more college!

Well, I went on my first two official college tours today. I feel really old. And I'm still a teenager. It'll suck when I'm sixty. Anyway, so far, college has seemed less daunting. Note the key word, "LESS." It's still VERY daunting. I have the SATs still to conquer. Well, first I have to actually start 11th grade. Then I have to start doing the SAT stuff. Not that I haven't already started studying, or anything. I'm going to be SO glad when all of this is over.

But on a much happier note, my seeds are doing really well. And I know that's completely irrelevant to college. But I don't care. Two bean plants have sprouted and two more are making their way above the surface, and about six radishes have sprouted. I'm extremely excited. I can't wait for the day when I can eat them. Maybe there's a scholarship for bean-and-radish growing. Or a scholarship for growing a cantaloupe. Granted, I think you'll have to provide a photo of said cantaloupe. And prove that that five-year-old in the photo is actually you.

Speaking of photos (this follows a train of thought, I swear!) Family Camp is coming up! And that means I'm going to be taking a BUNCH of photos and videos and stuff, and hopefully figuring out how to upload videos onto here. Maybe.

Anyhoo, as it's kind of late, I'm going to go to sleep now. Night!

Oh, college...

Well, I'm going to go visit my brother at UVA today with my mom. I don't know what to expect except that we're going to be there with food. And that tomorrow we're going to be touring other colleges. The prospect of touring COLLEGE, and the fact that I'LL HAVE TO BE THERE FOR REAL IN TWO YEARS, is fairly daunting. Why? Not because I don't want to get out of the house and survive without my mother (I REALLY want to leave the house and survive without my mother, trust me) but it's due to the fact that I have to actually motivate myself to study as if I have musical rehearsal every day. This is fairly easy when I actually DO have musical rehearsal every day. But when I don't have musical rehearsal every day, I tend to just watch TV and write and not do homework until 6 pm. Self-motivation is also fairly easy to do when you have two free blocks a day and the self-motivation only has to last for two months at a time, usually during the winter, when you get home and it's already dark and you really don't want to do homework because you're tired and it's all depressing outside. But when I do NOT have rehearsal, in college... I don't want to think about what I'd end up doing and how badly I'd flunk.
Okay, will post later. Hopefully.

goodbye and hello

Well, as of yesterday, my friend M has departed for his new college, where I'm SURE he will be amazing (and if you're reading this, M, and you're NOT being amazing... then... START CRANKING THE AMAZING!). Anyhoo, good luck to M, and hopefully he'll be back for Christmas.
Anyway, I've just returned to working on the story that includes my 3 FAVORITE characters EVER: Shyasha Rinkari, Telsiel, and Sparraben. HOORAY! I don't know WHY I haven't written them for most of the summer. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that it's summer and everyone forgets to do stuff during the summer. Or maybe it's the fact that... wow... school starts in 9 days. NINE! AAAHHH!
This isn't going to be pretty... I mean, I'm excited that I get to do AP classes and see my friends and meet the two freshmen who are apparently joining our lunch group and for Fall Formal and the musical and the music trip and all, and yet... next time I blog about how freaked out I am that there are 9 days left of summer, it'll be because I'm going to be a senior. I've watched the junior-senior rivalry go down for five years, and now I'm going to be one of the ones who will have to chant "JUNIORS!" when the seniors make fun of us in the senior play. And I'm going to be storming the stage on the last day of school, and I'm going to be doing the SAT and looking at colleges and apparently getting a lot more homework this year... EEEKKK!!!
Great. I feel old.
I mean, I still remember my first day at my current school (we're sixth grade through 12th). I was absolutely TERRIFIED because I couldn't find my TA room. And because it was a brand new school with seniors who made out in the halls and were twice my size when standing. Now I'm the tall one (but I SWEAR it's because the sixth graders are PUNY! Honestly, some of them aren't even five feet tall!!), and..... wow. It's craziness, I tell you! CRAZINESS!

STAR WARS!

Well, I just finished a Star Wars Original Trilogy marathon with one of my best friends, who, until yesterday, had never seen any of them. You know, although watching Star Wars back-to-back-to-back is kind of wearing, it's also sort of interesting - you can see the character development that has gone on between episode 4 and 5 and then from 5 to 6. It's also really fun to stop 'return of the Jedi' partway through and go to sleep, wake up, make pancakes, and then watch Ewoks kick some serious empire BUTT. What's also awesome was the fact that the Ewoks are basically little walking teddy bears (which is why it is so much FUN to watch them kick empire butt.). So far, her favorite character is either Chewbacca or Princess Leia. Personally, I like Leia and Han Solo and Darth Vader. (DARTH VADER IS AWESOME!)

So now we've stopped for a while - she's gone home and I'm here. Soon she'll return (her parents are taking her sister to college, which is a two-day endeavor for them), and we'll continue our movie marathon with the 'Shrek' series. We saw Shrek 1 yesterday, since she wanted to watch Shrek and I wanted to see Star Wars, so we decided we'd alternate between the two. That obviously didn't happen, mostly because Star Wars is not the type of series you alternate views with Shrek. We're doing Shrek 2 and Shrek 3 today, when she comes back.

HOORAY!

radishes, beans, and boredom, oh my!

So far, all I've done today is:
1. learned to drive.
2. driven.
3. Walked to piano.
4. Sat at the piano and played.
5. Walked home.
6. went crazy about radishes and beans.
I may not have said this earlier, but on Monday, I bought some seeds. YAY! I got radish seeds and bean seeds, because those are the most common and I don't want some crazy plant growing all over the dining room window in the middle of the school year, or worse, in the middle of musical season. So I got radishes and beans instead of catnip. Yes, they actually had catnip. But I've never grown catnip. All I've grown is pumpkins, sunflowers, cantaloupe, and beans. I don't actually remember when we grew cantaloupes, but I do remember that we grew them.
I over-watered the seeds that I'd put in cups with soil on Monday, but today I found that the seeds I'd put in the wet paper towel had germinated and that the seeds in the cups had probably died, so I went around crazy, and ended up re-planting the germinated seeds and putting in some new seeds into proper pots with soil that was NOT from the leafiest part of my back yard. Hopefully I'll actually be able to EAT something this time. Last time I had to grow anything, it was for a science project in 7th grade, and since it was for a science project, that somehow jinxed all 16 plants' credibility for consumption, even though all I was doing was playing Disney music for them and not watering them with vinegar or anything.
So that's my story for today. Hooray!

and a random line

I found a flair on facebook that I really enjoyed and I want to put into a story somewhere... "Sometimes your knight in shining armor is just an idiot in tinfoil." I want to put it in something at some point. Just sharing!

a poem :D

For some reason, I've been writing a lot of poetry lately. I'm not entirely sure why. But here is another poem. It's about flying, sort of. And jumping over those really big kicking pads like we did in tae kwon do yesterday. So here it is.

Ever since I was seven
I’ve known how to fly
I couldn’t go far then
I could barely clear the bottom of the target

Now I can fly farther
Faster
Longer

I am a white-clad bird
With a black stripe at my waist

The gap widens.

I sprint
One
Two
Three
Four
Five

On the sixth step, I launch
And for a moment
I am a bird
Four feet above the ground, I soar

My foot slaps through a board;
My momentum carries me to the wall.

I fly again.

driving for adventure...

Well, I went driving outside my actual neighborhood for the first time today. I'm still slightly traumatized by it. But this afternoon, I'm going to be driving with the actual driving instructor, not my mom, and even the THEORY of that is slightly traumatizing. At least I'm finally capable (sort of) of going more than ten miles an hour without freaking out. Now my limit is 25 miles an hour for extreme freak-out, and 20 for a minor panic attack. The good thing is that the speed limit is 25 miles an hour in this area. The bad thing is that we have a lot of hills, so it is really hard to go down hills, not wear out the breaks, and not have a panic attack all at the same time. Suggestions, anyone?
Anyway, in other news, I have nothing to say. It's kind of depressing, really. For some reason, I cann't think of anything to write, fiction-wise. I'm rather stumped. Again, suggestions, anyone? I mean, I've had a TON of adventures this summer, but it all seems like it's stuff I can't work into a story, because I write too much fantasy and I'm physically incapable of not including magic somehow.
Well, I'll think of something. Will post again with a story... later.

NOO!

Well, today was the Youth Minister's last day, and I swear I nearly cried. But I didn't. It's like with my brother - it's barely been a day, and I miss him already. See, this is the last time I'm going to see him from now until Christmas, maybe even longer. *runs off bawling like a little girl* I think the one consilation with my brother is the fact that I'm going to go visit him (bringing food, of course) on Saturday, and with M (FYI, I'm not doing names because I don't want some creeper reading this and finding someone out and stalking them) it's going to be almost SIX MONTHS until I see him again, which I'm NOT cool with. I mean, he's going to have LOADS of adventures, of course, and for that I'm happy. But that won't stop me from missing him, at least for now. I did take photos, and I gave him about 60,000 hugs (HUGS SOLVE EVERYTHING!) and ran down from the balcony along with about 4 other people to put my hand on someone's shoulder like they do when you get confirmed, except it was a send-off for M, and the people whose spirit was going into him were the youth, the adults who worked with youth, and all the people there who had been through seminary.

Well, goodbye, M, and good luck. All the best!

fireflies are fallen stars

it's a poem I wrote. hope you like it. :D

Fireflies are fallen stars
Fallen from the sky
Bits and pieces here and there
That sprout some wings and fly

The fireflies know the magic
Of a summer night
It’s the ideal time, you see,
For a star’s earthly flight.

The stars can see all that you do
When you’re out on summer break
They make sure you’re safe from above
And flit around in your wake

The fireflies are the magic
In those warm summer nights
Although we catch them in bell jars
Chasing them down, trying hard
The magic still lies above

UVA, Lenhok'sin buds, and M's last day...

Well, after many long weeks of anticipation and things like, "HOLY COW MY BROTHER IS LEAVING FOR COLLEGE IN 4 WEEKS/ DAYS/ HOURS!", my brother has finally and successfully been moved into his dorm room at UVA, and seems to be doing well, in the seven hours that it's been since we've seen each other, and from the one phone call I've had from him thus far, which was an accidental call, apparently. Anyhoo, it seems like a really nice campus, albeit a rather HUGE one. There was also this street marching band that was mostly saxophones and trumpets and a piccolo and some drums and they did a really cool version - I kid you not - of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. I would post a video, but I don't know how to do that yet. Still working on that. And there's also the potential copyright issues involved if I do that, so can you just take my word for it? Thanks.
Another cool thing that's happened since last I wrote is that I friended a lot of the staffers that we met at Lenhok'sin earlier in the summer, and I had a nice conversation with one of the staffers at the Civil War outpost earlier this evening. :D
Anyhoo, it's my youth minister's LAST DAY TOMORROW!!! :( :( :(
I'll miss you, M.S., if you're reading this! (which you probably aren't, but whatever...).

All right, well... goodbye for now!

Oh, and I went on a LONGER amount of driving yesterday with my mom. Although I did reach speeds above ten miles an hour, I'm still not sure whether I'm psychologically prepared to go above 20 miles, even though in some areas I can probably get a ticket for going too slowly (aka going 15 (WHICH IS REASONABLE!) in a 25 mile zone or something). Still got to work on that...

a poem

I wrote this yesterday. For some reason, I felt this urge to go write in my old elementary school's playground. So I did. And this is what came out of it.

Way back when
I played here
Climbing up, sliding down
Friends were made on the playground
Alliances were formed
girls versus boys

I return here
years later
the alliances have been long forfeit
the girls and boys were all traitors
to their old second-grade teams;
And I return to the site of the battlefeild

I wonder
How many of my own
have been hurt because
boys were contaminated
with diseases that could
break your heart

I feel like I'm the only one in the world
who hasn't caught it yet

I see my old friend
come down the playground path
he left before the alliances
and only returned to see them shatter
does this mean
he's the one boy who is clean?

He passes me by without looking
and I know in that moment
he's infected too.

wahoo!

Well, I FINALLY get to go to the county fair today!! YAAAY!! I also passed my written exam yesterday for driver's ed, so that's all well and good, but now comes the part where I actually have to get out on the road and try not to crash into anyone or run over any joggers, pedestrians, and/ or old ladies, which wouldn't be very girl-scouty of me.
Speaking of girl scouts, my gold award project is set for October 2nd. I'm really excited just to get it over with - I was passed in May. Can I get it over with now? It's going to be kind of hard to do all the logistical stuff closer to the actual day, but I think it will go down well. And if I end up without enough hours... I don't know what'll happen, but I'll probably end up teaching five more lessons to little kids or something.
Another thing: I have just come to terms with the fact (okay, not completely, but still...) that my brother, with whom I have lived all my life, will be leaving for college TOMORROW. As in, he'll be gone in LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. EEK!!

progress!!!

Well, my gold award project (which, as of two weeks ago, was looking disasterous) is now very well straightened out (and scheduled for a date that is over a month from now, which is fine by me). So that's all well and good and awesome. However, that isn't the only thing that's well and good and awesome. I've FINALLY gotten the piece I'm working on in piano into a state where I wouldn't be horridly ashamed if I played it in public. Mind you, I would still be kind of embarassed, but I'd be far less embarassed than if you asked me to play last week. The piece is "River Flows In You," composed by a (really awesome) Korean composer named Yiruma. For all of you pop-junkies, it's also known as "Bella's Lullaby." Do NOT ask me, if I happen to be playing it in public, whether it's Bella's Lullaby, because I will say 'no, it isn't.' Just letting you know, I DO try and find the original sort of thing, instead of finding Bella's Lullaby online, I find River Flows in You. This is also partially because I heard River Flows in You first, and I didn't know it was also Bella's Lullaby until a lot later.

SUMMER!

I just came to terms with three things:
1. That my brother is going to COLLEGE on SATURDAY!!! (EEK! Not that he isn't really around anyway. It's just now he will be gone from Saturday to Thanksgiving, and never having to stop by at least once a week because he's going to be three hours away... AIEE!)
2. that my youth minister is leaving our church (NO! I will miss you, M.S., but good luck in Boston, if you are reading this!)
3. that I HAVE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL IN 3 WEEKS! AAAHHH! Did I mention I was traumatized by number 3? Anyway, I don't really want summer to end, but at the same time, I'm ready to go back. I wish I could do what I was doing for the ENTIRE MONTH OF JULY for the rest of the year. (AKA helping people and hanging out with friends where it's not really awkward to believe in God).
Anyhoo, in retrospect, it has been a grand summer... and it's not done yet. I guess the next three weeks are really going to define the summer... maybe. I think July defined it. But I don't know. I'm confusing myself. I'm going to get un-confused and will come back later.

AP, Going Back, and Gold Award

I'm getting to that point where I really have nothing to say because there are no talking points. I don't want to discuss the latest gossip with whichever celebrity did whatever (because I wouldn't know about it) and I haven't done anything of consequence lately to merit someone hearing about it. I think I'm ready to go back to school, in all honesty - partially for the lessons, but also it's an excuse to have social interaction and get on someone's nerves whose name isn't the same as my mom's, brother's or dad's. I also will have a reason to get off my butt every 50 minutes to go to the next class. It's true that Junior year is supposed to be terrible, but I think I'm ready for it. I just wish I could take more APs. I'm not doing AP English because the teacher is SUPER hard, and if she was bad in 9th grade English, I DON'T want to think about what she'll do in AP English. I'm only taking one AP, which is my first, and probably one less than everyone else. So in senior year I'm going to take a lot of APs - English definitely, probably history too, and hopefully science (if it can fit right). I do NOT want to do AP math, no matter what anyone else says. And I might do AP music theory, just to have a lot of APs. The reason I feel so bad about it's because my brother took about 2 million AP classes (he's off to college next week) and a lot of my friends have done at least one already, and might be doing 2 next year (if they don't already have at least one credit). So I feel kind of left in the dust. So... yeah.
I think the reason I wasn't super psyched for summer at the end of last year was the fact that the Snopocalypse had vacationed me out by February. I mean, I had Winter break, then Winter break of the Snowmageddon, then Spring break... that's a total of about a third of my summer break right there. Enough for 2 mission projects and a backpacking trip. Wow.
ANYHOO, on to more interesting endeavors: doing the annual KnitterWriterBlogger's REASONS FOR GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!
By KnitterWriterBlogger.
1. APs!
2. Friends!
3. FALL FORMAL!
4. intellectual conversations!
5. I heard that we're going to have 2 new freshmen in my lunch group. YAY!
6. I love getting stuff for back to school. I admit it.
7. Chorus! (yes, I know, I didn't get into a good choir, and I know I'm going to shoot something if I do the same thing next year, but whatever)
8. the school musical! I have no idea what it is yet, but I WANT TO AUDITION! (I just really hope I don't get trumped by the soon-to-be sophomores who are in Chamber Singers... I probably will... but whatever)
9. Film class!
10. Creative Writing!
11. My Gold Award Project will be OVER AT LAST!

Oh, that's the turn of events that I didn't mention... or did I? The one about how, through an annoying turn of events, my gold award project has to be postponed?
In a way, I'm glad it worked out that way. I was SUPREMELY unprepared. So... I'm going to go now.

I also saw 'Despicable Me' last night. It was a REALLY good movie. :D

camp, contacts, and writing. :D

Well, after almost an entire MONTH of doing A TON of trips... watching TV, Facebook, knitting, SAT prep, and going to Driver's Ed is ALL I'M DOING. And I'm REALLY BORED.
My next trip isn't until Labor Day Weekend. It's Family Camp with my church. I'm SUPER psyched. I'm SO excited that I'm already planning the video that I'm doing for it... three weeks in advance... I just realized how little of a life I have... Anyhoo, I did a semi-documentary last year (the only reason it wasn't a FULL documentary's because it's only ten minutes long) and I want to do one again this year. What planning have I done? The opening title. "Hug A Ninja Productions." The end. HOORAY!!!
Okay, in other news, I've finally started up my piano and voice practice again (YAAY MUSIC!!!) and I started wearing contact lenses today. I'm doing those two-week disposable ones where you put them in daily and pitch them out at the end of two weeks. It's awesome. I'm not wearing them right now because the guy said that I should only wear them for two hours the first day, and sort of build until I get to a full day, just to get used to them. It's sort of the same thing with my glasses. I like my glasses a lot, though. It's just easier to have contacts because they're not getting in the way. But apparently, glasses look good on me. And I really like them. So... yeah. I guess what I'm most worried about (aside from poking my eye out when I'm putting the contacts in/ taking them out/ forgetting they're there) is... do I have to wear them for two weeks STRAIGHT, or is it a fourteen-time usage or something?
I've also been doing some writing - not a lot, but some. I will post when I have something decent to show. :D

okay, soo....

I was in Florida last week, and it was REALLY fun! It was an 11-day trip (for me and my mom) and from Sunday to Friday, we hung out with family. On Friday morning, my mom and I packed up and headed to DISNEY WORLD!!! First we went to the Magical Kingdom (that afternoon) and I met Pinocchio, Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora (sleeping beauty), and Sleeping Beauty asked if I'd met my Dream Prince yet, once I'd told her my age... still working on that, Aurora...
On Saturday, we went to the new Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, and I got Butterbeer and Sirius's wand! I also got picked to get a wand in Ollivander's - Hawthorne, 13.25 inches, slightly springy, with a phoenix tail feather core. He did it just like in the book, but that was the third wand I tried (instead of the 3 millionth, like in the book) and the first two made some (fairly realistic) mistakes, and the third one had the wind and the music and stuff. It was awesome. I'm just hoping that when I see the 7th movie, my wand doesn't end up being a replica of the tempramental hawthorne wand, because they did make replicas of character wands (like Sirius's and Harry's and Dumbledore's) and non-character wands (like the Hawthorne and the Elder Wand). So hopefully it won't be the annoying one because that would kind of suck.
Anyhoo, after Harry Potter, we went to check out the rest of Universal Studios. Sunday, we went to EPCOT, and I got one of those photos where they put your face on something that isn't your body. Like an Imperial Scout's uniform, like mine. (From Star Wars. Yes, I'm a girl.). On Monday, we spent the morning and early afternoon at Animal Kingdom, which was really fun!
The end!

The Most Recent Installment

As I haven't posted since before Raleigh, and I'm not allowed to be procrastinating, according to my mom, and I still have to do all of TWO chores (and the ONLY two chores I have all day), I'm going to tell you about what I've been doing for the last two weeks, because you've all missed me, right? (you can disagree if you want to. Just remember that I'm a black belt.).
Anyhoo, on July 25th, I left for Raleigh, NC, to do ANOTHER MISSION PROJECT! YAY! It was the first time we went on a trip with YouthWorks, but it was TOTALLY worth it. Maybe we can do TWO mission trips next summer as well, since both ASP and YouthWorks are REALLY awesome and if we do both, even MORE people will be helped and the world will be happier if we help out more people in a single summer! (hint hint, M.S. You know who you are. And you probably aren't reading this.) Anyway, back on topic.
So we went to Raleigh. And it was awesome. And our theme song was "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. That was a specific request. (I was the Travel CD Person this time. I would know.). Anyhoo, since there were two different churches in our group of six youth and three adults, we had to spend the first hour of the trip getting to know each other with these books that M.S. had brought - those books of "have you ever" and "name your favorite." It was fun.
(a side note: you'll notice that I'm using people's initials. It's because I want to keep them in the post, but I don't want to mention names so creepers can't find them and stalk them and stuff.)
When we got to the center and found our rooms and stuff, we found that we were in even MORE cramped quarters than on ASP!! It also turned out that I picked the farthest sleeping spot from the only working door. The other would eventually be blocked by someone else's sleeping pad. There were a total of 4 churches there, counting our group as one. At dinner that night, we met H.M. (hooray!).

Over the course of the week, my crew did four things:
1. work with little kids in the area
2. organize at a goodwill-type place
3. organize at a different goodwill-type place
4. help out at a Christian-run warehouse where they give necessities away to people who need them.

And it was a LOT of fun!

Hooray!