My Life....and Stuff

In the End...

2007-01-09T21:03:00.000-06:00

...it doesn't even matter. It's been a month...i think its time for this blog to end. It's been fun, and I'm def. gonna keep reading the other blogs on occasion, but idk, all good things must come to an end, right? Check up on me every once in awhile...i'll be around.

Wisdom

2006-12-09T11:51:00.000-06:00

Something I've learned over the last little while: Those that you love the best and that know you the best are the ones that can hurt you the worst.

To Have a "Good Time"

2006-11-30T20:35:00.000-06:00

I'm just wondering if someone can explain to me the draw in smoking and drinking. Recent events in my life have caused me to question this. Smoking is just disgusting. I always think of this one sign I saw on the highway when I was little, "Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray". Attactive, hmm? My dad smokes a pipe and cigars, so I don't mind the smell of those. Cigarettes smoke, however, just repulses me!! It smells disgusting!!

Drinking is another thing I don't understand. Why is it fun?? Why would you want to drink to the point where you aren't thinking, you can barely walk, you aren't in ANY position to "make good choices"...it just doesn't make sense. What makes it even WORSE to me is when you are so irresponsible that you would go out and DRIVE in that condition. Drinking and driving to me is one of the most selfish, inconsiderate, and horrible things you can do. You not only put your OWN life in danger, but also the lives of everyone around you, people who are totally undeserving of such peril. Nobody else deserves to suffer from your bad decisions.

A friend of mine made a very good point when we were discussing this the other day. She was talking about smoking, but it applies to drinking, too. Chrisitie, my friend, was saying how she just couldn't understand why someone would purposely try to increase his chances of dying, when people like her brother, Doug, who has lukemia and whom I've mentioned more than once, sit in the hospital trying harder than anything to live. It just seems totally unfair. So yeah, if anyone has some insight, it would be appreciated.

Major Milestone!!

2006-11-20T18:15:00.000-06:00

This is the official 100th post of My Life....and Stuff!! Shocking, I know. Remember back in kindergarden when we had Zero the Hero day for the 100th day of school? Everyone had to bring in 100 things...like pennies or pretzels or candy corns or whatever? One year one of my teachers even made a cake shaped like 100!! In reflection, i've "met" a ton of amazing people through the blogs, which is pretty sweet. You people have shared some pretty interesting times in my life and even contributed to some of the drama. Thanx to my faithful readers, and to the unfaithful ones...go eat a gummi bear. So anyway, it seems like 100 posts should be comemorated in some special way, the only problem being that I can't think of a good way. You people's favorite post? favorite comment? favorite thing about the blog? the joy you feel when I DON'T post, perhaps? Who even knows. Happy 100th post to me!!

Adoption Day

2006-11-11T21:49:00.000-06:00

This past Thursday, November 9, was my adoption day. It was the day a whole bunch of years ago that my adoption from Columbia was finalized. I was about 8 weeks old when I was adopted, so no, I don't remember anything. I didn't even pick up SPANISH easily when I took it...psh, it figures:-) Anyway, I was thinking the other day about just how blessed I really am. I know someone who is 16...and pregnate. Putting myself in her place, I imagine that I would be absolutely terrified. Yes, I understand its a result of her bad decisions, and I am in NO way condoning it, but still, just stop a minute and think. One mistake and BOOM, now there's a baby coming in 4 months. She can't support herself, let alone a baby! This train of thought led me to thinking about MY birthmother. I don't know the situation surrounding my birth. I don't know how old my birthmother was, what she was like, or anything. I know her name, but that's about it. I also know something my mom and dad have taught me ever since I was old enough to understand. My birthmother loved me enough to give me up, to give me a life that she never would be able to had she kept me in Columbia. It turns out that Columbia is a pretty scary place...I sure wouldn't want to be living there right now. I hear stories about adopted kids that hate their birthmoms for giving them away, but I guess I just don't think of it like that. Today I have an incredible mom and dad who love me a ton. I have great friends, a good school to go to, and everything I need. My birthmother loved me enough to let me go, and that's something I'll always be grateful for.

Lo Siento

2006-10-30T13:46:00.000-06:00

Did anyone miss me? I'm not sure how I got so busy, as it is i need to go rite now!! September and October posts will go up...sometime. Steve started a blog, www.the-hardcore.blogspot.com, its hilarious. FYI, make SURE you remember the blogspot part when you type it in!! Out leaf raking for OCC, doing pretty well so far. also filling out scholarship and college apps...not fun. i'll put up a real post ASAP, i swear.

Personality Type

2006-10-05T13:59:00.000-05:00

According to recent Bible 12 reading, my personality type is most closely choleric...i think i'm remembering that word correctly. Anyway, apparently my personality type tends to be the doer person. a choleric person sees a goal and will do whatever it takes to accomplish it. they don't no for an answer. since we aren't detail people, we tend to not think of any obstacles that might make the goal more difficult to reach. cholerics usually have a bazillion things going on in their heads and often are involved in as many things in life. they have a lot of nervous energy and have the strong desire to always be doing something. being so driven makes choleric people leaders, rarely are they followers. choleric people like being in charge and aren't very good at taking orders from other people. they like things done their own way. Choleric people tend to get irritated or angry easily at people who can't do things that they are asked to accomplish. They aren't always very good at being empathetic, either.

Obviously such a personality has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally, everyone in the class started cracking up upon reading the description, claiming it, for the most part, fit me to a tee. I am definently very goal oriented, and I'm notorious for being involved in everything, most often in charge of it. My mom all too often reminds me that i'm not a "details person", which is true, but when i'm in charge i'm usually able to at least think ahead enough to make sure stuff runs relatively smoothly. I definitely HATE being bossed around (lol Amos). Paula Lou helps me try to be less calm...sometimes she succeeds, lol. I do tend to get irritated easily, but usually I forget i'm mad just as easily. Depending on the situation, I can be sympathetic. I've been "counseler" to a whole bunch of people at one time or another. I guess the moral of the story is its good that i'm a leader, but maybe I could work on being less bossy and more easy to work with:-)

A Modest Proposal

2006-09-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

Preface: In order to understand this post, you must know that this year the administration shortened time between classes to three minutes from the previous four minutes. Its crazy in the halls, seriously!! I had to write a satire paper for Brit Lit, and this is what I came up with.

THREE MINUTES?!? They’re giving us three WHOLE minutes between classes? Such extravagance of time in a school day!! In three minutes one can brush AND floss their teeth. In three minutes one can read a short story. In three minutes one can copy the previous night’s Brit Lit assignment from a friend, or even attempt to do the assignment on one’s own. Why, in three minutes the whole course of HISTORY could change!! If you add up all those minutes, three minutes per day times five days per week times about 36 weeks per school year divided by 60 minutes per hour, you get NINE whole hours per year spent changing classes. Just think, nine HOURS!! I won’t even begin to mention the things one could do with that amount of time.

Now, one may travel the halls of our fair school during one of those afore mentioned three minutes and be surprised at the loud, chaotic nature of the halls. One might note the almost frantic atmosphere and think it due to students in a rush to their next class all the way across the school building. One might even feel a twinge of pity for those tiny 7th graders, seemingly already a bit uneasy in the masses of older students, that are sprawled along the sides of the corridors, books flung everywhere.

All of these scenarios may cause alarm to an uninformed outsider. Let me assure you, however, that all is well. The students who are in such a hurry are merely trying to make use of those three minutes. They get so excited at the vast quantities of time allotted that that go a bit overboard in their enthusiasm, resulting in much unnecessary yelling and flailing about. Those small 7th graders you were worried about? They’re merely playing the newest game, the game of How Many Times I Can Be Run Over Before the Next Class Without Being Tardy. A bit lengthy of a title perhaps, but still becoming more popular by the day. I’ve heard one especially talented youth holds the record at seven. So it can be understood that the fearsome hurricane that erupts when the end of class bell rings is merely a sign of excitement and even school spirit as the rest of the school begins to catch on to the 7th grade game.

An especially cautious and overbearing mother might still not be convinced. She may overreact to the occasional goose-egg on a forehead from the dropped government book or the broken bones from the especially zealous game players. She might even go so far as to suggest that the school administration lengthen the time between classes and encourage a more orderly class changing. This, obviously, is a truly pathetic idea. The worried mother merely needs to be educated about the time lost of breaks were lengthened and about the bonding, one-of-a-kind experience the halls really are.

A Starting Spot

2006-09-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

"He looked at me as if I were something he was contemplating eating, but probably wouldn't"

Sadly not my line, but I thought it was funny.

5 Years Later

2006-09-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

In a moment everything can change. At school this morning at 8:46 we had a moment of silence, just one moment. In the moment, however, we had the opportunity to consider the thousands of lives changed in those ticks of the second hand. When you consider the pain and tragedy that occured on this day 5 years ago...i guess it just put stuff in perspective. Pray for the surviving families, for the president trying to lead our country in the fight against terror, for the brave men and women in our armed forces out there doing whatever it takes to make our country safe, and for God to continue to be with us.

The First Monday of September

2006-09-04T18:04:00.000-05:00

Labor day. It seems to me that a day for laboring should be spent doing so. perhaps today should be renamed as nonlabor day. the fact that I toiled endlessly at the store instead of unlaboring may well have made me a bit bitter, but i digress. I did get time and a half out of it I suppose.

August

2006-08-29T18:50:00.000-05:00

So, since you were all in SUCH great suspense over what my last month has been like, I GUESS i'll update:-)

August 1-3- cran hill camp. see BLANK post below for details
August 4- hung out at pool. got conned into working for Joe...NOT cool, turns out everyone went to Grand Haven *glares at Joe*
August 5- pool, work
August 7- pool day. went to get john around 8:30, went to icecream. got tired of that, decided to go to McDonalds, sat for about 20 mintues, got sick of that, decided to go to Meijers. john tells group can get jelly beans for free, every1 wants to see. puts like, 4 of 'em in a bag, takes to self checkout, where scale doesn't register weight, so amount says $0.00. almost gets away with it until random meijers employee sees, makes john pay a nickle. i was, of course, mortified. sat in parking lot for awhile, went home.
August 8- amos's sr pix. he decides needs clothes...go to mall, don't find much. di and steve come later. volunteered. came back to mall with linz to get super good deals at aero, all tops 50% off!!
August 9-12- degraffs cottage on Lake MI...it was really beautiful, I LOVE it out there. 'course, can only stand so much of family continously, was ready to leave, lol. on the 11th went to Annie with Gade girls. Amanda forgot her cellphone, little fruitcake. made it to ben and jerry's with about 2 minutes to spare before it closed at 11, didn't even get LOST ok!! SCORE!!
August 14- Student council breakfast at *gag* 7:30. went to meijers with christie and lauralen to copy cran hill pix. went with paula to pick up valencia, took to children's museum. wrote letters to clifford and emily elizabeth, made dog biscuts, tried on bee keeper clothes, played with bubbles for ages, had a blast in all actuality. took to coldstone for icecream before brought home. worked.
August 15, 16- volunteered, worked.
August 17- started to worry about hoffmaster. got maggie to go grocery shopping with me in the a.m. FHF donated all the food...$207 worth, totally awesome of them!! flew home, unloaded, changed to go to maria's sr pix with her. got royally stuck in traffic despite nick and jesse's best efforts. ended up being half an hour late to her appt. had to reschedule, she was NOT happy. went to mcdonalds for icecream (take5 mcflurries are the best things EVER!!) came home for a little bit, went to volunteer. still have to get everything ready for camping, maria sposta come help, so i put it off until about 10 until realize she isn't coming, begin frantically making hamburger patties. John calls with news that he's LEAVING for 2 weeks. Pete had come home, talk to him for like an hour before remembering that I still needed to talk to john a whole bunch more, talk to him until about 1:30.
August 18- dad's bday...3rd yr in a row gone on his bday:-/ Day 1 of hoffmaster trip which actually took place at the Muskegon state park. got crap cuz was last to get to school. unloaded van, reloaded into daryl and mr dv's vehicles. rode to hoffmaster (its really muskegon, its just that since we always call it hoffmaster, thats what i'll refer to it as) with daryl. heard horror stories about his gf and their huge hiking and camping escapades...she's a brave girl, thats all I have to say!! set up camp, got dragged on hike, swam at beach for awhile, made supper. called phil to save us from the plight of not having eggs or butter, as I'd left them in our fridge at home. as always he had a calming effect and solved the problem. rest of campers arrived. hooter scooter, sam, bob tell HILARIOUS stories about sylvania vacation of previous week. went back to beach, had girl talk with girls (every 15 seconds!! lol!!!), watched guys play football, huge game of keepaway guys vs. girls. back to camp, made fire, listened to mr dv talk about being "media saturated" among other things...interesting discussion actually. played flashlight tag. ate marshmellows *ahem* I mean marshmAllows. went to bed around 2:45, didn't sleep till about 3:30 because of peeping bob, among other things.
August 19- day 2 of hoffmaster. had breakfast, scott doesn't know how to eat french toast...he thinks ur sposta dip it BACK in egg after you fry it!! girls valiantly resisted all efforts by chaperones to try to make us go on another horrible fight. translated: barracaded selves in tent and blatently refused to come out. guys collapsed tent arround us, tried to drown us with water thru windows. we won, they left. mr dv later said if the tent had been stronger he'd have had the guys carry it super far away so we had to hike back!! cleaned up camp, way ezier without guys around. recalled icecream sign, took seth's car to go find...VERY good stuff!! came back to camp to find a bunch of irate hiker guys demanding lunch. fed the guys, finished cleaning up. guys headed to grand haven, girls went home. unloaded mr dv's van, reloaded my van with everything. came home, re-unloaded van, was VERY tired, bed early!!
August 21- got ditched on movie day with steve...put me in bad mood! went to mall with CAL. tried on cupcake dresses at marshall fields. a few were practically obscene!! took pix, laughed a lot. drove to icecream, ran a red light, causing lauren to burst my eardrum with her hysterical screams. enjoyed icecream, headed home.
August 22- last tuesday day at DeVos sadly. got haircut, eyebrows done. met jesse at random church. went with him to meet nate, who's really a marshmAllow inside, at meijers. hung out there for a bit, looked for 12 gauge shells...or something, laughed at guys spazzing out cuz there weren't any. met maria and nick at ucellos. got super good dessert, didn't even have to PAY, lol. sat in parking lot, "broke up" with jesse (for any and all who would spread rumors, we aren't and weren't going out, thats a JOKE!!), waited for ages and ages for nick and maria to say goodnight and get the "last grab". rode home with maria, she spent night. watched failure to launch, always a good time. talked about my dream of recent nights, laughed, went to sleep around 3.
August 23- slept in, maria long gone. volunteered.
August 24- cleaned up ctyd with christie, lauren, drew and jake...the ONLY SC members who could come *rolls eyes* ended up spraying large amts of roundup where weeds were found. worked.
August 25- last day of summer!! worked, every1 else went to motocross, which put me in VERY VERY bad mood. talked to jesse later.
August 28- sooooooooob, first day of school. i made a motion to put on sack clothe and ashes and pluck out out beards, but it didn't pass:-) tried to remind self is sr. yr, will be a blast prolly. talked at assembly about grafting *rolls eyes* but trust me, it was better than the one about rowing boats together or the infamous signs...don't ask!! no, i talked about student council, not grafting, thats just what the assembly was about, lol. linz let me down in leading the clapping, lol. went thru day in a sort of daze. davie brought me my PEACH, which actually totally made my day come to think of it. had traditional first day of school pool party despite cold temps and RAIN!! not cool. a few ppl swam for like, 45 minutes. played volleyball in the rain for actually quite awhile. guys went to play bball, girls hung out in covered room chitchatting. reluctantly ditched former plans for whitecaps game due to rain, headed to applebees not knowing where would go from there. laughed at hostess lady who shamelessly flirted with guys. there were like, 15 of us, poor waiter guy, but we gave him a good tip, lol. decided to go to seth's house. watched ladder 49, i def. cried...omg, it was just so SAD ok!! sad movie put me in sad mood, went to icecream half heartedly. took some pix n stuff. yelled at steve when he poured icecream ALL OVER my windshield...yelled LOUDLY actually, enough so that he apologized the next day!! drove home, read, talked on phone until about 10 after 12.
August 29- that'd be today. day 2 of school, sigh. got homework in 2.5 classes...precalc was suggested, not yet required, lol. went to skills with maria at noon on errand for mr b, seriously almost got really hurt. maria was pulling out and some guy ran a red light. thankfully she'd waited a cpl seconds before going when the light turned green, so instead of broadsiding her little car he instead hit the nice new jeep next to us who'd pulled out a second before us. if he'd hit us...omg, it woulda been HORRIBLE. went back to school, decided would really be enjoying last hour studyhall. made last minute decision to get valencia, kaiden, and alexxus and take 'em to the pool. they totally wore me out, lol. i lost track of how many times I had to remind 'em to WALK please!! but it was fun, i love those kids. actually ate supper at home, shockingly. sat down to write this blog post. have to go get gas and christie a bday card, as i TOTALLY forgot about her bday today *grimaces* will go do that, then prolly talk on the phone until way too late again.

i'll write about tomorrow and the next day this weekend. i kinna like this month summery thing tho, i think i'll keep doing it each month!!

A La Abbs

2006-08-23T19:52:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated lately, as NL was so kind to remind me. I read Abbs' exceedingly long post and was rather inspired by it and decided to make one like hers except about MY summer. My blog has become kind of my journal, so this will serve as my summery for myself about the last 3 months. Here we go...

June
June 8- LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!! was SO ready, you have NO idea!! The "cream of the 11th grade" chemistry class went out for breakfast to Red Hot Inn, despite the horror stories Steve has told us. did frantic last second studying, sharing of programs, and generally panicking (sp??). realized if we didn't know it by then we were screwed!!
June 9- went shopping w. linz for the rocking party planned for the night. got food, utinsels, all the other necessary party stuff. It was a rather hurried trip, but did ok. decided I needed coverup for said pool party. made very hasty trip with maria to AE to buy brown dress thingie which i wore all summer. went flying home from mall to FHFAC where mrs dykstra played drill sargent. was usher/program passer with sars, christy, hooter scooter, arnie, and scuba steve at graduation ceremony. clapped for doug when he crossed stage. got bored during endless speeches. promised self to make paula's speech next year thrilling beyond belief...or SOMETHING. gave hugs, took pictures of official class of '06. Sent every1 to pool despite rather cool temps. Fed people, took video for gordon, took pictures, watched guys look HILARIOUS dancing to boombox (i know, at a PLYMOUTH party...and they were wearing SWIM SUITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) went home with steve and Di, watched Just Like Heaven, made me cry from...various memories.
June 10- work
June 12- First day of swimteam...got up very reluctantly, almost drowned due to out of shape-edness. Went to Kimmy's openhouse with Sars. Met Kamperdykes at Icecream Garage.
June 13- Got passport application just in case something worked out. Went to Rachel Verhey's for supper with Sars to talk about sunday school classroom stuff. answered phone on way to jenny, who wanted to make sure I hadn't gotten lost YET!! found out that when you park on the street you have to park the same way as traffic...or something...and then if you park in a driveway you can't block the sidewalk.
June 14- helped clean up random yard to get money for class fund with Sars and co. volunteered at heart clinic. went back to sars's house for pizza (little caesers with buttered crust and parmasan, the ONLY way to eat it!!). had guys to the pool. came home with 'em and met di and heather and watched mean girls. reminisced about gordon.
June 15- went to panera with swimteam girls after practice. got passport picture taken. volunteered at childrens hospital.
June 16- Skipped swimteam. worked. went to bridgets openhouse, only took ONE wrong turn. went to grand haven with sarah, brent, sam, amos, VD. took first feet picture of the season. watched sam and brent drink vernors from plastic bottles w.o labels, making it look like...something other than pop. got accused by some random lady of being drunk. drove to brents house. spazzed out cuz thought lost phone, found in pocket.
June 17- Kari's openhouse, one wrong turn. Mel's openhouse, two wrong turns.
June 19- mall with maggie. met bri and wally at pool.
June 20- pool with maggie. find out that JOHN CAN COME to africa with me. tell every1 I know, email miskins to say will be coming. go to BW's to watch something or other with sam and steve.
June 21- attend first swim meet, refuse to swim individual events, swim relays. we kicked MVP's butts. pick up movie stuff so can work on movie for gordon. go to passport place, pay like, $170 for expedited passport, thinking will need. volunteer, tell every1 about africa. come home, find email from mrs miskin saying can't go to africa this summer. get VERY bummed. babysit.
June 22- skip swimteam. take kids to the library, icecream. work on gordon's movie. volunteer.
June 23- go to IHOP after swimteam...eat too much. make IPOD mix. go to pool. work. work on movie.
June 24- sam and steve come to pool. work.
June 26- Childrens hospital first monday. whitecaps game with every1 and amanda and Christie and Lauren and doug and davie. get bored after 3rd inning. sit in front of these obnoxious people who ended up being from south africa. ate super good icecream dots thingies. stuck kissable stickers over everything.
June 27- switch to tuesdays for childrens hospital. McDonalds with Deshay and RJ from sunday school. go see paula, look at pictures, laugh a lot.
June 28- swimmeet vs. ridgemoor. volunteer. work.
June 29- pool with amanda. volunteer. work on movie.
June 30- IHOP breakfast. pool with maggie in afternoon. every1 plus brent's new girlfriend kelli (kelly?) to pool at night. minigolf, coldstone, back to my house for a little while.

K, i'm done with june and it took super long. in order to not drive anyone crazy, everything in moderation, I'll write July tomorrow, k?

It's tomorrow today.
July
July 4- went to the bike parade with family and the Gades. Amanda and I talked mr frisch into letting us ride in his '60something convertible blue corvette...i LOVE old cars!! went to Luke's allstar baseball game where it was like 400 degrees. he hit a single and a double and a triple...apparently impressive:-) headed to aunt faith's for supper with VD side of family. left around 7 with linz to get nick and then on to get john, who wasn't home. discovered could let self in house if so desired...stuck head, yelled for john, left in great confusion. met every plus abbs and davie (JUST FRIENDS!!). ended up finally getting ahold of john, waited for him. headed off to downtown fireworks, managed to get lost for a minute or two...nothing like celebration thankfully. parked at kendall lighting, walked to pearl st. bridge, claimed a good spot. met amanda and lexi, john tried to teach us how to play egyptian rat screw, but Lexi and I were waaaaaaaay to ADD to handle that, lol. watched the fireworks, ooooooooh, aaaaaaah, and etc. ended up at (go figure, i was with john) 7/11 cuz everything else was closed. brought john home, borrowed peter pan.
July 6- swim meet vs. heather downs, we beat 'em. volunteered.
July 7- John leaves for CA. stayed home, watched a movie.
July 10- work. sunday school meeting with sars at which met guy who goes hhwhy or hhwhy not. went to icecream garage.
July 12- swim meet away at northville. missed 15 and over medly relay, incurring gary's wrath. volunteered. packed for camping trip.
July 13- day 1 of bazen/dv camping trip. drove up to leeland, parked, rode ferry to S. manitu island. met ONLY firefighter on the island, learned not to leave fire going, that it would take 8 hours to get help if hurt self on dunes, and if woke up firefighter cuz of noise disturbance he WOULD do something about it. found out have carry EVERYTHING a half mile, wouldn't have been bad if had packed light...which i HADN'T!! was terrible, almost died. got dragged on 10 mile hike that was only supposed to be 2 or 3 miles, so wore sandels...not ideal hiking shoes. stopped at inland lake literally crawling with little frogs...think egypt ok, SERIOUSLY!! ended up on other side of island, had to go all the way around the far side to get back...VERY long. by end was no longer hiking, was barely crawling at snails pace...mr b called it strolling. no showers, so washed hair in lake that could easily have had ice cubes floating in it it was so cold!!
July 14- day 2. woke up, packed up, carried everything BACK to dock. watched guys fish. took picture of firefighter. took walk up lighthouse. laughed hysterically at guys "naked" picture, easily highlight of the trip. rode ferry back, painted brents nails while he was sleeping. had pizza in town. headed to next campsite, only got lost once...i wasn't even driving!! watched guys fish again. took real shower. sat around campfire. watched S and S shadow show...talk about rated X!! another highlight of trip. mr b, the fire's still going...we hear "call the ONLY firefighter on the island!!". MR DV, we need an analogy!!
July 15- day 3. went ca-no-ing. paula didn't abandon me. watched mr dv fish while mr b tried to paddle. saw eNORmously large spiders. made it back to camp, packed up, headed out.
July 17- pool day. talked to amos and VD all the home from canada. got picked up by them, went to meijers, then to ball, then to icecream. watched in fascinated horror as Sarah got some random guy's number. rode home with her in hurricane-like storm.
July 18- senior picture fiasco...b/c of said hurricane-like storm was unable to be outside, had to redo hair from perfectly straight to curly plus pick out new outfits with about an hour's notice. volunteered.
July 19- mourned day prolly woulda left for africa. day two of senior pix. straight outside day. watched the kids swim in prelims.
July 21- swam relay in finals, which we won by a landslide. maria over, did my hair, ended up at rivertown with john, jais and cali. really like jais and cali, even if jais does burn mating japanese beetles. brought jais and cali back home, went home to get Chris abbs and lauralen and met maggie and amanda at the FHFAC to watch beauty and the beast. took john's pimp picture, lol. met guys at IHOP for midnight snack. CAL overnight.
July 24- had every1 to pool, went to subway for supper, watched volleyball at manhattan park, went to spaans' pool, got majorly splashed and eaten by mosquitos.
July 28- went to party with maggie...super awkward, didn't know anyone, plus don't dance. left together and just went to meijers. john called, talk until 2:30 am, set new record (3 hr, 35 minutes!!)
July 29- worked, talked to jesse until like, midnight.
July 31- maria overnight before...august 1 events.

will write august tomorrow.

blank...YES, BLANK!!

2006-08-14T10:32:00.000-05:00

so two weeks ago i went to cran hill. day 1, swam, listened to russian topic, talked on phone to sikmavich, got evesdropped upon by hopperbottem, may well have been speaking of incriminating topics, talked before sleep, was once again evesdropped upon, no incriminating topics, nearly died of heatstroke, slept in tiny chair in front of fan. day 2, swam, tubed, was confronted by said evesdropper, was deeply traumatized, watched joey try to rescue lauralens shoe, hung out with CAL, painted nails, ate icecream, discussed what guys and girls look for in eachother in very heated conversation, swam, found a BUDDY, heard jeremy story, ate roasted marshmellow, went to sleep super late. day 3, packed, rode bus, played BS, drove home. It was a reeeeeeeeally fun trip, i took tons of pictures.

Last week I went to Holland con mi familia for 4 days. we swam in the lake, laid out on the beach. on friday linz amanda lexi and i went to see Annie at the Red Barn...tooooooooo-morrow, tomorrow, i love ya, tomorrow...LOTS of fun and got ben and jerry's. the water got super cold friday and saturday, as did the flies. it was still beautiful, def. one of my favorite places ever.

at 7:30 this morning, yes, SEVEN THIRTY i went out to breakfast with mr b and the executives for student council...i'm prez, 'member? contemplated resigning for the 80th time. got orders for the year...am feeling stressed out already, and i have two weeks till school...NOT the way to go!! hoffmaster is this friday...aaaaaah!!

A Question

2006-08-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

I have that Faith Hill song, The Secret of Life, in my head, which leads to the question: What IS the secret of life?

In the Words of a Guy...

2006-07-31T11:24:00.000-05:00

So I was on the phone the other night to this guy, and we were talking about how guys see girls and what they call 'em and stuff. This is what I learned...

If a guy says a girl is pretty, he's talking about her face.
If he says she's hot, he's talking about her body.
If he says she's beautiful, he's talking about her heart.

Isn't that SO sweet? I got little goosebumps. Yeah, I know, the whole hopeless romantic thing kicks in here. HOWEVER, I HOPE that one of these fine days ALL of us girls find the perfect guy who looks past the outside to the HEART, where it really counts, and calls US beautiful.

Senior Pix

2006-07-28T16:05:00.000-05:00

I got my senior pictures taken at Harley Photography about a week and a half ago. Mostly for Gordon and Scarlett they're up online at www.harleystudio.com. Go there, then click on the Web Albums. Now enter my event code, which is 33915W208662. Click on the blue link that says "sign in now". My address is erikavd89@hotmail.com and you should be able to see them until August 10, when they take 'em down.

Early Morning Wisdom

2006-07-24T13:29:00.000-05:00

"Never regret something that once made you smile"
~Abbs, at about 2:30 a.m.

I'll Be There For You

2006-07-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

I'll be there for you

These five words I swear to you

When you breathe I want to be the air for you

I'll be there for you

I'd live and I'd die for you

Steal the sun from the sky for you

Words can't say what a love can do

I'll be there for you

After reading Scarlett's post about friendship, this song came to mind. While this one is more about romantical friendship, one can draw from it the basic idea that friends are there for you and will do anything that they can for you. I went camping with some of my best friends last weekend and made some memories that I'll never forget. Friends are for sure up there in the list of most important things in life!!

The Inspiration

2006-07-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

Chuck has inspired me in our debate about oysters. He maintains that, "Hearts break and heal. But oyster shells are eternal! " At my rather astonished response, he replied, "Have you ever heard of a oyster shell dying, Erika?" To this I could only say, "Can't say I have Chuck, but can't say i've heard of one LIVING, either!!" Chuck, now really getting into it all, wondered, "So then are oysters the undead?" That, my friends, is the question. I'd say oysters are like rocks, not dead but not alive, right?

Hmm...

2006-07-10T21:35:00.000-05:00

Ugh, I'm having major bloggers block here. I can't think of anything to write about!! Ideas at all guys?

When There Was Me and You

2006-07-03T16:10:00.000-05:00

It's funny when you find yourself
Looking from the outside
I'm standing here but all I want
Is to be over there
Why did I let myself believe
Miracles could happen
Cause now I have to pretend
That I don't really care

I thought you were my fairytale
A dream when I'm not sleeping
A wish upon a star
Thats coming true
But everybody else could tell
That I confused my feelings with the truth
When there was me and you

I swore I knew the melody
That I heard you singing
And when you smiled
You made me feel
Like I could sing along
But then you went and changed the words
Now my heart is empty
I'm only left with used-to-be's
Once upon a song

Now I know your not a fairytale
And dreams were meant for sleeping
And wishes on a star
Just don't come true
Cause now even I tell
That I confused my feelings with the truth
Cause I liked the view
When there was me and you

I can't believe that
I could be so blind
It's like you were floating
While I was falling
And I didn't mind

Cause I liked the view
Thought you felt it too
When there was me and you

Interesting

2006-06-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

Isn't it weird how one dream can bring back SO many memories and emotions? Last night I dreamed about someone I used to like that I haven't even really thought about in ages, and woke up wondering why I ever stopped liking him!! It was a VERY good dream;-) Dangerous, this whole dreaming thing!!

Take Me Out...

2006-06-26T22:35:00.000-05:00

...to the ballgame, ooooooooobviously:-) I went to a Whitecaps game tonight. I'm not actually much of a baseball person, so I found myself bored after the 3rd inning. Let me tell you that there are NINE innings in a game...it was loooooooong!! Thankfully the company was awesome...I love my class!!

Appropriate

2006-06-22T21:27:00.000-05:00

"We spend vast amounts of time and energy crafting a thesis in our heads of how life should play out. Then Almighty God spends an incredibly brief amount of time blowing our thesis to bits."
~from A Delirious Summer, by Ray Blackstock

In a Moment...

2006-06-21T16:56:00.000-05:00

Crazy, isn't it, how plans that have been in the works can be blown to bits with no warning whatsoever?

A Riddle

2006-06-19T10:17:00.000-05:00

What's stronger than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it you'll die? You guys ponder that.

In the mean time, I'm TRYYYYYYING to get pictures to go up, but I seem to be having technical difficulties!! I need John to help me, but alas, he's off to lots of different places right now.

In Ben's Honor...

2006-06-12T10:59:00.000-05:00

Just got home from the dentists office *makes pained face* They wanna take out my *forboding music* WISDOM TEETH. I have all four of 'em, and apparently they're all impacted, which is supposedly not a good thing. That was the bad news. The good news is NO SCHOOL FOR THREE MONTHS!!

Nearing the End...

2006-06-06T17:05:00.000-05:00

I've taken two exams already...3 more to go and school will be DONE for the year!! So heres the good plan guys...Friday night after graduation Linz and I are gonna have a pool party at our neighborhood pool, which is right across the road from the fine arts center where graduation will be held. We rented the pool from 9-midnight, and it turns out that doing so is kinna expensive, so we're asking that you bring $3-ish to help us out. for moms and dads, have no fear, my mom'll for sure be there, and there will be lifeguards, as well. Everyone in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades are invited, so that might help with rides and stuff. Tell everyone, bring whoever you want...it's gonna be a good time!!

A Sigh of Relief

2006-05-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it, but I survived the last few weeks!! It was close, and at time I wasn't sure I would, but with a LOT of help I made it!! *pauses to rejoyce* Anyway. K, so here's what has been happening.

BANQUET
As I wrote in my last post, banquet was last week Friday. I also wrote that I'd been working on the video every spare moment, and even the ones that WEREN'T spare for that matter. At the time of the writing, I'd already spent over 50 hours in the time since I'd begun the crazy project on May 2. Since that time, I put in upwards of 40 MORE hours in a week. I worked until 3 a.m. last monday, pulled an all nighter on wednesday, and on thursday was again up working until 3 am.

The reason for this insanity was that I still wasn't DONE as of thursday about 10 pm, when I realized I had no idea how to put a movie to music. I called up faithful coach P, who makes the science o movies, and asked if he had any ideas. He said it was rly hard 2 do over the phone, so said that i should just come over. So Paula and I headed down the road to phil's house. We ended up working on it, as I said, until 3 in the morning. He helped an incredibly large amount. I never would have been able to figure out the music without him. Bri also stayed up and kept us company until about 2, when he turned in. The hours were reminiscent of a late Mission Possible night, with a LOT of laughs, frusterated sighs, and random conversations about nothing. It was fun, but we were all VERY tired!! Keep in mind that Phil had no tie to the video whatsoever...he graduated like, 4 years ago, he isn't related to the seniors, he's not a teacher yet...no obligation at all. THAT my friends, is an excellent example of going above and beyond!! If you see Phil anytime soon, say a huuuuuge thank you, he def. deserves it!!

So anyway, I ended up sleeping at Paula's house thursday night...friday morning really I guess...because her and phil ganged up on me, saying seeings how I'd been going on 5 hours of sleep from TUESDAY night, I shouldn't drive. I left her house around 6:30 the next morning, as I had to go home and get to school by 7:30 to get the video approved. I almost fell asleep on the way home that MORNING...not good!! I was only a couple minutes late, and the video passed scruitiny with flying colors. I was really happy with that.

That being said, I still had a few things to work out, namely a beginning and end!! I also had to figure out some sound issues. The problem was, the computer was CRAMMED full of video, so it took like, half an hour to make even little changes. I worked frantically all morning, and ended up staying until about 1:15 in the afternoon, despite the fact that juniors and seniors were dismissed at noon. I could NOT get the sound to work, and one part, the part of the senior guys playing ball, kept getting choppy and then screwed up the rest of the movie. I was SO scared, and I could NOT get it to work!!

After I left, I still had to bring the computer to mr kolkman out at Watermark and take a shower before my 2 o'clock hair appt. Needless to say, I ended up running about an hour late for the rest of the afternoon. I came flying home from the appointment at about 4:25. I had to pick Sarah up at her house, drop her off at paula's, and get to johns house by 5:15...oh, and I had to get READY in there somewhere!! I got sarah, and after we started on our way, she realized she'd forgotten Amos's boutinier, so around we went to get it.

We arrived at Paula's house at about 5:15. Amos was waiting to bring Sarah back to his house for pictures. I was completely spazzing out at that point. I HATED my hair, I didn't have my dress or anything on, I was obviously going to be QUITE late to pick John up and I HATE being late. Paula and Christy weren't even at the house yet, so I went flying in to get ready. I managed to remembe the call john and let him know I was going to be late. I was also really bummed out that there was NO way there was going to be time for Paula, Sarah, Amos and I to take pictures together at Paula's house as planned.

Somehow, though, I managed to get ready in about 15 minutes and was at John's house by 6 o'clock. This was, needless to say, QUITE late. On my way I found his voicemail that he'd left around 5:40, questioning my whereabouts and if I'd gotten lost. I was CRACKING up when I heard the part about lost...John obviously knows me all too well. We still had to get back to MY end of town and take pictures at my house and get to Watermark by 6:30-ish. Due to this, we were only at John's long enough to say a FAST hi and bye to mrs. sikma, and were zooming on our way again.

At my house, we hopped out of the car and took some pictures. John gave me my coursage, and he got his boutinier, unfortunately we couldn't get it to be pinned quite straight, which, of course, bugged me for the rest of the night:-) That done, we posed by the trees and stuff...a couple of the pictures turned pretty good. A few minutes later I crammed my dress BACK into the car and we made it to the country club.

The parking lot was CRAMMED full, but I found a spot and managed to park without hitting anyone or any cars. Everyone was standing around in the lot, so we took some pictures, then headed inside. I immediately made a beeline to the video table, where my laptop was gone, replaced with another. My frantic questioning revealed that Mr Kolkman was transferring the movie onto his computer, which had more memory or something and would theoretically work better. Note that it was TRANSFERRING...meaning it hadn't yet finished!! and plus we didn't know if it would fix the skipping problem of before. Obviously I was rather nervous about the whole chain of events. Everyone tried to reassure me...it didn't really help.

We took more pictures, with poor John often ending up the photographer. We were also dragging the camcorder around for Gordon, so when and if I get around to making his movie he can have banquet on there, too. Dinner started with devotions a little after 7. Bob and Maria were master and mistress of ceremonies, and their speech was hilarious. Dinner was buffet style, and we had potatoes, salad, rolls, chicken or steak (or both, lol Mr DV), carrots and green beans, and prolly something else that I can't remember. It was all actually really good. There weren't any dandalion leaves in the salad, and the meat was tender, not like shoe leather. Oh, I remember, there was fettaccini, and John didn't know how to eat it...it was hilarious!!

Dinner was followed by a break in which about 40 bazillion more pictures were taken. Everyone looked sooooo beautiful (or handsome I suppose). It was awesome that Doug was able to be there. CAL was there with their dates, all looking awesome. A bunch of us Juniors took one of infamous feet pictures, because you can't break tradition!! John was beginning to tire of being the cameraman, so to spice things up he began taking "artistic" shots for me. The weather was wonderful, which was an added bonus. They corraled us back inside to begin the program half of the night.

Games were one of the first things that happened. They had a MadGab like game, where they had the phrases typed on a sheet of paper and the tables had to figure it out. That would have worked if everyone hadn't cheated and looked when they weren't supposed to. They also had things to do written in balloons, and people had to come up and act them out. Steve had to act out the ABC's, a table had to sing Old McDonald, which Heather DeVisser promptly volunteered her table for, whether they wanted to or not, and the teacher table had to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little star, with Little T and Mr DV belting it out. Those were actually pretty funny.

Mrs. Byl gave a speech on giving a speech that was interspersed with memories of both junior and senior speech class. It was actually pretty funny for those who were involved in the classes. Highlights included Phil V. rocking the podium and of course his bear story, Christy's "dating is better than courting" mistake, Darci's tendacy to speak moreandmorequicklyasshegotfurtherintoherspeech, Brad and Ryan's timing mistake, and Scott's hovercraft among other things. Case followed her, giving his famed wooden shoe speech, which I had Paula Lou tape for Gordon.

During the speeches, I was frantically making last minute fixes on the video...nothing like last second, hmm? I forgot to turn the volume down at first, so mrs byl got an introduction of a VERY loud splooshing sound effect....i felt kind of dumb:-) Unfortunately the speeches were done WAY too soon and it was the moment of truth. I was SOOOOO scared...i hit the wrong thing to start it, but after a bit of confusion, the video took off. It was almost as bad as watching Xzavior at Science O...i was biting my fake nails and everything!! As the basketball part approached, I quite literally couldn't breath. It passed without mishap, and I was about ready to start jumping up and down!! Paula and I exchanged thumbs up...I was SOOOOO happy!! The music worked wonderfully. The sound of people talking was about 2 seconds delayed, so that was a bit confusing, but since there wasn't much talking it was ok. All in all, the OVER 90 HOURS spent on the video paid off...everyone really liked it.

After that I could FINALLY relax and breath again. Senior gifts ended the evening. Some of them were kind of dumb, but mostly they turned out really cool. My favorite was Joe's. Joe was Student Council President this year, so his gift was a hat with 2 bills that said "I'm their leader, which way did they go?" It was hilarious, and totally perfect for him. Dan and Dan got gifts in keeping with their car troublemaking. Kristin Blok got candy for being such a sweetheart. Doug got a pizza hat for all the student council pizza he's served over the last few years. I know the gift comittee worked really hard, and their work def. payed off!!

More pictures were taken as people left and the decorations were cleaned up. Everyone pitched in, and stuff was ready to go in less than half an hour. People went their separate ways after that. Some went to the Bazen cottage in grand haven for the night. Others went out to the grand haven beach, only to find the pier closed. Several were planning on going mini golfing, but since banquet ran late that didn't work out. I had been planning on going out to Holland, but a last minute curfew from one person, and revoked permission from another's maja ruined those plans. We ended up sitting in the parking lot for like, 45 minutes before deciding to go to my house. On the way, we stopped at 7/11 for slurpees and icecream. We must have looked hilarious...all in our formal dresses getting slurpees.

So we ended up at my house for about 20 minutes before I had to bring John home. We said goodnight, and he was only a couple minutes late. I was comPLETELY exhausted by that point. I seriously was allllll over the road on the way home cuz i kept closing my eyes by mistake. I def. shouldn't've been driving!! Thankfully I made it home. The girls were sleeping at my house, and they were still full of energy. I summoned enough juice to find them sleepingbags and pillows, get my PJ's on, and get ready for bed. They were still laughing, looking at pictures, watching the 15-ish minutes of tape, and having a good time when I fell asleep about 2 minutes later.

I hope John had fun...he looked kind of bored toward the end. I guess it'd be hard, not knowing a lot of the people. Thankfully John is very much a "people person" and didn't seem to have that much of a problem. Plus he did know Sarah and Amos and Paula, who were instructed to entertain him. He did complain that Amos wouldn't tell him jokes at one point, but Paula was better at it apparently. He also hit it off really well with Scuba Steve, probably because of the whole Gordon connection. John was an awesome cameraman, despite his random urges to be "artistic". All in all he was a great sport, and he made up for the drama surrounding my date before he came along. He def. fit the "stable friend" criteria I needed. Thank you John...ur awesome!!!

Weddings
I had to attend two weddings on Saturday, Janna and NL from the blogs and Lauren from the heart clinic. I woke up around 11, half the girls were gone by that time, and showered and got ready to go for the first wedding, at 1. I had gotten a really cute dress at a GARAGE sale a few weeks ago, but it had spagetti straps. Thankfully the weather was like, 900 degrees so it was fine.

I made it to the Heritage Church on time and found a seat with the Sikmas. It was very happy that I had someone to sit with. I ran into Chuck, also of the blogs, on my way in. I think Mark was there too, but I wasn't sure which "seating engineer" he was. Mrs Jurries was VERY nice, taking time to ask if I was Erika and to make sure I had someone to sit with. It made me feel very welcomed, and I really appreciated it!! David, the adorable little sikmavich was there, and guess what? HE had an orange plaid suitcoat!! We def. shoulda had John wear that for banquet, lol. Anyway. Then Ben, the oldest(?) sikmavich came shortly after me, so I got to sit squished between him and John. My dress was kind of poofy, so it was a bit awkward when we sat down after a song and Ben was ON my dress...i was laughing my head off actually. He prolly thought I was mildly insane. Also, on yet another tangent, he and John have very nice singing voices. Pete's voice was sadly missed, though.

ANYWAY!! The wedding was very nice. James, yet again of the blogs, got the be the leading note/singer guy, so he got to blow on this little kazoo thingie, giving the first note of the songs. I thought that was a nice touch. Janna, of course, was a glowing bride, and NL looked equally happy, though in a different way obviously. Rev. Lanning did the service, and he did a good job, as well.

I was in a bit of a hurry at the final amen, so I went zooming through the greeting line thingie, shaking hands with random people I'd never even heard of, let alone SEEN or MET in my life!! I got to congratulate NL and Janna. NL still wants to know where the "....and stuff" is in this blog; I told him I'm working on it. Janna was a sweetheart, thanking me for coming and stuff.

John had left stuff in my car from the night before, so we went out and got that, and I grabbed the gift. If you know Janna at all, you know she HATES chickflick/sappy movies. I went out and bought her A Walk to Remember for her present...I figure she needs to broaden her horizons. The dessert line beckoned, but it turns out Heritage is a VERY large church and the dessert was in the farthest reaches of the building!! I was getting nervous, as my next wedding was at 3. I grabbed some cheesecake, a little cream puff thing, and a couple other promising items and left.

Lauren, one of the secretaries at the heart clinic, was the bride at the next wedding. I JUST made it in before she came down the aisle it seemed like!! Her wedding was very different then what I'm used to...it was a Catholic wedding with like, a priest and everything. The wedding was BEAUTIFUL though. Lauren was crying on the way down the aisle, causing a chain reaction with the groom and her dad...it was so cute. Her dress was gorgeous, the music was pretty...the only distraction was when one of the unity candles started to drip rather dramatically, causing mild uproar and pandemonium. Once this was fixed, however, all was fine. The church was REALLY nice, as well.

Lauren's reception was a couple hours after the ceremony, so I went home in between. I arrived at Blyfield where her reception was in good time and hung out there for quite some time. Blyfield, incidentally, is the same place where banquet was last year, and they served the SAME dandelion leaf salad!! I was CRACKING up when I noticed that just for Bri!! The food was REALLY good though. The noise level in the place was QUITE loud, which didn't help the monster headache I had, but it was all good none the less.

The best man gave a hilarious speech, ending in a "roses are red" poem to matt and Lauren that I wish I could remembe now!! It was awesome. The maid of honor had been friend with Lauren since 2nd grade, so you can well imagine the history that was between the two. Her speech was the first thing to make me cry all day...it was just really sweet. The bond between them was apparent in her final words "...and a phrase Lauren and I made up ages ago 'love you still always will, don't forget!'" I hope the friends I have now will be as close to me when I get married as those two are!!

Lauren, it turns out, has a VERY hot brother!! Mary and I spent the whole night trying to get a good picture of him, but EVERYTIME someone would step in front of the camera at the last second!! It got to be funny after awhile, actually. I took a bunch of other pictures as well, with everyone from the heart clinic. Lauren and Matt's song was so perfect, "Makin' Memories of Us" by some guy that I can't remember the name of...Keith Urban maybe? Anyway, they just looked so "right" dancing together that it made me almost cry again. Wherever the heck the right guy for me is, I hope and pray that we are as happy together as Lauren and Matt, and Steve and Janna for that matter, were that day.

My Birthday
My birthday was yesterday...the 29th. I forced myself out of bed at 8:40 and ended spending a bunch of time doing "catch up" homework. 3 hours of that was FST *grimaces*. I had to work at 3, and let me remind you that i bag and carryout groceries, and that it was 95 degrees, over 100 with the heat index, plus super high humidity. NOT ideal working conditions!! We were, however, getting paid time-and-a-half, so I wasn't overly happy when I got sent home 45 minutes early. This did, however, give me a chance to get ready for the rest of my night.

Everyone was meeting at the pool at 7, just like the good old days. Good ole Sam was early...or late really...he showed up at MY house at 6:45, claiming I'd told him 6:30. We fed him, and then he and I headed up to the pool to meet everyone else. We were dismayed to find that it had thundered, and the rule is u can't swim the 30 minutes from the last thunder. This went on until like, 8:15 before we could swim, which was kind of a bummer, but whatever. Maggie even came, so that was really cool too.

We got cold finally, and headed out to BW's to watch the Pistons game. I haven't gotten to watch a game in ages, so I was excited. Sarah and I got cheesecake...it was VERY good...very expensive, too unfortunately. Anyway, the Pistons SUCKED!! They were up by 4 at one point, but managed to lose by ELEVEN!!! I was pretty sure Sam was gonna have a stroke right there...he was NOT happy, none of us were at that point.

On a happieir note, I've gotten lots of good presents already. I got a digital camera from my mom and dad, which is AWESOME!! Linz cleaned my room for me on Friday after I left and before I got home...that was as good as the camera actually...my room hasn't been this clean prolly since I moved in!! I'm still trying to find stuff that she moved, but its still a great present!! I also got candy, nailpolish, lip gloss, a book, some gift cards, and a photo album from various friends and stuff.

I had a lot of fun at night though. It made up for doing homework and working all day at any rate. I don't feel 17, and its crazy how fast time keeps zooming by!! It seems like I JUST turned 15 and 16!!

In Conclusion
That was like, the worlds longest blog post!! If you made it to this...I'm impressed. Mostly it was for Gordon and Scarlett, both of whom requested to know the goings on of life recently, so here you go guys. I don't feel like proof reading this right now, so sorry for any glaring errors. Hopefully I didn't bore anyone to death...if I did I'm most sorry!! I promise I'll start going back to random blogging that doesn't revolve around me soon!!

Countdown...

2006-05-19T20:54:00.000-05:00

Banquet is a week from today!! I can't believe it!! Life is soooooo insane right now, seeeeeriously. I'm in charge of the banquet video for the seniors, so i've been running around with the video camera all year, and now am trying to make the movie. I've spent the last 3-ish weeks working frantically, but i had NO idea the amount of work it would take. It's supposed to be finished on Monday so it can go thru all the red tape and stuff, but i don't know if thats gonna happen:-/ I haven't been to bed before 1:30 this entire week, last night it was 3 a.m....i'm not doing the greatest on 4 hours of sleep, let me tell ya. Plus I got a nasty cold from Paula Lou, so i feel vaugely like I got run over by a truck...a LARGE truck!! I also still need a purse, jewelry, and to order John's flowers, and to pick up my dress from getting its sleeves on...yes, it did have to get sleeves *rolls eyes*. Cuz sleeves are gonna solve all problems, right? whatever!! Anyway though, I have to go work MORE on the video. I'm DREAMING in video clips lately, too. OOOOOONNNNNNNEEE more week!!

Word of the Day

2006-05-11T20:02:00.000-05:00

What is the definition of an idiot? Someone who does the same thing over and over and expects different results. Yeah....I locked my keys in the car...while it was running...AGAIN...the other day.

Ooh, and happy blog birthday to me!! This is post number 70 if anyone was interested. I started blogging exactly one year ago today!! Crazy how fast time goes, isn't it?

State S.O. '06 (I)

2006-05-01T22:08:00.000-05:00

So, since my long promised Regionals post never made it up, I figure I better post about State. This post shall even have pictures eventually...prolly tomorrow nite, since the picture computer is shut down for the night and i'm too lazy to start it up again. Be advised that really these long winded Science O posts hold little value to anyone but me and my memories. I suppose you all know that though, right? So here we go.

State has been long in coming. Ever since the near disaster at Regionals for Senior High, we've all been working hard to at least make a reasonably decent showing at MSU. Junior High, having done INCREDIBLY well at Regionals had hopes for Nationals. Last Friday found the various building events once again at school, with the exception of Scrambler, because the launcher, dubbed Cleopatra, was at Coach P's house. I was trying to get Amos to help me do runs in between sanding his woods project, which was due today and had little to no hope of being finished anyway.

The air in the shop was filled with LOUD, mostly offkey singing of various songs..."He stopped loving her todaaaaaaay...", "The weekend's hee-ere...", "What hurts the most, is bein' so-o-oo close..." and Drew's song that I can't think of right now, as well as Lets Play a Love Scene from Fame, the play Maggie was in that I'd gone to see the night before with Abbs. This last one was the most irritating to Amos, as he didn't know it so he couldn't sing with me. We were laughing our heads off, realizing that nowhere but Science O could we so totally just be ourselves, without worrying about what other people thought. Its def. one of the best feelings in the world. There aren't a whole lot of people I feel more comfortable with than the Robot and Mission Possible guys, come to think of it. I guess once you've seen eachother at 1 in the morning trying to get something to work, or seen eachother bawling after losing an event...you don't get a whole lot closer than that.

Our best time so far had been a perfect 35 second run. We had been really happy with that, and were aiming for it again. Our first run that Friday afternoon was 36 seconds, which I was thrilled with. Unfortunately, it went down hill from there. After that one good run we couldn't manage to get below about 45 seconds without major problems. The frusterating thing was that it was all just STUPID stuff that we were messing up on!! Finally around 9:20 we did one last run, and Amos left around 9:30. As is tradition, Christie came to sleep at my house. On the way home, we stopped at McDonalds for ice cream. I kept trying to drive THROUGH the place, but for some reason Linz and Chris weren't too crazy about the whole idea. We made it home by about 10:30, which was easily a new record for the night before competiton!!

Christie and I looked at pictures of banquet last year, trying to get ideas for our dresses for awhile, reminiscing of times past. She got in the shower, and I studied for my Food Science event. We stayed up and talked for awhile, but I was sleeping by midnight, which was also def. a new night before competition record, considering that that night before Regionals I didn't get HOME until one in the morning!!

Unfortunately, the alarm went off waaaaaaaay too soon, at 4:45. We had to be at school by 6 sharp, and I still had to shower. By the time I got out, blow dried my hair, dragged Christie and Linz out off bed and upstairs for breakfast, we had about 20 minutes. Somehow, though, we made it to school only 5 minutes late. The bus left around 6:20, again only about 5 minutes behind schedule. The busride down to MSU alternately crawled and sped by. We were all anxious to get there, but as most of us were frantically doing last minute studying, the ride didn't seem quite long enough. We pulled up to team camp at about 7:45. The first events started at 8:45, by which time all the building events were required to be impounded. Amos and I impounded Gwinniper, and then Melvin and I headed off to Food Science.

Now 'tis 11:30...more tomorrow!!

A Poem For M'lady

2006-04-25T21:38:00.000-05:00

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I won't go

to Banquet with you!!

Isn't it beautiful?? I was deeply touched when these beautiful, Longfellow-esque words were recited to me today!! Actually I was laughing my head off...it was pretty funny. The other time...well, it wasn't really a good joke. Interesting how miracles and wonders can be vastly overrated, hmm? Oh well, if all else fails I can go with my dog, right??

Oh, and our robot broke today. I shall go cry now.

Hail to the Chief

2006-04-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

Today was the student council elections. I ran for president...and won. Sars is my VP and Christie and Lauren are my secretary and treasurer. Its pretty cool I guess...we haven't had a female president in ages. It'll be fun, the thing is now that I'm the top, I can't blame problems on anyone but myself, lol. Hopefully I don't have a nervous breakdown or anything....but then, spazzing out is what Erika does best, right? State is next week Saturday for Science O...i'm sooooooo nervous already!!

That's How Much THEY Know!!

2006-04-12T21:19:00.000-05:00

Whilst in Birch Run eating at the not-overly-good chinese restaurant, I bought a package of 12 fortune cookies. Since there were four of us, each got 3 cookies. My fortunes were the following:

You will continue to take chances and be glad you did.
Your dearest wish will come true

I got the chances one twice. In light of recent events, I can only conclude that fortune cookies are sadly mistaken much of the time.

Never a Dull Moment

2006-04-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

I've given up on the Regionals post. It just isn't coming, and it was so long ago that I don't really feel inspired anymore. If you want more details I can email you or something.

Today was my journey to the outlet mall with Sarah, Paula Lou, and Christy. This was our big plan since a few weeks ago. There was a bit of drama regarding drivers, but in the end I drove. We had plans to set off at 8, and we left pretty on schedule, around 8:20. I forgot to put earrings in though, so I had to go back and do that, lest it bother me the whole day. anyway, it was raining quite hard for the whole drive, so that wasn't cool. I'd gotten my CD converter thingie though, so we were serenaded by the Pirates of the Caribbean music and then the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack for most of the ride.

Sarah, though she is one of my dear friends, is THE WORST BACKSEAT DRIVER EVER!! due to this fact, she was in the back with christy, and Paula lou was my navigator. However, in my mirror I could see her huffing as I didn't pass a slower driver ahead of me. I saw her glance behind us and mutter ahemPASSahem. I figured it would be good to humor her, and started to do so. Paula did a headcheck for me, and goes "Erika, theres a car..." I had just seen Sarah check, so I said that she was wrong, there was no car. As I was saying this I checked, and there WAS, in fact, a car about 2 cm away from me. After bellowing at Sarah for telling me to pass when it wasn't SAFE, because OBVIOUSLY she should have known better, this is ERIKA, we recovered and made it to Birch Run a little after 10.

We all needed to use the bathroom pretty badly by then. In fact, Sarah was worried about getting a UTI (lol, DAN!!). Paula, who apparently was hungry, started asking about lunch right about then, but we ignored her and went on our way. We shopped for awhile, until Paula's cries of hunger were not to be ignored any longer. We went in search of Chinese, and found a Beijing Express to eat at. It should be duely noted that Christy wanted a salad for lunch, and Sarah doesn't like chinese that much. Despite this, or maybe because of it, we took about 3 hours to decide what we wanted to eat. The poor guy probably wanted to kill us!! Lunch was ok...i like the stuff in the mall better though.

By that time both Sarah and I were carrying bags from Gap and Rue 21. They do have pretty good sales around the outlets apparently. We went to Aero, AE, PacSun, and a whole bunch of other places. Paula was tired of shopping by about 2, but once again we ignored her. We talked Sarah and Christy into trying on some truly horrible dresses on at Bebe. We also took one of the infamous feet pictures at a shoestore. PacSun found us in huge sunglasses and cowboy hats laughing our heads off. We only got yelled at once. We were in Bath and Body, and they had some really cute nailpolish. Obviously we had to try it on, and while we were oohing and ahhing over the pretty colors, we were accosted by the saleslady. She wanted to know if we were using testers. We looked at her blankly, so she clarified "it would say TRY ME if it was a tester" . we assured her that were were only looking, and hastily made our retreat. Oh, and we looked for ducks for john, but sadly there were none;-) I ended up with a whole passel of t-shirts, a pair of khakis, a dress, a church outfit, and a bathing suit by the end of the excursion, which was around 5.

We sat in Tommy for awhile, trying to decide what to do next. I gave them their options: a) to simply stay all night, just pitch a tent, so we wouldn't have to move b) leave, and eat supper at somewhere on the way home c) eat supper then, and drive straight home or d) not eat at all. We ended up choosing b, which was our ultimate downfall (note use of foreshadowing). We crammed ourselves back into the car and turned on Brian Regan. I was laughing so hard a few times that I could barely drive. However, I calmed down, unfortunately it was to a near sleeping state. After I swerved a few times, Paula proclaimed it time for supper, so we got off at the somethingorother lake exit and pulled into a McDonalds/Mobil gas station.

As we unfolded ourselves from the confines of the car, Paula told me that she'd locked the doors, I just needed to close mine. My mom has this THING about me locking my doors, shes convinced that someone wants to stow away in my back seat and abduct me or something. Because of this, I always turn my car off, put my keys in my purse, and hit the lock button. I was still half asleep-ish, and I merely nodded at Paula, got out, and closed my door. As I walked to the front of the car and noticed my lights were still on, I realized my terrible error. I'D LEFT THE CAR RUNNING AND THE DOORS WERE LOCKED!! This realization struck me in a very hard way. I was NOT happy to say the least, nor were any of my passengers.

We looked at one another in panic. we were an hour away from home...there wasn't anyone in the near vicinity to rescue us. We entered the gas station and asked if there was a hanger we could use to make the door unlock. Sarah and Paula had both seen it done, and therefore thought they would be able to duplicate the procedure. I informed them that I'd SEEN people perform surgery, but that didn't I mean I was going to go cut some person open!! They told me to stop being such a spazz. After a bit of hassle, we got our hanger. We trooped back outside, where it should be noted that it was about 15 degrees with the VERY cold wind. When my cohorts had seen the door being opened, had been by guys. It was somewhere around then that we realized that we are NOT, in fact, guys. We weren't strong enough to get the door pried open enough to cram the coat hanger down it. I called a whole bunch of guys, and was finally got ahold of Jesse, who said to try to pry it more yadda yadda.

Our approach obviously wasn't working, so we asked a big strong looking guy in one of those blue workers jumpsuit things who was about to enter the gas station to help us. After buying a 6 pack of beer (to help him be strong perhaps?) he came out and helped us pry the door open. He was very nice, cramming practically his whole hand in while sarah tried to get the hanger to push the button. Unfortunately, the hanger wasn't very stable and kept bending. After repeated unfruitful attempts, we grew more and more discouraged. Finally, some other guy came over laaaaaaaughing his head off. We forgave him that minor misdeed due to the fact that he carried with him a wedge and a thingie to use to push the button. He got us into the car in less than a minute. After profuse praise and thanksgiving to both men, we went into McDonalds and got our supper about 45 minutes AFTER we started out to do so.

Back on the road, I was now faaaaaaar from tired. We were wired with the oodles of candy I'd purchased for the occasion, plus the incredulity of managing to lock the keys in. I was trying to eat one of my pies when I swerved slightly and ran over the rumble strips. I was pretty sure I was going to go deaf from the screams that came to my ears from the back seat. I assured them that I was merely testing the rumble strips to be sure they still worked. I don't think the girls were comforted. Also, it was brought to my attention that I speed up and slow down continually, which apparently isn't the thing to do. Sarah said something about throttling me I'm pretty sure. We had a blast the last 45 minutes of the ride. We made it home at 8:01...we'd been shooting for 8:00 even, but close enough:-)

All in all, it was a great day. Not so great events of last night were overshadowed by the extreme fun, laughs, and memories made over the 12 hours we spent together. I'm jinxed when it comes to driving, but at least I didn't end up in Big Rapids today. There was never a dull moment, between trying on clothes, eating candy, taking pictures, and lauuuuuuughing like insane people. It was a great way to end spring break!!

Such Nonsense!!

2006-04-03T14:58:00.000-05:00

ITS SPRING BREAK!! Finally!! I'm more than a little excited, for anyone who cares. Unfortunately its rainy and nasty out...psh, it figures. I'm working on my Regionals post, but in the meantime, due to the great impatience of our dear celloist, I shall post the following.

At a recent assembly, we were informed that there would be no more marking upon the skin of others with pen. Apparently, parents and teachers were complaining about it, and such will be seen as bullying and hazing. If a teacher discovers such marks on a student, he or she will ask from whence it came and will take measures to ensure the mark-er will be dealt with appropriately. Now, bear to mind that I am the official giver of marks of coolness (as written about in earlier posts). When this wonderful practice was started, it was in no way meant to haze or bully. In fact, if anyone knows me at all they would know I am FAR from the type of person to engage in such behavior. This pretty much destroys a whole tradition of the 05-06 school year. To say I am deeply appalled at the state of this nonsense is a gross understatement. To John, Chaz and all those who joined me in the giving of marks of coolness, I wish to extend my deepest apologies at this whole bit of insanity.

Wonder of Wonders...

2006-03-27T23:31:00.000-06:00

Tonight, at the late..or maybe early...hour of 12:23 a.m., I am unable to sleep due to the wonderful happenings of the last few days. among other things:

Our Science O teams, junior and senior high, made it to state!! A huge long post elaborating on this shall be forthcoming.
I had the opportunity to sleeeeeeeeeeeeep again!! this is significant for reasons that shall be told in the huge long forthcoming post.
I got an email from mrs miskinvich, giving a whole bunch of details about Africa for this summer, if all goes well.
I have oodles of homework, but I'm not stressed out about it for some unknown reason...prolly due to relief that Regionals are over, and life in general just seems more managable again.
Doug, whom I haven't updated about in like, two months, is doing incredibly well. He went thru his BMT with flying colors, and was blessed to return home far earlier than expected. All the prayers were greatly appreciated, and hopefully will continue to come!!
My wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles has, this very night, worked out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never in a million years thought this could happen. It doesn't seem real. Who knows how this is all going to end up, but for right now, we're all gonna live happily ever after.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. I fully intend to have good dreams tonight.

Tragedy

2006-03-22T22:08:00.000-06:00

I have tragic news this late night hour. It seems that my beautiful Betta fish named Pedro has passed away sometime during today. Details about the death are sketchy, but he is no longer with us. I'm very sad at his loss, though I am glad I don't have to worry about cleaning his tank anymore. He was a wonderful fish, given me for a birthday present last May, as some of you may remember. He shall be missed. Flowers and condolences can be sent to school...I'm there endlessly lately anyway!!

Ponderation

2006-03-15T16:35:00.000-06:00

Two people have the exact same reaction to something. Do great minds think alike? or is it fools seldom differ?

Much Confusion

2006-03-09T21:30:00.000-06:00

So, if someone tells me theoretically that she meant it figuratively, but in a literal sense, should I be confused?

Good Call

2006-03-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

The moral of the story of the fox, the crow, and the cheese is don't talk with your mouth full.

Just a LITTLE Off-Part II

2006-02-28T15:14:00.000-06:00

Just before falling asleep, Christie mentioned to me that she was pretty sure some of the Road Scholar info she needed for the event was in Dan's locker. As we were pulling out behind Mr. Kamp, I remembered this and asked Chris and Dan if they'd figured it out. Upon figuring out that they didn't have the info, I pulled back in the parking lot so they could go find it. As I waited for them with Dominic, Mr. Kamp came back in and asked if we wanted him to wait so we could follow him. I had a map that looked reasonably easy for someone to give me directions from, and Mr Kamp really needed to get to West Ottawa to get everything to work as far as registration and stuff. For those reasons, I told him that we would be fine, to go ahead. He agreed, and left. Dan and Chris came out without the necessary info, and we left without it, hoping that the other people on the event had it. I called one of the other people and they did end up having it.

With that minor crisis delt with, Christie and Dan were named navigators, since I can't read a map or tell direction if my life depended on it, esp. if I have no clue where I'm going. They directed me to the highway, and we were off. Apparently I'm not a very even driver. I slow down and speed up alot, and supposedly i'm not very good at staying in my lane. Christie was reading to me about capacitors when I noticed how PRETTY the land we were driving through was. I commented that I don't remember noticing it last year when I'd ridden out there. It was about 8:15 when I decided to call Coach P. to see what exit it was that we had to get off, since the directions didn't really say and I had no clue where exactly we were.

He answered his phone and upon hearing my question, asked where we were. I looked up at that exact moment to see a sign that read Big Rapids, one mile. Big Rapids is about an 45 minutes north of Grand Rapids, about an hour and a 1/4 away from West Ottawa. I almost had a heart attack as I read this to Phil. "YOU'RE WHERE???????" he bellowed. "PLEASE tell me you're kidding." "Umm actually not...CRAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!" was my spazzed out reply. I got off at the first available exit and pulled into a gas station. I was NOT happy at this point. Phil wasn't either. He told me I was DEF. going to need more gas. Dominic got out and pumped $20 worth of gas into my tank, and I handed the phone to Dan for Phil to give directions to. Apparently we had taken 131 North instead of 31 north!! ONLY 100 off.

We were supposed the be at West Ottawa in about 45 minutes at that point. All devices had to be impounded by 9 a.m. Since both the robots and the scramblers were in my van, there was NO way that was happening. This fact did NOT make any of us happy. Dominic and I both had events at 9, and Dan was supposed to run his scrambler at 9:30. With all this in mind and new directions in Dan's possesion, we set off back to where we were supposed to be. I set the cruise control at 83 and crossed my fingers no cops would be around. Chris was laughing her slightly hysterical laugh, and Dan was convinced he was going to get a urinary tract infection from having to pee so bad.

It was around the time when we realized there was NO way we were going to make our 9 o'clock events that Christie's voice cut the tension...."Erika, SLOW DOWN, there's a COP car!!!" I was NOT happy with this turn of events. "I do NOT need a ticket on TOP of all this!!" I bellowed back. Dan and Dominic where looking back at the cop we'd just flown by. He was pulling out after us...and I was pretty much hysterical at that point. I could have sworn I saw his lights go on, too. Thankfully, he must have needed a donut or something, because he didn't follow us. I called Phil again, this time inquiring about impounding. I found out that they weren't going to let the robots run for points, but that they would let the scramblers run, and probably just push back Dan's run time so he would be able to make it. This was pretty much devestating to me. I'd spent HOURS the night before on Brutus and Gwinniper, and now that was all a total waste. NOT cool at all.

We were supposed to get on some other highway at that point, and I followed Dan's directions, figuring that it would seem we were going the right way. By now it was a few minutes before 9. We were supposed to get off at exit 55. Glancing at the signs we saw exit 36-ish, and figured it would be awhile. We drove on, still in a state of disbelief about everything that was happening to us. It just didn't seem fair!! After a few minutes, Dan was the first to notice yet another problem...the numbers were going DOWN!! We had reached exit 25 when he pointed this out. This resulted in another call to Phil. “So Phil, we’re supposed to get off at exit 50, right?” “Yeah…” He replied warily. “Ok, so if we’re at exit 24, how come the exits are going DOWN??” “Hang on, 24?? Where ARE you???” “Well, the exit coming up says Marne…that isn’t right?” “NOOOOOO!!”

There we were, going the wrong way yet AGAIN!! We had taken 196 instead of I-196…or something like that. So we got off at the next exit, and Phil once again gave Dan directions to get me to wherever the heck we were supposed to be next. By this time, it was after 9, and my frustration and that of everyone else in the car was mounting. FINALLY though, we were pretty sure we were on the right track. The only major issue at that point was that we ALL had to pee.

As Dan and Christie directed me, I finally recognized exactly where we were. It was right by Phil and Paula and Amos’s houses…if someone had just TOLD me to go toward their houses it would have been SO much easier. We were on the right road this time…Phil had made the directions VERY clear this time. Chris, Dominic, Dan and I by this time were despairing of making the 9 o’clock event at ALL by this point as it was nearing 20 to 10. Christie was spazzing out because she and Abbs were in Write It/Do It, an event that REQUIRED two people. Abbs isn’t on the team, so it would be her only chance to compete in that event. Chris REALLY wanted to be there for it. Dan was supposed to run the trebuchet for Storm the Castle at 10:15 and he really needed to be there. We were definitely all a bit stressed, to say the least.

We saw the sign that announced Holland within a reasonable amount of time. Now all we had to do was end up on 31 (NOT 131!!) and turn off of that onto something and then somewhere else, and then get to the school…theoretically it wouldn’t be that hard, right? Hopefully by now you’ve realized that nothing is easy for those of us in that car. The directions specifically mentioned shopping malls that we should have seen on our way in. Somehow we were in the middle of downtown Holland by the market or something and we’d never seen any malls.

Of course this led to yet another panicked call to Phil. At this point he turned the phone over to Mr. Ash, who knew the area better. Then Chris Blok called Dan’s phone to ask about the trebuchet charts for Storm the Castle. Mr. Ash gave Dominic directions, and Dan had Chris get people to be waiting for us at the door of West Ottawa. We pulled into the school at about 10:10. We’d totally missed the 9 o’clock events and were late for the 10 o’clock ones. Mr. and Mrs. Ash, Phil, Chris, and I think a couple other people were waiting for us. I grabbed my bag and binders and went flying inside, Christie and Dan followed suit. Mr. Ash was so gracious as the park my van for me, and Chris and Phil and stuff helped Dan get everything where it needed to be.

I arrived at Chem Lab, my 10 o’clock event, huffing and puffing and about to keel over…I’m VERY out of shape, let me tell ya!! I walked in, only to discover that Amber, my partner in the event, had grabbed Ashley and brought her in at the last second for moral support since I wasn’t there. Rather dismayed and disappointed at having missed two of my four events, plus the robot that I wouldn’t get to run, so really three of my four events, I slunk to the team camp. Paula Lou, my faithful sidekick, was there to give me a big hug. That started a few tears…the stress, sleeplessness, stupidity, and unfairness of it all caught up with me for a second, lol. But after letting go for that instant I pulled back together and went to watch the other spectator events, since Astronomy, my last event, wasn’t until 1.

The trebuchet was entertaining. Chris and Dan forgot to adjust the angle of some pin thingie or other, so it flew BACKWARD…not quite what they’d had in mind. Then too their charts were in feet, when they actually needed to be in meters. Minor setbacks, to be sure. The scramblers were both quite a spectacle. We had been worrying about them hitting the table super hard…we shouldn’t have. They went about 7 feet and stopped. Thankfully no one had very high hopes for them to actually work. Bri saw the name…Cleopatra…on the laucher and about had a breakdown. We told him that as coach, if he’d been there to control the actions of the night before he would have been able to stop the decorations. There really wasn’t a whole lot he could say to that.

Rumor had it that they might let us run the robots, and word came to me that it was a TRUE rumor. I went happily out to get them from my van and Brandon, the guy who I was going to have run the robot, and I went and impounded Brutus and Gwinniper. Brutus’s left wheel was about to break at any minute, as the last second repairs Nate and I had made the night before were by no means professional. I warned Amos, who would drive him, of that little qwirk, telling him that Brutus could well just break down in the middle of the run. Gwinniper pretty much gave me heart failure yet again when I realized that one of her wheels didn’t run. Brandon solved the issue temporarily by just pulling the controller a certain way.

I went off to do my Stars test with Scott pretty soon after that. We ran out of time and didn’t know how to do a couple of the things, but we felt pretty good about it. Since I was in stars when Amos ran Brutus, I didn’t get to see how that went. He reported that the wheel had broken part way through, but he’d managed to finish despite that. Brandon ran Gwinniper at 3:10. We weren’t trying to accomplish much else beyond pushing a few things around and calling it good. We accomplished that goal easily.

The rest of the time was ours until the awards ceremony at 4. We sat around and chitchatted for awhile about the events of the day. I had about 5 gazillion people offer me maps, directions, and navigation systems, and another 5 gazillion tell me that 31 and 131 are 100 off…I KNEW THAT ALREADY!! We packed everything up a little before four and headed to the gym for the awards. No one was overly optimistic. Several of the study events were pretty sure they’d totally bombed. Those of us in building events KNEW we had.

Our fears were realized in some areas, but greatly wrong in others. Since it was an invitational, there were only 33 teams present. Also, no matter what the overall score was, everyone was going the Regionals, the official first competition. Many of the schools present had more than one time, for example we had Plymouth Silver and Plymouth Blue. In Astronomy, Scott and I got 6th place, which was kind of disappointing, but acceptable…to me at least. Neil, on the other team, got 3rd, which was really good, too. Dan and Brandon got 2nd in Dynamic planet, for which I was VERY excited for them. Christie and Abbs managed to medal 5th in Write it/Do It, as well. Chris and Dan both totally deserved to do so well after the chaos of the morning. Neil and Amos were VERY happy with their first place in circuits, the event that I was on with Scott at 9 but I’d missed. Scott didn’t medal, but he got 8th in it, which is amazingly good considering he was by himself and we hadn’t learned how to do stuff in 2 of the 3 problems!! Paula and Joel surprised themselves in getting 3rd in Forensics, which was the event they said they hadn’t even had time to finish!! Lauren and Meg got 4th in Health Science, an event that had them nearly in tears when they walked out of it. Several other events medaled, as well. Overall though, it wasn’t good enough for the Blue team to be in the top 6. The silver team, however, got 5th overall, which was quite impressive. The lack of medals, however, will hopefully inspire everyone to work harder.

On the way home, only Dan and Dominic rode with me. Dan was pretty much the worst backseat driver ever. He quite literally told me when to speed up, slow down, turn on my signals, and he and Dom made it their personal responsibility to do my head checks for me so I could stay looking straight ahead. I followed Mr. Kamp back out of town, never once letting him out of my sight. The way he went out was def. NOT the same way we’d come in. I have NO clue how we made it from where we had been!! We made it back to school in less than 45 minutes…a far cry from the almost 3 hours we’d been in the car on the way.

It was a day that taught us all a lot. We had a lot of fun in some of our events, and made memories that we’ll never forget. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard or been so frustrated since…Mission Possible in 9th grade and last year. This was only West Ottawa…I can’t wait to see what happens before Regionals!!

Only a LITTLE Off- Part I

2006-02-27T21:47:00.000-06:00

All good stories start out once upon a time. This story should definently NOT be starting that way!! This past Friday I stayed after school to work on Gwinniper and Brutus, the two robot we were going to run at West Ottawa the next day. Theoretically, the repairs that needed to be made were minor. By now I should know that NOTHING in Science O is ever minor. Coach N. was waiting at 3 to help me make the necessary repairs. We quickly did so, and Nate left by 4. I had to finish up Brutus and do a practice run on Gwinniper, and plus I had to wait for Christie and Dan to be done with their Scrambler (named Cleopatra, much to Bri's great dismay when he found out). That wasn't happening in the foreseeable future. Chris and Dan tend to be rather...snippy to each other. Mostly its all in good fun. However, without the guidance of a coach, neither Brutus nor Cleopatra was getting much in the way of construction.

Throughout the course of the night, Dan, Chris and I bonded in a way that only late nights at school can bond a group of people. Dan managed to burn Christie in the neck with a drill, which apparently was just retaliation for a hot glue burn she'd given him earlier. I was trying to study the HUGE stack of stars info Coach P. had given me at the end of the day for my astronomy event the next day, as well. Cleopatra wasn't working out quite as planned. She just wasn't firing right, and Dan was getting a LITTLE irritated. I finally got around to taking Gwinniper out of her box, only to take another half hour or so to figure out which controller was the right one. However, once I located it, I realized that Gwinniper was not going anywhere. I called Coach N. in a panic. After figuring out that something really was wrong, he said that he'd be there in a few minutes.

True to his word, he arrived around 7. He quickly discovered the problem with Gwinniper, that her box that Amos had built was too heavy. He put me to work tearing the metal box off and building a new wood one. He also helped Dan and Christie with Cleopatra, giving them something to do as well. In the 45 or so minutes he was there, we accomplished a ton. He had to leave, however, and from that minute on, things went downhill. Mr Blok left around 1/4 to 9, and Mr VanderWaal shortly thereafter. This left Dan, Chris and I alone in the school. Being the honest and upright kids we are, we didn't destroy a single thing:-) We listened to a CD or two, but that was about it.

We were all pretty crabby and stressed out. We'd never actually gotten around to eating supper, either. By around 9, we all figured out that it was NOT working!! I'd found Brutus to have another issue, and Gwinniper kept falling over backwards. The Scramblers were having issues far worse than the robots. In despair, I called Coach N. yet again around 9:30. After a bit of confusion, he arrived at school to bail us out yet AGAIN. Let me impress upon you that Nate is the COACH of Robot. I'm on the event, and so are a couple other people, none of whom were there. Nate also is NOT the coach of Scrambler, yet as soon as he helped me re-fix Gwinniper he immediately asked Dan what was wrong and how he could help. Needless to say Coach N. was quite high on our list of people we really appreciated that night!!

Nate managed to help us all put everything relatively right. Neither scrambler was working quite as it should, but they were passable. This was the case for both the robots, as well. He told us all to go home and get a good nights sleep. He left at around 10:20, and we left school at 10:40. SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS working on those devices...and a whole bunch of less than savory words, yelling, spazzing out, burning, singing, laughing, and bonding had taken place in that time.

Chris and I stopped at Forest Hills to get ourselves some food....Christie said something about being famished and hungry enough to eat a horse. By the time we got home and ate and tried to wind down a bit, it was after midnight. We climbed into bed and studied and talked on and off until 2 a.m., when Chris fell asleep. All the stress and everything must have really gotten to me, though, because I never actually went to sleep. A little before 5 I gave up trying to sleep, figuring that an hour of sleep would be worse than none at all. I studied my circuits stuff for an hour before getting up and showering at 6. After I got out and got dressed, I woke the near comatose Christie from her sound sleep and we had breakfast and finished getting ready.

We had to be at school by 7:15 to get our ride out to West Ottawa. I had both robots as well as the scrambler launcher in the back of my van, all of which had to get to the competition. The plan had been to ride with Mr. Kamp. Our plan went awry when we realized there was no way any of it was fitting in his van. I agreed to driving, making it easier on all of us. I would follow Mr. Kamp and all would be fine. Christie, Dan, and Dominic all piled into my van. We would be arriving at West Ottawa by 8:30 according to the present timetable. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Guesses on what happened next? Those of you who know can NOT tell!!

Tradition

2006-02-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

This past Friday I went to see the Sikmas in Fiddler on the Roof. It was an AWESOME play, I loved it. In keeping with tradition, I did manage to get myself lost on the way. I've never been on M6 or out to the Caledonia part of town, so I guess I have a LITTLE excuse as to how I ended up going in a complete circle and using half a tank of gas. Poor Pete must cringe whenever we do something and he sees my number, calling frantically to figure out where the heck I am!! I don't know what it is, but EVERY time I manage to get lost. Me, Abbs, Lauren, and Paula (Christie, I REALLY missed you!!) arrived about 2 minutes before they were scheduled to start. Thanks to early planning we had great seats (thanks to John for getting us those tickets!!). The play was about 3 hours long, but it FLEW by. Much of the humor was stuff that us PCHS people appreciated ("as the good book says..." and "for someone who was slow of speech, he sure talked a lot!!" among other things). The rest of the play had us laughing much of the time as well ("yes, and from THOSE children come OTHER children!!" and lots more). I finally learned where Yenta-izing came from!! Yente and her matchmaking had me laughing over and over again....that would be SO much fun!! Throughout it all the amount of FUN all the kids were having was totally obvious to me. Abbs and I were both VERY jealous of their opportunity to perform in such a way. The music was great, too. The matchmaker song and the tradition one were in my head for awhile, as was the Rich Man song. The last song they sang at the very end almost brought tears to my eyes. Pete made a great Lazar Wolfe...his pillow stuffed up his shirt was hilarious. John the beggar (no, the begggar!!) and his carrot, plus the hat he held on his head made me and Paula laugh every time we saw him. The rest of the cast did a wonderful job, as well. I know I had a blast, and I've VERY glad I went!!

Bah Humbug!!

2006-02-13T14:38:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentines Day....here's to another year of kissing frogs!!

Hallmark Cards

2006-02-02T21:28:00.000-06:00

This semester we have to take Speech class. Today I gave my introduction speech. I could introduce whoever I wanted, and say whatever I wanted. We were supposed to pretend we were introducing our person to an audience that he or she would be speaking to. I knew who I would do right away. Someone imaginary, but one who I could talk about endlessly. This was, more or less, my speech.

There’s no such thing as the perfect guy, right? That IS true. However, I believe that with a little guidance even the most pathetic guy can turn out pretty good. That’s what we’re going to show you this afternoon.

I know for me, the search for the elusive “prince charming” seemed hopeless. I’d read the happily ever after books, seen the movies, and spent countless hours daydreaming about a perfect guy that would make me happy. I’d nearly given up hope when one day I met a guy named Ethan.

Rather than your typical girl-sees-guy-and-falls-madly-in-love scenario, Ethan and I were friends. We hung out a lot. We liked to do the same things and had the same sense of humor. He could always cheer me up if I was having a bad day. We talked about everything, and no matter what we did we always had fun.

We’d been friends for awhile when Ethan asked me out. I was surprised at first, and I had no clue what to do. I did NOT want to ruin our friendship. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized what a great guy Ethan really was. I put aside my fears and accepted the date.

It turned out to be the first of many for us. Ethan was great. He would send me flowers at work and call me just to hear my voice. Before I knew it, entirely unconsciously, I realized that I had fallen in love with Ethan. He continued to be his wonderful self. I loved how his eyes lit up when he saw me, and how he would spend ages picking out the perfect Hallmark card because he knew I loved them. He would call whenever one of “our songs” came on the radio.

We had our ups and downs, neither of us is without our faults. All in all, however, Ethan was an awesome guy. It was the little things, the cards, songs, flowers, plus all the laughs and good times we shared that made him so special to me. When he asked me to marry him, I was more than happy to say yes. Ethan loves me for who I am, no matter what.

Now he is here today to help all of you guys become better boyfriends and husbands. Please help me welcome Ethan, MY perfect guy.

Sadly, Ethan isn’t a real person. He’s actually a guy off of a Hollister bag from spring break two years go, lol. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could just find the REAL Ethan now?!? He’s GOT to be out there somewhere. Let me know if you find him, k?

Vodka Pancakes

2006-01-30T20:02:00.000-06:00

On Saturday Linz and I went over to the Sikma's house, who were going to make us breakfast. I knew they lived on Lake Michigan Drive on a hill between two white walls. I'd read John's emailed directions Friday afternoon, but was unable to look at 'em again Saturday due to my challenged computer. We got off the exit and headed up LkMiDr, but didn't see the house we sought. I turned down Covell, spotting the Englesma apple stand, planning on stopping there to call and get further directions. As I turned, I called the Sikmas and Pete answered. Unfortunately, it turns out the driveway to the applestand is rather small, not even appearing to BE a driveway until you're half way past it. Added to the fact that I was on the phone, it is MORE than understandable that I missed the drive, but didn't quite make the NEXT one I was aiming for. Instead I went FLYING over BOTH curbs. Linz and I were screaming our heads off and laughing VERY hard. Pete, on the other end, was asking rather worriedly if we were ok. He gave me directions from there. We got in the turn lane as instructed, only to find that cars go rather fast on Lake Michigan Drive. After waiting for quite awhile, I decided to just go. I came screeching into the Sikmas driveway, finally safe and sound.

We entered the house to see John with the box of pancake mix in front of him and Pete trying to decide if he should make scrambled eggs or an omelet. Soon enough the pancake recipe done, but John proclaimed something missing. He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a clear bottle labeled vodka!! I was a bit dubious, but Pete assured me it was homemade vanilla. Pete had decided to make omelets. I put myself in charge of making the pancakes. I made a lovely P for Pete, J for John, and L for Linz. Pete tried to make an E for me, but alas, it looked more like a sideways hippo. I was soon ejected from my post, as I supposedly flipped the pancakes too soon. I was redeemed by my wonderful sourcream coffee cake, which thankfully was only eaten by PEOPLE, not large dogs named Hunter!! With our milk, juice, eggs, pancakes, and coffeecake we had LOTS of cornerstones of a complete breakfast!!

We got a tour of the "pre civil war" house, complete with a showing of where the soldiers got embalmed and how the large front picture window was used for viewings of bodies for passersby. Linz and I got special viewings of the movies that the Sikmas made with the Miskinvich's, including the deadly banana man and the curse of the fur coat. TRUE STORY!! The movies made me rather melancholy, missing the miskinvich's. One part, with Gordon declaring how it had been difficult for him to play a part of a murdering drugdealer because he wasn't a violent guy by nature, had me laughing, but also wanting to cry at the memories it brought back. Its SO much fun hanging out with the Sikmas, they always put me in an awesome mood, but its not quite the same as with the Miskinvichs.

Prayers...

2006-01-25T21:10:00.000-06:00

I don't have any inspiration for a regular post, but Doug and Chris are on my mind right now. As you may remember, Doug is a senior at good ole PCHS and our Student Council VP. He has been fighting leukemia for over a year now. He's awesome, dealing with everything with a smile on his face. He's a great role model!! Anyway, right now he's in Ann Arbor with his sister Christie, a good friend of mine, awaiting tomorrow when, if all goes well, his bone marrow transplant will take place. Christie is Doug's donor and will be giving him her stem cells so his bone marrow will start working right again (...or something like that). The weeks and months ahead will tell if the transplant is successful, but this is the beginning of it all. I'm asking all of you out there to pray for Doug, Chris, the Timmer family, and all the doctors working with Doug. Here in GR we can't do much else but pray...so please join me in doing that.

2020

2006-01-19T11:34:00.000-06:00

BREAKING NEWS- Erika VanUnknown has just announced her intent to run for president in the 2020 elections. She plans to have John Sikma be her vice-president. She plans to run on a Hugs, Not Drugs platform. Says VanUnknown, "It's very important for kids today to remember to make good choices!!" Sikma agrees, saying, "Hugs can fix anything, even cars." Together they plan to implement a new policy regarding boyfriends and girlfriends. They intend to outlaw such relations altogether. Aware of the controversy that could surround such an issue, VanUnknown says, "Boys are VERY overrated. Who needs them?" Sikma, from the other side, says that though he doesn't want a boyfriend as he's not gay, he agrees with VanUnknown. More information on the election to follow.

It's Official

2006-01-10T21:00:00.000-06:00

The Miskins no longer reside in the house by the church. In fact, they don't even live here in GR anymore. This morning at 6 they boarded the flight and left us. A whole bunch of us went to the airport at 4, which has made for an extremely long day. We were all crying our eyes out by the time they hugged us good bye.

Scarlett is kind of like another little sister to me. I've just gotten to know her better in the last couple months, but I wish we'd begun talking long ago. We started the triple L club together, commiserating about guys. We made bets about bowling, and she won. We gave marks of coolness, too. We've laughed a lot together, and now we've def. cried together. I'll miss her a TON!!

Mrs. Miskin was great. She was always willing to let us come hang out at her house without any fuss. She's also one of the classiest ladies I know. She greatly encouraged me in my plans of going to SA this summer. She told me that if it's God's will and if I've been called to work with the kids as she belives I am, that a way will work out for me to come. I hope and pray so much that she's right.

Gordon, of course, is the one I'll miss the most. Our relationship is the hardest to explain. Although we weren't as close as we once had been, we had a really special friendship. He knew me all too well, and sometimes it seemed like he could read my mind. We had so many good times together. Bowling, our looooong phone convo's, his violent computer games, Mean Girls, his awesome accent, his soap operas with Con, hallmark cards, Austin Powers, and SO much more. He was always willing to listen to me, no matter how retarded I was being. It seems like when I need someone to understand me, he'd be the one I'd want to talk to. He made school so much fun. He picked up on the tiniest teacher quirks and mocked them like CRAZY. He could do the BEST imitations of anyone you could think of. He told the greatest stories and could BS with the best of 'em. No matter how bad of a day you were having, he could make you laugh. He was so much a part of all of us, and now he's gone. Our class isn't going to be the same without him. I miss him already.

In some ways, it doesn't seem real that they're gone. I think the next time I wanna talk to one of 'em and they aren't there is when it's really gonna sink in. I can't call Gordon up anymore just to talk. When it's 9 pm here, the time Scarlett usually gets on IM, it'll be 2 pm there, so I'm sure I won't talk to her as much. The whole idea makes me cry. Who knows when, if ever, we'll see the Miskins again. Lord willing I'll make it down there this summer, but who knows what'll happen in the months that follow. I think that they are in Africa now, I'm not quite sure. I hope that the looooong flight went well. Pray that the mission efforts they will work on will be successful. Pray that the family will be able to settle in and be ok. Pray for all of us who they left behind who are having a hard time without them

I miss you guys, and I'll never, EVER forget you.

2005 Survey

2006-01-02T11:27:00.000-06:00

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before? Lets see, I got my ears peirced, I got a real job, I started volunteering at the children's hospital, and I'm sure other stuff, too. The hardest part of this thing is going to be figuring out what happened when!!
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't think I really made any actually. Next year my resolultion is to keep better track of how I spend my money!!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? my cousin Kate had a little boy
4. Did anyone close to you die? not really. a little boy, Crew, from the hospital that I hung out with died though. He was only 2...adorable little guy. Pray for his family.
5. What countries did you visit? Sadly, I didn't really go anywhere out of the US.
6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005? MONEY!! that and more time to just do what I want to, not homework or work!!
7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? all the saturday mornings for Mission Possible...Feb 4, the night we spent at Walkottons, the BEST sleepover of the year!!...March 19 and April 30, reigonals and State science olympiad competitions....March 30, the day we left for AZ for spring break....April 15 and May 27, got asked to and went to banquet...May 29, my bday!!...June 9, seniors graduated....July 11, 12, HOFFMASTER!!....August 16-18, cran hill...August 26, got my drivers liscense....SEptember 16, first time we hung out with the Sikmas...Sept 24, Race for the Cure....October 18, found out Doug relapsed....November 18, operation Christmas Child shopping, Footloose muscial....December 17, Gordon's going away party
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? all my stuff I've organized, esp. Race for the Cure and OCC
9. What was your biggest failure? still not getting help for someone who I KNOW needs it
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?nothing major....lots of colds
11. What was the best thing you bought? all those bags of gummi bears!!
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?everyone who is still out there doing their best!! Also the Timmer family, who are still hanging in there, esp. Doug!!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? the crazy people running around killing and raping and abusing others
14. Where did most of your money go? graduation, birthday, and christmas presents
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? junior high MP getting a perfect minute!! and senior high MP medaling at regionals!! and going to banquet!! and raising $1100 and filling 128 shoeboxes!!
16. What song will always remind you of 2005? She Will be Loved
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? right at this minute prolly about the same b) thinner or fatter? prolly the same .c) richer or poorer? the only good one...a little bit richer I'd say
18. What do you wish you'd done more of? hanging out with the miskins
19. What do you wish you'd done less of? spazzing out
20. How will you be spending New Year's? I spent it working and then watching a movie...quite boring
22. Did you fall in love in 2005? kinna sorta i guess...but can you really be in love at my age?
24. What was your favorite TV program? Friends!!
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? nope, it takes too much energy to really hate people!!
26. What was the best book you read? The Truth about Forever, by Sarah Dessen
27. What was your greatest musical discovery? the stuff on 104.5
28. What did you want and get? to go to banquet...to sucessfully organize OCC
29. What did you want and not get? a certain guy...to have a car
30. What was your favorite film of this year? A Cinderella Story
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I went to church...it was on a sunday. Thankfully the days before I hung out with a bunch of fun people (Joe, Bri, Jen, Jon, and all the other people at banquet, and Jen, Jon, Paula, Christy, and Lanae at mini golfing) I turned 16
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? getting asked out...not that I NEED a guy btw....earning enuff $$ for a car and a plane ticket
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005? same as its always been!! lots of skirts cuz of school, plus jeans and sweatshirts for saturdays. Ooh, and I LOVE those gauzy filmy lacy shirts, too.
34. What kept you sane? Paula Lou and the Harem, my Better 1/4's, and Maggie, who loves to hear all about the Plymouth drama, but can be totally seperate from it
36. What political issue stirred you the most? umm...i can't really think of one right now...omg, that sounds so ignorant!! Ok, thought of one on inspiration from Abbs. The war seems so removed and far away, but before June a couple of my good friends are leaving for it, and that scares the crap out of me!!
37. Who did you miss? the seniors!!
38. Who was the best new person you met? the Sikmas prolly...i didn't meet a whole lot of new people
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005: that change is something that happens, and it def. sux sometimes, but life DOES go on somehow!!
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: Every little thing that you say or do, I'm hung up, I'm hung up on you, Waiting for your callBaby night and day, I'm fed up, I'm tired of waiting on you-and just for the record thats not JUST about a guy!!

Good Songs!!

2005-12-28T17:45:00.000-06:00

Just Want You to Know-Backstreet Boys
I just want you to know
that I've been fighting to let you go
Some days I make it through
and then there's nights that never end
I wish that I could believe
that there's a day you'll come back to me
But still I have to say
I would do it all again
Just want you to know

Everytime-Simple Plan
Everytime I see your face
Everytime you look my way
It's like it all falls into place
And everything feels right
Ever since you walked away
You left my life in disarray
All I want is one more day
All I need is one more day with you

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad-Def Leppard
Have you ever needed someone so bad, yeah
Have you ever wanted someone you just couldn't have
Did you ever try so hard
that your world just fell apart
Have you ever needed someone so bad

Petunia's Advice

2005-12-19T21:33:00.000-06:00

How to Get Over a Guy
(by Petunia McGillicuddy)
with added commentary by me

1. Realize that anything good in him, is somewhere inside you, too, because you were able to notice it in him and value it.
I'm not so sure about the goodness part...you Plymouth people who know the whole T in TULIP know what I mean. However, it does seem reasonable that we can see the good traits in the guy, which is what we'd like to see in ourselves, and maybe he brings that out in us.

2. Sit at home and cry as much as you want until you are ready to stop crying. watch really depressing movies about people who kill themselves over love (so you vicariously experience self-indulgence) and then watch movies where bad things happen to good people for no reason (so that you feel compelled to get off your tushy and counterbalance the bad that happens in the world).
I LOVE this part!! I tend more to write looooong notes to friends that go in circles and really say nothing, but are very bemoaning and tragical. Also, watching movies where they live happily ever after is more my style. A Cinderella Story and Ever After are two prime examples.

3. Let your friends know you are in kind of a bad way, so that they can intervene and call you to go out, when you pass the stage of feeling sorry for yourself as purging, and into feeling sorry for yourself as turning into moldy crud indistinguishable from the oldest thing in the farthest-back tupperware container in your fridge.
lol, thats so true. My closest friends are able to tell when I was thinking of the guy. More often then not they try to cheer me up. Thats one major reason I love 'em all so much!!

4. Realize that the parts of him you fell in love with are in many places (including you), and that you have the power to recreate what you loved about him, to notice it in others, to bring it out in yourself, or simply to remember and appreciate it. When you are ready, you'll go out and love all the world with the tiny part of him that is really just a mirror of what already existed within you.
As deep and philosophical as that is, if you take the time to think about it, it makes perfect sense. When you fall for a guy, if you really fall for him, not just think he's SO HOT or whatever, there are specific things that made you do so. Maybe it's his sense of humor, the way he treats people, his leadership abilities, how sweet he is to his mom, whatever it may be, you had a reason. It's important to look for that in whoever else is in your little world. And if the reasons you fell for him were shallow or stupid...you'll find that out, too. Little things that you remember about him always catch you off guard, but in time it fades. Hopefully this'll all work for me eventually, too.

A Mess?

2005-12-12T21:17:00.000-06:00

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts it'd be Christmas every day. If wishes were horses, beggers would ride. Combine the two and you get what?

News...

2005-12-06T21:26:00.000-06:00

December 2, just a few days ago, was one year ago that Doug was diagnosed with leukemia. Its amazing to me how much life can change in just one short year. As always, keep him and his family in your prayers!!

Today was the first day of Science Olympiad. I've been somewhat apprehensive of it this year as I know its going to be sad without Jon, Jen, Bri, and the rest of the graduated seniors. Also, they took out two of my events, Experimental Design and Mission Possible. MP was my FAVORITE, so I'm doubly bummed about that. Robot will be ok again this year, but my other events are looking iffy. I wish we could just rewind time and do last year again. But oh well, we'll hafta wait and see what happens I suppose....It will alllllllllll come together.

Former blogger John Sikma has a birthday on Thursday!! Happy birthday to him, even if he did abandon the blog world.

Life is crazy right now. I wish there were two more hours in each day and another day in the week!! It'd make stuff SO much less stressful. Maybe if I just DID less it would help, too. Oh well, Christmas break is coming in a few weeks...I need it!!

Something to consider...
"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it." ~Anonymous

Word of the Day

2005-11-29T22:12:00.000-06:00

tragical
adj : very sad; especially involving grief or death or destruction

I prefer to use tragical in a different manner. Tragical is when two people SHOULD be together and aren't for any reason. This is especially true if they would probably end up married and living happily ever after under different circumstances. The only saving grace is the hope that one day circumstances will change and they'll both see the light and still have time to live happily ever after. For anyone who doesn't know, happily ever after stories are the best kind.

Of and About Thankfulness

2005-11-25T15:30:00.000-06:00

I went to deliver Thanksgiving baskets with school on Tuesday, and as always, it was so eye-opening. Our driver, Mrs. Swann, was telling us about one of the families we were bringing a basket to. Apparently an uncle or brother or something had been shot right around the corner from the house recently and had been found leaning up against the neighbor's house the next morning. The tragic thing is that the shooting was over $2 he owed someone. Think of it, TWO dollars!! How much do we take for granted the money we have. Mrs. Swann told us that one of the kids told her the story. What hit me so hard is that the child was totally ok with it. It was a normal occurrence to an eight year old. When I was 8, the most I worried about was my friend being mean to me and getting the best swing at recess. This kid was dealing with the violent shooting of a relative like it was nothing special. I guess it just really struck me how lucky I am to have, for the most part, a stable life. I have two parents that aren't separated, that both live in my nice warm house in a great neighborhood. I have more than enough food, my own room, a good school and church, friends, and so much more. I've heard that everyday should be a thanksgiving day, and it's so true. I guess the holiday just makes us more aware of our blessings.

OCC

2005-11-21T23:40:00.000-06:00

FINALLY Operation Christmas Child, and all the stress that went with it, is finished. Don't get me wrong, I'm SO happy with how everything worked out, but it was a LOT of work to get it all done. Friday afternoon we went to the dollarstore and bought $800 worth of toys, candy, toiletries, and various other items to put in the boxes. We went back to school to begin packing them. We didn't get it finished that night, and the shop looked like a tornado went through it!! Saturday I got the Miskins and the Sikmas to come back to school with me to work on them some more. We worked for a little over two hours until I had to go to work. The shop still was a mess, so I was at school bright and early this morning (7 am!!) to finish up. We managed to get the shop in some semblance of order by 8:15. Right after 1st hour 11 of us went out to Wyoming to drop off our boxes and to help out at the warehouse for 3 hours. We packed the filled shoeboxes into cardboard boxes to be shipped to North Carolina and from there out all over the world. It was a lot of fun. All in all, we raised about $1,100 and filled 128 shoeboxes!! Way to go Plymouth, and thanks SO much to everyone involved!!

Throwing of Objects

2005-11-12T23:30:00.000-06:00

As I normally hear the girl's perspective on stuff, I've come to an oft repeated conclusion: Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!! Now, bear to mind that this is not the case for all guys. Some deserve boulders thrown, others merely small pebbles. Also, it has been brought to my attention that girls sometimes deserve similar treatment. We, however, deserve only rock candy and marshmellows to be thrown at us. It's all quite complex, really. The degree of hardness of the object, the distance from which it is thrown, and the strength with which it is thrown must all be taken into careful consideration. Since this post is going nowhere, I shall stop.

Pen Caps

2005-11-08T22:05:00.000-06:00

I chew on my pen caps until they are shredded into a million tiny pieces. One of my teachers loves to mock me about this habit, as the harder I think, the more I chomp on the plastic. I hear it's bad for your teeth to chew on pens, but I can't think properly if I'm not doing it!!

Confusion

2005-10-31T21:39:00.000-06:00

So if I go this way, and you go that way, and we both go the other way, we'll end up going in opposite directions!!

Doug...Life...Wish

2005-10-27T22:50:00.000-05:00

Doug's cancer counts were REALLY good, far better than the doctors hoped for after the initial chemo. Also, in an incredibly wonderful answer to prayers, two of his sisters, Briana and Christie, were found to be matches for a bone marrow transplant. They were going through more testing to see who was closer last I heard. The BMT will be coming up in a few weeks probably. As always, keep the Timmers in your prayers!!

Scarlett was saying I very much needed to update, but I find I have nothing much else to say. I have a cold...as does 3/4 of PCS I'm pretty sure. Pete's learning to play that Photograph song by Nickleback for me. I volunteered at the Children's Hospital tonight. I started my job at Forest Hills Foods...I bag and carryout. Not that you guys care about any of that stuff.

I wish I could rewind time...play some of the great memories I have over again. Wouldn't that be awesome? All the pictures I take help relive memories, but its not the same as being there.

Advice and Such

2005-10-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

It turns out that people I'd never have thought would end up at my blog have ended up here recently. To say I was quite surprised was putting it mildly. Welcome to Jon, Bri, Phil, Jen, Kim, and all the other people who apparently found my blog through either Daryl or Drew's blog. If you people come again it would be quite nice if you left me a comment. If you do it by anonymous or other, you don't have to get your own blog. Also, who is this blogger that won't sign his or her name?? It's really bothering me!! Do I even know you?? It would be ideal if you would say who you are.

Since my Have Good Dreams post below, I've heard many an idea of what I should do. Some of the ideas are ok...most are somewhat destructive to myself. My dear friend Scarlett offered to just kill me. That way I wouldn't have to worry about dreaming. The anon blogger suggested I get professional help...or go to cupid.com. Not quite sure I'm THAT desperate yet thankfully. Another friend, Jon, said I should hit myself over the head with a hammer. Then I'd get amnesia and not remember the guy, so I wouldn't dream about him. Jon even offered to hit me himself...Jon's nice that way. Jenny, thankfully, said that she wouldn't advise the hammer idea. Good thing she has more common sense!! She, along with the rest of the normal people out there, said I should just try to forget...and give myself time. Sounds reasonable and logical to me, even if it's not really happening right now.

On another note, I did dream about him again last night. Saying that makes me sound like a psychotic stalker...I promise I'm not. As I said before, I CAN'T HELP WHO I DREAM ABOUT!! Maybe I should try the hammer idea!!

I went hayriding and campfiring last night at Kamps house. It was a good time. There weren't that many people from my class there, but tons of last years seniors were. It was SO awesome to see them all again. We had a hayfight, and I was itchy for the rest of the night from it!! Hopefully Jon has forgiven me by now for stuffing him:-) The campfire was nice and warm, though the night itself was freezing. I ended up leaving a bit late, as I was talking and got carried away. THEN I turned down what I thought would take me to the highway, and ended up on a bike path or something. A U-turn later I was back where I was supposed to be. I made it home only a FEW minutes late.

Jon and Bri, I found your comment way down below. I DO use my time for other stuff!! Blogging is just a whole bunch of fun. It usually happens at about 10:30 at night when I should be going to bed!! So there:-)

This past week Tuesday we at PCS found out that Doug, or Student Council VP and friend to many, had a relapse in his leukemia. He's been having chemo since then, and his siblings have been tested for a bone marrow match. Please keep Doug and the rest of the Timmer family in your prayers right now!!

Have Good Dreams

2005-10-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

I dreamed about him last night. I keep dreaming about him over and over again. Last month it was for a week straight!! Why can't I get him out of my head? Why is it so hard to get over a guy??

Bday

2005-10-11T22:40:00.000-05:00

Gordon's birthday is October 12...tomorrow!! Be sure to send him your best wishes!!

THIS Is How It Started!!

2005-10-08T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm How do I deal with out you? and Scarlett is miskin in the morning.

miskin in the morning says:
coz that hurts so badly
How do I deal without you? says:
tell me about it. we could SO start a club
miskin in the morning says:
we should
How do I deal without you? says:
i'll bet we'd have lots of members
miskin in the morning says:
like me
How do I deal without you? says:
and me
miskin in the morning says:
and um abby
How do I deal without you? says:
and...chris n greg n alllllllllllll sorts of ppl
miskin in the morning says:
greg>
miskin in the morning says:
chris who?
How do I deal without you? says:
timmer
miskin in the morning says:
oho
How do I deal without you? says:
mhmm.....and stuff. if we charged money (which we'd 4sure get cuz we're the original members) we'd be SO rich!!
miskin in the morning says:
yup
miskin in the morning says:
the love life losers club
How do I deal without you? says:
or the Triple L's for short
miskin in the morning says:
good one
How do I deal without you? says:
see, we can SO make lemonade
miskin in the morning says:
yeh
How do I deal without you? says:
sighhhhhhhhhhh.....it sux
miskin in the morning says:
sigggghhh
miskin in the morning says:
no kidd
How do I deal without you? says:
maybe i shall write a post about it...see who we can recruit
miskin in the morning says:
good idea
miskin in the morning says:
and mention me as the cofounder

And so it started, the Triple L club. Contrary to what Scarlett says, this conversation, which took place on September 12, tells the truth.

Stuff

2005-10-06T23:35:00.000-05:00

Race For the Cure went really well!! We had a 45 person team, and I was really happy with everyone who participated!!
The next major project is Operation Christmas Child. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, you pack shoeboxes full of small gifts, toiletries, and whatever else you want and they get shipped to poverty stricken countries all over the world. The mission is through Samaritan's Purse and is a GREAT project to be involved in. I'm collecting donations and shoeboxes. If you have any boxes floating around SAVE THEM!! If you're friends of John and Pete give 'em 2 them who can give 'em 2 either me or to the Miskins who could give them to me.
The Triple L club is coming along nicely. Several have expressed an interest in joining, and I believe we shall have an IM meeting sometime soon. I shall keep you updated.
There are several new bloggers, please make them feel welcome.
John helped me get a profile picture. Now I have a face.
Once there was a girl who stayed up past her bedtime and did very poorly in school the next day. That girl is going to be me. Wish me luck!!

The Triple L Club

2005-10-01T01:05:00.000-05:00

Triple L...I can't remember what the third L stands for, but the first two are losers and love. Yes my dear people, the club is called the Losers at Love Club. A bit of history is in order. Scarlett, my co-founder, and I were on IM one dark and lonely night. We were discussing the tragical happening of when you like someone and they don't like you back. Also discussed was how hard it is to get over someone you REALLY like. Contrary to common belief, tragical IS in fact a word, and is used in the above context.

We hashed this out, and realized that we couldn't possibly be the only ones in this situation. Immediately a few names came to my mind, and hers as well if I'm not mistaken. With this realization came the idea for our club. This club will be open to everyone who would like to join. All you must do is pay our modest entry fee and tell us your truly tragical story. If you must, you are welcome to obscure names as necessary.

Our bright idea may fall under the yenta category in some eyes, but it really is the exact opposite of yenta izing. We are trying to help the poor people who are in tragical circumstances to work through it with support. Obviously support is VERY important in these cases. Our song shall be Siberia, with the key line being "'cause it's all so dark and mysterious/when the one you want doesn't want you too". We will all work together to talk about whatever need talking about and try to encourage each other to move on...or at least get a start on it.

We know that many will be able to join the club, as all of us have gotten our hearts broken at some point or another in our lives. Several friends have already been informed of the formation of the Triple L Club and have expressed interest in joining. We welcome you with open arms. Join today!!

Of Marks of Coolness

2005-09-26T18:30:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that all great books and stuff start with Of..., hence the title of my post. Not that the topic is all that great, but its just the idea. I've been instructed to update, and even though I SHOULD be studying for my Spanish test and my Physiology test I decided to quickly write a post. I would like to write about Marks of Coolness.

Once upon a time on the first day of school a young girl named Erika decided to start a new trend at PCHS. She sat wondering what she could do, when an idea flashed across her mind. Grasping one of her brand new Bic blue pens in her hands, she ran the ink down the arm of an unsuspecting classmate.

The classmate protested, wondering what he had done to deserve such treatment. Erika airily proclaimed it to be the new Mark of Coolness, and told the young man that he should be proud of it. Pacified, he agreed to be proud of his Mark and to wear it proudly from henceforth. Erika moved throughout the rest of her day, bestowing Marks of Coolness on all whom she saw fit.

The trend spread, although not all grasped the true object of the Marks. Some saw fit to start pen wars, using the Mark as an excuse. However, the pupils at PCHS soon learned to recognize the Mark of Coolness for what it was. It was understood that Erika had started the Mark, and that as soon as she bestowed it upon you you were free to give it to whomever you liked.

Today at Plymouth if you walk through the halls you will see arms and necks and even an occasional face bearing the Mark of Coolness. The Mark has even spread beyond Plymouth to the Sikma brothers, who hopefully are helping it to spread throughout the greater Grand Rapids area. If you live far away and have no chance to get a Mark, please inform me and I shall give you an internet Mark of Coolness so you can spread the coolness around your world.

The Things One Learns...

2005-09-17T19:55:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time...or at least, once...I went bowling. When I got home I got on IM and talked to Pete. Upon hearing my score, 63, he was appalled and said he'd hafta teach me how 2 do better. Since Pete, John, and I had been throwing around the idea of hanging out for quite some time, it was decided we would go bowling. This was quite awhile back, and tonight it FINALLY happened.

We met at the bowling alley on Leonard Street across from some auto parts place at 7. Actually, due to some discrepancy at my house as to what my plans were, I didn't arrive until 7:13 on my clock, and felt bad for being late. Come to find out Pete and Heather were late too. They got there even later than I did!! Once there they mocked me about my van...the AUDACITY!! So around 7:20 John, Pete, Scarlett, Gordon, Lindsay, me, Heather and Kris all entered the bowling place. We went upstairs (it has two floors) and found it empty. Happy we got the floor to ourselves, we got shoes and bowling balls. Mine was a copper one if anyone was interested. It was at this point that I learned thing number one, Pete can't spell names for anything!! Heather was spelled without an a, Lindsay with a y and an e, and Kris with a Ch. Once all this was figured out, and I was set up as Eriker to my disgruntlement, we began to bowl.

Scarlett and I made a bet, during which I learned thing number two, Scarlett is really a better bowler than I, but not by much. I owe her 25 cents now!! The number three thing I learned was that bowling alleys are very loud and normally it takes FOREVER for them to play any songs you might pick out of the little music picker thingie. AND they don't have a volume to turn down the really retarded songs. As we bowled, thing number four hit me, Pete exaggerated his bowling abilities. Now don't get me wrong, he beat me, but ONLY by 28 points...may I say that I got 60 as my score.

It took us a VERY long time to bowl the one game we played due to things number five and six. The service at our bowling place was a bit slow, and the people who helped us spoke Chinese!! I was the first to notice our problem. I bowled my frame and low and behold, the next time I came around my copper bowling ball was gone!! They were eating our balls (lol john)!! Before long all 8 of our balls were gone and they were NOT coming back!! Thing number seven came into play here. I was convinced the Nazis had stolen the balls in a conspiracy plot. Obviously they were going to pummel us with the balls, there by rendering us totally helpless. My idea was scoffed up one, and Heather went to talk to the bowling guy, who she apparently knew. As she came back he followed, and spoke into the phone, which came over the loudspeaker, indecipherable to us. Pete declared it Chinese, John saying it was of the Mongolian dialect. As impressed as we were with their language abilities, we were rather disappointed that the Chinese had no apparent effect on the ball stealer. It took a good 20 minutes before our balls reappeared.

During these 20 minutes, I learned thing number eight. John and Gordon are getting married!! This was announced to us all by the happy couple. They were holding hands with their legs crossed, quite a beautiful scene. They told us they would be serving hamburgers at the wedding because "its just SO much easier!!" I offered them my congratulations, but John responded rather unkindly, informing me I wasn't invited!! So I won't be able to tell you all about the wedding, sorry. I also learned number nine, the Sikmas have a tear shaped driveway and a Pit at their house. The driveway part we learned about when I told them ours was kind of circular, which was why I hit the side of them van when I pulled out of the garage. The Pit information came when we were looking for something to do. John said we could go hang out in the Pit at their house. Number ten was that Pete has dance moves all his own. He was jamming to some insane music that people with VERY bad taste downstairs must have picked. He demonstrated, among other things, the can opener and the orange peeler.

We finished our game, during which Heather and Kris left. It was down to 6 of us, and when the games were done we just sat around talking. Number eleven was that Gordon can't sit around and chat for very long without suggesting we go do something every two minutes!! John and Pete were inclined to agree, but weren't as demanding as good ole Gordon. It was humoring Gordon that I learned number twelve. There is a large tire swing downtown!! I never knew this, and John wanted to go. I vetoed this idea, and thankfully Gordon supported me, because I didn't want to be accosted by drunk people on a swing. I'd told Pete about the Plymouth mark of coolness awhile ago on IM, and since I had a pen we very generously gave John and Pete one. Now they are truly cool.

We'd been sitting for quite some time not really doing anything, and finally we decided to pack up and go outside, hoping inspiration would strike us out there. We saw various people walking past us as we stood out there, including a dog we thought was abandoned until its owner lady came along a few minutes after. I learned number thirteen at this point. John and Pete sang Goodnight Ladies, and it turns out they're pretty good singers!! We stood for awhile longer, before I decided to call my mom and let her know we were done bowling and looking for something else to do. My mom taught me thing number fourteen. It turns out moms who aren't usually all that overprotective can catch you off guard sometimes!! She insisted upon knowing EXACTLY where we were going to go, not content with the idea of us getting into the car and just going where ever the mood struck us...go figure. This forced us into a decision. After a hurried conference, during which TPing, shaving creaming the cars at church, and various other destructive ideas were rejected, we decided to go to Red Hot. I relayed this to my mom, who agreed and asked me to call her when we got there.

We got into our vehicles, and I promptly realized that it was going to be VERY hard to get out of my spot. After trying I gave up, stopping in the small box I'd gotten myself into. Pete took pity on me and got out of his car to direct me. With his help I managed to get out of the lot. I learned thing number fifteen shortly there after. When there's a lot of lights around, its very easy for one to forget to turn their lights on. I was one of those people until we stopped at a light. John stuck his head out the door and informed me of my error. Sheepishly I turned them on.

We arrived at Red Hot around 9:30. Gordon and Scarlett ran into an older couple from their church, who seriously questioned if it wasn't past our curfew. Number sixteen was that old people have a very skewed sense of Friday night time. After gazing fixedly at the menu board for a time, we went up to the first opening in the line. The guy there told us that he only took food orders there, and to proceed down the line. We did this and were greeted by the exact same guy, who took our orders. We all got chocolate milkshakes. It was after receiving these that number seventeen was discovered. Red Hot makes TERRIBLE milkshakes. Pete said they DO make excellent pea soup though, if anyone was interested. The shakes were little more than soggy icecream. It was next to impossible to drink them through a straw, and many of us ended up opting for spoons.

We sat at the table for over an hour talking about a whole bunch of things. Pete had forgotten his camera, but luckily I had mine. We took a couple of pictures, which are sadly waiting to be developed since I don't have a digital. Pete discovered number eighteen. It turns out my camera has a timer thingie on it!! We were able to take a group picture with this innovation. The shake had made John feel slightly nauseous, so I suggested he get some water, which he did. Since he forgot to get me some, I got my own, and learned number nineteen as I returned to my table. John thinks I got dropped down the stairs when I was little!! Obviously this might be true, but he could have just told me to my face!! The water brought about number twenty. When you add water to a milkshake in effort to make it lowfat, the milk and water separate into two layers. This entertained some of us for quite some time. Scarlett and Linz decided they needed to go to the bathroom. John's theory is number twenty one. He thinks that girls bathrooms have large screen TVs in them, which accounts for the fact that girls always go in groups. Go figure!! I've never seen one, if its true!!

Around this time Pete decided it was probably time that they should be going. Since I had to be home soon too we got up and left. We ended up out in the parking lot for another little while talking. I asked John and Pete if they wanted to do the Race for the Cure, and learned number twenty two. John can't do anything next Saturday morning as he has to pick the lint out of his belly button. Pete can't because he's collecting money for the blind at the mall. Obviously I expect to see them next week Saturday. The final thing I learned that night, number twenty three, was something I tend to forget. Time flies when you're having fun!! As I glanced at my watch, I realized I was already five minutes late being home!! We all said our good byes and left.

I haven't laughed so much and so hard in a VERY long time. I can't think of a time I've seen Gordon laugh so much EVER. Scarlett and Lindsay, despite some trepidations from Gordon and I, fit in fine. Scarlett would have to admit that other than a few Looks here and there, I was VERY nice to her. Kris and Heather worked out well, too. We managed to avoid the Nazi conspiracies and didn't get kicked out of anywhere. We didn't get accosted by any drunk guys, either. I would definently say the night was a success. It was VERY fun hanging out with the Sikmas and Miskins. We'll definently have to do it again!!

Items of Interest

2005-09-16T23:50:00.000-05:00

I fully intend to publish my bowling adventure of tonight, and am half way through it. It shall be finished tomorrow, perhaps.

Also, the Triple L club, run by me and Scarlett shall premier soon. I'm sure most of the readers will be able to join if they so desire.

The Race for the Cure is Saturday morning, September 24. It is a 5 K run/walk that raises money for breast cancer research. It will take place at Rivertown Crossings Mall and costs $21. You get a t-shirt and lots of free food once there. If anyone is interested they should let me know ASAP!!

I had a dream the other day about you blog people!! In it I was reading the newspaper. In it was an article written by Shannon about the hurricane and the way it was handled, esp. about the guy in charge who isn't even qualified. In it she quoted NL's blog!! It was very bizarre, let me tell you!!

A totally random fact, lithium can be used to treat maniac depression!!

Celebration

2005-09-10T22:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the long awaited Celebration on the Grand here in GR. Last year my class and I all went to Britts house after school then downtown for the fireworks. This year was supposed to be the same, but we were going to go the Heather's house instead as of Wednesday. On Thursday we were going to go to Ang's instead. By Friday morning half were going to Heather's, half to Ang's. Friday afternoon came around, three people to Ang's, two to Heathers, 6 to Brent's, 4 to John's, and the rest to their own houses in acute frustration. I was one of the accute frusteration cases. I arrived home late, having missed my bus due to the Chemistry class's fieldtip to Grand Haven's GVSU water quality boat thing running half an hour past the end of the day. I called about 5 different phones getting about 500 different answers as to what we should do. Finally I decided to go to John's house and go from there. I got in my beaaaaaaaaaautiful grey van and did just that, arriving without a problem.

Once there it was decided that we should all meet at once place for supper and then drive down together. This was an acceptable plan, and after conferring with my better 1/4's, we decided to go to our preferred set of fast food places, the MickyD's/Arby's/Adobe on Leonard. We called everyone and told them to meet us there at 6:30 and that we would leave for downtown at 7:15. This plan was carried out to a T...or as close to at T as 17 teenages can manage.

My mothers parting words to me were no groups of kids riding with you, and make sure you park at the Kendal place. I left Arby's with 3 passengers...not large group, right? I was the last one out of the parking lot, my first signal that something was not as it should be. I had specifically asked for at least one car to stay behind me in case of seperation. This request was apparently too much to hope for. As we drove, everyone made it through a crutial light...except me. By the time I got through the light the rest of the group was nowhere to be seen. Christie, my official navigator, told me she had thought they got on the highway, and so I did too. By the time I realized there was a detour on the exit I wanted, I also realized to get to the Pearl Street exit one must cross 5 lanes of traffic and ignore the sign that expressly forbids such an action. We got off the Market street exit instead, and frantially called John's phone, inquiring WHERE they might be.

It turns out that they had never gotten onto the highway!! This sent me into a panic. The next 15-ish minutes were quite traumatic for everyone invoved. The reason my mom didn't want me to park anywhere but the Kendall building was so I wouldn't have to navigate through the various one way and many laned and chaotic downtown GR streets. That is exactly what ended up happening. John told us to get on Michigan Street...ok, we did this. We went around a couple blocks searching for the next cross street. In our search we neglected to pay attention the the proper lane, and ended up turning right onto a street from the left turn lane...or something like that. In anycase it was hightly illegal and seemingly very dangerous. Well, guess what. as we were going UP Michigan street, everyone else was going DOWN it!! This resulted in us going on a wild goosechase.

The phone was handed to Sarah by now, who was better at explaining directions then John was. Now we had to figure out a way to turn around or at least figure out where on EARTH we were. We did this, pulling into a tiny lot to regroup. Next to us was a man in a car who looked a LOT like the cartoon Gollum in the Hobbit movie we watched last year in classic lit. He was pale as anything and incredibly skinny and generally scary looking. Anyway, so we figured out where we were going kind of, but not exactly. I was rather upset at this point, and then I noticed we were parked next to an "adult movie theater".

After nearly hitting a family with a stroller, I managed to pull out of the lot and get back to where I needed to be. Unfortunately the road I was supposed to turn onto was one way and I was totally going in the wrong direction and in the!! This seemed rather unsafe to me as you might imagine, and I refused to turn. I went through the intersection and turned into one of those ramp parking things. Turns out trying to turn around in one is VERY hard, I wouldn't recommend it personally. Finally we got to the right street and continued on until 6th street, where we found Sarah, the only person who I wasn't mad at by that point, on the corner by herself waiting to direct us to the Kendall building. Upon reaching the building I was more than releaved, let me tell ya!!

We set off for the Pearl Street bridge where all the cool people, including the whole Plymouth group and supposedly Janna and the rest of the Jurries and the Sikmas and whoever else from that group. It's a bit of a hike from the Kendall building, but we got there eventually. We reconnected with a group of guys we'd lost way back at skool. One of them told me that Gordon was there with the Sikma brothers. I was really excited, as I'd been waiting to meet John and Pete for awhile.

What I forgot to consider is the mild impossibility of finding someone you really want to find at Celebration. After walking back and forth a few times I gave up, figuring I'd find them eventually. Once one has reached the bridge there is the issue of finding a seat. Since we were all standing around talking at that point no one was really doing this. I considered it, and then suddenly Gordon appeared, John and Pete in tow. It was really cool to see 'em in the flesh, not singing Good Night Ladies or with their harems. They mingled well with the Plymouth-ites I think. Di, being her loud and slightly overbearing self, did a wonderful job talking to them. We love her anyway though. Then out of nowhere came James. It was also good to see him, and he recognized me right away, which was cool too. After Di almost killed his phone he left, but not without taking a picture of her, with me looking dreadful in the background. A few of us stood in the middle of the bridge for awhile talking. Pete left presently, citing the friendlessness of a friend of his back at his blanket. John hung around with another friend of his, Joshua, who I didn't know at all. I think John and Pete all got along pretty well with us crazy plymouth-ites. Hopefully they didn't get too scared:-)

The night was a lot of fun. Despite the traumatic driving experience, the crazy figureing out what we were going to do and where we were going to go, and all that it was definently a sucess. The fireworks were colorful and abundant. The grand finale made the bridge vibrate like crazy, it was awesome!! It was really cool to meet some of the blog people, thought I would have liked to meet the Jurries. Some other time. I made it home in one piece, thankfully. And now that I've spent like 4 hours getting this done I'd better just post it!!

Clear the Roads!!

2005-09-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

*dings fork against glass (not wine, don't worry)* Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make. I have officially joined the ranks of those with what is commonly known as a drivers license. Last week Friday I went and took my drivers test, passing with flying colors...or at least passing. This past Tuesday I went to the secretary of states office and got my mugshot taken and received my paper license. Yesterday my mom called the insurance company and added me to the insurance policy on our van. Today I drove to Damons on 28th Street and watched the Michigan game (they won btw). I haven't gotten into an accident yet!! However, if you see a grey minivan in an accident around Grand Rapids anytime soon look twice...it might be me!!

Extreme Anger!!

2005-08-30T22:40:00.000-05:00

Picture me with a red face and smoke coming out of my ears!! That is close to what I look like right now!! I just had a big huge long back to school post written and was just about to hit the orange Publish Post button when my computer froze!! It did this to me on my last post as well!! I swear, only computers can make me this angry !! This is retarded!! I should breath in and out more probably, hmm? I may or may not rewrite the post...it was a good one though. Ok Erika, 10 years from now this won't matter...but URGH!!

The Heart Clinic

2005-08-25T23:20:00.000-05:00

Per Petunia's request, I decided to do a post about my volunteering at the hospital. Sadly, I don't do anything all that exciting. When I signed up to volunteer, I pictured myself interacting with patients. I imagined pushing wheelchairs, delivering flowers, and bringing smiles to the faces of poor hospital bound people. When I got my assignment, I found myself assigned to the Heart Failure Clinic.

When I come flying into the heart clinic on Wednesday afternoons around 3:15, I'm usually apologizing for being late...again. I grab the coffee pots and dump the excess coffee into the sink after I greet Lauren and Mary, the secretaries. The heart clinic deals with about 30 bazillion patients, each with charts that go in hanging files in filing cabinents. My next job is to file all the charts the nurses have used during the day. There are usually a TON of 'em out, despite efforts by Lauren and Mary to keep up with them during the day. After I do that I go to the off the list pile, which consists of a whooooooole bunch of faxes concerning individual patients. Each fax needs the chart pulled for its patient. After doing this I need to pull the charts for the clinic appointments for the next day. It's imperative that these charts be pulled, as the appointment can't be conducted without that patient's chart. I've spent more than one afternoon tearing the office apart, searching for the dang chart!! Once all this is done and I've contemplated harming the person who invented patient charts several times, I usually have about fifteen minutes or so until 5, when I leave. This time is spent doing some tidying up. I rearrange magazines, water plants, and shred papers as necessary. When my ride comes I leave, content that I've done my help for the day.

The heart clinic's redeeming quality is the people that work in it. Lauren and Mary, the secretaries, do an awesome job dealing with the 30 bazillion patients, doctors, RN's, and nurse practitioners that all demand their attention...normally all at the same time. If I have a question, they are always willing to help me out. The nurses are all awesome. Some have the habit of talking to themselves. It always makes me laugh when they look up and see me, quietly filing charts, and start apologizing. I rarely see the doctors, but when I do they always take time to ask me how I am and thank me for my work. I love how its kind of like a big family there. As an example, right before banquet I was telling Lauren and Mary about my dress. The next thing I know I'm promising to bring it in so they can see it. So I come in the next week with my dress and start to take the wrapper off so they can see it. Oh no, this isn't good enough for these two, they have to see it ON me!! Off I go into the bathroom to put it on so I can model for them. By the time I come out the entire office is waiting to see how I look!! It was a tad embarrassing to hear them all cooing over me, but at the same time it was like wow, these people are awesome!! Its moments like that when I'm GLAD I ended up in the heart clinic!!

Cran Hill III

2005-08-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of writing about cran hill, but I suppose I can't leave you hanging, lol. Wednesday we were all like, dead tired due to major lack of sleep. We were forced to play football for awhile...yah, it was kind of funny. We had free time for the rest of the morning. At 1 we went tubing down the Muskegon River, which was actually a lot of fun!! The water was kind of cold at first, but I got used to it pretty fast. The water got really shallow in some spots, resulting in painful collisions with my bottom half and rocks!! It was over in about an hour, and we all wished it could go longer!! When we got back we had freetime until supper. I sat on the porch of the camp store and ate icecream with about 6 other kids. We talked and ate candy and stuff for like, almost two hours!! It was relaxing since we had NO energy!! After supper we had MORE freetime during which we played Frisbee for a bit, then football for about 10 minutes before deciding to go swimming. We were supposed to be in at 9 for a topic, but 7 of us were having too much fun and "lost track of time", arriving around 9:30. We were slightly chastised for our tardiness, but it was definitely worth it. Imagine cramming 7 people onto a raft meant for about 2 at most...it was hilarious!! Our topic, presented by two of the older kids, was about prayer. After the topic we could do whatever we wanted. Mostly it consisted of people throwing water and running around trying to kill eachother. I was content to sit in a chair and watch from a safe distance!! The guys bathroom ended up being decorated with streams of catsup. A girls pillow was graced with horse road apples in a leaf. Another pillow had a pair of whitey-tightys on it!! THAT was nasty, lol. Finally everyone settled down, however, and we went to bed around 2 a.m. Thankfully once we fell asleep we stayed sleeping free of mosquitoes!! The next morning we woke up and packed everything and left by 10. It was a GREAT couple days!!

Petunia, I'll post about my volunteer stuff soon, k? Great idea...I was running low on things to write about!!

Cran Hill Ranch II

2005-08-19T00:36:00.000-05:00

Once we’d unpacked, we had lunch. After that, we had freetime until about 4:30. We went down to the beach for awhile. The water was warm, however. In the lake there were these floating wooden raft things that we played on, trying to balance and push others off of. Unfortunately it was kind of cloudy, so we didn’t stay long after we swam, because it was kind of cold. There were 14 girls and two showers…it took quite some time to get everyone cleaned up, but we managed. Since we still had over an hour before we had to come to the topic, us girls sat around and did our nails in one of the bedrooms. Nailpolish and remover smell quite strongly, and Shelley, one of the chaperones, said she could smell us as she came up the stairs!! We talked and did our nails until it was time for Rev. Vogelaar to come. The boys came by, and one remarked that “it smells like GIRLS in here!!” Although a bit late, Rev. Vogelaar finally arrived and gave a topic about Joseph and resisting temptation, as Joseph had to do in Potifar’s house. The topic took place in the chapel in the woods. Dinner followed the topic. The lasagna was plentiful, as was the French bread and salads that accompanied it. After and cake-and-icecream dessert, the whole group went outside for a big game of softball. It grew very competitive as each team was accused of cheating and the ump of being biased for his wife’s team. The game ended with a half point win…the half point being scored when there was a huge argument over the runner being out or not out. There was more freetime, spent with a bonfire and playing ping-pong, pool, and foosball, as well as a couple people going swimming. At 11:30 evening devotions closed the night…or we thought they would close the night...
Not being ready to sleep, Kate and I decided to go bother the other room of girls. They had their door closed and the lights off, so we figured we’d turn the light on. We did, and beat a fast retreat back to our own room. The other girls apparently weren’t asleep, so two of them came FLYING into our room, armed with cups of water!! They tried to throw it on Kate and I, but mostly missed us, instead getting the sleeping bag of one poor girl who wasn’t even involved, Kristen. Kate and Kristen decided that the other girls, Anna and Maria S., didn’t deserve to get away with their wrong, so they went charging into the other room and drenched Anna’s sleeping bag while Anna was getting more water. They came back into our room and got innocently into bed. Anna and Maria came back with even MORE water, asking for a truce. Anna hadn’t seen the water in her bed yet. We agreed to a truce, and the two left. Seconds later they were back, and succeeded in drenching Kate. They went again for MORE water, but we moved a set of beds in front of our door so they couldn’t get in. This ended the fight…for Tuesday night.
While all this was taking place, one unusually brilliant young man, Arnie, decided that there wasn’t enough air circulation in the lodge, so he opened the doors!! Unfortunately, the doors didn’t have SCREENS!! This allowed about 4 bazillion mosquitoes to take up residence in both wings of the lodge, as well as the main room in the middle. There were two girls rooms and three guys rooms. One of the girls rooms kept their door closed and escaped most of the mosquito issue, but the other 4 rooms weren’t so lucky. The girls in my room tried to sleep, but we finally concluded it was hopeless around 2 a.m. We moved into the great room in the middle of the two wings. This was ok for a little while, but the guys weren’t able to be quiet for more than 2 minutes at a time over in their wing, getting up every 2 minutes to go to the bathroom, blow their noses, or come into the middle room to ask what we were doing!! They were plagued with mosquitoes, same as us. The mosquitoes found us in the room all to soon, and some of the girls went back to the bedroom, while the rest of us stayed. The mosquitoes weren’t any better in the room, as those of us who kept switching back and forth figured out. Around 3:30 a.m. a whole group of guys went to sleep in the basement, managing to make more noise then they had UPSTAIRS!! With all the commotion of people running around, swearing at the mosquitoes (or yelling at them at least), and swatting them, it was pretty much impossible to sleep. The mosquitoes would bite legs and arms, and when one took cover in the sleeping bags, they were forced out from the heat. If one braved the heat, they would find the bugs buzzing over faces and in ears, making it equally impossible to sleep. 4:30 a.m. found Kate and I in the great room, and the other girls in one of the two other open rooms. The other room of guys joined us, but, like Kate and I, found the great room to be full of mosquitoes, though not as bad as the bedrooms. The wake-up call came around 7:30. I think I got about an hour of sleep the whole night. It was one of the worst nights I can think of in my whole life!! More to come soon…

Cran Hill Ranch

2005-08-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

craMp missed me!! I must say that this made me feel special!! Thanx 4 noticing!! Anyway. Tuesday I got up bright and early, and arrived at my friend Maria's house by 8:30 in preparation to drive the the carpool spot by 9:15. Our church in Kalamazoo was having a youth camp at Cran Hill. We arrived without too much fuss. Once there, however, we were forced to wait for almost 45 minutes, due to the bus being stuck in traffic. However, it finally arrived and 7 of us boarded the VERY full bus. In fact, the bus was SO full I was stuck sitting on a sleeping bag in the aisle!! NOT a very comfortable spot, let me tell ya!!! We reached Cran Hill, which is by Big Rapids and stuff I think, around 10:45. We had the retreat center to ourselves, and quickly claimed beds and unpacked. More to come when I feel like it...

Scary, Violent, or Confusing

2005-08-13T14:05:00.000-05:00

Last night I went bowling with some friends, and after that we went back to someone's house to watch a movie. I have something against any movie that is scary, violent, and/or confusing. To my great dismay, my dear friends chose to watch Black Hawk Down, a movie that is VERY violent and even MORE confusing, although not that scary. I can't understand what it is that attracts guys to war movies!! All they are is people going around with guns and bombs, shooting the bad guys!! If you're really lucky you'll get to see someone's arm get shot off or the insides of some poor guy. Due to its graphic nature, and the fact that I was VERY confused and frustrated since I had not a CLUE what was going on, I spent most of the movie with a couch cushion in front of my eyes, talking to one of the other girls. Another phenomenon of guys is that they REALLY hate it when you talk through a movie. This annoyance is multiplied if the talker happens to be making periodic comments about how stupid the movie is. The moral of the story is I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND GUYS!!

Vampires*

2005-08-06T23:50:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time there was a house. The house was in need of some interior design. The owner of the house decided that, since her and her husband were quite busy and her children should grow up in a decorated house, she would ask her niece to do it for her. Now, when she had asked her niece to do this, she'd forgotten that the niece had little to no sense of fashion, and dressed all in black. I'm sure one can guess what this led to. When the owner of the house came home one day, all of her walls were BLACK!! The first thing she thought of was that black is a slimming color. Her children liked the walls, and since black is very hard to paint over, the walls stayed a raven hue. One day however, one of the kids, a little boy of about seven, asked if he could sleep in a box. This led to one thing after another, and soon the whole family was sleeping in long, narrow boxes. One great advantage was that they no longer had large house payments!! Soon neighbors started disappearing. The mother thought nothing of it, and even enjoyed the lower and lower grocery bills each week. Soon, however, the other neighbors began to notice the strange goings on at the house. They reported it to the police who looked into it and soon after arrested the family. The mother used the money she had saved on groceries to get a lawyer. When it came time for the trial however, the lawyer was frustrated and confused, and quit, as he realized something was very wrong and he wanted to be no part of it. On the day of the trial, the family was quite hungry. Since they didn't want to be put in jail, they just ate the judge. The bailiffs, having suffered budget cuts of late, had had their guns replaced with wooden sticks, and were no match for the revived family. They got away and lived happily ever after.

*Vampires are NOT real!! Just so you know.

This story was inspired by an IM conversation with Shannon. Much thanks!!

Blog Buds

2005-07-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Since I'm kind of an unoriginal person at this point in my life, I've decided to talk about the blogs and bloggers I know. Since ranking them as Top Ten or whatever seems to have negative effects on people's egos, I shall not do it in such a fashion. I'll just list 'em as I think of stuff to write!!

John Sikma-JWS. John's blog is the first I visited and the one that got me hooked on blogging. His blog is one of personal experiences, totally random ramblings, and some political stuff and current events. Although he has once experienced bloggers block, he is always more than willing to help one having technical difficulties and to just talk about random things on IM.
NL/Notliberal/Steve the Lawyer-In God We Trust. NL's blog is one that you really have to be politically informed to get a whole lot out of. It's pretty interesting when you have a clue what he's talking about. Sometimes there will be interesting posts about random things like girls in the guys locker rooms and stuff like that, which breaks up the complicated posts.
James Lanning-Set it Off. James' blog is one frequented by pretty much everyone. He has all the cool stuff, so maybe that's why. He's got music set up for one's perusal, as well as what he calls the RandomChat box, which is similar to IM with it being open to everyone who visits. He tends to spaz when the comments aren't about his post, so when he's gone there tends to be mass chaos!!
Loretta Lanning-In My Opinion. Loretta is sister to both James and Evie. Camo is her beau, and she tries her best not to mention him too much, but slips on occasion. Then, however, after getting grief, she will delete the post. She has a thing about proper spelling, and if one doesn't use it she will succumb to comment Nazism and delete the comment.
Evie Lanning/Eva Lemmon-Yes, I have no Bananas. Evie's randomness can be matched by none. Her blog consists of posts about people with strange names living in far away places and various other random things. She has a leaning towards coconuts, and she loves to keep track of when certain people attempt to offer their therApy services.
Cramp Bottom/craMp/Marion Lanning-The ministry of Vocabulary. craMp is, as the title of the blog would suggest, an insane individual intent on saving the world through good spelling and grammar. craMp has a particular liking for threatening to deport anyone who uses "IMspeak" to Neptune.
Mark Jurries-Gimme Back My Bullets. Mark's blog posts range from political to completely random. He's starting a Great American Novel, and has completed the first word!! Its quite impressive and VERY profound!! Mark is self proclaimed dictator of the MOV, and if you get in his way he will happily deport you to Neptune along with Cramp. Very charming person, this Mark!!
Charles Jurries/echuckler/Chuck-The Delta Institute. Chuck is a very interesting person. His posts range from current events and politics like NL, to very strange and unusual stories about Glu-Glus like Evie. His blog boasts a question/comment feature he calls the Grab Bag. As a photographer, Chuck also posts lots of picture of his travels.
Janna Jurries-Penultimate Grooviness. Janna is one of the most recent bloggers to join the circle. Her very first post garnered a whopping 53 comments!! Obviously, her popularity is at a high point right now. She has a fear of red hat ladies that is always a good conversation topic!!
Maggie-Don't write yourself off yet.... Maggie's blog is prone to technical difficulties. More often then not something is malfunctioning, prompting all of us Blogger blogs to tell her that they are far superior to the service she is using. We're not sure if its working yet. Maggie's posts have a definent emotional twinge sure to touch everyone in some way.
Bonnie McDonald-The Blog of Bonnie J. Bonnie is in a family of traveling singers and has been compared by some to the VonTrapp family. Her blog chronicles her life and often mentions her travels.
Scarlett Miskin-The Life and Thoughts of Me!. Scarlett, like me, was inspired to start a blog around the same time I did. Her posts are very entertaining. Currently in her home country of South Africa, she even finds time to update us on the goings on over there.
Abigail Boorsma/born2fly/Abbs-Not Another Blond Moment. Abbs joined the bloggers so she could comment on my blog (not the brightest out there, not realizing she could comment as other or anonymously, but that's ok). She posts somewhat infrequently, but when she does post you can be sure it will be well worth the wait. She has an undying love for Johnny Depp, which has shown through in the last few posts, as well as one for BOOOOOOOOOOB;-)
Shannon/SDK-Green Apples from the Sky. SDK's blog is one of the ones I enjoy a great deal. Her first post, about a search for a man who had been lost in the greater Grand Rapids area, caught my attention right away. Upon talking to her on IM and checking out her Missing You website, of which she is the founder here in MI, I was very impressed. Her blog tells of her day to day life, and her recent struggles with a broken foot.
Petunia McGillicuddy-Hello, World!!. Petunia's blog is one that makes me think whenever I read it. She is a volunteer for many interesting causes, and writes about her experiences, mixed with other interesting things. Although I may not agree with many of her viewpoints, I like how I can disagree with her and her comrades and still feel ok. A very interesting blog to peruse.
Miranda, Ben, Chaz, Fromstien, and Herman- Chaz came upon John's blog, and after that I came to know him and the other people from Canada. I really enjoyed talking to Ben at one point on IM. Miranda found their blogs and instigated an all out blogwar that was hilarious in and of itself. Her blog, along with the four others, are irreverent and probably not exactly what some would approve of, but are a fun read none the less.

That took a VERY long time to compile, but that's ok:-) Hopefully everyone is pleased with their descriptions...and if not I'm SURE I'll hear about it!!

Something to Think About

2005-07-28T18:19:00.000-05:00

Great opportunities to help others seldom arise, but small ones surround us every day.

~Sally Koch~

Banquet Pix...finally

2005-07-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

The neighbor lady did my hair. It took forEVER, but I liked how it turned out. Its kind of hard to see in the picture, but its REALLY complex!!

I got ready in 10 minutes after my hair and nails were done!! Fastest I've ever gotten ready for ANYTHING, let alone something like this!!

This is the truck we went in. It was...big.

Me and Joe

The last two pictures were in my front yard...all of 'em were, actually. I feel kind of stupid posting pictures from May 27, but whatever:-) Banquet was awesome, a lot of build up though, for only a couple of hours. Thats how most major events in life are, I spose.

Thanks to John for helping me with the pictures, and with my sidebar for my links too, actually!!

Support Our Troops

2005-07-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

While browsing blogs, I came across a post on one of the blogs I frequent. On it were several pictures of bumper stickers, buttons, and the like, all against President Bush and the war in Iraq. I'm aware that there are many people who don't support the President, but one of the stickers really stood out to me. It said "Germans Supported Their Troops Too" and had a picture of the traditional yellow support our troops sticker with the red circle and line crossing it out. This really bothered me, so I commented...

Erika said...
Just for the record, I think that even of you don't agree with why the troops are overseas, you should still support them!! They're making a HUGE sacrifice for US over there!!
Tue Jul 12, 06:54:55 PM

*One Commenter* said...
Actually erika there kids just like us who chose a line of work with a shitty boss. They have an extremly difficult task but as an american im not going to allow an administration the ability to send my family and friends to a place they have no business in. I dont think any of this particular post says "American soldiers should be spit on when they return!" What i think it expresses is that we should respect what the soldiers signed up for. The protection of rights and civil liberties, democracy, thus perpetuating a just nation. That is not what there doing in Iraq. I have several family members and friends there and from what they say, there basic duty is to protect the profits of the oil business and good ol haliburton engineers. Sorry bout the rant but I cant stand it when people equate negative bush aspects to dissin' tha soldiers. Carry on...
Tue Jul 12, 09:50:12 PM

*The Blogger who posted* said...
Erika,
That's just another part of the tragedy. This war was started on false pretenses. Bush claimed there was evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida, that Iraq had WMD, and that we had to stop them from passing support and weapons to terrorists.

Well, read the news. It's complete baloney. Information was fabricated. The Bush administration are a bunch of liars. About something deathly serious.

I'm not disputing that Hussein was a diabolical tyrant.

But starting a war really ought to be the last resort. It ought to chill one's soul to come to that conclusion. Not only ought it be the last resort, but the international community ought to be united in the decision. If the rest of the world is telling you that you're wrong, and you're doing something as serious as invading another country, blowing things up, killing people, taking out their government-- well, that's just asking for chaos. Reports state that Iraq, in its disorganized condition, has become a more conducive breeding ground for terrorism that before, when Saddam held control. I'm no advocate for tyranny, but look, really really shitty things can happen when a repressive regime that has been holding together a bunch of different ethnic and religious groups, is no longer there to keep everyone in check (hello, Yugoslavia?).

I'm no expert, but many Iraqis also think that it is THEIR responsibility to address the problems in their own governments.

I stand by my choice to display the bumper sticker about the Germans. I completely agree that it is an inflammatory quip. I also completely agree that there is enormous danger in blindly supporting a president's decision to send people to war, which is what all of the "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers amount to.

"Troops" cannot act like thinking people. People in the military are trained to RESPOND to orders, and to NOT THINK. This is a necessity for the kind of situations they face.

Those of us enjoying safety and security and luxury at home owe it to the troops, and to the families in Iraq, to THINK CRITICALLY, to INFORM OURSELVES, and stand up for the truth. What is this war about? It's not about WMD. It's not about Saddam supporting terrorists. What are people dying for?

I thought I'd throw this out to all my readers and see what YOU all think, and how I should reply to it. Obviously I majorly disagree with the two who replied to me...what's YOUR opinion?

Before Hoffmaster

2005-07-07T19:15:00.000-05:00

Last year, the class of 2007 started a Hoffmaster camping trip tradition. As traditions go, its actually a really good one. The 9th grade trip is a campout, and ours was great, except for the fact that it RAINED the whole night and into the next day. Due to this calamity, I took it upon myself to organize a SECOND Hoffmaster trip last summer. It was a great success, if I do say so myself!! Phil and Daryl, along with Mr. DeVries, were the chaperones. We went to the beach, played volleyball, sat around a campfire, played flashlight tag, and got dragged on exploratory expeditions by the adventurous Mr. DV. We stayed up till 4 a.m. just talking about life and everything. It was a very good time. Since we all had so much fun, it was decided that I should do another trip this year. I agreed, and set about putting it all together. I had chaperones lined up, kids called, all was as it should be. Then my adult chaperone backed out...Then my back up adult chaperone did too. This leaves me where I am now, three days before the event without an acceptable chaperone. Yes, right now I am spazzing out!!

Plato's Words

2005-06-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

Plato once said "You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a day of conversation." Just how true are these words? I asked several people over the course of a long time about it. I asked what the best way to read a person's character is, getting many results. One person suggested observing from a distance. Another said just talk to them. A third, however, strongly supports the quote. A group of guys told me that the best way to read a guy's character is to play hockey with him. They told me that how a guy interacts with other people shows a lot about the kind of person he is. It shows how well he can control himself, how much of a team player her is, and even how humble he can be. Obviously, Plato's words are true...just listen to the 3 a.m. ramblings of various hockey players!!

The Effects of the Media on School Violence

2005-06-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

This is a research paper I did this year. It started out being just about school shootings, then narrowed to the causes of school shootings, then narrowed even more to the MEDIA affects on school shootings. It turns out theres LOTS of info on school shootings!! Sorry about all the works cited and everything. If anyone wants the bibliography, althought I can't imagine why they would, I can post it later or something. Hopefully this sheds a little bit of light on what I was talking about on John's blog.

“’Juvenile killers don’t just wake up one day and become juvenile killers. Homicide, like most behavior, is learned.’” (Bonilla, 39) Those words of Charles Patrick Ewing, a psychologist at State University, can be proved by much research. The media, including TV, movies, and video games, is a major place where kids can learn to be killers.
It can be proven the toddlers as young as 14 months will mimic behaviors seen on TV (www.psych.org). 47% of kids ages four to six will copy aggressive behaviors, as well (www.media-awareness.ca). In fact, 25% of juvenile crimes are imitated from crimes seen on TV (Jones, 34). Add to that the knowledge that the average child will witness 200,000 acts of violence, 16,000 of which are murders, before the age of 18 (www.babybag.com). It seems logical that kids will be violent.
TV for kids can be up to 50 or 60% more violent than adult primetime TV. Cartoons alone can average 80 violent acts per hour (www.psych.org). In fact, 66% of kid’s shows contain violence. On kid’s shows, 75% of violent acts go unpunished, and 58% of them fail to show any pain a victim may face (www.baby bag.com).
By not showing the consequences, kids begin to forget that shooting someone does cause pain. Over time, this desensitizes them to violence, making it seem common and perfectly acceptable (Jones, 34). Keep in mind that the average child spends 28 hours a week parked in front of the TV, which is 28 hours slowly become accustomed to violence (www.babybag.com).
Not only is violence shown to be acceptable, it is portrayed to be the way to solve problems. A child sees his TV hero shoot and kill the bad guy and thinks it’s acceptable for him to go out and shoot someone he doesn’t get along with (Bonilla, 35). This message is reinforced every time violence is used to solve a problem, giving justification for violent actions (Garnett, 111). If a child isn’t taught that there are ways other than violence to solve problems, and that TV is only pretend, there will be a problem (Capozzoli, 24).
Young children are not always able to separate reality from pretend. When such a child views violent or scary TV shows, it can cause fear and mistrust (Garnett, 111). These programs only show one small piece of the world, a violent piece, but children can’t always understand that concept (www.psych.org). This can cause them to show self-protective behavior. They can begin to imitate the aggressive behavior they have seen demonstrated on TV. The lack of respect for life can also come through in a child‘s behavior as well; as such behavior on TV shows that disrespect for other people is okay (Garnett, 111). A 1972 study shows that the move TV violence a child watches, the more violent he or she tends to be (Jones, 33).
As stated, younger children seem the most at risk to develop aggressive behavior. Before the age of four, a child is still developing his or her values and understanding of right and wrong. They will imitate behavior to find out about the concept of actions and consequences. This can be demonstrated by a study called “Beating Up On Bobo” (Jones, 36).
In 1963, researchers took three groups of nursery school age kids and had them watch a movie of a man telling a life-sized doll, Bobo, to move out of his way. When Bobo didn’t, the man began to punch Bobo, hit him with a mallet, and throw balls at him, yelling at Bobo the entire time. The first group of children then saw a man being rewarded with candy. The second group saw the man scolded and punished, and the third group saw no additional footage (Jones, 37).
All the children were then brought into a playroom with Bobo dolls, mallets, and balls. The researchers watched them with a two-way mirror. The first and third groups of children imitated several of the man’s actions. The kids in the second group, the ones who had seen the man punished, did not (Jones, 37).
Obviously, this shows that young children can’t tell the difference between the actions on TV and ones in real life. With age, kids can begin to understand the differences, but early impressions lay the foundation for later behavior (Jones, 37).
Viewing violence on TV as a child is also shown to have lasting effects. In 1960, University of Michigan professor Leonard Eron did a study on 856 third graders. He found that the more violent TV they watched at home, the more aggressively they behaved in school. In order to study the long-term effects of TV violence, he went back in 1971, when the kids were around age 19. The found that boys who had watched the most violent TV when they had been in third grade were more likely to be in trouble with the law. He went back one more time in 1982 and found once again that the viewers of violent TV were more likely to be convicted of serious crimes and to use violence as discipline on their children or to beat their wives (www.media-awareness.ca).
Although movies are watched less, they are often more violent than TV. For example, in the movie Diehard 2, there were 264 murders. The fact that it was rated R was of little importance. Friday the 13th, an extremely violent movie, was also rated R, but 20% of children ages five to seven had viewed it according to one poll. Seeing that much violence at such a young age is sure to have an effect on a child (Jones, 35).
Like TV violence, movie violence sends the message that murder equals power. It tells kids that they can have control and get attention with a gun. In the movie Natural Born Killers, murder is even equated with freedom (Bonilla, 35).
In it, one of the main characters comments, “I’m alive for the first time in my life,” after he kills his first victim. Barry Loukaitis, the school shooter in Moses Lake, Washington was reported to have watched the movie and often quoted from it. He even told one of his friends that he thought it would be “fun to go on a killing spree.” (Bonilla, 35)
In another movie, The Basketball Diaries, actor Leonardo DiCaprio daydreams of killing classmates. In the scene, he is wearing black boots and a long black trench coat to hide his weapon. Michael Carneal, of the Paducah, Kentucky shooting, said he was inspired by the movie. After viewing it he told a friend that he was “planning something big.” (Bonilla, 37)
In addition to Natural Born Killers, Barry Loukaitis was reported to have been effected by The Basketball Diaries and the book Rage, by Stephen King. In the book, the main character kills his Algebra teacher and holds his Algebra class hostage. The book and movie joined together on the day Loukaitis walked into his Algebra class, dressed in black boots and a long black trench coat which concealed the rifle he was carrying, and shot several classmates. The correlation between the shooting and the book and movie is obvious (Bonilla, 37).
Another major contributor to aggressive behavior is violent video games. During World War II, the armed forces had a problem. The military personnel were often hesitant to shoot; it went against God-given instinct. The military needed to get rid of the correlation in the brain between shooting someone and death. They did that by developing virtual games similar to “Doom” and “Quake” to encourage this. With the games, the willingness to kill skyrocketed to 95%. In the military, the ethical questions involved in the decision to shoot are questioned, so a soldier understands when and who to shoot and why he is doing it (Larson, 68)
When a teenager starts playing these games, there is no one to question them. This makes these games nothing more than murder simulators for those who play them. Dave Grossman, a psychology professor, says as much. He says of games like “Quake” that they “are murder simulators which over time teach a person how to look another person in the eyes and snuff their life out.” (Jones, 42).
Almost 50% of fourth through eighth graders say that their favorite electronic games are violent. First person shooter games are most popular with boys ages 8-13, who spend an average of over four hours a week playing them (Jones, 42). 50% of teens ages 13-17 say they have played these games, and 10% say they play them regularly (Egendorf, 19)
In first person shooter games, the shooter is shot at and must shoot back to earn points (Egendorf, 19). The more violence committed, the more points earned (Jones, 42). Players have to think and act like assassins (Egendorf, 22). Players love the adrenalin rush they get by shooting an enemy and earning the due rewards (Egendorf, 20)
The game “Night Trap” features vampires drilling through the necks of collage age girls with power tools. Another game, “Mortal Kombat“, allows players to punch, kick, or even decapitate their enemies (Jones, 42). Judge Larabee has seen two cases where kids play these games and then go out and kill. She says, “There is not difference for them between Mortal Kombat and real life” (Day, 24).
Some games have players killing more than just the enemy. “Some games invite players to blow away ordinary people who have done nothing wrong-pedestrians, marching bands, an elderly woman with a walker. In these games the shooter is not a hero, just a violent sociopath,” says U.S. World and News Report writer John Leo. He says these games erase empathy, which researchers say is what makes kids killers. Psychologists warn that these violent games teach a lack of respect for life (Jones, 42).
Video games require fast reflexes. While they may develop hand-eye coordination, they require little to no critical thinking skills, but rather depend on instinct (Garnett, 114).
Over time, players get used to the no think, just act response to problems. This sends the message that solving problems is quick and requires little time. It says that the best way to solve a problem is to simply shoot it and get rid of it (Garnett, 113).
Shooting games teach a firing technique that is totally opposite to what one would normally use. This is chillingly obvious in the case of Michael Carneal. When he walked in to the school building, he had never before shot a handgun. Yet he fired eight shots and hit eight people. He would shoot at one person, aiming for the head, and move directly on to the next victim. A person who hasn’t used a gun before would normally shot at his or her target until it fell. Carneal learned this technique from the point-and-shoot, first person, violent video games. In these games, players have a short time to shoot and are rewarded for firing only one shot per target. Carneal gained his motor-coordination skills from those violent games (Larson, 67).
Four decades of research shows the correlation between media violence and real-life violence. “At some point, you have to say that if exposure to violence is related to aggressive attitudes and values and if [the latter] are related to shooting classmates or acting aggressively-all of which we know to be true-than it stands to reason that there is probably a link between exposure to violence and aggressive actions” (Egendorf, 21). Clearly, the media, including TV, movies, and video games has a major effect on violence in children and teens. Until something is done about this violence, there will continue to be extreme evil, kids out there, killing other kids.

The Glory of Hot Glue

2005-06-16T20:41:00.000-05:00

Until last year, I wasn't a large consumer of this product. In fact, I'm not sure I ever used it. Thankfully, this tragic occurrence was fixed during last year's Mission Possible for Science Olympiad. I fast learned that the cure for anything, from a broken lever to gluing hair on a barbie doll to securing fingers together, is hot glue. No matter what the issue, hot glue can solve the problem. Got water leaking? Layer of hot glue should fix it. Holes in the tube? Hot glue 'em!! Crutial lever snaps off 15 minutes before competition? RUN for the glue gun!! Hot glue, as its name indicates, is a substance of high temperature. Because of this, dripping glue on one's finger inflicts great pain upon said finger. Also, if you happen to drip vast quantities of said glue upon a finger, it will leave a scar...For at least one year, its still there in fact, so even longer probably. Hot glue is the way to go by far!! If you've never had the opportunity to use it, I'd definitely recommend it to you!!

A Bloody MONSOON!!!

2005-06-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Today, this morning specifically, was one of the wettest I've seen!! I woke up at 8, ready 2 go 2 the first swimteam practice of the year only to find it raining....raining HARD!!! Since i have to ride my bike to the pool, i logically went back to bed!! I was RUDELY awakened about 20 minutes later by my sister, who informed me that my friend Amanda and her sister Lexi were coming in 15 minutes to TAKE us to practice. With much groaning and complaining I dragged myself out of bed and to the 75 minute lapswim in preparation for our short summer season. It was the first exercise I've gotten since...umm, about a year ago, LAST YEAR'S swimteam!! Needless to say i nearly drowned...and there wasn't even ne1 2 save me!! Keep in mind that all this is occuring in the MONSOON-like rain!! But it did clear up this evening, which was nice. 2morrow i heard there's sposta be like, tornados tho...fingers crossed for nice weather!!!

Changes

2005-06-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

Its been like, a MONTH since i've posted last!! Its been SOOOOOOOOO busy!!! I majorly owe u an email John, i swear i'll get it 2 ya soon!! neway tho. Lets see........Banquet was a good time. I'm na get some pictures up ASAP...my computers kinna screwed up rite now. My bday was the 29th......sweet 16 now, but nvr been kissed, don't worry!! I went mini golfing the nite of the 28th.....pretty much lost actually, but it was rly fun neway. I got a fish named Pedro for my bday...he's one of those Japanese fighter fish...bettas r w/e they are. I'll hafta c if i can get a pic of him up 2. Exams are done now too......i'm SOOOO happy!! I was so incredibly tired of studying it wasn't even funny!! I think i did pretty good in most of them....fingers crossed neway!! I spent enuff time studying that i BETTER have, howzat!!
On the other hand, theres 4sure a bittersweet side to the year being done. Graduation was last night, and with the close of the year came the end of some really good times with some of my best friends who graduated. Many of the guys in that class are like big brothers, and the girls like big sisters. Jenny, in particular, and Jon and Bri are gonna b the ones I'll miss the most. When Jon gave his salutitorian address I'll admit to getting a bit teary eyed, and then again when they showed various pictures and videoclips of the seniors in a slideshow at the end. I just can't believe these people I've gotten to be such good friends with are moving on....without me!! Lanae, in her valedictorian speech, said that the only constant thing in life is change...how true that is!! This year has brought so many changes I can't even name them all!! I just hope this summer and next year bring about as many good times and memories as the last 10 months have!!
CONGRATS TO ALL OF US WHO HAVE FINSHED A VEEEERY LONG YEAR!!!

One More Day...

2005-05-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

I can't BELIEVE it...banquet, looong awaited and anticipated, is in less than 24 hours!!! It seemed like 4EVER ago that i got asked, and i thought i'd never be able 2 wait a whole month....n now its HERE!! I hafta stay at skool all day 2morrow since i'm only a sophmore, not a jr or sr...i'm na hafta get ready SOOO fast!!! My hair appt's at around 3:15, and i'm getting picked up around 5:45...yah, only 2.5 hours 2 get my hair and nails done, plus get dressed and do my makeup n w/e. Luckily my dress DOES fit, so at least thats 1 less thing 2 worry about!! I fully intend 2 take TONS of pictures and stuff...and i'll prolly write about everything nxt wk sometime.

Saturday is the Student Council Carwash at Red Hot Inn on Leonard and the East Beltline from 11-3 pending the weather. BE THERE.....as in we are VERY poor and we need as many cars 2 wash as we can get...leave BIG donations 2!!

Sunday is my BIRTHDAY!!! Sweet 16....Happy bday 2 me!!

Injustice.....and a nice day.

2005-05-22T00:25:00.000-05:00

I read the saddest story 2day in the news!! This girl in Texas had anorexia the summer before her junior year, and was out getting treated for the first about 3 weeks or so. Her school has a rule that you can't win scholastic honors (i.e. valedictorian) if you aren't enrolled w/i the first 20 days of the year. Since this girl was in treatment, she didn't make the deadline, but soon after was enrolled. She's been in the school system since kindergarten and at the top of her class for just as long. Since she wasn't enrolled in time to meet the deadline however, she can't be valedictorian of her class this year. The 2nd person says the victory is hollow for him, and wants the school to reconsider. The school is offering her an honorary valedictorian title she's not sure she's going to accept. She says she doesn't need it to make her feel accomplished. You can check the whole article out at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7884243/?GT1=6542 I just think its really sad she doesn't get the title of valedictorian she really does deserve.

I think today has quite easily been one of the most gorgeous we've had all year!! It was sunny and clear and PERFECT for laying out!! With Banquet fast approaching (NEXT FRIDAY!!!), I made use of the sun's rays to try to get rid of my horrid tan lines from spring break...they're getting there. I'm nearly ready for said banquet.....i've just gotta get my dress all fixed, n its sposta b done by thursday.....definently cutting it a ltl close, i know!!

A Night of "Fun"

2005-05-19T00:10:00.000-05:00

The spring night of music at good old PCHS was 2night. The junior high band and choir that sound like utter crap, the songs that go on for about 3 hours to long, the choir people who start laughing hysterically for no apparent reason, the occasional LOUD wrong note...its a good time. For some it was yet another page toward the end of their high school book. One such senior girl I talked to recalled events of previous such nights, saying how retarded it sounded that she was going to actually MISS those things. I remember a few years back making "snowflakes" out of programs and holding long drawn out conversations from the orchestra section with band members....we were severely reprimanded for our actions later on, but it was definently worth it!! Are these music nights a universal thing? Does everyone dread, but at the same time anticipate playing their instruments or singing in front of family and friends? Oh well, it was probably the last one I'll be playing in too...it was good while it lasted.

Friends from Abroad

2005-05-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

Reading Scarlett's post reminded me of when the Miskins first came to Grand Rapids. Our class was exited but apprehensive, not sure what to expect of someone from South Africa, a place virtually unknown to us. My first impression was oh, ok...and not much beyond that!! I do remember saying to someone OH MY GOODNESS, i LOVE his accent...still do actually:-) As far as the strange questions, i don't really remember anyone asking Gordon weird stuff, but you nvr know with the guys. I remember him giving a speech in Geography, saying that in south africa, people did NOT run around in leopard print bikinis eating animal bones, or something to that affect. It was at that speech i think i really gave Gordon more than a passing glance, thinking hmm, that was pretty cool, i wonder what he's like. I also remember more recently him telling us about the scar on his hand. He said he was stabbed back in South Africa by someone who was trying to rob him, but he fought the man off. Keep in mind that Gordon is a master story teller, and I ALMOST believed him!! Gordon has been a good friend of mine, even though we've drifted apart. The Miskin family is one that will long stay in our memories here in Grand Rapids, even if and when someday they aren't here with us anymore.

A Reasonably Good Time

2005-05-14T19:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, me and my friends DID manage to find something to do last night. We went to Spaans' house and the guyz played bball in the pouring rain, then we went inside and played pool and playstation. A ltl b4 6 we left for B-dubs (aka BW's aka Buffalo Wild Wings) to watch the Pistons/Pacers game. We BARELY got a table!! Since we had over an hour before the 7 o'clock game we played BS for awhile...VD was the only one who could RLY tell if i was BS-ing:-) The first 3 quarters were disgraceful, but the last 4 minutes of the game made up for it...the pistons ended up losing, but at least the whole game wasn't boring!! We did have to spend money, but since I had $2 to my name, i do owe ppl money now. Supper wasn't too bad, the wings were a ltl lacking in meat though. All in all it was a fun night....now comes the question of WHAT DO WE DO NEXT WEEK???

That being said, today I went shopping with my mom and sisters. Suffice it to say that although shopping with mom has its benefits in that SHE buys stuff, shopping with friends is FAR more enjoyable!! I got a purse to go with my banquet dress...i found shoes that i LOVED, but sadly $70 is out of my price range!!

This is turning into one of those boring journal things that no1 rly cares about....i've GOT to think of some better topics of dicussion!!!

The Weekend

2005-05-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

What is it about the end of the week that causes everyone to feel the great need to go out and do something? I, for one, experience this urge by about Wednesdays lately!! School's just getting old, and I think we're ALL ready for some time off!! The problem with wanting to go out and do something on Friday nights is that we can never think of anything to go out and DO!! I personally am TOTALLY broke, and this is the case for most of my friends. What exactly is there out there that we can do without spending a whole lot of money?? The weather isn't supposed to be nice, so we can't really plan on doing anything outside. Inside, however, there isn't really that much to do that's free!! Bowling is a good $10, same with laser tag. We don't normally go to movies, and even if we did those cost money too. PARTY partying isn't really an option at all, so that's out. What else can a bunch of 15 and 16 year olds do that's cheap and legal? Let me know if you have any ideas!!

A New Beginning

2005-05-11T00:16:00.000-05:00

When I was thinking out loud on John's blog that i needed to get my own , i wasn't really planning on acting on it. Upon clicking on the "get you own" blog link, i discovered that it was quite easy to get a blog and decided to do just that. I have no idea how long this will last, but if i can think of stuff to write, it might be a lot of fun!! You guyz'll hafta give me lots of ideas n whatnot...but I'm sure no matter what i write I'll never measure up to some of the brilliant journals and blogs and stuff out there. Oh well, we'll give it a try!!