to team up to bug each other into regular blogging. You can view his blog at supernerd64blog.wordpress.com. If we don’t complete the allotted weekly blogpost by saturday night than the other party is allowed to post whatever they wish on the other’s blog. I’m going to try and think of some really evil stuff because I’m pretty sure he’ll fail at posting first. :D

I was supposed to go to Georgia for my cousin’s wedding. That didn’t pan out. Unfortunately I was counting on that happening soo much that it was crushingly disappointing when it didn’t happen. It was kinda like the goal of everything and I was planning to just get out of Lubbock. It worked out because I had to learn to just get over the disappointment and find things to do, since I had canceled all my weekend plans in preparation for Georgia.
I met a cute little boy at the airport. He was waiting for his Uncle Jeremy to come home from Korea. I had just been crying from the stress of rushing to the airport and discovering that my flight had been canceled. He was very very friendly and very very sweet. He was six years old and soo cute!
“Look! I have an arrowhead necklace!”

Mom and I went to see the Vow at the theater. That movie made me cry four times so I am unsure whether it or Up is my new favorite movie. I cried three times during Up… It was about a couple who had been married for two months, then the wife has an accident and she wakes up and can’t remember the past five years of her life, which includes meeting her husband. The sad part about this movie was the part was when she didn’t remember him. He was trying so hard to be supportive but because she didn’t remember him she saw him as a stranger not a place of comfort. I could see how frustrated he was about it. It tugged at my heartstrings. It was based on a true story and that was the cool part too. It wasn’t a sappy romantic movie either. Now go see it before I ruin more of the movie for you.

As Spring Break is coming to a close, I did get almond roca, I did not see Philip (which actually turned out fine), I slept a ton and was really lazy, and I got to see Sam and Lauren two of my favorite people who live in Fort Worth. They are always nice people to visit with and I don’t feel weird or pressured or obligated to see them, I see them because I like to. So after all this laziness I’m ready to go back to school and tackle the rest of the semester.

Picture that is my phone background right now and it super inspiring says “You can’t change the world but you can make a difference.”

Songs I am loving:
Manafest – No Plan B
Gym Class Heroes – Stereo Heart
Styx – Renegade

Marchin’ On….

It is the month of March. Spring is so close to being here that I can almost taste it, but not quite of course. I hate that moment. I really really really really really want Spring Break to be here. I need to get away from people and I just need to talk to my family in general. Also I’ll get to see Philip for a little over Spring Break. I will not have seen him for two months so that will be extra nice. I’m planning on mom making me something to bring back. Possibly more almond roca?? I don’t know if that is something that it’s too hot to have or whatever but it’d be really nice. I also have a tiny list of people I want to try and make sure to see. If not then that’s cool but I’d really like to. I’d also just like to get some sleep around people I feel completely comfortable with. Nothing against my roommate, it’s just not the same as being home and sleeping with my siblings.

Nothing a huge deal has happened this past month. It’s more of just trying to get through things and survive. Not as in I’m drowning under things, just trying to get through things and not have a completely terrible attitude about it. It seems to get harder come each semester. I’m working this semester to identify people who bring me up and concentrate on seeing them when my mood is less than spectacular. I’ve also been identifying people who bring me down and I’ve been seeing them in smaller doses. It’s not that I can’t see them at all, I just know now when I can see them and when I need to chill a bit and avoid them. Stress management basically.
Right now, the main strategy that I came up with, thanks to Mackenzie… Is to make sure to eat regularly, sleep regularly and shower regularly. That helps a LOT. Normally when I’m not feeling so great or I’m feeling super down, I just avoid those three things because I don’t feel like eating, or sleeping or getting in the shower. But I’ve been keeping up with all of this pretty well.

I’ve identified that I absolutely abhor the question “What are you doing?” That makes me think three times as long to give a careful answer. That one is too easy for people to be like “oh you aren’t busy so we have to do something”. I never ever ever ever answer that I’m doing nothing. That way I at least can be doing something if I want to answer no. Because the people that usually ask “What are you doing?” are the type of people that would demand an explanation if I said no I didn’t want to. Usually an explanation is just complicated and weird and I’d have to make up reasons and so I’d just rather avoid the situation all together.

“Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove no matter what you might do, there is always someone out there cooler than you.” That is from the Ben Folds song There Is Always Someone Cooler Than You. I like the song because it speaks
about not thinking you are all that. It speaks about other things but I really really really like that first line.
The funny thing is that Philip always would talk about how great of a pianist is and I would always fuss and say how terrible he was, just to piss Philip off. But now that I actually listen, I love his music. Of all things.

Songs I love:
Ben Folds – There Is Always Someone Cooler Than You
Ben Folds – Rent A Cop
Ben Folds – Army

Set Fire To The Rain…

Why are all the good breakup songs about how the person is being a dick? I’ve tried finding some that have both people leave the relationship maturely even though it hurts. Katy Perry’s The One That Got Away is about the closest one I can find. Either way I’m not dwelling on all of that stuff right now. I just really like Adele’s song Set Fire To The Rain. Okay maybe I lied. It is one in the morning and that is when I think about the deep stuff I really haven’t gotten over yet. I really should go to sleep and stop thinking about this.

On to other news. Philip named a hissing cockroach after me. Of all the things to do for Valentine’s Day. Personally I think things like those are the best because they are personal and funny. Not something that just anybody could get you. Either way it really made my evening hilarious. In other joyful Valentine’s Day news, my siblings sent me valentines. I love that so much when they do that. It’s really cute and I just think they are awesome. That is the reason I love this holiday so much.

I had a group interview tonight and I don’t feel like I bombed it.
I’m also not feeling guilty about stuff like I usually do. A welcome change. I am however still stressing about school but it’s a work in progress.

Songs I love
Muse – United States of Eurasia
Pink – U + Ur Hand
Panic! At The Disco – The Ballad Of Mona Lisa

They be trolling….

I am listening to Ben Folds right now. I don’t know if I ever mentioned how much I love his music. Philip introduced us and now we are good buddies. I like personifying things I don’t personally know. Such as the fork you are using… it has feelings too. How do you think it feels everytime you use your mouth on him just to get the last bits of food off of him…. That sounded a little more sexual than I wanted it to.

Frenner (Free Friday Freshman Dinner) was last night. As Intervarsity we always have 3-6 throughout the semester. Last night was the last one for this semester. It was kind of sad in general, but I got talking with some of the other girls. Actually I think of them as a little clique, without the exclusive part. Bridget, Clarissa, and Melissa. They all are really good friends and they room together so that makes them even better friends. They are adorable together. I haven’t really talked to them in a while but I got in a good conversation with Clarissa last night. She is gorgeous… on the outside as a beautiful person but also on the inside she has a beautiful heart. Bridget and Melissa also but there is just something about Clarissa that draws me in. I think for someone her age she is very mature.

I am engaged on Facebook. BAHA! I so missed those days. I’m engaged to a young man named James, who wanted to get engaged so that he could see how his friends would react since he is 24 years old. So far he’s been a busybutt and not accepted my invitation to be engaged. I did put up some couple pictures for my friends to enjoy. One I think looks really legit and I’ll post it below. Honestly with James I really really really think he’s cool. Not in a “I want to marry you way” but more of a “I think you are really cool and I would like to be like you someday”. He told me that I remind him of himself when he was younger except he was less peppier. That made me really happy to hear. I try not to spend too much time around him because I would hate to be bugging him. I feel like I’d be that little annoying person who doesn’t shut up.

Bobby is letting me use his laptop for the semester which is incredibly awesomely cool. I don’t NEED a laptop but it’s a nice convenience to have one for use. I don’t own it of course but I don’t need to own a laptop. Just having one for use is good enough. Mackenzie is letting me use her Ethernet cable so I can have internet in my room. This is super super exciting. In fact I am typing a blogpost on the laptop. I’m up in my room without internet so I’m writing it in Microsoft Word but I’m writing it on the laptop! Today is a complete Bobby day. He’s going to pick me up in about half an hour and we are going to Dr. Deahl’s for her Chinese New Year party. Then Joanna has her concert, and after that it is game night at Dave’s. We both just happen to be going to all three of those. A Bobby day is a very exciting thing to have.

Valentine’s Day is coming up! I’m excited kinda… Like the reason I find Valentine’s Day so exciting is that my family always celebrates together. We do Secret Valentine and it’s awesome. Nothing is cuter than getting a card from your five year old brother proclaiming that you are the best sister in the world. I’m not sure what I want to plan out this Valentine’s Day but I want to do something special with somebody. Maybe a girl party with Kate, Jessica and Janay. Andi is having a Valentine’s party for a bunch of girls she knows so that will be pretty cool. She’s trying to create an atmosphere for girls to be there and just be girls. I agree with her that often times we spend too much time trying to impress boys that we don’t sit down and just have girl time.

I just had lunch with Sebastian and I brought up some issues that have been on my heart such as how I feel our friendship has deteriorated and other things he’s done that made me feel unappreciated and stuff. Like it wasn’t huge life changing but it needed to be said. Sebastian being Sebastian had no idea of course but once we started talking it was all good and we are going to start having breakfast to start catching up and not just let the friendship fail. I was really surprised by his response to what I said. I honestly did not expect him to take me seriously at all but he did. Today reminded me of what it is in Sebastian that I like.

Philip came up for my birthday weekend. That was really really awesome because it had been a month since I had seen him. We went to the Simon Mulligan piano concert which was absolutely fabulous. Simon Mulligan is a sort of prodigy who is 29 now. He had a solo piano arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was incredible. I wish I had thought to pull out the recorder on my phone to record it for my mother. We also went to the mall with Janay and we saw baby zebras outside. They were so adorable. Janay of course flipped out because she loves animals. One of them started nuzzling my arm which was cute. I’m not the biggest animal person but I don’t hate animals. Anybody who tells you that is lying. I’m not just not used to the fur, the slobber, the jumping on you etc… I’m sure if I really took sometime to get used to all of that then I’d be perfectly fine with playing with animals. There is just no way that I can grow old without learning that. I’m sure one of these days somebody will sit me down and make me be comfortable with animals. People keep claiming that they will do it but nobody has as of yet. HA!

James my "fiancee"

Songs I love:
Relient K – Down In Flames
Bruno Mars – Grenade
Jonas Brothers – S.O.S

Guilt and other delicious things…

Guilt

What do you think of when you first hear that word?? For me we have been pretty close friends and not in a good way. I in general feel guilty about things. I don’t like inconveniencing people, I don’t want to be the one who is late and people are waiting on, I don’t like people paying for me or giving me money. This winter break I gave up a lot of that guilt. It took a lot of praying, iron pumping and alcohol but I did it. I’m not completely over it because old habits die hard but I don’t die inside every time somebody does something for me that I deem “out of their way”.

I believe that to be the best person I can be I need to be authentic because that is more loving than just bottling up feelings and pretending that is okay. Old me would not want to talk to people about things because “it’s not that important in the grand scheme of things” or “I don’t want to bother them”. Honestly if you look at the people who truly care about you most and are there for you when you need them, and you don’t share your struggles with them you are denying them a chance to bless you.
I am very guilty of doing that to people. Avoiding them and trying to deal with it myself. That’s not a healthy attitude to take at all. Last semester it reached a point where I could NOT handle it myself and thankfully I had the wisdom to reach out to some people and talk about it.
Mackenzie
Bobby
Philip
Kate
Eren
Lauren
Sara
…were people who amazingly never seemed to get tired of hearing me talk about my struggles and things going on even though I know for a while it was all the same thing. Also with the mistakes I made, they didn’t sit there and judge me for it. They really showed me that even though I do stupid things, they still love me just because I am me and not because I do great things for them.
That is exactly how God loves us. He doesn’t love us because we have done great things or we are a “good Christian”, he just delights in the fact that we are his creation. That doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want because of that, but even when we mess up it is not the end of the world and he won’t stop loving us because of it.

Yesterday I gave a five minute testimony in front of large group about the past semester and what I’ve been learning as far as my views on God and religion. A lot of people I knew were there and that made me really nervous. I’m not the best public speaker anyway, but it went very well and I anticipated people getting upset and worrying about why I didn’t directly talk to them about these questions about God but they didn’t. It was surreally amazing and I’m really glad I did it.
One thing I don’t like “inconveniencing” people with is this blog. I’m thinking of changing that and actually being a little more public about it. That will probably take just a little bit more prayer and strength because knowing that people are reading my writing makes me write slightly differently.

Songs I love:
Demon Hunter – Collapsing
Disciple – Shot Heard Round The World
Linkin Park – Hit The Floor

All is fair in love and war

“Breaking up doesn’t mean all the feelings go away… They stick around a long time. Part of it is just getting used to the parts of your life that have changed because of the breakup.” are the words of my friend Philip. It has really helped me deal with things and move on. I just wanted to share that with you people who might need it.

I am going through my old voicemails. A lot of them are people whining about how terrible my voicemail message is. Almost all of them start off with some variation of “hey Camie” “hi Camie” or just plain “Camie”. I’m guessing people like my name. But I have recordings of more peoples voices than I had originally thought. I’m sure that sounds really creepy. I really don’t care at the moment. I do a lot of things that once you get to know me, you would find super creepy at first. If you really know me you understand why it isn’t creepy.

The people who really get it….
Philip
Mackenzie
Kate
Bobby
Lauren
Ohh I love them all so much. I would live in a huge house with them if that was ethical and a smart thing to do.

Songs I am loving
Adele -Set Fire To The Rain
Linkin Park – Hit The Floor
Kelly Clarkson – Behind These Hazel Eyes

Life After You

I came home for the semester. Really if I look at my life I can’t complain. I’m so grateful to be home with my family and just being able to relax and be around them… Like if I look at events that happened in my week it’s all bad things but honestly I say my week has been awesome. I broke up with Aron over Thanksgiving. It’s weird to be home now and not seeing him all the time. We ran into him at the movies, which I wasn’t ready for so I ended up crying a little bit but then we met up in person and talked about things. The main thing I am grateful for is that it’s not just me saying “oh this is over” but he sees why it is not working out. He was so very mature about things and that is the main reason I love him so much. Nobody played the blame game except on ourselves. There are a couple things I’m still thinking about, but it was really good and brought some nice closure. If you want more details you’d have to ask me in person. I just mentioned it here because it’s important to me.
My sister and I watched the new music video for Katy Perry’s song “The One That Got Away”. Basically they dated for a while and then they broke up. He’s driving along and he opens his visor, something of hers falls out and he ends up distracted and drives off a cliff. Yes I started crying because at the moment that hit way too close to home. I don’t know why Allie started crying but it was this weird surreal moment sitting in the library watching that happen. Now of course that song makes me cry everytime I hear it. STUPID SONG.

A couple days ago we exchanged gifts as a family, because we always do it on Hannukah. We do the menorah, typical Jewish food and decorate in blue and white. I love the Hannukah tradition so much. Every other part of my extended family does Christmas, but this is something different and special. We aren’t even Jewish.
My brother’s fiancee came to our family Hannukah celebration, because he couldn’t make it. Because of past events I feel super awkward and uncomfortable around her, but yesterday I made small talk instead of just being awkward and quiet so I think that’s progress. They are getting married in 10 days, and there is so much drama surrounding the wedding and stuff, but everything will be okay. I’m just taking a step back and laughing at it all and helping my mother deal. Again I just mentioned things here because it’s important to me.

I am reading a lot over the break. So far I’ve read Just Listen by Sara Dessen and Let It Snow by several authors. Allie recommended Let It Snow. I really wasn’t in the mood for a romance but this actually was a really nice one and wasn’t weird and cheesy. It was three different stories but they all intertwined which I love that about stories because you get to see different people’s perspective in stories.
With Just Listen, I’ve read that before and I consider it my favorite book because I identify with the main character. This time I actually identified not only with the main character but the two siblings she has as far as certain attributes with them. What about the main character do I identify with? This time I was reading through and seeing how she lost friends because she stopped talking to them. She assumed that those friends were mad at her but they weren’t it was huge miscommunication. That happens to me a lot. I lose friends not because there was a true falling out, just because both parties assume the other is mad because I stop talking to people. Also the whole factor as far as “being nice” instead of honest with people. That’s something I’ve seen myself doing all semester. I’m going to work on fixing that this semester and I’m going to buy myself a copy of that book just to use it as a reference point.
You. Go read the book. Tell me what you think. I’m interested in your thoughts about it. The current book I am reading is Jane Lynch’s biography.

Songs I love:
Linkin Park – Numb
Katy Perry – The One That Got Away
Disciple – Backstabber

What if we were real

School is over yay! I’m excited. Part of me is glad that it’s here but part of me didn’t want to leave Lubbock and lose the structure I have. I’ve been trying to think of things to do over winter break.
-Sew
-learn how to do chocolate
-practice Spanish
-practice piano hardcore
-practice spending time with God
That’s all I’ve got for now. I just don’t want to be a complete lazy bum over the break and if I don’t plan what to do I’ll end up doing nothing.

I’ve decided people sleeping is the cutest thing ever… Or people being vulnerable and open in general. When you hear them talk about their fears and worries, you see a whole new side of them. They are trusting you with a deep part of themselves hoping that you won’t laugh and smash it into a million pieces. I love listening to people when they get to that point. That’s where I’d they have a selfless side you see it… If they have a huge passion for something that’s where you see it… I wish this world wasn’t so cruel, that way people could open up more. I even am guilty of closing myself off to most people. If you knew a lot of my habits you would assume I was a creeper {I have been accused of that several times}, but honestly I just like seeing people at a deeper level than the mask they put on for other people.

I wrote earlier about my place with God. How I’m dissatisfied with modern Christians and I’m trying to find the authenticity.
This semester I’ve been trying to be authentic with myself. Now I’m breaking out and being authentic with other people. I can’t know the feelings and just hide them. There are a lot of people who frustrate me and I feel they just use me because they are bored and want to hang out. They are killing extra time they have and wasting my time. It’s one thing if I really have free time and want to chill with people but I often think that other people have the consideration for time that I do. As Bobby said most of us make the mistake of assuming that other people are like us and think like us. I am a very sweet person and I like doing things for people such as giving them my time, listening, etc… but lately I just feel used by several people. The solution I can think of is to be more of a bitch and not so polite. We will see how this goes.

I went to the big whoopdeedo Carol of the Lights. Not sure why everybody freaks out over it except for the tradition part. I’m not sorry I didn’t go last year. I doubt I’ll go again in succeeding years. I met up with Janay and then we met up with Kate, Rachel, Monica, Blake and Jessica from the Lutheran Student Center. The fun part about it is that we went back to the Lutheran Student Center and hung out for a while. That was really enjoyable. We watched Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation. That is my kind of funny movie. The humor doesn’t HAVE to revolve around dirty stuff but it’s not stupid humor either.

We watched the movie The Help. That movie was incredible. It’s depiction of treatment of black people in the 60’s was horrifyingly chilling. One household installed a second bathroom so the “colored help” could use it and they wouldn’t catch the special diseases they carry. They however didn’t seem to care that the same people slaved away taking care of their children and touching them. This ‘disease’ thing only popped up when it was convenient for them.

Because of frigid temperatures and ice on the roads class was postponed until 9:30. My final was supposed to be at 8:30. They rescheduled and they had the final on dead day. I didn’t realize you could do that. Either way that meant I got a lazy day with my first class at two. I now see why people who don’t have early classes never get up early.

Songs I am loving
Tobymac – Captured
Disciple – The Wait is Over
Maroon 5 – Never Going To Leave This Bed

Octobes…

I haven’t written a post for October yet.
I’m not sure what to write right now.
I’ve been trying to keep my online life to a minimum.
I’ve been listening to a lot of cool music.
Trying to deepen relationships with a lot of people.
Trying to face my anxieties instead of run away from them.
Trying to give control of my life to God.
Trying not to let frustrations fester.
I’ve been discovering some really amazing people out there.
I’ve also been letting go of people that I held on to because I felt guilty about having less than nice feelings toward them.

School is school… just more and more homework and the things I find myself being able to remember and perform is amazing.

Friends are friends… but I’m finding ones that I really feel completely comfortable around.

Going camping with the Lutheran Student Society this weekend.

I’ll post some pictures soon of cool things I’ve found around.

Philip got a girlfriend and I was worried about the jealousy issue popping up so I befriended her and it has not been an issue AT ALL. I’m so relieved. One less thing to worry about. She is incredibly awesome.

For the Intervarsity Vision Team meeting on Sunday afternoon, Dusty and I were supposed to host it. Basically using Dusty’s apartment and we cooking. He had to work so he told me how to break into his apartment and he assured me that Caesar would be there. Caesar was NOT there, Shawn was and he seemed really confused at first at why I was there and how I came in without him hearing me. Then he talked to me while I cooked and we had a nice conversation.

So Friday night, one of my friends had been drinking. It took me a bit to figure out that the Hawaiian Punch bottle wasn’t filled with what the label said it was. Anyway I asked him if he had been drinking, and he said yes and asked if I was mad. That kind of cracked me up because I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all.

As a music major you have to file an Intent To Graduate after 45 hours. I have 50 hours. Anyway so I’ve been thinking about life stuff and plans… so far some ideas I’m liking are.
Minor: Human Sciences and Family Development
Job next semester: CA with housing
Job sometime later: Intervarsity Staff Worker
Job way later: Librarian
Graduate: Library Sciences

Songs I am liking
Enrique Iglesias – Escape
Maroon 5 – Won’t Go Home Without You
Panic! At the Disco – I Write Sins Not Tragedies

Photos!

these are some cool pictures that I found… I only took one of them, I hope you like them.

It’s Augusto!

So what’s the haps? Camp is over yay! but at the same time I am sad because I really did enjoy working there this summer. The kids were so sweet… I’m soo working there next year if I can help it just for the kids. It’s weird because I didn’t walk away with a bunch of best friends from the job but I loved the group of people that we worked with. I’ll tell some stories to entertain y’all.

On the last day at the 12 and 13 year old camp I was sitting and talking with my campers while I was waiting for their parents to get there. Two parents that came to get their kids asked where the counselor and when I identified myself they said they thought I was a camper. GRRR I truly don’t mind because I know looking younger is a compliment but I don’t like knowing that I look thirteen years old.

At that same camp I had a camper named Marissa who was a redhead. I offhandedly reminded her to wear sunscreen and she forgot to. She had one of the worse sunburns I have ever seen, and I have seen pretty bad sunscreen between me and my family who is full of redheads. Nancy from the kitchen gave me vanilla to put on it. That’s right, the vanilla you bake with. I took a cottonball and rubbed the vanilla all over her sunburn. It worked miracles.

On the last day of camp almost everybody said something about how they can’t wait to go home and get away from kids. I found that funny because my situation is the exact opposite. I even offered to my coworkers if they ever wanted to see kids they could come over. All of them said no. One of the guys however kept bugging me because he wants to double date. He lives in Keller. He’s not one of the guys I was ever planning on seeing again… so I told him sure we could knowing that it will probably never materialize. He doesn’t have any way to contact me unless he gets my number from someone so hehehe yes I’m kind of evil.

So as a joke as far as saying inappropriate things in front of kids JoAnna, Cody and I made up a phrase which I am not posting here… it had the same first letters as the phrase fluffy puppy butterfly. Anyway so like once we were leading songs for the kids at premeal and I asked them what we should sing next. JoAnna offered “your mom” as a suggestion, and Cody whispered our phrase in my ear. What help they were… they were my best friends so it was all okay. I think my favorite moment was during the gala, we were being recognized as staff members. It was Cody’s turn and as he was standing up I noted that he was the only one looking in my direction so I mouthed it and he started laughing that laugh that I love. JoAnna also had a laugh that I loved. She would laugh when she found something funny. She wouldn’t giggle or snicker, she would LAUGH! I loved it!

TobyMac is awesome. His lyrics are cleverly crafted, his music is positive and inspiring, and he is fun also. I want to see him again in concert because the time I went I think it was off night cuz he was just ok. I like how he promotes a diverse message. He incorporates people of all colors in his music.

Songs I am loving
Britney Spears – Hit Me Baby One More Time
Thousand Foot Krutch – Hit The Floor
The Classic Crime – Just A Man

I forgot a title the first go round

This week was two camps! From Monday-Saturday it was campcampcamp. I feel like last week was a whole month long. I really wanted to go home but I don’t really have time or a ride. I’m fine with it. I’m going to use the time to rest and just relax after a week of camp. There are so many kids that were just so cute like Brianna, Bianca, Ramone, Jacob, Tyler, Victoria, Clarissa, Taylor and so many others.

Ramone was THE ladies man. He had smooth words for the ladies such as “Is that sun shining or is that you smiling?” Of course Cody was feeding him those lines, but he was young enough that it was adorable to hear him saying it. He claimed me as his girlfriend along with four other girls. Eventually he narrowed it down to me.

Cody: so how are your 25 girlfriends?
Ramone: well I had 25 but I narrowed it down to 7 and now I am down to one.
Cody: who is that?
Ramone: it is a counselor… named Camie

Cody: Ramone kill her *pointing at me*
Ramone: Okay! *wraps arms around me and kisses me on the cheek*

Ramone made us all laugh. He asked for my number today on the last day of camp and I told him no, partly because he was eight and partly because I am legally not allowed to communicate with campers outside of camp.
The other super cute kid was Cutter.

Cutter: can I come up and ask a question?
Darlene: yes what is your question?
Cutter: I have four quarters that equal a dollar, can I buy an ice cream cone before we leave

Cutter: I kicked a frog in the anus and then he peed on my foot because it’s his defense mesichism.

Cutter was eight also, and he was always drinking something be it water, a coke etc…

Jacob: I am dancing every dance because there are a lot of girls and I don’t want any to feel left out.

Jacob was thirteen and another cutie. He had yelled I LOVE YOU for no reason at me in the game room and yelled I LOVE YOU TOO back at him and from then on we always waved at each other and said hi.

I had that awkward moment when me and another camper were wearing the exact same shorts, same size and all.

Today JoAnna, Cody and I went to Hastings. It was like half price books and Barnes and Nobles baby, assuming bookstores can have babies. It had so many clearance shelves and reduced prices books like half price but it also had new books like Barnes and Noble would. I think we were in there for at least two hours. I left my purse in the car so I wouldn’t buy anything. JoAnna loved the store and Cody bought a new book to read.

The kind of creepy thing about camp is how I’m a counselor and I am now
seeing the counselor side of things instead of just being a little camper. It makes me feel old, but not in a bad way. I really do feel grownup now, like instead of just the college freshman, or feeling like I’m only sixteen. I’ve felt like I’m only sixteen for about three years now. I’m pretty sure I’ll shed a lot of tears at SpecTra camp because of the memories I have made when I was a camper there.

In the book about shyness, I found a cool list.

You CAN control
-your thoughts
-your feelings
-your behavior
-your attitude
-your direction in life
-how you spend your time
-who you spend time with
-how long you stay in a social situation

You canNOT control
-others attitudes
-what others say
-how people treat you
-social obligations

it’s a good list. because sometimes I have felt like if I do certain things than I can change peoples minds or attitudes. Also it talked about how a lot of people don’t come across as shy because they don’t act shy usually… and it talked about people who are slow to warm up. I believe I fit into that category.

Drops of Jupiter is the song I feel describes my life at this moment. Basically the slump I was in earlier this semester and now I feel like I am back.

“And tell me did Venus blow your mind.
Was it everything you wanted to find.
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there.”

I don’t feel that I am the song singer, but the person he is singing about.

Songs I am digging:
Train – Drops of Jupiter
Eminem – Not Afraid
Star Wars – May The Force Be With You theme

19 Minutes

The first camp came through. That was so much fun. Getting to know my campers were really cool! I had girls in my cabin and a pink color group of older kids aged 13-15 that I led around to the different activities. Some of my favorite kids were Carson, Morgan, Braxton, and Kayla. Beyond that I loved all the kids but those few stood out in my mind. I wish I could really share with you how cute they were and how they affected my life but I can’t really put it into words.

JoAnna makes me laugh like no other. We are dormmates here at camp. She is very blunt but not in a super rude way, just in a JoAnna way. I don’t have a quote off the top of my head but she really make me laugh. Sometimes what she says isn’t funny at all but it’s the fact that she said it.

I’m having those moments when I decide to give up on people. By giving up on people I don’t mean that I find them hopeless, I’m just giving up on trying to be a control freak and help them. I want them to know that I’m here for them if they need me but I’m not going to force myself into their lives. I’m also really working on putting into practice my new life motto, “Do the right thing”. Today, I spoke up in a situation where I normally would have gotten nervous and kept my mouth shut. I’m not going to write about it here for work reasons but if you want the story than let me know.

Sometimes I can be really hyper and excited about everything while other times I feel quiet and contemplative. Today was a quiet and contemplative day. Today I thought about all the people I loved and how blessed I am to be where I am.
Yesterday I read the book ’19 Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult. It was riveting, it made me cry, and it made me feel like doing something to change the world. It was about a boy bullied his whole life and eventually he goes and shoots a bunch of people at school. The way the author writes the book you can see why he did it and it’s hard to point a finger at anybody as far as it being somebody’s fault. I saw a lot of places where people did things and it made me resolve to never do such things, such as abandoning friends or bullying.

This is a picture of me and Bennet’s cutie daughter.

Ahhh

I’m going to work on not being shy. A lot of people that read that sentence may not believe it. Almost everybody I talk to believe I am not shy. I’m not shy as in I can’t talk to people at all… Just sometimes silly questions make me nervous and my mind goes blank “would you like that for here or to go?” “are you paying with cash or credit?” “what are you doing here at the library?” Also sometimes just talking to somebody about something really simple is hard. I read in one shy book at the library that the difference between introverted and shy people is that introverted people don’t talk to people and don’t want to. Shy people are dying to talk to people but get too nervous. I ordered a book about it and I’ll let you know what I learn.

I went to Laurens apartment for a forenight and I had a marvelous time! we stayed up all night! we went swimming, toured her college, got coffee, made cupcakes, watches a movie, danced and not in that order.

I have a bad habit of taking things too personally when people get upset. Aron for example. He’ll get upset over something for whatever reason and I’ll take it personally that he’s mad at me and I’ll get upset. We just worked that out where he says “it’s not you, I’m
just frustrated.”
Me: Tell me what her name is!
Aron: Look there is a puppy dog in the sky!

Also the issue of gossip. Too many people like gossiping here and I’m
kinda being put in the middle here and I’m stressing out. So I’m taking Sam’s advice and telling people to stuff it.

I don’t know what I would do without Allie, Aron, Lauren Philip and Sam. btw that is alphabetical order not favorite order….

I love TobyMac’s song One World…..

one world oughta be more than enough
And if it’s not is God looking down in pure disgust?
wondering what the dilly with the silly I see?
I made each of these in the image of me

….and his song I’m For You….

whatever I gotta be, I’ll be for you
whatever you need from me to see you through.
everyone of us has stumbled
everybody’s humbled
we hit the ground and our lives crumble
everyone of us will fall
with our backs against the wall
and everyone shares a need to be loved

….in the first one I love how he’s talking about how God is probably looking down in pure disgust about how we aren’t loving. in the second I love how loyal the song screams out.

Songs I’m digging
TobyMac – I’m For You
TobyMac – Suddenly
TobyMac – One World

I am a guest poster!

My dear friend Emily let me guest post on her blog. Go check it out! :)

http://theyneversuspecttheshortone.xanga.com/751198437/music/

I’m going to extend an invitation for anybody to guest post about anything. If you need an idea than I’ll throw one at you, otherwise I’m open to anything! Email me at cartwheel@dbutler.com

Camp truly es bueno pt. 2

The best way to predict the future is to create it. -Peter Drucker
This is a cool quote I read in a book today. It is so true, but not entirely because we can’t control our futures… unfortunately. That is the perfectionist inside of me voicing his disappointment (yes my perfectionist voice is male).

As my eloquent sister put it “You like drama, you just don’t like being in the drama”. Alas that is so true. I don’t mind watching everybody else have their issues and their drama and their worries, and I love listening to it, except when it involves me. Then it just plain sucks. A little bit of drama kinda maybe happened here at work… In the mornings once we get everything in the oven then there really isn’t much to do. I sat down for about a half an hour on a stool and one of the ladies noted that and after breakfast was over she started having me do her jobs for her. Then my boss got mad (not at me) that she was giving all her work away. Even though I wasn’t the one she was mad at, I still felt like crap because I was involved in the drama. Again as mentioned before I LOVE DRAMA except when I’m involved in it. :( If you want to hate your roommate, by all means go for it, but don’t drag me into the middle of it. If you can’t stand your coworker than that’s fine, just don’t drag me into the drama. One other thing I won’t tolerate with drama… say you are mad at somebody for something. Now if you need to rant about it, then go ahead. That is totally cool. If you want to take this opportunity to talk behind their back with nasty things… that’s not cool. I will say something about it.

I am trying to come up with a life motto. At first I was wanting something about loving people… but now I am leaning more toward something about always doing what’s right. What that is supposed to mean is as far as getting extra change at the grocery store or watching somebody being bullied, seeing somebody hurting from loneliness, deciding whether to cheat on a test… all those dilemmas happen to real people. Right now in my head, doing the right thing is picking the high road, but not forgetting about people. If doing the right thing and helping somebody means walking on the grass at Memorial Circle then you will walk on the grass and help them even though the rule says you shouldn’t. If the unpopular thing is to stand up for somebody that everybody is making fun of then you should do it. Basically doing the right thing especially if it is the unpopular thing. If you won’t do it than who will? My motto: DO THE RIGHT THING

I didn’t realize exactly how much of a slump I was in this past semester. I think I need to practice a day of rest. I did not do that. My ‘day of rest’ still involved me doing things socially that weren’t relaxing. Thank goodness I have incredible friends that helped me stay sane throughout the semester. I think only a couple really knew that I was even feeling down. There wasn’t one huge thing and that is kind of what made me believe it wasn’t a big deal. All the little things did add up though. Anybody I ever cried in front of, or ever hinted that I was ever at anything but my best… yes you were THAT friend, one of the ones that was there for me. Some of you will never realize how much you were unless I write you a letter telling you so. I want to work on this year being a little more open with more people about my struggles and my problems. I like to bottle it up and appear perfect to everybody, but that isn’t healthy and it isn’t a really good way to relate to people since I appear ‘perfect’. I like pretending that I have everything under control and I am on top of things. I really need to be more open to my parents about my struggles. That’s probably my biggest area that I struggle with. I don’t want to be the child with all the problems running to them, I want them to think I’m mature and can handle things, when usually I can’t but I just pretend that I can anyway.

I just started reading a guys blog. He is originally from Nigeria and his name is Sammy Adebiyi. In one of his most recent posts he said that if Jesus was picking people for a sports team, he would pick the fat kid. That statement blew. my. mind. I mean who really wants the fat kid on their team? it’s a guaranteed lose! but Jesus would not only pick him but rejoice that he got him… Just wow. Think about that guys.

From back in the day when I used to babysit for the Jazzercise class, they would let me take the class if I had no kids to babysit. Because of the class I got familiar with the song ‘SheWolf’ by Shakira. Aron listens to this Spanish radio station and once when I was out with him this song came on the radio except it was the Spanish version ‘Loba’. I was weird to know the song in English but clearly hearing her sing it in Spanish. Either way I love the Spanish version better than the English version now.

Songs I am digging:
Shakira – Loba
Superchik – Hero
Jamie Grace – Hold Me

Camp truly es bueno

I know I wrote a blogpost that said ‘camp es bueno’ but I didn’t really mean it. I wasn’t really feeling it then. I was trying to have a positive attitude about it anyway. For a week I really really tried to be friends with the other counselors and it worked! I feel like I have friends here and people who care. I may not have found my BFFL but I think I am okay with that. I did want to talk about some of the social staff life here. Note: We have a lot of fake intercounselor relationships between people. I hope that nobody starts an actual relationship with somebody because that would be awkward. I have heard that it will happen anyway. So moving on.
Laura is a towel. Apparently that is a South Park reference, and she was trying to find a way to ‘insult’ me. So after that everytime we saw each other we’d say something like ‘You are such a towel’ or ‘what a towel’ etc… It’s our joke but I think it has kind of died down. :/
Terrah and I recently broke up. She decided I wasn’t faithful enough and she likes boys now which sucks. I’m trying everything I can to get her back but I think Nash has won her heart. I did write her two very lovely love notes which I worked hard on. :(
Maddison claims she is devoted to Sarah but I know I can break those two apart and claim Maddison for myself. It’s just a matter of time… and a matter of taking Sarah out of the picture.
Cody found the song of my heart… Baby by Justin Bieber. Okay so maybe I am exaggerating slightly. I do like Justin Bieber and I’ll talk about that in a second. I was working in the kitchen filling glasses and when he came to go through the line singing ‘CAMIE CAMIE CAMIE OHHH’ to the tune of the chorus. I think the funniest moment I ever had with him is after him and Terrah broke up we were eating lunch and he broke the news to me. I responded with “You mean I have a chance now??” and he got a funny look on his face and asked ‘Um, you mean with me?” and I said ‘No, I mean with Terrah!’ That made him laugh.

Related to the previous topic… With my friends who are girls and I feel rather closeish to, I like to joke about being in a relationship with them. When I still had facebook I would find a girl to be ‘in a relationship’ with or ‘engaged’ to. At points I often have 3 or 4 girls either that I’m ‘talking’ to, ‘in a relationship’ with, or ‘seducing’, or is ‘the love of my life’. I have been termed a womanizer by several of my friends. In person sometimes the girl I was ‘in a relationship’ with, we would be mildly affectionate, no more than what I’d do with any of my siblings. I do admit I am a very affectionate person, whether it is verbally, or physically but I try not to be too affectionate with people to the point that they feel uncomfortable. I was talking with a friend and she feels that pretending to have lesbian relationships is portraying sin and not setting a good example as a Christian. She did point out that especially if people don’t know you they could easily misinterpret your actions with your friends. I see the point that she is making but I personally disagree that that is what I am doing because as Margaret termed it, it is play and not we aren’t attempting to actually have a lesbian relationship with each other. Also you can’t control what people think of you. They will think what they want to. “Seeing is not believeing, Believing is seeing”. If they believe something that is what they are going to see. Out of respect for this friend, and a few other people who feel uncomfortable with it, I choose not to behave like that in front of them because they asked me not to. Do you people have any thoughts on this at all? Please be honest.

I heard Ice Baby last night when I was watching Stepbrothers… It sounded really familiar. It turns out that Vanilla Ice used the bassline to Under Pressure by Queen for that song and that’s what I recognized.
The song at the moment that I really feel like I shouldn’t be liking but I. Love. It. is What the Hell by Avril Lavigne. I really don’t find that her music is good at all… cuz she’s a brat in her music and her music videos but I really like this song for some reason. I will admit that sometimes on the weekends when the main building is empty I will take this song and dance around with the microphone in the auditorium as if I am her in concert. I do the same thing with the songs Secrets by OneRepublic, and How He Loves Us by Flyleaf. Just because I was typing that and I was listening to Avril’s song, I just ran into the auditorium and danced to it. I think I almost have an official choreograph to it.

I wanted to talk about how I like Justin Bieber. You know those people that people either hate because they are super popular and annoying or because everybody else hates them because it’s cool? Some people are super popular and super annoying but they won’t go away because people won’t stop complaining about them? Well I’m sure your first instinct is to go complain about them… but that’s not the solution. What if instead of complaining you pretended to like them and you used that to annoy people? That’s what I do! That is why I will swear up and down that I love Justin Bieber. That is why I will sing and listen to Baby by Justin Bieber. The same goes for Rebecca Black. It is so fun to say you love one of them and have people say what? THEY ARE SO ANNOYING! That is when you start singing their songs and watching your little audience groan.
I do have a funny story for today. I probably already told it but whatever.
Setting: 3am in my dorm Lobby.
Characters: Rachel, Philip and Me.
Scene: [Rachel and Me are singing ‘Single Ladies’]
Random guy: Hey who originally sang that?
Me: Beyonce
Random guy: Lets keep it that way.

Songs I am digging:
Avril Lavigne – What The Hell
Sixpence None the Richer – Kiss Me
Misty Edwards – You Won’t Relent

I’ll try and write more tomorrow because I don’t feel like I’ve written about everything I can. :)

I wanna live

Is it really only Wednesday? Oddly enough the week is dragging on. I believe it is because I am working the evening shift in the kitchen. It tends to do that to you. I really need to be up at 5:30am tomorrow but I am not falling asleep right now.

I love family. I love the idea of family, I love having a family, and I love making people part of my made up family. Generally if you are in my family you feel like you are family to me. Sometimes I see people who seem to need a family and I welcome them with open arms. I want a family of my own one day. I don’t want it now, but I do want one. I look at Bennet’s family and my heart melts at how hard he works, how sweet he is to his wife, and how sweet his kids are. I’m sure their family isn’t perfect but it inspires me. I love Bennet. Josh reminds me of him. That’s another family that is inspiring to me. They have their first kid on the way but already I see how sweet he is to her and the way they work together and my heart melts.

I am going to practice patience with the people who get on my nerves. My previous tactic was avoidance. Now I am going to face them head on and force myself to deal with them.
Also I want my old self back. The one that had fun and fake argued about everything. I miss that me. I saw her tonight and realized how much I really missed her.

I wanna live like today could be my last day. To give all I have before it’s too late. Goodbye to all the fear and doubt because this love is what life’s about. -Stellar Kart, I Wanna Live

I’m tired of pretending that I’m perfect and have no problems and know everything. I wanna live a new life. I have no accountability for anything. I am going to quit church for a while until I can go for more than going because ‘I should’. I want to be genuine.

Btw Laura is a towel.

songs I am digging yo dog
The Script – For The First Time
Justin Bieber – Baby
Sara Barielles – King Of Anything

P.S. I love you

It’s the name of the movie i am currently watching. I like it but i think it is more of a movie meant for older women, not young ones like myself. Although there is one quote in this movie that made me want to cry.
“You know the worst thing for a parent… second after losing a child? Watching your child head for the same life you had. You can’t stop it. It’s a terrible, helpless feeling. Makes you angry all the time.”
I don’t have a child that I feel this way about, I’m just pretty sure this is the way my mom feels about some things. It really makes me kind of understand her better.Yesterday I watched Penelope and that was a really cute movie. I loved James McAvoy’s character. Watch the movie and see what I mean!

Friday, Terrah and Laura invited me to come with them to Terrah’s apartment. That was fun! First we went to her house so I got to meet her mom, and brothers. Then we went on to Stephenville, and saw Tarleton State University and her apartment. The plan was to go to a guys house and they wanted to dress me up, which I am fine with. They did so and I think they did a really good job! My hair is still straight so I really dont want to wash it… but I really need to shower. Maybe I’ll try my hand at straightening and see what happens. Anyway, the thing at the guys house involved drinking games. I did become the designated driver, although I didnt think they were that drunk.

I am deleting my facebook. They wont actually delete your facebook right away, it gets deactivated for two weeks and then deleted. Why am I doing this? I’m just wasting my life away on it and I really don’t need one. And I’d love to be one of those people who can boast that they don’t have one. Also I used it to get praise from people. I knew if I posted the right things people would say encouraging words and stuff. Which is fine, unless you are doing it for the praise of men. Plus I kinda used it to look at what other people were doing to get gossip and judge them…

Some songs I am loving.
Tinie Tempah – Wonderman
Diddy Dirty Money – Your Love
Adam Lambert – Mad World

something to chew on…

“Sometimes the best kind of friend isn’t the one who sits there and listens to your problems; it’s the one that makes you forget about them.

Sometimes the best kind of friend is the one where you want to let loose and laugh about anything and everything.

Thank you.

Not because I told you all my problems. But because you made me laugh again.”

I saw that on sixbillionsecrets.com. It inspired me because sometimes I’m not that friend who listens to your problems and helps you through them. I used to feel bad about it like I wasn’t there for them or something but now I can see that sometimes you aren’t always the friend who listens and you are the friend who made them laugh again.

“Humility’s closest attribute is honesty. Humility doesn’t require us to be self-deprecating. Humility is not about having a low self-image or poor self esteem. Humility is about self awareness. It is important to be self-aware in relationship to our gifts, talents, skills, and intellect, but in regard to our spiritual health, it is far more essential that we are self-aware in the arena of personal character. If you see yourself for who you are and embrace it honestly, humility is the natural result. God isn’t asking you to say something about yourself that isn’t true. God is asking that we take a good, long look in the mirror and see ourselves for who we truly are, and then after that, to have the courage to ask for help.
Our humility allows God’s intervention. The word humble comes from humus, which is simply translated “earth” or “dirt”. Humility is about coming to grips with our humanity. The Scriptures describe a proud person as one who is “puffed up”. Pride is a determination to be seen as bigger than we are. When we are humble, we are down to earth. No energy is wasted on pretension. A humble man can be taken at face value. It is ironic that the imagery of being humble is one where we lower ourselves. Humility sees nothing beneath it in terms of servanthood. It is in this position that God finds delight in reversing the order. When we lower ourselves, God is eager to lift us up.”

I read that in the book Uprising by Erwin Raphael McManus. To me it was like WHOA! cuz I used to kind of have the idea that really talking about yourself in general, such as ‘I play the piano’ wasn’t being humble. But this opened my eyes to see that it isn’t that way. You can talk about yourself as long as you aren’t doing it to brag or to make yourself look good. I really like the part that says how God wants us to ‘see oursevles for who we truly are’. Just some inspiration I’d share with you guys as I am going through all my old quotes and junk that I’ve collected.

Camp es bueno

I’ve really worked on not being anti social. There is a group of us that hang out now. Debra, Aaron, Cody, Amanda, Joanna, Nash and Nicole. They are all super nice and super friendly. Cody is one of the sweetest most thoughtful guys I think I have ever met. He is very incredible. He reminds me of myself the way he connects to people and draws them out of their shyness. He did that to Joanna and admittedly me. Honestly it wasn’t that I was feeling shy, I just had too much on my mind and I really wasn’t ready to head to camp to work. I’m feeling fine now so it’s all cool. Joanna, and Nash are just hilarious but in their own ways. Probably one of the funniest people I’ve met here is the kitchen lady, Nanci. She made all of us summer staff write up notecards listing our five favorite foods. She got mad that we all put healthy foods because she wanted to make us a bunch of junk food.

Todd [who is an insanely cool adult] came out and did Real Colors with us. It’s a personality test involving colors. realcolors.org It is based off of the Myers-Briggs personality test but involves four basic personalities grouped in colors. I turned out to be a blue, which means feelings, creative, art, people person etc… it pretty much describes me right now. If you get an opportunity to take the test you should. It’s pretty freaking fantastic. I think I used to be orange… but I’ve drifted from that. Orange is all about fun having an exciting life and being the center of attention.

It’s really odd because when I’m feeling down the first thing I always want to do it delete my facebook. I have no idea why I do that… I’m now using it as a sign that I’m feeling dramatic and down. Anyway, another goal I’ve set for myself is to do things not for the credit and the compliments but to do them to serve others. There are a lot of things I do because I know people will respond with positive feedback and compliments.

That’s all I can think of for an update for now so ciao.

Summer woo

I’m ready to start my job TBH! I mean the training and all is fantastic but I’m ready to get my hands dirty in work. I’m also trying really hard not to be really anti social and actually try and get to know the other counselors. I’m bad at that sometimes and this is no exception. Right now you’ve got the old counselors who all know each other then you have the new counselors and I’m not sure how to fit into that. I know if I run into anybody who loudly proclaims they don’t care about the kids who come for camp than I might just get super mad. but we will see.

The athletic director at Hardin Simmons University is here. I recognize him from a couple years ago when we went and toured Hardin Simmons as part of the Fitness Health and Recreation project group. Also today Todd Williams is speaking to us today. I have very fond memories of both guys.

I’m learning more about policies and things to look out for to keep kids safe. They drilled ‘in loco parentis’ into our brains. That is a Latin term meaning in place of the parent. Basically the parents are dropping off their kids and entrusting us in their care as their parents. I’m really excited!

Rec Week was last week. That was a retreat with Intervarsity and it was incredible. The little small group I was with were incredible people.
Hannah was so excited about everything and so sweet.
Christine would speak up with these wise sayings every so often.
Lucero always gave us a new perspective on things, and we were Bible study leader partners.
Drew was quiet but he was funny but weird in a very good way.
Daniel was older but funny and very nice.
Sheiren was always excited and she kept us stable pretty much.
Marshall… well ohh Marshall. He was definitely a dork but he always had these fantastic ideas or insights.
Jon was our leader and he was just incredible. One day when we were eating lunch with Hannah and all her friends, one of her friends asked if we were married. LOL

What did I learn about myself? That I like having a little winddown pre-bed time. That I have mad French braiding and toilet plunging skills that I can use for the good of others. But seriously…

A couple people have been getting on my nerves. They were there at Rec Week. Gideon the nightly speaker told us that our the boundaries of our grace extend as far as the people we can forgive. “Is there someone here you can’t forgive? If so than your grace can’t extend beyond the boundaries of this room.” That really convicted me. With one I’ve been revolutionized to realize that she really looks up to me so I’m embracing that fact. With the other I’m seeing him as someone who isn’t perfect and he is working on things and I’m not the only one who is bugged.

I think that’s it for now…. I’ll keep y’all updated. Let me know what or if you want more to read and I’ll do my best to deliver.

One year down yay

I’ve been home for about a week. It’s felt perfectly marvelous to be home. I do still kind of feel like a hobo mooching but I love being with my family. I still feel like I am losing them partly because my main identity was them. Two of my sisters are taking ballet now and they are so adorable in their ballet costumes.

That is what my life feels like. I love the little pictures that have the words and cool sayings on them. Anyway at this moment my life is feeling sad but exciting all at the same time if that makes any sense. I’m trying to think of good goals next year.

1. Work on communication skills
2. Study and practice a lot more
3. Look to God as my refuge in times of trouble

And it is official now, Aron is my boyfriend. I feel like telling people but at the same time I don’t want to be that dumb girl who runs around gushing and annoying people. So there you have it. :)

May! Woo

Yesterday was the first of May. I am very excited and I can’t wait for school to be over. Partly because of no school, but mainly it is to start my summer job. Yes that’s right I got a job working at a camp. The first half of the summer I will be working in the kitchen, and the second half I’ll be a counselor. Exciting? I think so!

When it comes to school being over, I don’t hate school by all means. Just right now I can almost taste the end of school and everything I’ve accomplished this semester. Just one more week. I do love school and I try not to obsess over grades but to actually learn. I know that that’s what most professors are trying to help you to, but people can be really dumb sometimes.

One my latest and greatest inspirational songs has been More Than Useless. I don’t necessarily think that I am useless, it just shuts up the horrible meaniehead perfectionist inside of me. Viva La Vida has been another one. That one means LET’S GO CONQUER THE WORLD, with a subtle message against materialism. Just to make it a top three song list I’m going to throw in ‘How He Loves Us’ by several different people. Flyleaf and David Crowder Band play my two favorite covers of it. That song make me want to stand around a campfire, hold hands and sway back and forth. Mmmmmm

Today was our last class period of Music History. It was sad but happy at the same time. I’m sad because I really loved my teacher. He is like a little kid in the way that he gets excited about showing us stuff. At the same time I am soo glad to be done with music history. I greatly detest that subject.

Lifeeeee goes onnn

I’m sorry for no updating recently. I’ve been busy but not in an exciting “let-me-tell-you-about-it” way. It’s more of a “let’s-get-the-semester-over-and-away-from-these-people” way. I’m not usually one to complain and I hope I show that but… I need my amazing people. The few that are back at home. I met a couple here, Mackenzie, Jackie and Philip. Right now Philip left, Mackenzie is kinda busy, and I’m just Jackie’s resident. So yeah, I have met other people who are really cool but these three people I mentioned, I can feel completely myself around and I really really look up to them for different reasons. Like I feel COMPLETELY comfortable around them being myself. There are other amazing people but they don’t quite measure up to these three people… I feel bad that I can pick ‘favorites’ like this. I really try not to cuz it’s kind of rude to everybody else. I’m just overanalyzing again.

I feel like I’m losing people. I feel like I’m losing my family because they are all growing up with out me. I feel like I’m losing friends back at home. I feel like I’m losing Aron. I feel like I’m growing out of everything like that. I want to go home, and I did a lot last semester, but it just kinda feels weird now. But this isn’t home. I know I talk and complain about this a lot but it keeps coming up and bothering me.

So are a few other issues but the world wide interwebz isn’t the place to publish all that. I’ve been feeling weird and moody all the time. Crying and sad one minute and the next minute bouncing along.

On a positive note, I wrote a song for Theory class! I am super pumped about that. Finals are almost here, and technically I have seven, which really isn’t scaring me at all for some weird reason. Probably because I am seeing all of my songs coming together in this really cool way. I’m not practicing a ton because I’ve already got the technical stuff down. I’m super happy because I have yet to incur the wrath of my teacher [which I have heard is brutal].

Most of my teachers also know me by name which is AWESOME. It makes me feel good inside! :) I played a song for concert band. Well I accompanied them. It was hard because I’m not used to playing with such a huge ensemble but I didn’t totally crash and burn which makes me happy.

I gave my persuasive speech which I had totally forgotten about. Basically I had the big ten page research paper due the day I had signed up to give my speech. So the night before I was freaking out. I slept for four hours and wrote my speech and the paper and I think both went super super well! I’m waiting for results on them but I’m pleased with my progress.

Intervarsity selected me for small group leadership and paired me with Dusty. He’s a really cool dude, although I am not super close to him. I am going to try and get closer to him before summer starts just so it’s not awkward trying to lead a small group next year. We’ve been texting so I think that’s helping. I’m really excited about leading one. But at the same time things are changing…

I’m not trying to be sad about change, but thinking about it makes me want to cry. I know that sounds dumb… but still.

Oh and watch out for a special ‘end of the year’ survey!

Cool music
Tinie Tempah – Written In The Stars
The Rocket Summer – So Much Love
Christina Perri – Jar Of Hearts

Since when…

I’m supposed to be typing up a reflection paper about the speech I gave in class. HA like that’s happening. Yes that is right. I am typing a blogpost instead of doing homework.

Today was a busy stressful day. By busy I mean that I had things practically back to back almost all day. So much music was crammed in my head that it kind of hurt. Usually Tuesday nights I go to the complex council meetings but I wasn’t feeling up to it. On Techannounce I read about a Christian group that meets down at the local coffee shop seven blocks away. I’m not telling you at what time they meet so that you can’t chew me out for walking at certain times of the day. Anyway I went down there to check it out. To be honest, it’s not the way I want to spend every Tuesday night but it was just nice and relaxing to spend an evening with God. I met a girl named Becky and she seems pretty cool. Like not just ‘pretty cool’ but genuinely interested in being friends and stuff. I really try not to be shallow with that ‘oh they don’t want to be my friend wahwah’.

Spring Break was awesome! Yes yes yes. I think I have about six pictures that sums up the awesome week for me. If you want to see that collage than let me know. It wasn’t super exciting with good stories to tell, but to me it was amazing.

Me: Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaford
Allie: HUSH HE IS GOING TO HEAR YOU

Aron: When you are scared you are like a pansy and you say “eeeheeeheeeh”. When you are a marigold you say….. “Yep”
Me: What do bluebonnets say?
Aron: blerghblerblerblergh
Me: What do Chrysanthemums say?
Aron: Blup Blup Blup

songs I’m really into at the moment:
MercyMe – I Would Die For You
Newsboys – The Way We Roll
Cascada – Evacuate the Dance Floor

Yes yes yes

Oh,what I would do to have
the kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I’m in
Onto the crashing waves
To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown
Where Jesus is,
And he’s holding out his hand
But the waves are calling out my name
and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
time and time again
“Boy, you’ll never win,
You you’ll never win
But the Voice of truth tells me a different story
the Voice of truth says “do not be afraid!”
and the Voice of truth says “this is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth

I wish I could say that I wrote the above verses.  They are from the song ‘Voice of Truth’ by Casting Crowns. I’m ‘rediscovering’ them.  I remember this song as the one that would always play and it got annoying… but I’m sad I didn’t see the epicness until now.

I’m going home tomorrow for Spring Break! I am very excited to see my family and some other people also.

A very very old friend of mine has a tumblr and I read this on there today.

“Let us love. Is this word so deeply entrenched (see Psalm 119:11) within our hearts that it is impossible for us to sin against our God whose very name is Love?  It should be completely impossible even to think an unkind thought about another. To misjudge, or put the worst interpretation on what someone has said or done – it should be completely impossible. If this word, Let us love, is hidden in our hearts it will prevent unkindness from slipping in and embittering our hearts. Yes, there are times when we have to talk about wrong things that have happened. But seriously, if we can speak of those wrong things without our hearts and souls in deep withering pain and sorrow to tears – we have NOT love.”

Yeah wow.  I’m thinking of all those times I think bad things about people but I still am ‘loving’ them.  You learn something new everyday, and I like being challenged with things like this.  Things that show me, you aren’t really that awesome, perfect, loving person you think you are.

I’m also discovering the idea of rest.  I like to be busy always.  I can tell when I’m too busy because then I end up at the end of the day sitting on my bed sighing wondering when it all will end and when I can get away from it all. Also getting up the next morning is next to impossible because part of being busy is compromising sleep. But really by being so busy is it accomplishing much? There is a line between not being lazy and not being too busy and I definitely was over on the being too busy side.  Now I feel less stressed out and more at peace.

So yeah that’s whassup

I ended up giving a speech about canons and fugues instead of the Office. It was too short but I’m happy with it because I didn’t go over the audiences heads. I’m sure half of you guys are scratching your heads wondering what canons and fugues are.

Canon – song that repeats the melody. It plays the same melody at the same pitch and does not variate it.

Fugue – song that repeats the melody in different parts. First the melody plays [subject] then the melody starts again but it starts a fifth or a fourth above or below the starting pitch then the originally melody plays again [subject] etc…

Things I have been learning…

1. Trust God with everything

We talked about this in church. We like to throw it around but how many times do we actually end up worrying about what it is we are ‘trusting God with’. I know that I am completely guilty of that. For now I’m praying over whatever problems and then handing them to God for him to worry about. I feel so much lighter and less burdened because of it. I’ll talk more about some of those ‘problems’ I’ve been having in a bit.

2. Don’t worry about the future because God has a perfect plan

The story behind this…. FLASHBACK three weeks ago: the scene is midnight worship. The band is in the middle of a song. I feel a hand on my shoulder and when I open my eyes the guy says ‘Hey God told me to tell you to not worry about the future because he has a perfect plan for you’. I said ‘thank you’ and shrugged off the comment. Forward two weeks, and I had just had the CA job fall through and the summer job. I had had the perfect plan all lined up and now it wasn’t. I was thinking to myself, now what? What should I do now? and I was needlessly worrying. That’s when I remembered the guy’s words to me. God works with perfect timing. Always.

3. You need a community of people to build you up and show you things

I read somewhere ‘don’t be a lone ranger Christian’. Sometimes I think that to myself. I don’t like sharing my struggles with people partly cuz it just seems like there are bigger problems out there and plus I don’t want to add to their worries. Intervarsity has small group bible studies once a week. The freshman girl’s one meets Wednesday nights. I already had committed that night to going to church so I never actually went to one and I had a few other excuses in my bag. Then I got a message and a text from Kim [one of the leaders] about last nights. That was odd because I usually don’t get those. I figured oh what the hey why not and I went last night and all I can say is that I am very sorry I never went earlier. It was so refreshing just to be there for a nice girl’s night and it’s all the girl’s from Intervarsity that I love.

Pretty much…

Friend A has called me his girlfriend’s name twice…… which seems kind of weird

Friend B is struggling with roommate issues, depression, the whole nine yards…. :/

Sebastian just got a girlfriend so the gossip mills are going to start up and I’ve already got one person asking me about it. GRRR! It happened the same way when Philip got a girlfriend “because we figured you would know”…Yeah if you couldn’t already tell I don’t like discussing people and their love lives, especially my own, hehe. Mainly because it is usually gossip.

DID YOU HEAR THAT SO AND SO HAS A GIRLFRIEND?

OMG REALLY?

YEAH! HE’S DATING THAT CALIFORNIA CHICK

THE REDHEAD?

Oh it’s soooooooooooo dramatic

The Office

I love THE OFFICE! It’s about the one TV show I really keep up with…

I’m going to give a speech about it on Friday, YAY!

Beyond that just kinda like whattodo as far as like jobs and stuff… cuz I had my perfect plan, but now it’s gone.  Kind of trusting for now and seeing what happens.

Sweet skills

Three skills that I am very excited about but I don’t mention them much that way people don’t say things about them or make me ‘perform’.

Spanish speaking
Singing
Piano playing

I’m scared of hearing somebody tell me I suck at one of these or portions of these.

Mi Cumpleanos!

Ha ya, so it started off by Chad calling me at precisely midnight. That freaked me out just for a second because I was not expecting that.  I don’t REALLY talk to him but it wasn’t too awkward.  It was part of a bettish thing where I told him that he would probably forget about my birthday and he said he definitely wouldn’t. Obviously he was right. Aron texted me twice… my mother stepped up to the Words of Encouragement plate and posted on my wall, texted me, emailed me and about any other form of media you can think of. Lauren followed in the same pattern.

Rachel is a total jerk… meaniehead… schmuck [and only Rachel and Philip would get why those aren’t completely mean names]. We made a video to put on my wall and she said ‘fuc happy birthday k’ in the caption for it. Goodness what am I going to do with her.

Sebastian and them had planned a big ‘trash Camie’s room’ fiasco which thankfully they did not trash my room in the way they originally planned [original plans included silly string and confetti all over my bed].  Anyway Rachel went in the afternoon and asked my roommate if she was okay with it.  What Rachel told me is that ‘I was in your room today’.  I absolutely flipped out because at midnight on my birthday Philip, Whitney and Jessica went to my room and banged on the door.  I was not in it and my roommate wasn’t too happy, especially since she wasn’t in that good of a mood. I was worried about them bugging her too much.  Rachel claimed my roommate loved her but I was still freaking out. I skipped church last night and Andi texted me saying ‘Sebastian said he’s going to trash your room’ and I wasn’t worried until Rachel told me ‘Sebastian is in your room’.  I did flip out cuz I believed her.  I was worried he was seriously trashing it and Rachel also said he threw my bras all over the floor. We were with Mary and Philip, so we all went up to my room where Sebastian, Whitney, Jessica, Norma, and Mackenzie were waiting.  They had put streamers all over my ceiling, kisses all over my bed and balloons were everywhere.  Anyway the reason Rachel was in my room was to ask my roommate if they could do it that night so she was totally cool with it.

Basically I was freaking out about nothing.  I really really do appreciate all of them and it felt like a hit and run.  Part of me wants to say I HATE SURPRISES then I see all the hard work they put into it, as far as keeping it a secret and all the other things and then I realize that I just need to let go of somethings.  I pride myself on knowing everything or finding out everything but sometimes it’s better not to know or figure it out.  It’s okay to have a few mysteries in life that you can’t figure out or that surprise you.

I really am blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing people.  I wish I could tell them all exactly how much they mean to me.  There are a few guys that I need to tell but I’m worried about coming across as ‘i-like-you’.  There are also a few girls that I need to tell.  But I need to say it in just the right way that doesn’t seem like I say it to everybody. That is something I’m going to try and do this year.

One of the best parts was when Sebastian gave me a Star Wars card.  He had remembered me as not liking Star Wars because I was going to give Katie a Star Wars CD for her dislike of Star Wars.  SEBASTIAN FAIL! Then he said he was going to go with a Jonas Brothers card because he thought I hated them.  DOUBLE SEBASTIAN FAIL! It’s like he doesn’t know me at all.  I try my best to hint that I hate country music, cowboys, the Dallas cowboys, sweet tea, twizzlers… It’s like missing both of your free throws.

Alas I ‘had physical contact with boys’ last night.  Hehe, and my mom pointed out how I had ‘boys in my room’.  I love those jokes!

This is totally what my side of the room looked after they left.  Note the lipstick on the mirror.

Grace and donating blood…

I. Donated. Blood. That may not sound like a big deal to you but for me, it was huge. I am super squeamish and I am slowly working to overcome it. This is a step in the process. It did take me a whole hour to do it because for 45 minutes I was too lightheaded to leave.

I just read this awesome book called ‘Unchristian’ by Gabe Lyons. The title makes it sound like an atheist book but it surveyed non-Christians and kind of pinpointed areas that Christians fail at in general. One of those points is judging people. That one REALLY hit home for me. I am probably the worst. It usually doesn’t come across in my speech but you were inside my head…

My goals this year are to study grace, and start praying with people instead of just listening to their problems. Also to stop judging people, especially if it is over stuff that just doesn’t line up with what I think is ‘the right way to go’.

Clases started hoy

I don’t know the Spanish word for started. I was going to take Spanish this semester but all the classes were full. Then I forgot that, so I was studying spanish furiously for a class I don’t have. I need to work on my Spanish grammar. I’m okay at vocabulary but my spanish grammar sucks.

I bought books today! After going to all of my classes and seeing what I need and there are a ton and they are heavy… but that’s all the whining I will do for the semester.

My awesome CA Jackie nominated me for ‘resident of the month’ and I won! I learned that today and I was kinda surprised.  I’m pretty sure this award thingie is chosen from residents all over campus.  Not that I get some huge prize or anything, I just feel kind of honored that she would think of me and nominate me. Eren got a job as a CA this semester which I think is really cool.  He said that the CA’s in Wall/Gates are really nice.  He can’t stop talking about how great our GA Jacklyn is.  I should probably get to know her.

Today is my monthly facebook birthday.  People are freaking out because they know my real birthday in January so they are really confused this month. BAHAHAHAHAHA

Aron had a weird dream and it freaked him out.  I’ve been worried about him cuz I have never seen him freak out quite like this. It also kinda proved to me that I care 10,000,000,000 times more than I let on.

Songs I am loving [there have just been a lot lately]

Revive – Blink

Josh Wilson – Before the Morning

House of Heroes – God Save The Foolish Kings

End of a season… for me at least

Tomorrow we are supposed to go back to Lubbock. Mackenzie, Jessica and I. I’m thinking of requesting the front seat, for at least part of the trip, or asking if I can drive. Mackenzie might let me do that, or I might just sleep in the backseat again. I was worried our trip might be postponed because of the snow but the snow is not sticking. WIN! That doesn’t mean that it won’t snow more later. This past week has been pretty incredible but kinda sad at the same time. It’s felt like that last week before I left for college.

I think I forgot to mention Wednesday night in my last post. Allie had a meeting downtown at Barnes and Noble so Deborah came for that and we chilled for a bit. They built a new club called LoneStar where City Streets used to be. Deborah asked me if I wanted to try and get into it. I said yes because Deborah is somebody I know that wouldn’t do anything terribly bad and actually has morals so I feel like I can trust her as far as doing stuff like that. It is a 21 and older club so he turned us away, but he had approved Deborah’s for some reason. It was mine that made him stop and think about. Now it really makes me feel like I look twelve. HA! Then Sarah and her friends were downtown so Deborah got to meet her, and I got to meet all of Sarah’s friends. I see them around facebook commenting on her stuff but I have never actually met them. They. Are. A. Hoot. Colton most of all. I really liked him. Not that kind of like, just…. as a person.

Friday I drove down to Lauren’s apartment and spent the night. We watched movies, played pool, ate freebirds, devoured chocolate, and laughed at a guy on Youtube. If I find him I may share him with you. It was also one of those times that are hard to describe, but it was totally amazing also. I took my huge bag of Skittles that Deborah gave me and we made it through a quarter of the bag. Also a lipstick smilie showed up on Mom’s car. I’m pretty sure it happened at some point that night. I do need to go clean it off for her.

Last night was full of everything and incredible at the same time. Jessica wanted to do something with Aron, he was off on Saturday, and Jennifer had the birthday bowling thing going that night so I combined it all. I stayed out til 1:30am and it involved bowling, Ihop, 3D movies, poking, lots of pictures, and pizza. It was incredible but I don’t think writing about it will do it justice. I was going to and I really want to but there is no way I can convey the awesomeness of the night to you.

Unfortunately two people that I still haven’t seen or taken the time to see is Kate and Emily. It’s not that I don’t want to see them, but I just haven’t taken the time for them. I love them both to death. I swear that on Spring Break or something I will make it a point to try and see both of them, or something… I don’t know. It’s a pretty cruddy friend thing to do.

Good songs
Adam Lambert – Whaddya Want From Me
The Classic Crime – Perfect Song
MercyMe – When I First Spoke Your Name

I need a title for this…

Why is Sam such a popular name for businesses?

-Sam’s place [convience type stores at Tech]
-Sam’s [the Walmart warehouse dealie]
-Fantastic Sam’s [hair salon]
-Sam Moon [huge accessory store]

It’s just something I have noticed. I do have a problem with place number one I listed, places number two and four are cool and I have no opinion on place number three.

I love me some skype buddy time, so yesterday Sam, Jennifer, Allie and I scoured Half Price finding all the great deals. Then we attacked burritos at Freebirds which are awesome as always and leave my stomach feeling nice and loved. I left my rings there on the table… GRR! I wouldn’t care so much usually because it is just stuff, but the two people who gave them to me are very very near and very very dear to me. I’d go on and on about them but I don’t think either of them will read this so it would be a little pointless. If you want me to write about them in another post speak now or forever hold thy peace!

Tuesday night Micah and I went swing dancing with Will. That was pretty awesome. I forgot how much I do love to dance. I also kind of realized how a lot of it is not set in stone and you do make up stuff. Or just go with what your partner is doing. To me the fun of it is dancing with different people and seeing their different styles and cues. This one guy was all about the turning and a couple times I was worried I was going to fall over from dizziness. Micah and I learned the Balboa. At one point the instructor instructed us ladies to be looking over our male partner’s shoulder. At that point, I was dancing with a guy so tall that the top of my head barely reached his shoulder. Hehe! Next time I am home on a Tuesday night I will drag Allie and Aron out to dance.

Will asked me yesterday what book in the Bible is a good one to start on. After consulting Jennifer, Allie and Sam, I told him John. Mom recommended Romans when I told her later. I figure starting in John will get him to Romans soon enough. Honestly, the fact that he asked me that question is just so cool to me. I know I am not the best about being a Christian witness to people so the fact that he asked me…. wow. I had the same feeling as when Rachel asked me to pray with her. The fact that Rachel felt comfortable enough asking me to pray with her is…. wow. I am so glad that God can use me for his purposes, cuz really him picking me probably wasn’t the best choice.

My New Year’s was spent in Missouri. We were there in weekend. PROOF that I am officially used to the cold. Thank you dear Lubbock for that. I didn’t have anybody there to kiss because Allie fell asleep early. Jerk! Meaniehead! Schmuck! I guess I could have kissed my grandfather. AHEM either way, I really enjoyed myself in Missouri. Me going off to college for a semester has taught me how to appreciate family. I used to kind of dread holidays because it meant I got to see my extended family most of them who really could care less if I was there or not. Then I’ve noticed my selfish attitude because I haven’t really cared about their lives either. I could totally ask them about theirs and listen. I did better this time. Mom’s parents are the kind to me that I have to spend a whole weekend with them to really feel that I had a good visit. While up in Missouri we watched the movie How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days. That was a hilarious movie and a reminder of why I don’t exactly care for boy crazy girls. We also watched Avalon High and there were so many things wrong with that movie. Girl. Power. Movies. Fail.

Here are three current favorite songs.
Paper Tongues – Ride to California
Manic Drive – Music
The Afters – Light Up the Sky.

I converted Jennifer to 89.7! I tried my best to convert Sebastian when he came up to DFW but he was attracted by 94.9’s sweet siren songs. I know if he lived here he would have the same dislike for that station.

The next 30 day challenge thing asks about your deepest fear. Hmmm. These last ones are getting harder and I’m considering quitting.

Invierno es fria

I’m sure you all knew the statement in my title that ‘winter is cold’. It is really hitting home now. Currently we are on vacation in Missouri and I have been forced to use a jacket. I am getting used to the cold and it has to be almost freezing and windy for me to want or need a jacket. Allie and Mom whine about the cold everyday here. WIMPS!

The other night we went out, Allie, Jennifer and I. That was a lot of fun. We explored ice cream and Walmart. Unfortunately we did not talk her into buying the purple fluffy unicorn pillow or the Hannah Montana bed sheets. We did help her find picture frames, corkboard and some snazzy nail polish.

I love Jessica’s little brother Justin. He is twelve and such a mess. I was imploring him to make me Ramen but he wouldn’t. I paid him back for that with several kisses on the back of his head. Revenge is sweet! Jessica, Sarah, Allie and I had our annual tradition of watching White Christmas. I also painted my fingernails a super girly pink and put flowers on them. That is something I have never done before.

We saw the movie Despicable Me. It was super adorable.
“IT’S SO FLUFFY I’M GOING TO DIE”

Something I have been thinking about… If somebody has a different religion than you, or believes something that you don’t, is it wrong or bad to help then along that path? For instance they don’t have a car and they give you money to go buy a book or something involving it for them.

This is my first post in the beautiful new year of 2011. It’s kind of exciting although I feel I should do a tribute to 2010. I may do one when I get home to Texas. I should find the 10 most influential people of last year and thank them.
Any resolutions?
Get in shape
Find a style
Study
Become a theology nerd
Learn Spanish

It may seem like a lot, but last year was becoming a better me for others. This year is about becoming a better me for me.

With God, nothing is impossible.

This is me and Allie. I think the hats represent us very well.

These are pictures of me with my two best friends in the whole wide world.

Ok ya….

Sooo I’ve had this crazy idea that won’t die. It’s been there for about a month now……

…..basically there is a big homeless problem in Lubbock. And something keeps hinting this idea that the way to stop it is to get a homeless shelter or something. But I don’t know how that involves me or what I can do or who to talk to. It’s been nagging at me…..

…..i don’t know if that just sounds silly or not. Grrr.

Part of me says that I’m only 18, I don’t have time, someone else will etc…
The other part of me says that if I don’t do it that no one else will…

And it’s really feeling kind of like a message from God.

We bought a homeless guy Taco Bell and he seemed so grateful……

And it’s probably best to wait and pray. Philip suggested talking to Josh and Sara about it. But that is like three weeks til I am going to see them.

Gah! I give up on overthinking this. I’m going to be praying (and could you guys pray also about this) and I’m going to go read do hard things, one of the best books in the world.

Words

Encouraging words mean a whole huge deal to me. I am totally a creeper who saves texts, but I’m getting a new phone tomorrow so I made an email draft with all of my saved ones. I wanted to share with y’all some of my favorites. Some of you will recognize things you’ve said. You may guess who the others are if you so desire.

“I miss you more. I dread everyday I wake up and your not there..”

“I don’t think you are being naive or worrisome. At all.”

“Hey, I really appreciate every thing you do for me and being a great sister. So I just wanted to tell you that I love you… I wanted you to know that.”

“I don’t know that I know any one who has it like you.”

“I know this is random but have I ever told you how thankful I am God had us meet?”

“Sweet dreams cams. You will always mean the world to me. No matter what.”

“A good and clever soul you are. Don’t be a perfectionist”

“You are more than welcome. Thank you for making me look through my Bible.”

“No! I’m not conceited. I just refuse to put myself in a negative light outside my own head :p”

So anyway that’s a sampling of the people that are near and dear to me. I’m hoping soon to get around to writing a thank you to a specific top six or ten. Depending on how I get it working. Btw all the people mentioned in the tags are the people quoted and they are all awesome.

I love love hehehe

“And I hope you know that someone out there LOVES you.” -The Classic Crime, The Way That You Are

“Someone LOVES you, even when you don’t think so. Don’t you know, you’ve got me and Jesus.” -Stellar Kart, Me and Jesus

“Working everyday I’m afraid I forgot to show what’s most important, LOVE” -The Rocket Summer, Of Men and Angels

“No I don’t hate you, don’t want to fight you. Know I’ll always LOVE you but right now I just don’t like you.” -Relient K, Which To Bury, Us or the Hatchet

“Those three words are said too much. They are not enough.” -Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

“Your LOVE has broken my defense let me embrace salvation.”
“Your LOVE regardless of the mistakes I make will spoil me” – Relient K, I Am Understood?

“Thats the least I could do, after what we’ve been through. I wrote these words because I LOVE you” -The Wedding, This One’s For You

“She said ‘Like it or not, that’s the way it’s gotta be. You’ve got to love yourself if you can ever LOVE me'” -Lifehouse, Whatever it Takes

“I just couldn’t see that there was a LOVE in your arms just waiting for me.” -Eleventyseven, Love In Your Arms

Here I go…

Two songs that are full of WIN (no Matthew Thiessen this time)

Fight Inside – Red
Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s

Philip mailed my purse today so it should get here tomorrow afternoon. YAY! He is awesome. He won’t let me pay him back. He said me waking him up four times is payment enough.

I met my facebook ‘stalker’ Brenden Kyer today. He is winsauce, but I am dumb an don’t do groups well so I didn’t really talk to him. I also got to see Bennet. It reminded me that he i awesome and why I love him so much.

“You are worth more to me than a shirt.” I don’t think Aron realizes how much hearing that means to me. That quote came from tonight that included Allie falling in the pool, me tearing his shirt and Lost.

EDIT: this is post #100

Home

I’m home for the winter break. I hate breaks really. It throws off my schedule. Then I feel torn in a thousand different places to see people (not that I don’t want to see you guys) but it is stressful for me. Partly because I am also trying to figure out my new role in our family. I’m used to being a kid who asks for everything and now I’m being told I don’t have to ask. Also Lubbock doesn’t feel like home, and my house feels like the place I used to live. Mizz Lauren Kershner reminded me to pray about it in that amazing way of hers.

Tonight we went to an epic piano concert. A lot of pianos played all sorts of Christmas music including some of my favorites. Driving there (Dallas) was pretty nerveracking for me. I need more Dallas practice.

1 Corinthians 13 – how can I love people more?? Am I loving people the way I should???

I want my life to have purpose. I want my purse back (I left it in Lubbock) and I’ve been mooching off of Allie. I want people to stop reading too much into things when I talk about a guy a lot. I want to live in a house with a few special people forever.

Day 20 – A talent of yours

Yes I know lame, since I haven’t touched the 30 day challenge for a bit.  But Sam requested I finish it so I thought I’d take another crack at it.

A talent of mine, hmmm.  Should I be lazy and pick my major?

It’s tempting me…..

I play the piano really well.  YAWN! Everybody knows that.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm

I think I will just go and say that a talent I have is making people laugh.

FOR NARNIA

You probably have noticed that my blog is snowing.  Isn’t that just cool? I think it’s legit.

I’m ready to come home and I have another week! It’s finals week and I really don’t need to study that much so I am catching up on my social life.  That means that I have lived in the lobby last night and Wednesday night.  Rachel left early both times because she needs dark to sleep.  Tonight we are going to Starbucks and Eren is going to join our little group.  The one thing I am worried about is people trying to hug Eren because he is NOT a touchy person at all.  He jumped majorly once when my feet bumped his under the table, he also will NOT let me touch his laptop or his phone…actually I touched his phone once and I’m not sure why I was granted that privilege.  Anyway, right now I am in the lobby watching people rush out the door for their finals. I’m so glad I dont have a final today.

That’s about it, I am using Philip’s laptop and it is about to die so ciao!

Parents… grrrr

So I’ve got a bunch of new parents.

Sue is my father [don’t even ask].  I’m pretty sure I don’t have a mother in that combo.

Mackenzie is my Lubbock mother and she is married to Josh (Richards) who is my stepdad.  I go back and forth between them when it’s convenient picking different favorite parents everytime.  I’m pretty sure Philip is my real father but I haven’t asked my mother Mackenzie if that is true or not.  Anyway so that makes Sebastian my half brother, and I do everything I can to bug him as every good half-sister should.

I’ve got a little nephew named Brenden who keeps begging for a WII or a Lamborgini for Christmas because he’s been good! He also wants me to write a letter to Santa in Elvish because I am the best aunt every who can do ANYTHING.

Then back at home I’m pretty sure Jennifer and Sam are my mom and dad but if they aren’t than they are just my older brother and sister who has stepped up as the parents in the family and scream at me when I even touch guys [not really screaming btw for anybody who was about to call the police for domestic abuse].

Who am I touching [that sounds a lot dirtier than I meant it to] and they freaking out about??  So far it’s just Philip [that I’ve told them].  I was telling them that he is the guy who taught me the correct technique for texting in the shower and somehow it came about that he creeps me while I’m in the shower so now he is ‘the creepy shower guy’ that they have to meet.  HA! He’s not creepy… although he does make plans to peer in Cesar’s window.  They asked who the guy in his facebook profile picture was and when I explained it was the guy who got busted for drugs the other day Sam started off with ‘grounding’ me for ‘hanging with potheads’.

The rules [according to Sam and Jennifer]

1. No touching guys

2. You can only hug Europeans or Brazileans

3. You can hug them only if you want to

4. You can hug Josh, Ryland and Sam.

At the Intervarsity Christmas party Jennifer warned me ‘no alcoholic drinks and no boys’.  Of course I had to text her and say BOYS! NOMNOMNOM.  She proceeded to warn me no flirting.  I said BOYS! NOMNOMFLIRTFLIRT.  She then compromised with no touching boys.  That’s where all of that started.  I am pretty sure I did not touch any guys at the party except for the obvious ‘crowded house trying to get through the crowd’ touching.

While we are on the subject I might as well get it out on the table.  I’m not really a hugger unless you are one of those really really really special people to me.  I don’t feel that I must hug every person I know.  If you ask for a hug I can’t say no, I will hug you and I do appreciate when you mention it first instead of just going for it cuz that is just kinda creepy. *coughAlexcough*

Tonight is a lady raiders BASKETBALL GAME! YAY! Hopefully Mary and Rachel can come.  I love those two people.  Rachel is my ‘girlfri’… ohwait I mean ‘fiance’ and Mary is her friend.  They are just really really cool.  I wish I could spend a whole bunch of time talking about them but they are that special kind of cool that you smile when you think about them but there is no way of explaining it. Mary for some reason trusts me to drive her car and I have twice.  The other night Rachel and I took it and drove to Taco Bell for food.  I ended up parking on the opposite side of the dorm that Mary usually does and Rachel told me she would explain it to Mary.  The next morning I got a text from Mary saying ‘Where is my car?’  THANKS RACHEL.

I love my friends.  Even the social awkward engineering ones named Eren, or the Antoine Dodson loving music majors named Katie, or even the loudmouth business majors named Sebastian.

Thanksgiving and other ridiculous nonsense

Thanksgiving break was epic and relaxing. So far when I go home for break, I stay up all night talking to Allie and then get up early the next morning. This time I actually slept!

Who did I get to see that made my weekend? My awesome family, Aron, Lauren, Jennifer, Ryland, Sam, Deborah, Margaret, Autumn and I got to meet Ryan.
Deborah, Margaret, Allie and I attacked muffins at Mimi’s cafe. Margaret gave me nifty hobo gloves with piano keys on them. Autumn gave me the scarf she knitted for me. Ryland, Jennifer, Scotty, Ryan and I attacked pancakes at Ihop. Sam, Lizzie, Allie and I attacked deals at Half Price books. It just was a great weekend.

Finals are coming up and everybody is freaking out. I think if we all took a chill pill it would work out better for us all. Honestly I believe that you should study your hardest and then take the test to the best of your knowledge and not freak out, ever. Going back to my deathbed analogy, is this final REALLY going to matter when you are lying on your deathbed? I didn’t think so.

There are five piano recitals this weekend. Why everybody decided to wait until last minute is beyond me. I want to go to all of them but I’ll probably end up going to two or three.

Tonight was the end of the semester Christmas party for intervarsity christian fellowship [yes it bugs me when they call it IVCF]. It was a fantastic reminder of why I love these guys so much. I haven’t gotten the chance to see Mackenzie in a while and it was a sweet reminder of how awesome she is. She said she would come meet Alex (if you don’t know who Alex is than ask. Hint: he’s not a mystical guy I am crushing on.) which is awesome since I had never actually gotten the guts to ask anybody to. She offered and I didn’t ask. I was telling her about Eren and Alex. The ridiculous part of my title is a tribute to her because ridiculous is the word she says all the time.

I need a talent to write about for the 30 day challenge. Something besides being awesome. I know if I don’t say that than either Sam or Lauren will suggest it. I was hoping to go with something besides my major also.

Perfectionism

Coming back to the whole ‘you can’t change peoples hearts’…. It just kills me to see perfectionists run themselves into the ground. I have two friends both Aarons (Aron and Eren) who do exactly that.

“my whole life I have felt like a failure, like I haven’t done anything right.” -Aron

“up until now I have had a perfect life.” -Eren

Perfectionism is different than having low self-esteem. It’s expecting yourself to be completely perfect in every way. It’s forgetting that we are human and make mistakes. That things won’t be perfect, that things won’t go the way we perfectly planned them. I have those perfectionist tendencies about me. I’ve taught myself to let go of most of them but I still have my moments where I spend hours kicking myself over something stupid I did or think about how I should have done better. How I wasn’t there for EVERYbody and how I didn’t make the complete most of my time etc… I’m working on it.

I found an old journal entry of mine “I was almost there. Perfect harmony with my brothers and sisters. Then cos of my immature, rash actions tonight it all backslides. It’s because I have a brain which I don’t use, and I have no heart because I don’t feel anything. Right now it just feels dead. I can feel it but it is heavy and dead'”

For some reason we believe that we can be everywhere for everybody and everything and be perfect at everything we do even when it comes to God. The problem is God doesn’t want a perfect us, he loves us all ragmuffin, battered and needing him. He delights in our presence even when it’s far from perfect. Sometimes even I forget that.

“Perfectionism is a disease that will eat away your insides until you are empty and have no soul.” -Camie

My name is Camie and I am a perfectionist…

your face

Our little college group at church has grown to four instead of two. Delilah is from Lubbock Christian University and Andi just got into college. Andi is from Brazil and we help her out with her English sometimes. One day at the after church lunch they had apple pie. Sebastian and Delilah both said they didn’t like apple pie, so Andi told them they were fake Americans. HA! Delilah, Sebastian and I went to On the Border after church last weekend.

I was sick pretty much last week. Actually I started the week off in a really bad mood which was very odd for me. Then I realized I was sick. My voice is still in and out and I am hoping it will be okay tomorrow for my sightsinging quiz in Aural Skills class. Otherwise I might have a sightsqueaking quiz. Katie [Rosebud] and I have started doing homework together for Aural Skills. Kyle joined us this time and that was VERY helpful. Now I just need to make them stay together until Aural skills is over so we can do the homework because Kyle is very smart. Katie said “I like my part of the homework because I don’t do anything.” I said, “That’s because I want our homework to be right.” It took her a minute to get it.

Tonight the Lady Raiders basketball team played Samford [don’t know what college that is] and we won. I have black paint under my eyes because it was blackout/camo because of the military. I don’t own camo so black it was for me. I admit half the reason my voice will most certainly be shot tomorrow is because I screamed at the basketball game.

I’ve been to Starbucks TWICE since Friday. On Friday Eren and I went. He paid for his coffee and my hot chocolate but I managed to pay him back. Basically after he paid I said ‘here’ and basically shoved the money into his hands. When he realized what he was holding he said ‘What? How did you even get that into my hand?’ I just put my hands in my pockets and refused to take it so he pocketed it. I technically gave him 60 cents too much and now he has to ‘pay me back’. Muahahaha NOT going to happen. *remembers money wars with Aron* If you ask you can have that story. The second I went to Starbucks was with Jessica. She needed a break from studying so we went to Starbucks. I tried the Caramel Apple Spice and it was yucky. At least in my opinion. We went shopping at a couple of Tech apparel stores and we went inside an anime store. It was very weird because of the provocative posters of animated girls? I recognized a lot of the manga from my library job days. Then we went to the library and I helped her find books. I had no idea how unsaavy people are about the library. They plain just don’t know how to use it. I found a few books also.

I may or may not be slightly homesick… or at least counting down the days until I can go home. I got THIS close to getting a ride home. :/ My mom keeps reminding me how far away it is. I know she means well.

Fall Break

I got to go home for fall break.  YAY! I love going home.  I actually had a weird dream [I call it a  nightmare jokingly] that involved me being sick of going home and Lauren Kershner falling head over heels for a hot guy and posting mushy gushy stuff on facebook [A very very unLauren thing to do].  That must be pretty bad if I dream about facebook.

Most people say they had a nice relaxing time at home.  I had a nice time at home, but it wasn’t very relaxing.  I didn’t spend much time at all sleeping.  I don’t need much sleep anyway, but this was ridiculous.  I was going to complain, but I really thought about it, and this is my new philosophy.  If I’m on my deathbed, am I going to sit there regretting not sleeping? Not getting that one paper done [well maybe if it fails me out of college]? Probably not.  I was inspired by the song deathbed by Relient K.  Go listen to it right now.

Here is a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhf-BO_2wGw

Now you have no excuse not to.

I got to stay up really late talking with Allie.  That was cool because I haven’t done that in a very long time.

I got to see my whole family this time! They seemed more excited this time to see me.  It could either be because they were anticipating it, or it has been longer than just two weeks.   I’ll never forget Esther screaming last time when I came.  We watched the Princess Bride one night.  I always forget how amazing that movie is until I watch it again.  We also ate chocolate mousse.  I think next time I should just bring a batch to school.

I got to go over to Aron’s house and he showed me his new fencing gear.  We also killed mosquito larvae.  I learned how one cartwheel can mean leaving your debit card at somebody’s house.

I went to Esperanza’s cafe with Mom and Dad.  They have GOOD tacos!

I got to go to TAFA and I saw Bryttani.  I forgot to say happy late birthday but I didn’t get to see her last time I came home so I made sure I did this weekend.  I remembered to take pictures with her and I got to meet her boyfriend Jesse and see her sister Bryanna.

I went to breakfast at Ihop with Scotty.  We saw of all people a maintenance guy from his work and the Edgemans.  We also can get a free stack of pancakes if we do a survey.  I donated the pancakes to him and I was the one who ended up going to Ihop next.  FAIL

I went up to TCC and got to see Sam and Mary.  Olivia had been hitting me and basically doing her little ‘I want to play with you’ routine so I took her with me.  She got to meet Sam, Mary, and Joey and then she got to see Aron.  I got to show Sam the Office on the piano.  Mary is one of those people that is very amazing and I would get along very well with but our lives never really cross paths enough for me to get to know her better, unfortunately.  While I was I talking to Mary, Aron took Olivia all over the campus.  We also showed her the lake later.  I also think I saw Chris.  If anybody is interested I will retell the tale of meeting him [it is quite funny].

Got to see Jennifer twice! We went to Chili’s with her brother one night and she came to half price with us another night.  Almost talked her into buying an N’SYNC cd.  jk

Spending 12 hours in a car means you really get to know somebody, as I got to know Mackenzie.  She is a senior majoring in psychology.  She is very very awesome also.  We went to Dairy Queen twice.  I am now reminded why I don’t like their food.  I like their ice cream, but their regular food is nasty.

Grandma and Grandpa spent the night in Lubbock last night and this morning we had breakfast at Ihop.  I love my grandparents.

While I was home apparently somebody at church asked Sebastian about me, thinking I was his girlfriend.  For some reason he was surprised.  I knew it would happen eventually and I almost started to get rides from Sierra for that very reason but does it really matter? I doubt I will be lying on my deathbed regretting that.

old Language rant

I wrote this, sometime between now and when school started.

Haha, yeah, like, lol, yeah, so, anyway… how many of these completely redundant words do we use everyday? Are we just running out of things to say? or has our language truly devolved THAT much?

I am going to go on a witchhunt to try and evolve our language or at least among me and my facebook/email/texting friends [note: since then I have changed my mind to evolve my part of the world into a positive place]. It’ll be a little harder to do that with people I am talking to because I can’t see their words. Yes I am a very visual person. Seeing the word written out helps a lot. The things that really truly bug me?

lol – First of all, what did that guy ever do to you? And you are drowning him? And you laughed out loud while you drowned him? Inexcusable.

Yeah… – You aren’t really interested in conversation? Are you boring enough that yeah is all you can come up with? I understand everybody has their off days and some people are naturally quiet but SERIOUSLY???

nothing much – This usually comes after the question ‘What’s up?’. Nuthin much, eh? Are you really so lifeless that you do nothing except stare at the wall? Just say you’ve done SOMETHING! “I had a bagel for breakfast”, ” I cleaned my room”, “Homework, homework, homework”.

K – k? just a k? I understand if you need to have an answer that they read it, but 9 times out of 10 when I get a k it was completely pointless.

*new text comes in*
Me: *whips out phone* :)
*reads text that just says k* :(

Videos…

…are really a pain. I now know that THIS is why I do not video blog. I was considering it but really? after this junk? No. Way. Unless I got my own camera. http://www.theflip.com/en-us/ One of those little cute cameras. OOH! I could ask for one for Christmas, but then I’d need rechargeable batteries… and a battery charger. I should go for it, that way it gives me something to actually ask for Christmas. If I actually got one then I would have to carry around my phone, Ipod and Camera. That’s a handful. I guess I also need pants with bigger pockets, like guy pants. Girl pants never have big enough pockets. They can hold chapstick, credit/id cards but that’s about it.

Wow………… just wow. I accidentally clicked on the facebook logo while on the upload page. Yes I lost all of that upload. I know it is taking forever because this is facebook’s primetime for people. But COME ON! I’m through with facebook right now. I am currently trying to upload it to Google documents now and i’ll facebook again later.

My brain is going through a technology overload. This is how I feel after writing papers. Music has been blaring in my ears and I have been checking facebook notifications over and over and over…no new emails. Waiting and waiting. Why can’t I just upload it later? Good question I am glad you asked. I had to return the video camera today. Right now the file is on the library computer. When I log out all files will be deleted. Pretty cool huh? Not if I still haven’t uploaded it anywhere. It’s too big to upload to email, Youtube takes forever [if it takes 24 hours than try again], and facebook…well, let’s not talk about facebook.

What have I been listening to? Newsboys and Thousand Foot Krutch. They always make me smile. I really haven’t been on this computer THAT long. I am really just hungry and ready to get off. I think I left the practice room at 2:13 and got here at 2:20. It is currently 6:07. That is almost four hours. I guess that is a long time. I have a CA informational meeting at seven tonight. I don’t have to go but I want to. I want to work as a CA. How hard can it be? I pretty much did it at home anyway. The hardest part would probably be restraining myself from running my floormate’s lives.

“Dude! Getting drunk is bad for you!”
“YOU AREN’T MY @#$%IN MOTHER!”
“I’m your CA so it’s the same thing!”
“NO IT’S NOT!” *pukes because she is super drunk*

I doubt I would be THAT bad as a CA. That is why I am really looking forward to 4-H camp. They actually have rules that I can enforce like a dress code [the girls will hate me for this], the swearing rules, booze and smokes rule. I will sooo have fun with this! I want to be a good counselor like Ross. All the stupid guys hated him. I really really hope Arturo works at 4-H camp again because then we get to work together. He was really really really really cool and I haven’t seen him since SpecTra last year.

YESSSS IT UPLOADED! I did have a couple people staring at me. I didn’t yell, I just forget about how loud you dont seem when you are wearing headphones.

I feel like I haven’t been talking about a lot of stuff at all in my blogposts, but I don’t know where to begin. What do you guys want to hear about? Say it and it’s yours…

Day 19 – Tell us about your best friend

Ode to a Best Friend

Movie lover

Beautiful red hair

Looks like my mother

Most loyal friend in the world

Always there for me

Drama queen

Musically gifted

Sense of fashion

Loves chocolate

Giggle buddy

I tried to write a rhyming ode.  Failed miserably.   But this is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Allie post.  Yep, been friends for 16 years.  I was a total butt to her when I was younger.  You know how it is your little sibling follows you around EVERYWHERE and wants to be just like you? and you think of them as so annoying until you learn that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Then thats when you appreciate them.  Also knowing that your actions impact them.  I’ve seen her pick up the weirdest habits and things I say and sometimes its not a good thing but it makes me realize that maybe I shouldn’t talk like that, or act like that. Little sisters teach you a lot.  All my life people have asked if we were twins because she was always my size and we always shared clothes.  Nowadays since she has passed me up a bit, people ask if she is older.  I just roll my eyes and say no.  People tell me that I will appreciate looking younger later.  For now I get to put up with people thinking I am 13-16.  Now I just can’t wait until she finishes up with school so that she can come to Texas Tech with me.  I’ll have all the great places scoped out beforehand.

Now if you are reading this Allie you still need to do algebra, and practice piano. ;)

Home Home on the Range

I’m home for the weekend! I suckered a couple of girls into letting me ride home with them to Bridgeport.  The big plus is I got to learn some of the mechanics of backroads Justin, Bridgeport, Saginaw etc… It was a total surprise! I haven’t told that many people at all that I am home.  In fact it was a complete surprise to everybody, except my parents, when I came home.  Esther had the best reaction, jumping and all!  As far as most of my friends and the general facebook world, I was pretty sure that they would come down on my like a pack of wolves when they saw I was home.  I can’t accommodate everyone but I have a few people in mind.

Tuesday is Buddy Holly’s birthday.  It is also Allie’s birthday on Tuesday.  Basically did I want to spend the weekend in Lubbock celebrating Buddy’s birthday? or the weekend in Saginaw celebrating Allie’s birthday? That was a no brainer for me.  I am missing the first football game for the year.  Bummer, NOT! I will end up going to at least one football game.  Everybody says they are a blast but seeing that I am not into football I can’t see it happening, but you never know.  You should’ve seen the look on my mom’s face when I told her I am going to one football game because I promised a guy I would.  I forgot to mention that he is the music director at Allie’s piano teacher’s church.  His son plays on the team.  I promised my friend Laura that I would go to at least one party just to go.  So sometime I will fill that obligation.

Yesterday we went to Half Price bookstore for their Labor Day 20% off sale.  I bought the latest Ludy book for dudes [not for me to read but for my brother], Come Thirsty by Max Lucado and Sister Freaks by Rebecca St. James.  I have plenty to read for now.

Day 18 – Last Item You Purchased

Yes, I didn’t completely forget about the 30 day challenge.  As one fan pointed out, it’s practically been 30 days since I actually posted a day.  So here goes…

The last item I purchased was a book from Mardel’s called ‘Letters for Graduates’ I think.  I don’t remember book titles very well.  I do know that it was written by Charles Swindoll.  It was on their clearance rack as a grey book, which means it was a dollar.  If I’m not careful I will blow all my funds.  I passed up the cds using the logic that I don’t actually have  a way to listen to them.  I almost bought a journal because they were on sale.  I talked myself out of that one because I am less than halfway through my current one and I brought another one to college.  So if I work hard and finish both…

So you may be wondering how I went to the mall since I don’t have a car and Mardel’s is about two miles away.  I walked. Just kidding.  I rode the bus! The bus stops right outside the Student Union Building and then drops me off at WalMart which is right beside Mardel’s.  I met a guy named Gary and he was telling me about all the different aspects of the bus such as routes, and if you call a day ahead they will come pick you up specially after 7pm.  For you guys who are superprotective [which would be almost everybody reading this] we only talked about bus things, I didn’t give him my phone number, or my address, and he got off ten stops ahead of me.  But anyway I had a great morning/afternoon.  I would have gotten a quicker head start on my day but I waited for the food place to open at 10 am.

4-H banquet

The 4-H banquet was on Friday. It was so sad to say bye to everybody but it was great to see everybody in one place to say bye.

Little Tressa Watkins was so sweet. A couple of months ago she told me she wanted to make me a cake for my graduation. Well, she brought one to the banquet for me. A chocolate piano cake. I’m still eating it! Jim put it up on stage with the awards to save it from being devoured by the masses on the desert table. I really realized how much I am going to miss working with Jim, Tracy, and Cindy. They are fun, and they get stuff done. There was a loose chicken outside of the building but we didn’t get a chance to catch it.

I didn’t get a chance to know Adam, Grady, or Sara too well while I was in 4-H and I wish I had.

I was reminded why high drama girls really aren’t my thing. I mean in 20 years nobody is going to remember which dress you wore, or who was late to set up decorations.

Summer night part dos

So I was elected, or I guess it was by default, but I got to sleep in the tent again tonight. It wasn’t as hot as before. I think I was used to it. It wasn’t as cold in the morning. I like sleeping out here because I am waking up earlier! Everytime I come out here to sleep I find Olivia has stolen my pillows.

Today is my monthly facebook birthday. Today to ‘celebrate’ we are going ice skating. But really today I am taking the second half of the kids ice skating. They. Are. Pumped even though they reall aren’t kids. I’m just not sure if Josiah will be able to skate.

Tomorrow is the 4-H banquet. It’s my last goodbye to a LOT of people there…

Oh yeah, my hair had a party last night!

Summer nights

Tents – it’s what you sleep in when you
camp in your backyard

So if you didn’t already guess I am in my backyard in a tent camping. No it’s not my idea of camping, we are having mini-camp for the little kids. What really surprised me is how cool it got in the morning. I wore flannel pants out here last night and felt suffocated in them, but right now with it being five am in the morning it is cool. Very cool. Cooler than I realized a Texas summer could be. That probably means I should go outside more in the mornings.

I didn’t realize how good the wifi is out here in the backyard! I may volunteer to sleep out here all three nights. Although it’ll do Allie and Micah some good to come out here themselves. I am sleeping in the boys section because there is one boy out here and he didn’t want to sleep alone.

What’s the biggest difference between sleeping inside rather than outside? The noise. There is different noises. For me noise is good because it is what I am used to. Hopefully college will be noisy.

Leverage

Right now I am watching the TV show Leverage. It is kind of an A-Team show. The outlaws taking care of business.

There is a five-man team.
Nate – mastermind
Sophie – grifter
Hardison – hacker
Elliott – hitter
Parker – theif

My favorite is Elliott. He has nice hair, and to me he is just funny. He’s always grouchy but in a funny way. Plus I like his fighting skills.

My second favorite is Parker. The way she can sneak into a room and move stuff without anybody noticing anything in disarray is so cool! I can, kinda, do that…

“what smells like crack and screams like a girl?” *twists arm*
*victim howls*

“you made two mistakes. First you flashed fake FBI badges at me. Secondly you spilled his coffee” *points to Elliott*

“contrary to popular belief I do not control everything that happens on the internet”

“I’ve been a cat burgler since I was like 10 years old”

Day 16 – Your favorite shoes

My favorite shoes? Yeah I am a girl but I am not obsessed with shoes.

I like my sandals. They are easy to slip on, they aeriate my feet, and everybody likes them. The only downside is I can’t run very well in them. But of course I just take my shoes off then.

Of course if I ever might need to do some serious running I have a nce pair of tennis shoes…

Day 15 – How do you think others view you?

How do others view me? My one wish is that I could crawl in other people’s heads and find out.

I think that’s one reason I’m always getting into people’s personal stuff. Cuz then I will see the evidence that they really don’t like me and want me to go away.

That’s only happened a couple of times and those people still swear to my face that they like me and want me around. There is a signal in the back of my head that screams NO THEY DONT. So I avoid them. Usually if it seems like I am avoiding you I am probably assuming that I’m being a pain in the neck. There is only two people I have ever avoided because I didn’t like them. I am still avoiding them.

I am trying to make this a deep post, but anyway I am pretty sure most people find me a pain in the butt. Cos I know I can be annoying. And I am pretty sure the other half of people wish I would go away. But as long as they say otherwise I will believe them.

I just want to be remembered…love me or hate me you are still thinking of me

Since everybody is wearing converse I will wear something else
Since everybody likes to enjoy a life without God I will most definitely not
Since everybody overeats I will most definitely not
Since everybody has their real name on facebook I will most definitely not
Since everybody says ikr and lol I will most definitely not
Since everybody drinks, parties and skips class I will most definitely not
Since everybody proclaims their awesomeness I will most definitely not

I’ve been told I have refreshing forwardness, a great sense of humour, loyalty, maturity, I’m sweet, a good role model…words are so important to me. Sometimes I wish they weren’t. So if you say something I assume that’s what you meant. I remember stuff people say for a while. It usually plays in a loop up in my head.

Remember that sweet little note you wrote me? I probably have it saved on my computer or stashed in my room somewhere. It brings me to tears everytime I read it. Oh yeah, and that nickname you gave me? I really do love that. I just pretend I don’t sometimes.

Dry skin sucks…

I. Hate. My. Dry. Skin. Absolutely hate it. Right now the back of my knee is stinging cos I scratched it too much and I am pretty sure I will have scratch marks on my arms tomorrow. Ughhhhh, it is so annoying. Also this stupid dandruff problem has to go.

Chapped lips are only good for a Relient K song. Now I’ll quit whining…but it still hurts.

Day 14 – explain how you got one of your scars

I have two scars on me that have stories.

The first one is a football injury. I can hear the gasps already [After all that hating I did play football]. Anyway we were playing as a homeschool group out at some park aaaand Chance was the quarterback with the ball. Scotty and I were running toward him at the same time and next thing I remember is tumbling in the grass. My watch was ripped off of my hand and my hand was all bloody. He resprained his ankle. *sigh* that was one of many events that year where we ended up playing too hard and somebody got hurt. I may tell more of those stories later. Now I have a white scar on the back of my hand and my blood vessels don’t quite take the same path as they do on my other hand.

The second one is a long scar that runs the length of my back. I have scoliosis which basically I am leaning to the left and twisting toward the left. I had a 58 degree curve but after surgery it is now a 25 degree curve. Once you have scoliosis you cannot ever fully correct it, but they try their hardest to get you as straight as possible. That surgery was one of the scariest things I did in my life. Most people can’t see the scar unlessl I am wearing a formal gown or a swimsuit [what is that on your back]. The coolest part of the whole deal is that the doctor’s said i had a textbook recovery. Not a normal recovery but a textbook one, better than average. I think it was because I was in really good shape. I would spend HOURS upon hours out in the front yard doing cartwheels and handstands and walkovers. I was super flexible too. I am not super flexible anymore but I still have most of that flexibility. Anyway so that is scar number two, and it’s most definitely my biggest scar.

Day 13 – a picture of you taken recently

Seriously this isn’t what I was expecting. I mean I’m not into picture blogging. *sigh* FINE

Ahahahahahahahahahaha that’s a good picture of me. It was taken back in May and it’s me doing what I do best. Now no whining cuz here is a picture of my face.

It’s not that recent but I like it a lot. I still have that bracelet

Hello Audio Post

Day 12 – a story from your childhood

If any story from my childhood deserves to be told it’s Myland.

When I was little we became obsessed with the movie Peter Pan. We played it all of the time. Then we started making up characters. The first happened to be Captain Hook’s niece, Gertrude. She was a girly girl who wore bikinis (the ultimate evil back in the day) and was very rude. Then his nephew, Thomas came. He was a sweet, quiet, mild mannered person. Eventually we moved them to Myland and created five families, the Bakers (my favorite), Trumbells (my second favorite), Schwartz, Aslets, and Browns.

I would name everybody in each family but that would take to long as eight of us had five people each. My characters were Thomas, Lilacher, La Vonne, Peace, and Judson. Gertrude got kicked out of Myland. Lilacher (i made up the name) was me, or the girl I always wanted to be. She was a tomboy who was fun to be around, funny and everybody adored her and she could take anybody in a fight. Her twin brother was La Vonne (a name I found in the baby book but later found out it was a girl’s name so i changed his name to Michael) and he was just like her fun, funny, and could take anybody in a fight. You never wanted to be on either twins’ bad side. Peace was exactly what his name implied. He probably grew up to join the peace corp and he always cried when people argued. He was a real pansy but I like him. Judson was a quiet dude, but you didn’t mess with him cos he was Judson.

Soooo the Trumbells were a rich family and their mother was a Manners Nazi. Allie’s character in that family was Margaret. She was mannerly and sweet but she was best friends with La Vonne who her mother did NOT approve of. Cuz he was lazy and not known for his manners. It’s not that he never worked he just did the bare minimum. Including keeping his portion of the grass cut at 11 15/16 of an inch so the firefighter wouldn’t fuss.

Thomas was buddies with Chrystal (the character based off of Allie) who was a very sweet quiet person just like him. Lilacher was best friends with Chrystal but she couldn’t understand or the life of her what Chrystal saw in Thomas. Lilacher herself had a huuuuuuuge crush on Christopher (Chrystal’s twin, and a character of Allie’s) but would never ever admit it to anybody.

That was what we always played. It was amazing fun, but it just kinda died cuz I ran out of stories for them. I’d make stories and adventures for them. I’m sitting here trying to remember everything but I can’t.

Another story for another time would be our other game, Land of Ghost.

Day 11 – A picture of you thats over ten years old

A picture of me that is over ten years old.  I am not sure if these pictures fall under that category but they are still pretty old.

Aw, see we still have the piano, and the lamp in the back corner, and Dad’s jacket on the couch, and the fishtank, and the lamp on my left.  That second lamp is famous I see it in a lot of movies.  The biggest difference is we don’t have carpet in the living room anymore and the drapes are different.  Oh yeah, and my hair is curly now.

I am at the Botanical Gardens.  That was my FAVORITE dress back in the day.  We don’t have it anymore because I wore it out, but it was such a cool dress and I wore it everywhere I could.  And of course, my hair is now curly and not quite as long.  It will be soon if I don’t tear it out first.

Tonight

Tonight is the name of a Tobymac song. It’s a good one.

But seriously, tonight was a real eyeopening wow. Aron had his day off so I was going to do something with him. I ended up waiting for two hours at barnes and noble and it turns out he was working on his house with his parents. Just wow with the work he does. He works two part time jobs, works on his house in his free time and yet has the energy to be nice to me. I am so lazy!

I’ve made a resolution to not be lazy. I am making progress. I am crocheting right now and I also did dishes. All of this from coming home from his house.

Still…. He works so hard. Definitely my inspiration for life. College isn’t going to be my partay. It’s going to be my responsible study life. I can’t wait. No really I cannot.

EDIT: this was supposed to be super deep cuz that night was really deep for me, but I don’t think it came across that way.

25 things facebook survey

On this one, you are supposed to put 25 random things about you.  Most of these sentences are straight from flair.  No, I am not THAT creative.

1. I love music with clean lyrics that I be proud to show my siblings
2. Junior High called, they want their drama back
3. I love when you notice something wrong even if I don’t admit it
4. Love or hate me, either way you are thinking of me
5. The piano makes me happy :) I am a rebel pianist, I play without a metrenome
6. A friend is someone who knows all about you, but likes you anyway
7. People who don’t know me say I am quiet, people who do wish I was
8. I love the sport basketball
9. If you mess with my sister I will break your face and eat your soul
10. I am not random you just can’t think as fast as me
11. I’m the person rocking out in their car at the stoplight
12. My family is bigger than the Walton’s and I am proud of them
13. I live for the moments I can’t put into words
14. I am a morning person
15. I do not have a perm, my curly hair is natural
16. The reason I don’t have acne is because I have dry skin, not a miracle acne treatment
17. I enjoy meeting people
18. If I deleted you off of my facebook, its nothing personal, I am just trying to keep my friends list under 100
19. I have 747 songs on my Ipod.
20. My sister Allie and I are best friends. Don’t expect to tell her something and hide it from me.
21. If you text me and I don’t text back right away, I am either thinking of a good response or I am busy
22. I believe college is an opportunity to learn, not to party and find all the hot guys
23. True love doesn’t have a happy ending because true love never ends
24. I know I am not perfect, but I am always me and that is something you can count on forever
25. I may not be perfect but Jesus thinks I am to die for

Day 10 – something you regret

Something I regret… There are lots of things I would have done differently. But I don’t neccessarily regret them because I have learned from them.

1. All those times I have offended Megan (I can count at least three)
2. All those times I hurt Aron (I can count at least four)
3. All those times I preached at Jewelya (I can count at least two)
4. All those times I hurt Allie (I can count at least five)
5. All those times I yelled at my siblings
6. Those times I snuck behind my parents back

Stuff I wouldn’t do again, but I choose not to regret them because I can’t live my life regretting everything. I am sorry for what I did. I know I hurt those people.

I am so sorry guys…

Brahms camp

We signed up for brahms camp at our piano teacher’s house.  I don’t remember WHAT I WAS THINKING when I did it.  To me right now that sounds like yawnyawnyawn.  It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be.

Our first day we went over a general look at Brahm’s life.  Apparently when he moved to Vienna, Austria a lot of people believed and told him that he was Beethoven reincarnated.  His first symphony was dubbed ‘Beethoven’s 10th’.  He wasn’t known for his tact, and although he fell in love many times, he never married believing that it would detract from his music compositions.  He did NOT like to dress up, and grew a really long beard so that he could go without a necktie.

Those are some fun facts I have learned about him.  Today we listened to his music and talked about the forms and styles compared to other styles of the day.  Caleb, his little brother Zachary and Matthew are also taking the class with us.  They are pretty fun.  Our last day is tomorrow and I can’t wait.  Not because it will finally be over but because I am actually enjoying this believe it or not.  I am really going to miss Holly as a piano teacher at college.

On our way out to Weatherford Allie and I met Tim and his sister Kathy at Sonic.  That was pretty cool.

I just wish I could get over girls who are dependent on boys for their worth.  I let it get me down for some reason but it makes me really really really sad.  Like tonight…

Day 9 – A picture that makes you sad

This picture makes me sad because I can’t do that anymore.  :(  I had scoliosis back surgery and I can no longer do that.  It was great fun while it all lasted.

Day 8 – A picture that makes me happy

Thats me in the blue hat, and thats my buddy Aron in the furry hat. :)  Good memories

Day 6 – my favorite quote

This was said by Matthew Theissen the lead singer of Relient K.

“I really love to not be serious all the time even while I am being serious”

I think that sums up my objective in life.

Later…

I’ll work more on the 30 day challenge later.

I’ve been thinking about it. Do i put more time into real life or the internet? I have this blog, check my facebook every 5 seconds…

What am I doing to get ready for later? Nothing
What can I do toward later? Spanish algebra babysitting

Day 5 – my favorite book

My favorite book is Just Listen by Sara Dessen. I identify with the main character. She’s sweet and not shy but afraid to speak up for herself. She gets into music cos of this guy she meets and he is all about being honest no matter what.

I am sure there are themes and stuff in the book but I don’t read that far into a book. It means what it says on the page.

Day 4 – outfit of the day

My outfit of the day is a t-shirt, pegged jeans and sandals. It’s been my normal summer outfit so far. It’s cool comfortable and perfect for babysitting, something I have been doing a lot recently. Let’s see…

My t-shirt is from the State 4-H contest last year. That year was amazing but it had it’s moments. Overall an A with no plus.

My jeans are from recent jean shopping. My little brother and I wear the same size so since his jeans were ‘dirty’ he was stealing mine.

My sandals were a gift. My first pair finally died after seven years. They died at Jim’s Halloween party after being spray painted white. The second pair were three months old when Aron stepped on the backs ruining them. So he bought me my current pair. The deal was that he couldn’t spend more than $20. Payless had a pair of sandals for $15! whoooo cos these are a great pair!

And that’s my outfit in a nutshell.

Day 3 – My phone

Yeah I am playing around with stuff. I am trying to figure out how to put an audio file on here.

But to the day’s challenge. I have a Samsung Propel. I did not know that until I just googled it. But its a pretty sweet little phone. I do not treat is as well as I should unfortunately so now the back doesn’t lay completely flat, its a bit raised. But it takes great pictures, audio, video, it texts I could get on the interwebz if I have a plan that allowed me to do that. I don’t really like texting but when I do it makes texting pretty sweet. I try not to keep on vibrate cos then I cant find it. I misplace it about once a day so I have to go on a manhunt for it unless except for the rare occaision that I leave it off of vibrate

EDIT: so I am trying this experiment with myself. I am NOT going to check my phone when I am out with a friend. Ever. Same with being out with my mom, my sister etc… I’ve got an epiphany that it is just plain rude so I am through.

Day 2 – My favorite movie

My favorite movie is Up.  That movie shows true love, puts kids in a good light and all with family fun.  Honestly one day I want to see myself as Carl and Ellie, marrying somebody I was dear friends with and growing old together.  Maybe not quite flying my house out to South America…I also love how Carl learns to love Russell because people don’t treat kids like they should.  Everybody talks down to them and they don’t actually listen.  Anyway this is a very sweet movie, and I cried three times the first time I watched it.

Some of my favorite quotes

Russell: DO I DIG THE HOLE BEFORE OR AFTER??

Carl: Why don’t we play who can be quiet the longest? Russell: My mom LOVES that game!

Dug: Hi, my name is Dug and I love you

Ellie: YOU DONT TALK MUCH… but I LIKE YOU

Day 1 – my favorite song

So over on Xanga somebody came up with the 30 day challenge. I’m going to do it. Day one is what is your favorite song. I know my last post was about my favorite songs currently but of all time I think my favorite song is…..

…Wrapped In Your Arms – Fireflight…

…It is beautiful, inspiring, and is my current situation.

EDIT: Make that Bite Your Tongue by Relient K….. whoo toothpic way to mess up

Cowboys

Heyeeee so I havent written in the past few days. There have been lotsa developments! :D

We went jean shopping at Justin boots, which is cowboy city. My head almost exploded. Legend has it that Tech is cowboy city. It makes me shiver in my sandals cos I am really sick of cowboy and country stuff! As my country girl friend said…

DONT SAY THAT! JUSTIN BOOTS IS LIKE HEAVEN!

The upside to it is that I have new jeans and my brother wont be stealing my jeans anymore cos he has new jeans too. :D

Seen on a flair…

Goodbye drama Hello I don’t give a shit anymore

Story of my life right now.

¡Graduecion es hoy!

Today is graduation! It is so weird cos I am really excited but yet I feel a calm cool exterior. I just don’t want to give into the excitement right now cos I will probably start crying. I’ve having a lot of those moments cos I think of the past that I’ve had with csm, EMACHE and 4-H…I am leaving that all behind for a new life at Texas Tech. What I want to do is write a letter to everybody who meant something to me. I wrote one to Mary because I don’t think I’ll get to see her over the summer. I want to write one to Sam, Joshua, Ryland, Kirsten, Lauren, Deborah, Petina, Jessica , Allie, Mom and maybe Margaret if I can figure out where we are. I already wrote Melody, Debbie, Barb and Yvonne. I don’t know. There are just so many people I want to write…

Anyway I have got to get dressed and ready for this thing. I cannot wait!

Whoa i almost diiiied….i mean passed out

So i was in Spanish class and we were doing some exercise and I rubbed my eye. That got me started thinking about it, and I started feeling sick. I had only eaten ice cream for breakfast so was probably the cause. I decided to try and sit it out but it just got worse and worse and I started seeing spots. Thats when I left because i didnt want another incident like when I fainted at the hospital. I went into the bathroom and sat on the floor for a while just in case I puked, then i got a drink of water and walked around for a little just to make sure I was okay. I ran into Mary and she said I looked uber uber pale and she was really sweet. After we parted ways she texted me saying if i was feeling bad again then call her and she’d come sit with me. Awwwwww…

Today is our county dance. I think it plus ensemble practice will make for an interesting day!

Parks

We went to the park yesterday. When we first got there I immediately ran over to the baby swing set to climb on top of and halfway up i realized there was a table of boys who were staring at me. I hate that… They could have been staring at all the kids but probably they were staring at Allie and I. I know I say I hate their staring but thats why i dress the way i do and people think I am a 14 year old girl. O.o

Anyways i scratched my eye up but its feeling better after the drugs mom gave it. :D it was scaring me for a little bit…