Monday, July 24, 2006
Wow. It's been forever since I updated, but I figured I'd better...so marc will put me back on his links :P
So...since June 9th...I've:
-graduated (boring, no elaboration necessary there)
-gone to the beach with Rachel. We continued our tradition; every year, I go with her family and one of Rachel's brother's friends to Bald Head Island. We drove around on the golf carts, did some shopping, played with a ton of hermit crabs, and somehow got less tropical storm damage than back in Cary, where streets had to close to due to flooding. We just got some wind and rain on the island, nothing major at all. Weird.
-gone to orientation at UNCW. It was actually pretty fun. I roomed with a nice girl who grew up in a beach town abuot 6 hours from Wilmington, and we hung out with a girl from the room next to us also because her roomate ignored her the whole time. I'm not terribly fond of my schedule though...here it is:
Monday: 8-8:50am General Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc
Tuesday: 9:30-10:45am German, 1-1:50pm Calc, 4-5:15pm Freshmen Seminar
Wednesday: 8-8:50am General Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc, 6-8:45pm Survey of Economics (the only thing left that fit my schedule, gave me enough hours, and counted towards basic studies credits. bleh)
Thursday: 9:30-10:45am German, 1-1:50pm Calc, 4-5:15pm Freshmen Seminar
Friday: 8-8:50am Gerneral Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc
It's not really bad I guess...I just don't like that I have so much time between all of my classes...like 4 hours between them. And I don't like having Calc every day, a night class that I really don't want to take anyway becaues there are more fun courses I could take instead if they worked with my schedule and/or weren't full, and I have no electives. I think I'll enjoy Freshmen Seminar though-it's only a 2 hour credit, but it only goes for the first 10 weeks of the semester, so after that I'll be out each day by 1:50 except for Wednesday. It includes some form of service project too, because I signed up for it that way, so that's pretty cool. Last year's group built a Habitat house, which I would really really enjoy. I like that I'm out early on Mondays and Fridays though, and I'm glad that, even though it's every day, at least I don't have an early Calc class, because my brain doesn't work that well early in the morning.
Somewhat unrelated, but I also found out that there's a place on campus that serves sushi...and that makes me happy.
back to the list...
-done AOSP (Apex Outreach Service Project). I had a pretty good group this year, and our job was to paint the exterior of a house. It was pretty easy, and we would've been done much earlier if it didn't keep raining early in the week. We also took one afternoon off to help another group. They were working on a roof, and apparently the damage was much worse than they realized-the ceilings collapsed. Three of them. So that became a very big job to do in one week-not only repair the three ceilings, but clean up all of the damage, bring in new furniture, and fix the roof. So we helped with that-I mostly cleaned and hauled shingles, and did a little bit of paint scraping on the exterior where it was peeling so that it could be repainted. As much as I know that group felt bad about the ceilings collapsing, I think it was a blessing that it happened when it did...just imagine if the lady had been inside when they fell, or if it collapsed after AOSP had finished-she wouldn't have been able to get anyone else to do the repairs for free. On Friday, I kind of abandoned my team, because we had finished our job on Thursday, and another team needed help. They had a girl on their team that was on my team last year...some of you may have heard me refering to her as the "my fifty dollar bag from belgium is going to get dirty!" girl. Well, this year, she was with one of her friends, so not only did they not do anything and be loud and anoying, they actually messed up the other people's work. So I offered to go with their team, and the leader, Dana, who I love, accepted. She even got the other girls moved to other teams for the day. Melissa was on that team, so we had a good time hanging out, but we worked hard too. We were flooring-they'd already gotten most of it done during the week, but we had two rooms that needed linolium put down, the base board thingies nailed in and painted, and the place cleaned up a lot because the owner had enphasema (yes I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of that) and couldn't be around dust. We had to work late; we didn't get back until about 6:15 (we're supposed to be back around 4), but we got it done. Oh and I had this big thing about being able to predict what dinner was a couple of times during the week, which was hillarious, and it happened again a few times on ASP too.
-went to my aunt's house in Atlanta. We did lots of crafty fun stuff, from crocheting to her teaching me how to make a rag quilt. I got to see some other relatives while I was down there, so that was fun. I also had an exciting adventure when I had a sinus infection down there-I thought I was just dizzy from the sinus infection, but I went to urgent care to get antibiotics, and I ended up also being really really dehydrated, which was probably because I got stuck in an airport for 7 hours the day before and didn't think to drink during that time. They put me on an IV in the office, and my vein collapsed the first time because they had constricted so much from dehydration, but they finally got it to work in my other arm. That was an interesting experiance lol.
-gone on ASP (Appalachia Service Project). It was amazing, as always, but every year it's amazing in a different way. I was on an awesome team: Lee (our youth pastor), Jay Faulhaber (an awesome guy who can make everything into a joke and is obsessed with crossword puzzles), Katie, Elizabeth, both of which I'm good friends with, and we started the week with Ben from Aulander, but he left to help out another team that was doing so heavy lifting. Our job was to finish the room additions for a trailer. The family has six boys, but one lives with his grandmother. The other five live in one small room, so some of them have to sleep on the couch each night. ASP added two rooms, so that now two boys live in each of the new rooms, and JJ, the 14 year old son, has his own room, which is being turned into a nursery for him to share with his two month old daughter. The kids are a combination of kids from two families from previous marriages, and a few of them have depression issues from their father's death, though they get along well with their stepfather. Also, two of them have heart problems, including a young boy whose heart rate remains stable no matter what-if he runs, sleeps, stresses, etc. Instead of changing his heart rate, his blood pressure goes up and down, so he has to be really careful. He was a lot of fun though-he teased us about doing things wrongly just to confuse us and make us laugh. Our team was in charge of finishing the outside of the room additions, while another team finished drywall, puttying, and painting inside. We mostly worked on underpinning, which is the stuff that goes from the bottom of a trailer down into the ground. We built wooden frames for it, used rebar (basically half inch thick bars of metal) to attach the frames to the ground, and then nailed in the underpinning-until the last day when we were tired of hammering and decided to use screws because they're easier and faster and actually more effective, and we just used ones one of the leaders brought so that we didn't make ASP have to pay for them. Oh, and we had to lay a vapor sheild down. Basically we were supposed to put a layer of thick black plastic on the ground under the room additions. I went under because the other's didn't really want to...and I wasn't smart and didn't think ahead of time that since we spend the first day or two shoveling out rocks and throwing them out of our way, so had the groups before us, so there were a ton of rocks under the house, both those naturally in that area and those we threw under there. So I crawled around on my already swollen knees and got nice and bruised up. T'was very exciting. I went on a roof one day too-the groups who started didn't plan well and made the angle of the roof of the additions a different angle than the main part of the trailer, so they didn't line up, and rain could easily flow in, so we sealed it off with wood and Great Stuff (yes that's really the name of it; it's a type of expanding foam). We also fixed a few areas around the windows where there was no siding and thus the insulation was completely exposed...I have no idea how it got that way because it looked pretty clean cut. Anyway, I guess insulation makes a nice little nest for insects, because I was nailing in some siding, standing with my back to a ladder that I was on, when a wasp started flying around...and then a few more came around and Lee told me to get down...I was only on the 3rd or 4th step of the ladder, but in my haste to get down and away from the wasps, I slipped and ended up with my right leg where I wanted it, on the outside of the ladder, but my left leg inside, and I tripped and got a lovely gigantic bruise on my left leg. However, I did not get stung lol. Jay sprayed Raid everywhere and Lee finished that window lol. The picnic night wasn't so fun this year-they decided we would get to make benches and picnic tables...meaning a lot of the food was gone before we could get to it, everyone was brain dead from coming straight from another job site, we didn't have instructions, any extra bolts, and the wood was precut incorrectly...so we all got really frustrated and snapped at eachother and wouldn't listen to eachother and kept messing up. That was just the picnic tables lol. The benches didn't work because they were modeled after a metal version and guess what? Metal and wood don't work the same way lol, so there wasn't nearly enough support, and they had to be rebuilt the next day. Anyway...I know it doesn't sound like it based on the last parts of this, but I really did have an amazingly wonderful time, in social aspects as well as the work. I'm relieved to be back to speaking and being spoken to in an almost normal way with some people. It's not all better yet but it's come a long way. On this trip, I thought about how much ASP has been a growing process for me. My first year, I went because my friends went and I didn't want to be left out. I planned to go back last year because I had a good time, but I expected it to be my last time because I wanted to go to summer school this summer. Then, at the end of AOSP last summer, I realized I wasn't willing to be finished with service projects yet, so I gave up on summer school and decided to go one last year. And not this year, I'm again unable to let go. I'm seriously considering being on staff the summer after next-I doubt I can next summer (though I might still be able to go as a kid if there are enough spaces like there were this year) because I'll just be getting my license and there's a good possibility that I'll be having surgery on my right knee then.
Which brings me to my next topic...I'm having surgery on my left knee on Wednesday. Physical therapy didn't do much and both knees are developing arthritus, so they're going to remove part of the muscle to un-tilt my kneecaps and maybe do something else that they're not sure until they get in there. It's orthoscopic and should only last about 45 minutes, so it's not major, but it'll swell for like 2 months, which kinda sucks. I'll be able to start putting a tiny bit of weight on it possibly same day as the surgery, and I should be off crutches in around a week. A different doctor is doing the surgery than the one I've been seeing because he's out of town this week and I want to get it over with asap so I'll have the maximum amount of recovery time before school starts as possible. Everyone's been telling me all week that I'm going to go in to see him for the first time tomorrow, he'll take one look at the bruises on and around my knees, give me a weird look, and say, "well no wonder your knees hurt!" lol.
That ought to be enough of an update to tide you all over for a while lol...gnight.
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So...since June 9th...I've:
-graduated (boring, no elaboration necessary there)
-gone to the beach with Rachel. We continued our tradition; every year, I go with her family and one of Rachel's brother's friends to Bald Head Island. We drove around on the golf carts, did some shopping, played with a ton of hermit crabs, and somehow got less tropical storm damage than back in Cary, where streets had to close to due to flooding. We just got some wind and rain on the island, nothing major at all. Weird.
-gone to orientation at UNCW. It was actually pretty fun. I roomed with a nice girl who grew up in a beach town abuot 6 hours from Wilmington, and we hung out with a girl from the room next to us also because her roomate ignored her the whole time. I'm not terribly fond of my schedule though...here it is:
Monday: 8-8:50am General Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc
Tuesday: 9:30-10:45am German, 1-1:50pm Calc, 4-5:15pm Freshmen Seminar
Wednesday: 8-8:50am General Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc, 6-8:45pm Survey of Economics (the only thing left that fit my schedule, gave me enough hours, and counted towards basic studies credits. bleh)
Thursday: 9:30-10:45am German, 1-1:50pm Calc, 4-5:15pm Freshmen Seminar
Friday: 8-8:50am Gerneral Psychology, 1-1:50pm Calc
It's not really bad I guess...I just don't like that I have so much time between all of my classes...like 4 hours between them. And I don't like having Calc every day, a night class that I really don't want to take anyway becaues there are more fun courses I could take instead if they worked with my schedule and/or weren't full, and I have no electives. I think I'll enjoy Freshmen Seminar though-it's only a 2 hour credit, but it only goes for the first 10 weeks of the semester, so after that I'll be out each day by 1:50 except for Wednesday. It includes some form of service project too, because I signed up for it that way, so that's pretty cool. Last year's group built a Habitat house, which I would really really enjoy. I like that I'm out early on Mondays and Fridays though, and I'm glad that, even though it's every day, at least I don't have an early Calc class, because my brain doesn't work that well early in the morning.
Somewhat unrelated, but I also found out that there's a place on campus that serves sushi...and that makes me happy.
back to the list...
-done AOSP (Apex Outreach Service Project). I had a pretty good group this year, and our job was to paint the exterior of a house. It was pretty easy, and we would've been done much earlier if it didn't keep raining early in the week. We also took one afternoon off to help another group. They were working on a roof, and apparently the damage was much worse than they realized-the ceilings collapsed. Three of them. So that became a very big job to do in one week-not only repair the three ceilings, but clean up all of the damage, bring in new furniture, and fix the roof. So we helped with that-I mostly cleaned and hauled shingles, and did a little bit of paint scraping on the exterior where it was peeling so that it could be repainted. As much as I know that group felt bad about the ceilings collapsing, I think it was a blessing that it happened when it did...just imagine if the lady had been inside when they fell, or if it collapsed after AOSP had finished-she wouldn't have been able to get anyone else to do the repairs for free. On Friday, I kind of abandoned my team, because we had finished our job on Thursday, and another team needed help. They had a girl on their team that was on my team last year...some of you may have heard me refering to her as the "my fifty dollar bag from belgium is going to get dirty!" girl. Well, this year, she was with one of her friends, so not only did they not do anything and be loud and anoying, they actually messed up the other people's work. So I offered to go with their team, and the leader, Dana, who I love, accepted. She even got the other girls moved to other teams for the day. Melissa was on that team, so we had a good time hanging out, but we worked hard too. We were flooring-they'd already gotten most of it done during the week, but we had two rooms that needed linolium put down, the base board thingies nailed in and painted, and the place cleaned up a lot because the owner had enphasema (yes I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of that) and couldn't be around dust. We had to work late; we didn't get back until about 6:15 (we're supposed to be back around 4), but we got it done. Oh and I had this big thing about being able to predict what dinner was a couple of times during the week, which was hillarious, and it happened again a few times on ASP too.
-went to my aunt's house in Atlanta. We did lots of crafty fun stuff, from crocheting to her teaching me how to make a rag quilt. I got to see some other relatives while I was down there, so that was fun. I also had an exciting adventure when I had a sinus infection down there-I thought I was just dizzy from the sinus infection, but I went to urgent care to get antibiotics, and I ended up also being really really dehydrated, which was probably because I got stuck in an airport for 7 hours the day before and didn't think to drink during that time. They put me on an IV in the office, and my vein collapsed the first time because they had constricted so much from dehydration, but they finally got it to work in my other arm. That was an interesting experiance lol.
-gone on ASP (Appalachia Service Project). It was amazing, as always, but every year it's amazing in a different way. I was on an awesome team: Lee (our youth pastor), Jay Faulhaber (an awesome guy who can make everything into a joke and is obsessed with crossword puzzles), Katie, Elizabeth, both of which I'm good friends with, and we started the week with Ben from Aulander, but he left to help out another team that was doing so heavy lifting. Our job was to finish the room additions for a trailer. The family has six boys, but one lives with his grandmother. The other five live in one small room, so some of them have to sleep on the couch each night. ASP added two rooms, so that now two boys live in each of the new rooms, and JJ, the 14 year old son, has his own room, which is being turned into a nursery for him to share with his two month old daughter. The kids are a combination of kids from two families from previous marriages, and a few of them have depression issues from their father's death, though they get along well with their stepfather. Also, two of them have heart problems, including a young boy whose heart rate remains stable no matter what-if he runs, sleeps, stresses, etc. Instead of changing his heart rate, his blood pressure goes up and down, so he has to be really careful. He was a lot of fun though-he teased us about doing things wrongly just to confuse us and make us laugh. Our team was in charge of finishing the outside of the room additions, while another team finished drywall, puttying, and painting inside. We mostly worked on underpinning, which is the stuff that goes from the bottom of a trailer down into the ground. We built wooden frames for it, used rebar (basically half inch thick bars of metal) to attach the frames to the ground, and then nailed in the underpinning-until the last day when we were tired of hammering and decided to use screws because they're easier and faster and actually more effective, and we just used ones one of the leaders brought so that we didn't make ASP have to pay for them. Oh, and we had to lay a vapor sheild down. Basically we were supposed to put a layer of thick black plastic on the ground under the room additions. I went under because the other's didn't really want to...and I wasn't smart and didn't think ahead of time that since we spend the first day or two shoveling out rocks and throwing them out of our way, so had the groups before us, so there were a ton of rocks under the house, both those naturally in that area and those we threw under there. So I crawled around on my already swollen knees and got nice and bruised up. T'was very exciting. I went on a roof one day too-the groups who started didn't plan well and made the angle of the roof of the additions a different angle than the main part of the trailer, so they didn't line up, and rain could easily flow in, so we sealed it off with wood and Great Stuff (yes that's really the name of it; it's a type of expanding foam). We also fixed a few areas around the windows where there was no siding and thus the insulation was completely exposed...I have no idea how it got that way because it looked pretty clean cut. Anyway, I guess insulation makes a nice little nest for insects, because I was nailing in some siding, standing with my back to a ladder that I was on, when a wasp started flying around...and then a few more came around and Lee told me to get down...I was only on the 3rd or 4th step of the ladder, but in my haste to get down and away from the wasps, I slipped and ended up with my right leg where I wanted it, on the outside of the ladder, but my left leg inside, and I tripped and got a lovely gigantic bruise on my left leg. However, I did not get stung lol. Jay sprayed Raid everywhere and Lee finished that window lol. The picnic night wasn't so fun this year-they decided we would get to make benches and picnic tables...meaning a lot of the food was gone before we could get to it, everyone was brain dead from coming straight from another job site, we didn't have instructions, any extra bolts, and the wood was precut incorrectly...so we all got really frustrated and snapped at eachother and wouldn't listen to eachother and kept messing up. That was just the picnic tables lol. The benches didn't work because they were modeled after a metal version and guess what? Metal and wood don't work the same way lol, so there wasn't nearly enough support, and they had to be rebuilt the next day. Anyway...I know it doesn't sound like it based on the last parts of this, but I really did have an amazingly wonderful time, in social aspects as well as the work. I'm relieved to be back to speaking and being spoken to in an almost normal way with some people. It's not all better yet but it's come a long way. On this trip, I thought about how much ASP has been a growing process for me. My first year, I went because my friends went and I didn't want to be left out. I planned to go back last year because I had a good time, but I expected it to be my last time because I wanted to go to summer school this summer. Then, at the end of AOSP last summer, I realized I wasn't willing to be finished with service projects yet, so I gave up on summer school and decided to go one last year. And not this year, I'm again unable to let go. I'm seriously considering being on staff the summer after next-I doubt I can next summer (though I might still be able to go as a kid if there are enough spaces like there were this year) because I'll just be getting my license and there's a good possibility that I'll be having surgery on my right knee then.
Which brings me to my next topic...I'm having surgery on my left knee on Wednesday. Physical therapy didn't do much and both knees are developing arthritus, so they're going to remove part of the muscle to un-tilt my kneecaps and maybe do something else that they're not sure until they get in there. It's orthoscopic and should only last about 45 minutes, so it's not major, but it'll swell for like 2 months, which kinda sucks. I'll be able to start putting a tiny bit of weight on it possibly same day as the surgery, and I should be off crutches in around a week. A different doctor is doing the surgery than the one I've been seeing because he's out of town this week and I want to get it over with asap so I'll have the maximum amount of recovery time before school starts as possible. Everyone's been telling me all week that I'm going to go in to see him for the first time tomorrow, he'll take one look at the bruises on and around my knees, give me a weird look, and say, "well no wonder your knees hurt!" lol.
That ought to be enough of an update to tide you all over for a while lol...gnight.
Friday, June 09, 2006
I can't believe I've gone over a month without updating! So much has happend and now I can't think of it all...but I guess that saves you guys some details to read.
Sweet Charity, the drama 4 musical, was...interesting lol. I helped with the set (painting and a little construction) and costumes, and I was in the orchestra, which was exciting because I was one of few people who weren't in wind ensamble. The music was challenging but fun. The play itself was rather bizzare but funny and entertaining. The set was awesome. Ashley designed it and it was crazy spirals of black and white checkers with occasional colors and it was insane and amazing.
Wow I can hardly remember anything else I've done lately. It's just been finishing up school stuff...Oh we had our last band concert and I got to play bass clarinet in two of the songs, and one of them was a duet with another clarinet that played bass clarinet for that concert...because our normal bass clarinet player dropped out of school and Cara and I both decided we wanted to play hehe. So that was pretty cool. I got a brochure about band stuff at UNCW and I'm still considering my options for that...Wind Symphony looks pretty cool and it's not an audition only thing. I've been picking out stuff for my dorm, like sheets, and I'll get the rest of my stuff after orientation, which is June 18-20. Oh but I already got my laptop, and I love it. It's a new mac called the macbook, and it's only been out for a few weeks. It makes me smile.
I saw The Omen last night...if you go see it, look for Harry Potter references. Seriously. It's bizzare, but not as scary as I expected. It made me jump a few times just because things were sudden, but it's not actually scary.
So anyway the reason I really wanted to blog tonight was to talk about today. I went to Elizabeth's party for a while, which was much fun-all of her friends are so sweet! I got a lot of people to sign my yearbook, which was nice. Then I left early for an end of the year drama thing...I don't know if they actually call it a banquet or what, but there was a slide show, awards, and mock awards. I just came to see all the drama kids I love one more time, not expecting to really have people pay attention to me since I only did tech a little bit my freshman year and then not again until this semester. I thought they only did mock awards for thespians, but apparently they do them for everyone...and I found that out just before my award came up...and when Ashley started telling the story (as much as she could tell with parents in the room, which went something like this "There's a very sweet girl in our tech class, and we were sitting around one day when there was nothing to do, and we had a conversation I can't talk about because there are parents in the room...and this girl made a comment...so she receives this award), I cracked up because I knew exactly what was coming...thanks to a really odd conversation we had a week or two ago in tech...about some movie...where there was some kind of food-I think eclairs? something like that-and they were stuffed with...something eclairs shouldn't have been stuffed with...and then they were sold...and everyone said they were really good...and my immediate reaction was something along the lines of "They didn't notice? Wouldn't it be salty?" and that made everyone laugh...so tonight, I received the "'Wouldn't it be Salty?' Award." I half tripped going up the stairs to the stage to get it because I was laughing so hard. Mrs. Winter asked me about it later and all I said was "We had a sub that day so you're not responsible...and it's from a movie." All I could think about was that I was so glad my parents weren't there for that hahaha. But anyway...even something as random as that made me feel really special because I know I haven't done nearly as much work as most of the people there, and yet I still got a mock award. Then later, after the senior send off for the thespians, everyone started crying...and even though I've only been around most of those people for a semester, I started crying too...I realized how much I really love hanging out with all of them, in school or out. It's been so amazing...I cannot think of a bad day I had in tech. It was my favorite class I took in high school, and I told Mrs. Winter that through tears. And then, what was really really touching to me, was when I went up on stage with everyone else after the ceremony to say goodbye to people...all these people I hardly knew that were in Sweet Charity came up to me, gave me a hug, and told me how much they appreciated me helping out, I guess because they saw me come in their class a lot the last week or so before the show. They made me cry so much...and I've only been doing this a semester! I wasn't expecting to cry about that tonight...I figured the drama kids would because they've bonded so much over ther years and spent so much time in the auditorium...but I figured I'd be the comforter, not another person crying. I've known most of these kids well for one semester...and I think I cried more than I will at graduation.
Bah being told to go to bed lol...gotta love how I'm about to graduate and my parents still say "It's almost 11pm and you've got a busy day tomorrow; go to sleep." Gnight all!
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Sweet Charity, the drama 4 musical, was...interesting lol. I helped with the set (painting and a little construction) and costumes, and I was in the orchestra, which was exciting because I was one of few people who weren't in wind ensamble. The music was challenging but fun. The play itself was rather bizzare but funny and entertaining. The set was awesome. Ashley designed it and it was crazy spirals of black and white checkers with occasional colors and it was insane and amazing.
Wow I can hardly remember anything else I've done lately. It's just been finishing up school stuff...Oh we had our last band concert and I got to play bass clarinet in two of the songs, and one of them was a duet with another clarinet that played bass clarinet for that concert...because our normal bass clarinet player dropped out of school and Cara and I both decided we wanted to play hehe. So that was pretty cool. I got a brochure about band stuff at UNCW and I'm still considering my options for that...Wind Symphony looks pretty cool and it's not an audition only thing. I've been picking out stuff for my dorm, like sheets, and I'll get the rest of my stuff after orientation, which is June 18-20. Oh but I already got my laptop, and I love it. It's a new mac called the macbook, and it's only been out for a few weeks. It makes me smile.
I saw The Omen last night...if you go see it, look for Harry Potter references. Seriously. It's bizzare, but not as scary as I expected. It made me jump a few times just because things were sudden, but it's not actually scary.
So anyway the reason I really wanted to blog tonight was to talk about today. I went to Elizabeth's party for a while, which was much fun-all of her friends are so sweet! I got a lot of people to sign my yearbook, which was nice. Then I left early for an end of the year drama thing...I don't know if they actually call it a banquet or what, but there was a slide show, awards, and mock awards. I just came to see all the drama kids I love one more time, not expecting to really have people pay attention to me since I only did tech a little bit my freshman year and then not again until this semester. I thought they only did mock awards for thespians, but apparently they do them for everyone...and I found that out just before my award came up...and when Ashley started telling the story (as much as she could tell with parents in the room, which went something like this "There's a very sweet girl in our tech class, and we were sitting around one day when there was nothing to do, and we had a conversation I can't talk about because there are parents in the room...and this girl made a comment...so she receives this award), I cracked up because I knew exactly what was coming...thanks to a really odd conversation we had a week or two ago in tech...about some movie...where there was some kind of food-I think eclairs? something like that-and they were stuffed with...something eclairs shouldn't have been stuffed with...and then they were sold...and everyone said they were really good...and my immediate reaction was something along the lines of "They didn't notice? Wouldn't it be salty?" and that made everyone laugh...so tonight, I received the "'Wouldn't it be Salty?' Award." I half tripped going up the stairs to the stage to get it because I was laughing so hard. Mrs. Winter asked me about it later and all I said was "We had a sub that day so you're not responsible...and it's from a movie." All I could think about was that I was so glad my parents weren't there for that hahaha. But anyway...even something as random as that made me feel really special because I know I haven't done nearly as much work as most of the people there, and yet I still got a mock award. Then later, after the senior send off for the thespians, everyone started crying...and even though I've only been around most of those people for a semester, I started crying too...I realized how much I really love hanging out with all of them, in school or out. It's been so amazing...I cannot think of a bad day I had in tech. It was my favorite class I took in high school, and I told Mrs. Winter that through tears. And then, what was really really touching to me, was when I went up on stage with everyone else after the ceremony to say goodbye to people...all these people I hardly knew that were in Sweet Charity came up to me, gave me a hug, and told me how much they appreciated me helping out, I guess because they saw me come in their class a lot the last week or so before the show. They made me cry so much...and I've only been doing this a semester! I wasn't expecting to cry about that tonight...I figured the drama kids would because they've bonded so much over ther years and spent so much time in the auditorium...but I figured I'd be the comforter, not another person crying. I've known most of these kids well for one semester...and I think I cried more than I will at graduation.
Bah being told to go to bed lol...gotta love how I'm about to graduate and my parents still say "It's almost 11pm and you've got a busy day tomorrow; go to sleep." Gnight all!
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Stolen from Dave so that I can get a response hehe
Respond to this and...
1. I'll respond with something random about you
2. I'll challenge you to try something
3. I'll pick a color that I associate with you
4. I'll tell you something I like about you
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours
Now for the normal blog entry stuff. Not a whole lot of stuff has happened lately so I'll spare you the boredom of most days.
However, youth sunday must be talked about because it was awesome. That's a service we do once a year at church, where the youth group does the entire service for the 2nd and 3rd services, and this year we also got to do the sermon at the 1st service. Rachel, Melissa, and I gave speeches about why we joined the youth group and what it's done for us and such. I was nervous and was planning on just reading my speech...but Melissa went first at the first service, and she talked about me...because I invited her to join the youth group...and her speech was funny because it talked about the fact that both of us were horrible in gym class and that's how we got to know eachother lol...but it was so sweet it almost made me cry...and I think in some bizzare way it relaxed me before my speech. Melissa hadn't mentioned me by name, but had said the congregation would here from her friend in a few minutes, so I went up and said. "Hi, I'm Jen, the other non-runner," and they laughed...and then things went smoothly. I ended up speaking to the audience and making them laugh when I wanted to and it was really nice. I'm really glad I chose to speak. I talked about a friend of mine who convinced me to join the youth group when she was going through some really tough times and had been greatly helped by the youth group...and how much it's changed me...to the point that I'm really considering being a youth minister. During the last service, I kept looking out into the audience at this one lady...thinking she looked really familiar...at first I was thinking she was a parent of a child from vacation bible school or something...but then I realized who it was...and I was like omg...It's Ms. Causey! My middle school band director! I went up to her after the service, and before I could ask if she remembered me, she was like "JEN!!!!" and hugged me. She just got married a year or so ago and she and her husband just moved to Apex, and they're thinking about joining our church. So that was really neat and it made me smile a lot.
AP exams last week and this week...Stat was ok except for the insane #6 that really confused me but aparently wasn't nearly as hard as we all thought...but they're massively curved and I bet a lot of people missed #6 and I only need a 3 to get credit anyway. English was interesting since I didn't take the class...but not as hard as I expected. My essays weren't as good as they would've been if I'd taken the class, especially because I would've had a better book choice for the open essay-I ended up using Cold Mountain, even though it's not really classic lit, because it was the only book I could think of that I'd read recently that made sense with the prompt. The multiple choice wasn't too bad though. Physics is tomorrow and I think I'm going to need to take physics over in college lol. I definitly don't remember the formulas or how to do a ton of the stuff but oh well. I'll have an easier time with it in college anyway.
I got a scholarship from UNCW, and that made me happy...not full ride or anything and I have to apply again for possible renewal I think, but it's enough to buy my computer, so that's cool.
Bedtime...leave me some comments, and remember the thing at the top of this entry!
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Respond to this and...
1. I'll respond with something random about you
2. I'll challenge you to try something
3. I'll pick a color that I associate with you
4. I'll tell you something I like about you
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours
Now for the normal blog entry stuff. Not a whole lot of stuff has happened lately so I'll spare you the boredom of most days.
However, youth sunday must be talked about because it was awesome. That's a service we do once a year at church, where the youth group does the entire service for the 2nd and 3rd services, and this year we also got to do the sermon at the 1st service. Rachel, Melissa, and I gave speeches about why we joined the youth group and what it's done for us and such. I was nervous and was planning on just reading my speech...but Melissa went first at the first service, and she talked about me...because I invited her to join the youth group...and her speech was funny because it talked about the fact that both of us were horrible in gym class and that's how we got to know eachother lol...but it was so sweet it almost made me cry...and I think in some bizzare way it relaxed me before my speech. Melissa hadn't mentioned me by name, but had said the congregation would here from her friend in a few minutes, so I went up and said. "Hi, I'm Jen, the other non-runner," and they laughed...and then things went smoothly. I ended up speaking to the audience and making them laugh when I wanted to and it was really nice. I'm really glad I chose to speak. I talked about a friend of mine who convinced me to join the youth group when she was going through some really tough times and had been greatly helped by the youth group...and how much it's changed me...to the point that I'm really considering being a youth minister. During the last service, I kept looking out into the audience at this one lady...thinking she looked really familiar...at first I was thinking she was a parent of a child from vacation bible school or something...but then I realized who it was...and I was like omg...It's Ms. Causey! My middle school band director! I went up to her after the service, and before I could ask if she remembered me, she was like "JEN!!!!" and hugged me. She just got married a year or so ago and she and her husband just moved to Apex, and they're thinking about joining our church. So that was really neat and it made me smile a lot.
AP exams last week and this week...Stat was ok except for the insane #6 that really confused me but aparently wasn't nearly as hard as we all thought...but they're massively curved and I bet a lot of people missed #6 and I only need a 3 to get credit anyway. English was interesting since I didn't take the class...but not as hard as I expected. My essays weren't as good as they would've been if I'd taken the class, especially because I would've had a better book choice for the open essay-I ended up using Cold Mountain, even though it's not really classic lit, because it was the only book I could think of that I'd read recently that made sense with the prompt. The multiple choice wasn't too bad though. Physics is tomorrow and I think I'm going to need to take physics over in college lol. I definitly don't remember the formulas or how to do a ton of the stuff but oh well. I'll have an easier time with it in college anyway.
I got a scholarship from UNCW, and that made me happy...not full ride or anything and I have to apply again for possible renewal I think, but it's enough to buy my computer, so that's cool.
Bedtime...leave me some comments, and remember the thing at the top of this entry!
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Lots of good stuff in the past few days.
I went to see Enloe's production of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" on Thursday. I seriously think that was the most fun night I've had in months. Dave, Jill, and I went out for dinner at Salem Street, ate an amazing brownie sundae, and went to pick up Ashley, who lives way out in Holly Springs. On the way there, we started talking about this brown recluse spider Dave had found a few days before in his car, which had then hidden so that it couldn't be killed. So Jill and I were slightly paranoid about spiders crawling on us lol considering both of us are extremely afraid of them. Then we picked up Ashley and headed off to Enloe where we met up with a bunch of other Apex people who came to see the show too. The play was awesome. The play itself is hillarious, the acting was pretty good, guy singers for the most part were pretty good, girl singers were kinda weak except for the lead, who was very good, and the dancing was pretty cool, especially the guys...but the set was absolutely incredible. Enloe's tech guy works at Meredith so they have acess to Meredith's tech materials too and wow they made good use of them. The fireplace seriously looked like it was made out of stone and they even made it snow during one scene, very softly and slowly and swirling around, and it was really really neat. We hung out for a few minutes afterwards, talked to some people, including a girl I haven't seen since elementary school, and then headed out. Then the real adventure began lol. We were just talking and laughing and such when all of the sudden Ashley pulled me closer to her and was like "Jen...don't look at the window." So naturally I cowered, thinking it was the brown recluse. It wasn't, but it was still a big yucky spider, and it was on the inside of the window right next to my head. Dave found a place to pull over and saved me from the spider lol. Then we took Ash home and headed to Jill's house. We were almost there when Dave pulled over again...for no apparent reason...and said very calmly "don't panic" lol. So Jill and I jumped out of the car knowing that there was another spider...which then escaped into the depths of his car. So we got back in, very freaked out because Jill and I were afraid it was going to come back out...Then we got to Jill's, and not one, but two spiders came out. And dissappeared. And came out again. And dissappeared. Over and over. Jill got a flashlight from her house and she and I cowered while dave searched for the spiders, one of which really was the brown recluse. He finally got one of them onto a sheet of paper and was going to kill it...and then realized it was pregnant. And when you kill pregnant spiders, the babies spew out, alive. Ugh. So he took it away from the car to kill it, and then went back to hunt for the brown recluse. Now, if you don't know exactly what a brown recluse is and what it does to a person...go look at this website, but be warned it's gross.
click
Anyway, Jill and I went inside to get away from the spider and after a while, Dave decided the spider wasn't coming back out of the dashboard, the last place it had apparently crawled. So he took me home...which was creepy...I was terrified that the spider was going to come out. I even sat in the back seat. I was quite creeped out.
And you know what?
That was still one of the most amazingly wonderfuly fun nights I've had in a long time. That's got to say something lol. I need to hang out with drama people more often.
Friday night, Marc, Brian, Richie, Matt, and I went to the movies. We tried to go see the french movie that means "Merry Christmas" at Galaxy, but the website had the times wrong, so we went to Crossroads and saw V for Vendetta instead. It was really good, which somewhat surprised me. I hadn't really seen previews for it, but the first few minutes it felt like some kind of bizzare batman movie. But then things started to fall into place and it was really interesting and cool with a meaningful plot and enough violence to entertain everyone lol. If Zach saw it, he would probably call a few of the people "bleeders" if he wasn't so obsessed with swords and thus paying more attention to them lol. Anyway, it was really good so go see it.
Matt took me home after the movie and we ended up just standing out in my driveway until after 1 AM, talking. It was nice...I love the energetic side of the drama kids, and the easy going feel of the broughton crowd, but it's nice to still have a few friends-usually Matt, Dave, Rachel, Steven, and occasionally Marc-that I can have long conversations with, meaningful or pointless, and never get tired of them.
This morning I went to school with Rachel for a chance to look over AP Stat tests before the exam. We stayed for half an hour or so and then went out for Chinese food for lunch, which was fun. Then this afternoon I went to Olive Chapel Elementary for a few hours to help out with their...I don't know if you'd call it a fair or a fundraiser or what exactly, but I got to paint faces. It was so much better than doing it last summer for band...mostly because there was a sheet of simple designs that the kids could choose from, which gave me something to use as a guidline of how to paint them, but I let them tell me other things if they didn't want something from the sheet. There was one little boy that stands out most in my mind...he was soooo adorable....really little, must've been a younger sibling or something, but he wanted his face painted. He and his mom came over to me and I asked him what he wanted painted on his face. "Black! I like black!" he said. His mom was like, "a black what though? What do you want on your face?" And he didn't really get it so he pointed and said "Black paint!" His mom tried to get him interested in the sheet of designs, but he wasn't paying attention so I said, "Do you like cats?" And he said "Yes." In a really excited voice, I said "Well since you like black so much, I can paint your nose black and give you black wiskers to look like a cat! Would you like that?" His jaw dropped and his eyes got wide. "YEAAAAAAH!" It amused me greatly, and though he kept squirming around so much that his whiskers weren't quite straight, he absolutely loved it and that made me smile a lot.
Enough for tonight...leave me some love in the comments^^
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I went to see Enloe's production of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" on Thursday. I seriously think that was the most fun night I've had in months. Dave, Jill, and I went out for dinner at Salem Street, ate an amazing brownie sundae, and went to pick up Ashley, who lives way out in Holly Springs. On the way there, we started talking about this brown recluse spider Dave had found a few days before in his car, which had then hidden so that it couldn't be killed. So Jill and I were slightly paranoid about spiders crawling on us lol considering both of us are extremely afraid of them. Then we picked up Ashley and headed off to Enloe where we met up with a bunch of other Apex people who came to see the show too. The play was awesome. The play itself is hillarious, the acting was pretty good, guy singers for the most part were pretty good, girl singers were kinda weak except for the lead, who was very good, and the dancing was pretty cool, especially the guys...but the set was absolutely incredible. Enloe's tech guy works at Meredith so they have acess to Meredith's tech materials too and wow they made good use of them. The fireplace seriously looked like it was made out of stone and they even made it snow during one scene, very softly and slowly and swirling around, and it was really really neat. We hung out for a few minutes afterwards, talked to some people, including a girl I haven't seen since elementary school, and then headed out. Then the real adventure began lol. We were just talking and laughing and such when all of the sudden Ashley pulled me closer to her and was like "Jen...don't look at the window." So naturally I cowered, thinking it was the brown recluse. It wasn't, but it was still a big yucky spider, and it was on the inside of the window right next to my head. Dave found a place to pull over and saved me from the spider lol. Then we took Ash home and headed to Jill's house. We were almost there when Dave pulled over again...for no apparent reason...and said very calmly "don't panic" lol. So Jill and I jumped out of the car knowing that there was another spider...which then escaped into the depths of his car. So we got back in, very freaked out because Jill and I were afraid it was going to come back out...Then we got to Jill's, and not one, but two spiders came out. And dissappeared. And came out again. And dissappeared. Over and over. Jill got a flashlight from her house and she and I cowered while dave searched for the spiders, one of which really was the brown recluse. He finally got one of them onto a sheet of paper and was going to kill it...and then realized it was pregnant. And when you kill pregnant spiders, the babies spew out, alive. Ugh. So he took it away from the car to kill it, and then went back to hunt for the brown recluse. Now, if you don't know exactly what a brown recluse is and what it does to a person...go look at this website, but be warned it's gross.
click
Anyway, Jill and I went inside to get away from the spider and after a while, Dave decided the spider wasn't coming back out of the dashboard, the last place it had apparently crawled. So he took me home...which was creepy...I was terrified that the spider was going to come out. I even sat in the back seat. I was quite creeped out.
And you know what?
That was still one of the most amazingly wonderfuly fun nights I've had in a long time. That's got to say something lol. I need to hang out with drama people more often.
Friday night, Marc, Brian, Richie, Matt, and I went to the movies. We tried to go see the french movie that means "Merry Christmas" at Galaxy, but the website had the times wrong, so we went to Crossroads and saw V for Vendetta instead. It was really good, which somewhat surprised me. I hadn't really seen previews for it, but the first few minutes it felt like some kind of bizzare batman movie. But then things started to fall into place and it was really interesting and cool with a meaningful plot and enough violence to entertain everyone lol. If Zach saw it, he would probably call a few of the people "bleeders" if he wasn't so obsessed with swords and thus paying more attention to them lol. Anyway, it was really good so go see it.
Matt took me home after the movie and we ended up just standing out in my driveway until after 1 AM, talking. It was nice...I love the energetic side of the drama kids, and the easy going feel of the broughton crowd, but it's nice to still have a few friends-usually Matt, Dave, Rachel, Steven, and occasionally Marc-that I can have long conversations with, meaningful or pointless, and never get tired of them.
This morning I went to school with Rachel for a chance to look over AP Stat tests before the exam. We stayed for half an hour or so and then went out for Chinese food for lunch, which was fun. Then this afternoon I went to Olive Chapel Elementary for a few hours to help out with their...I don't know if you'd call it a fair or a fundraiser or what exactly, but I got to paint faces. It was so much better than doing it last summer for band...mostly because there was a sheet of simple designs that the kids could choose from, which gave me something to use as a guidline of how to paint them, but I let them tell me other things if they didn't want something from the sheet. There was one little boy that stands out most in my mind...he was soooo adorable....really little, must've been a younger sibling or something, but he wanted his face painted. He and his mom came over to me and I asked him what he wanted painted on his face. "Black! I like black!" he said. His mom was like, "a black what though? What do you want on your face?" And he didn't really get it so he pointed and said "Black paint!" His mom tried to get him interested in the sheet of designs, but he wasn't paying attention so I said, "Do you like cats?" And he said "Yes." In a really excited voice, I said "Well since you like black so much, I can paint your nose black and give you black wiskers to look like a cat! Would you like that?" His jaw dropped and his eyes got wide. "YEAAAAAAH!" It amused me greatly, and though he kept squirming around so much that his whiskers weren't quite straight, he absolutely loved it and that made me smile a lot.
Enough for tonight...leave me some love in the comments^^
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Back after a long time...I finally decided to update, and blogger decided to not work lol. So this is being typed in a normal document thing and I’ll transfer it later. I’m sure you care. I know this is really long but I had a lot to catch you all up on!
Spring Break was a while ago and I went to Mississippi. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and to be honest a lot of the trip made me pretty miserable, but I can look back now and see the good things. Bad stuff=mostly the kids that I went with. There were a lot of freshmen who haven’t yet outgrown the clicheness of middle school and it drove me insane. I tried to be friendly to everyone and got looks like I was (to steal a phrase from J.K. Rowling) a sea slug. Lovely. Not everyone was horrible, but no one talked to me unless I specifically started talking to them (hmm sounds kinda like much of the Apex crowd lately anyway, so that part I could deal with), but some of them were openly hostile. On the last day, a girl was holding the baby (I’ll explain all that stuff later) while the lady we worked for gave us “goody bags.” Since the girl had her hands full with the baby, I offered to take her goody bag to the bus for her. She snatched it out of my hands, glared at me, and turned to the kid next to her and asked him if he would hold the goody bag for her. I mean...seriously...it was a bag of candy...did she really thing I was going to steal it or something? I never did anything to her so I just thought that was really dumb. There were a lot more incidents like that too, but talking to Dave and Matt each night kept me fairly sane, so I’ll get on to the rest of the trip.
It was amazing to see all the damage that still remains after so many months. The first major sign of damage I saw was the fishing boat jammed under a bridge, swept in by the current. Then came the giant M above a mcdonalds, which was bent over nearly in half. Both of these were just on the way down before we even reached the town we were staying in. We went on a tour later to see the hardest hit areas nearby, which were closest to the ocean. It was unbelievable. Houses are completely caved in, some are cleared and only have foundations left. Clothes and random things are stuck in piles of trees where they were picked up by tornados. Hotels and churches that were destroyed reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Iraq. And 7 monthsish later, there are still people living in tents beside the remains of their homes.
Our assignment was a roofing job...which did not make me happy at all...because I dislike heights and because I had just started a new migraine medicine a few days earlier that made me a little dizzy and kept me from focusing well...a bad combination for a roofing job lol. So, already the outcast, I became the only person who didn’t want to go on the roof. Great. The first morning I didn’t do much but after that I found things to do on the ground. I helped pick up the old shingles from the ground as the others threw them down, and I put them into piles to be hauled off later. Then the leaders decided to rent a trailer dumpster thing so I helped load the singles into it. I never knew how heavy shingles were until then lol....1 foot by 3 feet by around 6 inches or so is one package...and each package weighs 60 to 80 lbs depending on the different types. I don’t know exactly but I couldn’t lift a package lol. So lets just say I made a lot of trips from piles to dumpster. I was glad to be working though, because it was a good distraction from the fact that no one liked me. I also picked up a bunch of things...from broken glass to beads to toys to driftwood...it was unbelieveable how many things were swept into the yard by the flood water. The house we worked on was 35 feet above sea level, two streets away from the water, and it flooded 8 feet on the outside and nearly 7 inside. 45% of the house was destroyed. The owners had to strip it to studs and brick and do most of the repairs themselves, without insurance money because they didn’t have flood insurance. Then, to top it all off, they had just had a baby. Litterally. She came home from the hospital one night, by 7am the following morning, they were driving to a relative’s house because water was coming into their yard. And she was 5 weeks premature with respiratory problems.
The couple we worked for, Chris and Kristeigh, were unbelieveable. They were wonderful and helpful and kind and greatful. We couldn’t have gotten a better family. Kristeigh always wanted to give us treats-she bought us snow cones every day (they have a snow cone truck instead of an icecream truck...and they’re the fancy flavors kinds and really good), ice cream, and all sorts of things we didn’t need like that but I know she just wanted to express how greatful she was for our help. Like me, she doesn’t like heights, so she completely understood why I didn’t want to get on the roof. So that was nice. She and I painted doors for the inside of her house and she let me play with the baby, Savannah, a lot. Savannah is adorable. Kristeigh says that she is extremely tolerant because she spent her first few months without electricity, air conditioning, and she’s used to the noise of construction, so very little bothers her.
I was amazed by the gratitude that was shown to us while we were there. At dinner, our waiter gave us all free chips and salsa because we were on a mission trip. In a grocery store, we were given a discount. The pizza place donated one free small pizza for each volunteer worker. One day, we were sitting in a parking lot eating breakfast, and a car pulled up beside our bus. The man in the car noticed that the side had our church name on it, and he asked us if we were doing a mission trip. We said yes, and he gave us $50 to go towards a nice meal. I was like...wow. He probably lost a lot in the storm too, and there are sooooo many work teams down there now...and he chose to give us money just because we’re spending a few days helping out. We ended up using the $50 towards a $200 gift certificate to Walmart for Kristeigh, Chris, and Savannah. We were trying to ease their financial stress a little and especially pay them back for the snowcones and icecream, because we had not been allowed to pay. Then, when we gave Kristeigh the gift card, she had another surprise for us: a snowcone maker. She said that’s how she wants us to remember our trip. So our youth group now has a snowcone maker and flavorings for it. She also insisted on giving us the tools she had bought, saying that they didn’t need them anymore and we could use them for another project. We objected, saying “what if this happens again?” and she answered, “Well then the tools will be gone so it won’t matter.” I’m still amazed at her strength in the situation. Her stories of the storm were incredible...including one of her 80 year old neighbors who strapped themselves together, stood on a counter for nearly 8 hours as the water came in and receeded, and survived. Those were the good stories. There were sad ones, like a man whose wife and child were swept away by the water and drowned, and there were some that truely showed that disasters can bring out the worst in some people. A neighbor stayed home through the storm, but could not get to his staircase by the time he realized the water level was so high, so he chopped a hole in his ceiling and stayed in the attic with his dogs. That’s the “cool” part. Then he waited until everyone else left their homes, raided them, not for food, but for jewelry and other valuables. Then there was a story of a church that shocked me. The church, in another state unaffected by the storm, had taken a collection of diapers and formula and sent it to Kristeigh. Less than 2 weeks later, a letter arrived from the church. It was a very angry, sarcastic letter, telling Kristeigh how rude she was for not sending them a thank you card and telling her how difficult it was for them to send supplies. Kristeigh said they didn’t even have full postal service yet, much less time to worry about thank you cards, though I told her she should never have to worry about that anyway. She and Chris took several hours off from working on their home to make a video of the storm damage, and they sent it to the church to explain why they hadn’t had time to send them a thank you card yet. It made me smile to know that she stood up for herself like that. Oh and one final stupidity story and then I’ll move on because I know this is really long. They got a FEMA trailer a few weeks after the storm, mostly because of the baby. It was a disability trailer, also for the baby, though it didn’t really make sense to worry about bars in the bathtub and widened doors for a newborn baby but w/e. I guess they had to think long term. They weren’t allowed to go in the trailer for a few more weeks though, not until it could be hooked up to land lines for electricty and water and such. That in itself I thought was dumb because I’d rather live in a trailer without electricty and water than live in a tent without them either. Then, they finally moved back into their home but FEMA wasn’t ready to move the trailer. So it’s still in their yard. While other people 7 months later are still living in tents. Kristeigh invited some people from down the street that were living in their car to come live in the trailer. FEMA found out somehow and kicked them out. So basically a trailer is going to waste while people down the street are homeless.
Other news...Tornado in Georgia...one of my relatives was killed in it. An 11 year old boy...my cousin’s nephew, not really sure what that makes him to me but he’s close with a lot of my close family. The tornado came out of nowhere while he and his brother were outside playing, they ran towards my cousin’s house, where they were at the time, and the younger one was slower and the older one kept going...My cousin ran out to get the boys and found the younger one on the ground, dead. Help took forever to arrive because of fallen trees and power lines, but they say he died instantly so it wouldn’t have mattered. A tree was lying beside him so they’re assuming he was hit with it or picked up and smashed into it as he ran. It’s really sad and I feel horrible for his family...He had an older brother and a younger sister and the divorced father is in jail...a bad situation made worse by mother nature.
-bed, finished wednesday-
Umm...happier news...Prom was this weekend! I got my hair done by a friend of my brother who also did my highlights, which was cool, and I really like the way it turned out. A bunch of people came over to my house for pictures, and then we went out to Kabuki for dinner. They definitly overbooked reservations or something because we didn’t sit down until about an hour after our reservation, which was rediculous. So we got to prom pretty late, but oh well. Marc and I mostly wandered around talking to people and we danced a few times. There were two chocolate fountains, so that was cool...except the only thing I ate was a marshmallow coated in chocolate and discovered it was waaaaay too big for my mouth hahaha so I could barely even chew it...it was interesting. Then a bunch of us went back to my house and had a sleepover after party. I’m still amazed that I was able to talk my parents into it lol. They bought earplugs and kept their door closed and said we weren’t too noisy for once. It was a fun night. I just posted pictures on my picture site, link on the right, and I should have Mississippi ones up soon, hopefully before I go to bed tonight but it depends how slow they upload. Anyway...g’night!
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Spring Break was a while ago and I went to Mississippi. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and to be honest a lot of the trip made me pretty miserable, but I can look back now and see the good things. Bad stuff=mostly the kids that I went with. There were a lot of freshmen who haven’t yet outgrown the clicheness of middle school and it drove me insane. I tried to be friendly to everyone and got looks like I was (to steal a phrase from J.K. Rowling) a sea slug. Lovely. Not everyone was horrible, but no one talked to me unless I specifically started talking to them (hmm sounds kinda like much of the Apex crowd lately anyway, so that part I could deal with), but some of them were openly hostile. On the last day, a girl was holding the baby (I’ll explain all that stuff later) while the lady we worked for gave us “goody bags.” Since the girl had her hands full with the baby, I offered to take her goody bag to the bus for her. She snatched it out of my hands, glared at me, and turned to the kid next to her and asked him if he would hold the goody bag for her. I mean...seriously...it was a bag of candy...did she really thing I was going to steal it or something? I never did anything to her so I just thought that was really dumb. There were a lot more incidents like that too, but talking to Dave and Matt each night kept me fairly sane, so I’ll get on to the rest of the trip.
It was amazing to see all the damage that still remains after so many months. The first major sign of damage I saw was the fishing boat jammed under a bridge, swept in by the current. Then came the giant M above a mcdonalds, which was bent over nearly in half. Both of these were just on the way down before we even reached the town we were staying in. We went on a tour later to see the hardest hit areas nearby, which were closest to the ocean. It was unbelievable. Houses are completely caved in, some are cleared and only have foundations left. Clothes and random things are stuck in piles of trees where they were picked up by tornados. Hotels and churches that were destroyed reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Iraq. And 7 monthsish later, there are still people living in tents beside the remains of their homes.
Our assignment was a roofing job...which did not make me happy at all...because I dislike heights and because I had just started a new migraine medicine a few days earlier that made me a little dizzy and kept me from focusing well...a bad combination for a roofing job lol. So, already the outcast, I became the only person who didn’t want to go on the roof. Great. The first morning I didn’t do much but after that I found things to do on the ground. I helped pick up the old shingles from the ground as the others threw them down, and I put them into piles to be hauled off later. Then the leaders decided to rent a trailer dumpster thing so I helped load the singles into it. I never knew how heavy shingles were until then lol....1 foot by 3 feet by around 6 inches or so is one package...and each package weighs 60 to 80 lbs depending on the different types. I don’t know exactly but I couldn’t lift a package lol. So lets just say I made a lot of trips from piles to dumpster. I was glad to be working though, because it was a good distraction from the fact that no one liked me. I also picked up a bunch of things...from broken glass to beads to toys to driftwood...it was unbelieveable how many things were swept into the yard by the flood water. The house we worked on was 35 feet above sea level, two streets away from the water, and it flooded 8 feet on the outside and nearly 7 inside. 45% of the house was destroyed. The owners had to strip it to studs and brick and do most of the repairs themselves, without insurance money because they didn’t have flood insurance. Then, to top it all off, they had just had a baby. Litterally. She came home from the hospital one night, by 7am the following morning, they were driving to a relative’s house because water was coming into their yard. And she was 5 weeks premature with respiratory problems.
The couple we worked for, Chris and Kristeigh, were unbelieveable. They were wonderful and helpful and kind and greatful. We couldn’t have gotten a better family. Kristeigh always wanted to give us treats-she bought us snow cones every day (they have a snow cone truck instead of an icecream truck...and they’re the fancy flavors kinds and really good), ice cream, and all sorts of things we didn’t need like that but I know she just wanted to express how greatful she was for our help. Like me, she doesn’t like heights, so she completely understood why I didn’t want to get on the roof. So that was nice. She and I painted doors for the inside of her house and she let me play with the baby, Savannah, a lot. Savannah is adorable. Kristeigh says that she is extremely tolerant because she spent her first few months without electricity, air conditioning, and she’s used to the noise of construction, so very little bothers her.
I was amazed by the gratitude that was shown to us while we were there. At dinner, our waiter gave us all free chips and salsa because we were on a mission trip. In a grocery store, we were given a discount. The pizza place donated one free small pizza for each volunteer worker. One day, we were sitting in a parking lot eating breakfast, and a car pulled up beside our bus. The man in the car noticed that the side had our church name on it, and he asked us if we were doing a mission trip. We said yes, and he gave us $50 to go towards a nice meal. I was like...wow. He probably lost a lot in the storm too, and there are sooooo many work teams down there now...and he chose to give us money just because we’re spending a few days helping out. We ended up using the $50 towards a $200 gift certificate to Walmart for Kristeigh, Chris, and Savannah. We were trying to ease their financial stress a little and especially pay them back for the snowcones and icecream, because we had not been allowed to pay. Then, when we gave Kristeigh the gift card, she had another surprise for us: a snowcone maker. She said that’s how she wants us to remember our trip. So our youth group now has a snowcone maker and flavorings for it. She also insisted on giving us the tools she had bought, saying that they didn’t need them anymore and we could use them for another project. We objected, saying “what if this happens again?” and she answered, “Well then the tools will be gone so it won’t matter.” I’m still amazed at her strength in the situation. Her stories of the storm were incredible...including one of her 80 year old neighbors who strapped themselves together, stood on a counter for nearly 8 hours as the water came in and receeded, and survived. Those were the good stories. There were sad ones, like a man whose wife and child were swept away by the water and drowned, and there were some that truely showed that disasters can bring out the worst in some people. A neighbor stayed home through the storm, but could not get to his staircase by the time he realized the water level was so high, so he chopped a hole in his ceiling and stayed in the attic with his dogs. That’s the “cool” part. Then he waited until everyone else left their homes, raided them, not for food, but for jewelry and other valuables. Then there was a story of a church that shocked me. The church, in another state unaffected by the storm, had taken a collection of diapers and formula and sent it to Kristeigh. Less than 2 weeks later, a letter arrived from the church. It was a very angry, sarcastic letter, telling Kristeigh how rude she was for not sending them a thank you card and telling her how difficult it was for them to send supplies. Kristeigh said they didn’t even have full postal service yet, much less time to worry about thank you cards, though I told her she should never have to worry about that anyway. She and Chris took several hours off from working on their home to make a video of the storm damage, and they sent it to the church to explain why they hadn’t had time to send them a thank you card yet. It made me smile to know that she stood up for herself like that. Oh and one final stupidity story and then I’ll move on because I know this is really long. They got a FEMA trailer a few weeks after the storm, mostly because of the baby. It was a disability trailer, also for the baby, though it didn’t really make sense to worry about bars in the bathtub and widened doors for a newborn baby but w/e. I guess they had to think long term. They weren’t allowed to go in the trailer for a few more weeks though, not until it could be hooked up to land lines for electricty and water and such. That in itself I thought was dumb because I’d rather live in a trailer without electricty and water than live in a tent without them either. Then, they finally moved back into their home but FEMA wasn’t ready to move the trailer. So it’s still in their yard. While other people 7 months later are still living in tents. Kristeigh invited some people from down the street that were living in their car to come live in the trailer. FEMA found out somehow and kicked them out. So basically a trailer is going to waste while people down the street are homeless.
Other news...Tornado in Georgia...one of my relatives was killed in it. An 11 year old boy...my cousin’s nephew, not really sure what that makes him to me but he’s close with a lot of my close family. The tornado came out of nowhere while he and his brother were outside playing, they ran towards my cousin’s house, where they were at the time, and the younger one was slower and the older one kept going...My cousin ran out to get the boys and found the younger one on the ground, dead. Help took forever to arrive because of fallen trees and power lines, but they say he died instantly so it wouldn’t have mattered. A tree was lying beside him so they’re assuming he was hit with it or picked up and smashed into it as he ran. It’s really sad and I feel horrible for his family...He had an older brother and a younger sister and the divorced father is in jail...a bad situation made worse by mother nature.
-bed, finished wednesday-
Umm...happier news...Prom was this weekend! I got my hair done by a friend of my brother who also did my highlights, which was cool, and I really like the way it turned out. A bunch of people came over to my house for pictures, and then we went out to Kabuki for dinner. They definitly overbooked reservations or something because we didn’t sit down until about an hour after our reservation, which was rediculous. So we got to prom pretty late, but oh well. Marc and I mostly wandered around talking to people and we danced a few times. There were two chocolate fountains, so that was cool...except the only thing I ate was a marshmallow coated in chocolate and discovered it was waaaaay too big for my mouth hahaha so I could barely even chew it...it was interesting. Then a bunch of us went back to my house and had a sleepover after party. I’m still amazed that I was able to talk my parents into it lol. They bought earplugs and kept their door closed and said we weren’t too noisy for once. It was a fun night. I just posted pictures on my picture site, link on the right, and I should have Mississippi ones up soon, hopefully before I go to bed tonight but it depends how slow they upload. Anyway...g’night!
Sunday, March 26, 2006
I leave for Mississippi tomorrow (Monday) at 2:00 (at Apex United Methodist Church..the big white one in downtown Apex...if anyone wants to come give me some send off good luck hugs...I'll be there around 1:30...hint hint haha). I really need this trip...though not knowing people scares me a little bit...mostly because they already know eachother so I'll very much be an outsider. But...I need a mission project to get me through the rest of this year. I'm hoping I can make these memories last until graduation, and then I've got a few more trips planned this summer that I can look forward to for more batches of sanity hopefully. It's odd though...I can't even think about many things after this trip...I feel like I'm going to be gone forever...and in a way I kind of wish I would be. And yet that's not completely true because there are still some people here I'd miss way too much.
People keep asking me why this mission trip will keep me sane and honestly...I have no idea. I just know it will. "We walk by faith, not by sight,"~2nd Corinthians and I'm too lazy to look up the chapter and verse numbers. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." ~Proverbs 3:5-6. So basically I'm just going to focus on those two passages and not worry about why this mission trip is so important to me, why I feel like I was called to go, or why I feel completely insane and that if I don't go I'll random explode and yet I think this mission trip might temporarily calm that feeling. It sounds kind of odd for my religion to be telling me not to ask why, but in this case I'll gladly make it one less thing to ponder.
So while I'm gone I want lots of love! Leave me some messages on my cell phone, text or regular, because we're allowed to bring cells for this project. For sake of making this not searchable or whatever I'm going to do the weird little typing out phone numbery thingie nine.one.nine.two.one.zero.four.four.zero.zero lol that looks so retarded but whatever; now you guys have no excuse for not calling or texting me! I'll check messages every night and I might be able to call you back at night if I have some free time but I'm not sure.
And finally, a quote I stole from Andy's away message:
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
~Ghandi
I love you all. Be safe and have a wonderful spring break.
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People keep asking me why this mission trip will keep me sane and honestly...I have no idea. I just know it will. "We walk by faith, not by sight,"~2nd Corinthians and I'm too lazy to look up the chapter and verse numbers. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." ~Proverbs 3:5-6. So basically I'm just going to focus on those two passages and not worry about why this mission trip is so important to me, why I feel like I was called to go, or why I feel completely insane and that if I don't go I'll random explode and yet I think this mission trip might temporarily calm that feeling. It sounds kind of odd for my religion to be telling me not to ask why, but in this case I'll gladly make it one less thing to ponder.
So while I'm gone I want lots of love! Leave me some messages on my cell phone, text or regular, because we're allowed to bring cells for this project. For sake of making this not searchable or whatever I'm going to do the weird little typing out phone numbery thingie nine.one.nine.two.one.zero.four.four.zero.zero lol that looks so retarded but whatever; now you guys have no excuse for not calling or texting me! I'll check messages every night and I might be able to call you back at night if I have some free time but I'm not sure.
And finally, a quote I stole from Andy's away message:
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
~Ghandi
I love you all. Be safe and have a wonderful spring break.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
The roller coaster ride continues...I think I'll just talk about the fun parts tonight though...
State contest went pretty well. The sight reading judge was really impressed with us, but honestly I don't think we did all that well. Oh well. We got a superior anyway lol. All the Apex music groups that went this year (Chorus, Concert Band I, Concert Band II, Wind Ensamble, and Orchestra) got Superiors for the first time in Apex High history, so that's pretty cool.
I've been tutoring a kid in Algebra I for the last week or so, and after two sessions, he had his first test...and he went up 26 points from his last test^^ That made me really really happy. His mom almost made me cry when she picked him up the day he found out his test score...she said "You are the angel that was sent to help him" and I was like "awwwww!"
Oh I know what else I've done lately! I went to Steven's Eagle ceremony last Saturday, which was fun. Then Matt and I planned to go to a Broughton soccer gathering (which somehow became a football gathering?), but things went completely crazy first lol. We were both dressed up but I decided I didn't care since I wasn't going to play, except I didn't want to wear heels, so I asked Matt's mom if I could borrow a pair of her shoes. So Matt and I went back to his house. He changed, I found shoes, I filled up water bottles, we started looking up directions, called Kelly, etc. Then Matt realized how late it was and that he was supposed to meet someone within half an hour or so to work on his car. So I put the shoes back, emptied the water bottles, closed the page w/the address and the directions, called my parents and told them Matt was going to drop me off in a few minutes. Then Matt's cell rang. The guy who was supposed to help him with his car couldn't come. So we reversed the process lol. My parents thought I was crazy because I called them so many times, as did Matt's dad because we kept running past him. Then of course I had the sense to leave my cell phone at Matt's so I had to give my parents yet another call to tell them not to call my cell and to call Matt's if they needed me lol. So anyway...We finally got to the gathering. About ten minutes later, the game ended (yay!). We all went out to dinner together, had an adventure following Brian the speed driver in Matt's truck with its inability to accelerate, and then saw Fun with Dick and Jane. It was a really fun night and I hope we have more gatherings like that again soon!
School stuff....Ugh german sucks as usual. I'm still struggling. I'm barely holding onto an A in there and I got an 86 on my midterm, which is not good for me, but Frau says my quarter grade is still an A but it's low. So...bleh. I got to work with Hannah P for the last few minutes of class today and I will tomorrow too, thanks to Frau being spacey and forgetfull haha (she paired us with other people but we just sat together and she didn't notice O:-) hehe) and I'm hoping that it will continue after spring break too. Stat...is stat lol. I'm having trouble concentrating in that class, partially because we're practically doing the same thing over and over again with slight varriations, and partially because I'm brain dead because I've just come from German. However...even when I feel like I have no idea what's going on, I usually make like a 95 or higher on everything we do so it doesn't really matter lol. Tech theater is much fun as always. We're working on ideas for the set of Sweet Charity, and it's pretty much designed now. We'll start construction after Spring Break, which starts tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to be in the Pit for the musical, which is awsome. We'll even get to be on stage :-) I'm excited. Band...meh. We've been kinda wild in there this week because contest is over and it's almost spring break. I still miss the social part, even though Amber, Marissa, Joe, and Eron are really nice. It's just not the same as things used to be, but I guess it just never will be. I still don't really understand why but whatever. I just need to stop thinking about it or I'll start crying again and I'm entirely too sick of that.
I've decided that the three most cuddly non-bf guys ever are Matt, Steven, and Dave. They keep me sane. It's kind of amusing though. Matt's actually started introducing me to people as his sister or "the sister i never had" because otherwise we think people get the wrong impression lol. Steven I don't see often enough around people who don't know us well for it to matter, and Dave hugs everyone so no one notices lol.
Oh and one final fun thing because I g2g-Ms. Bate was subbing for chorus today and it was during my tech class and she got fed up with them (because she tried to make them sight read something and she doesn't know how to teach them a piece of music and tried to teach it to them anyway lol) and yelled and finally brought them to the auditorium for Ms. Winter to watch them instead...so Matt (not Cowan...umm...I can't htink of his last name, the one from my creative writing class last semester that's in tech now) and I just looked at eachother and laughed when she came in because it's actually really funny to see her fed up with other classes now because both of us disliked her so much because she was so hateful to us.
Gnight!
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State contest went pretty well. The sight reading judge was really impressed with us, but honestly I don't think we did all that well. Oh well. We got a superior anyway lol. All the Apex music groups that went this year (Chorus, Concert Band I, Concert Band II, Wind Ensamble, and Orchestra) got Superiors for the first time in Apex High history, so that's pretty cool.
I've been tutoring a kid in Algebra I for the last week or so, and after two sessions, he had his first test...and he went up 26 points from his last test^^ That made me really really happy. His mom almost made me cry when she picked him up the day he found out his test score...she said "You are the angel that was sent to help him" and I was like "awwwww!"
Oh I know what else I've done lately! I went to Steven's Eagle ceremony last Saturday, which was fun. Then Matt and I planned to go to a Broughton soccer gathering (which somehow became a football gathering?), but things went completely crazy first lol. We were both dressed up but I decided I didn't care since I wasn't going to play, except I didn't want to wear heels, so I asked Matt's mom if I could borrow a pair of her shoes. So Matt and I went back to his house. He changed, I found shoes, I filled up water bottles, we started looking up directions, called Kelly, etc. Then Matt realized how late it was and that he was supposed to meet someone within half an hour or so to work on his car. So I put the shoes back, emptied the water bottles, closed the page w/the address and the directions, called my parents and told them Matt was going to drop me off in a few minutes. Then Matt's cell rang. The guy who was supposed to help him with his car couldn't come. So we reversed the process lol. My parents thought I was crazy because I called them so many times, as did Matt's dad because we kept running past him. Then of course I had the sense to leave my cell phone at Matt's so I had to give my parents yet another call to tell them not to call my cell and to call Matt's if they needed me lol. So anyway...We finally got to the gathering. About ten minutes later, the game ended (yay!). We all went out to dinner together, had an adventure following Brian the speed driver in Matt's truck with its inability to accelerate, and then saw Fun with Dick and Jane. It was a really fun night and I hope we have more gatherings like that again soon!
School stuff....Ugh german sucks as usual. I'm still struggling. I'm barely holding onto an A in there and I got an 86 on my midterm, which is not good for me, but Frau says my quarter grade is still an A but it's low. So...bleh. I got to work with Hannah P for the last few minutes of class today and I will tomorrow too, thanks to Frau being spacey and forgetfull haha (she paired us with other people but we just sat together and she didn't notice O:-) hehe) and I'm hoping that it will continue after spring break too. Stat...is stat lol. I'm having trouble concentrating in that class, partially because we're practically doing the same thing over and over again with slight varriations, and partially because I'm brain dead because I've just come from German. However...even when I feel like I have no idea what's going on, I usually make like a 95 or higher on everything we do so it doesn't really matter lol. Tech theater is much fun as always. We're working on ideas for the set of Sweet Charity, and it's pretty much designed now. We'll start construction after Spring Break, which starts tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to be in the Pit for the musical, which is awsome. We'll even get to be on stage :-) I'm excited. Band...meh. We've been kinda wild in there this week because contest is over and it's almost spring break. I still miss the social part, even though Amber, Marissa, Joe, and Eron are really nice. It's just not the same as things used to be, but I guess it just never will be. I still don't really understand why but whatever. I just need to stop thinking about it or I'll start crying again and I'm entirely too sick of that.
I've decided that the three most cuddly non-bf guys ever are Matt, Steven, and Dave. They keep me sane. It's kind of amusing though. Matt's actually started introducing me to people as his sister or "the sister i never had" because otherwise we think people get the wrong impression lol. Steven I don't see often enough around people who don't know us well for it to matter, and Dave hugs everyone so no one notices lol.
Oh and one final fun thing because I g2g-Ms. Bate was subbing for chorus today and it was during my tech class and she got fed up with them (because she tried to make them sight read something and she doesn't know how to teach them a piece of music and tried to teach it to them anyway lol) and yelled and finally brought them to the auditorium for Ms. Winter to watch them instead...so Matt (not Cowan...umm...I can't htink of his last name, the one from my creative writing class last semester that's in tech now) and I just looked at eachother and laughed when she came in because it's actually really funny to see her fed up with other classes now because both of us disliked her so much because she was so hateful to us.
Gnight!
