my church, originally uploaded by Chupperwidge.

I was helping out with the audio/visual stuff in the back today. ‘Twas quite a nice way to spend the service. And the pastor we had today was really good, too. In case you don’t know, my church has been going through a nasty sort of drama, complete with ’sides’ and all that rot. I won’t say much more about it -it only makes me have rage to think about it- but I will say that it seems to be getting a little better. Finally.

It’s been a rough day. I’ve been in a foul mood, and it hasn’t helped that I haven’t felt good. And my stupidity has caught up with me all in one day. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do in history last week, so I’ve got a major back-up. It makes me grouchy. But being grouchy helps nothing, so I’ll get over it. I’m visiting the Gifts now, and that always cheers me up.

I took the SAT tests last Saturday. At first I thought I wasn’t going to be too nervous, but a the dreams I’ve been having tell otherwise. For instance, two days ago, I had a dream that I had to go back to elementary school because I failed the math section of the SATs. My knees wouldn’t fit under the desks, and they had to put me in the back row because I blocked the other kids’ views. Poor Mom, when she came to wake me up (at 8:30, because she wants me to be able to function properly when I have to get up early for the test… not that it’s going to help me), I snapped at her without really knowing why I was grouchy. A few minutes later, I figured it out and apologized. But those are the sort of dreams I had before the test.

So I bet you’re wondering how it went.  To put it shortly, it went badly. I didn’t even finish the essay they assigned, and my performance in the math section was shaky at best. The reading was easy, though. But I’m pretty sure of one thing; I’m probably going to end up taking the test again. Ugh.

On a lighter note, I’ve finished Geometry and Chemistry for the year! Whoo! Now all I’ve got to do is finish my Chinese book, Wordly Wise, and World History. Oh, and reading six books by the end of the month… but that’s nothing, right?  =)  …Ah well, at least it’s not six books of something I absolutely hate. I kinda like history. So, yeah.

I’ve got the James Bond theme stuck in my head, along with “Another One Bites the Dust”. Before that, it was “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid. And now I’m currently listening to “It’s My Time to Fly”, so that’ll probably be next. I like that song. It’s on Titan AE, one of the coolest cartoon movies ever. I don’t even know why I’m writing this paragraph, honestly. It doesn’t have much to do with anything, and there’s a whole bunch of other interesting stuff I could be telling you.

For instance, I had the privilege of going to the last ever Audio Adrenaline concert with my youth group two weeks ago. It was awesome! They played all of my favorite songs, and Lauren and I even got to go up in the front of the seating area we were in and jump around in the sort-of-but-not-really mosh pit. And during the intermission, I got the last t-shirt of the design I liked. It’s really big because it was the last one, but I don’t care- I’ll wear it with pride! Yup. Audio Adrenaline rocks. It’s so sad that they’re breaking up.

So after the intermission, MercyMe played. It was kind of funny; since their music is so mellow, the lead singer said after the noticably quieter round of applause, “Well, that’s what we get for agreeing to play after Audio A’s very last performance. Definitely not one of our smarter moments.” True, but MercyMe was still cool. It was just that we fans were tired from jumping and screaming and clapping… and all that stuff. Nothing personal. They sang my favorite of their songs, too- “Spoken For”. Mom would’ve liked that part of it. I actually liked it even though I’m not overly fond of MercyMe. It was relaxing after all the rock music.

Dave and Tara got here this afternoon! It’s only been a few hours, but already it’s been fun to have them here. We’re gonna have a great two weeks together.  =)

I hate spam. I hate it so much. I logged on to my email a few minutes ago to find that I had no less than 9 emails telling me I had comments on my blog from people like “Edwin” and “Diane”. They were all something about how cool my site is, and what a great web designer I am, and how I should visit their site too.

…Earth to spam people; I used a pre-designed layout. You’d think people would be a little smarter about this sort of thing.

Anyway, I fully plan on posting for real sometime in the near future. A lot has happened, but I just don’t feel like writing right now. And I’ve got school to do. And I’m not in the best of moods. So later, maybe.

Whoa. It’s actually cool outside! For the last month or two it’s been miserably humid and hot, and this week was the first week in a long time that it’s actually been comfortable enough to wear jeans and a t-shirt. And I actually wore a jacket today! You’ve no idea how happy it made me to be able to do that. ^.^

Since I mentioned the youth retreat in my last post (I know it was forever ago, sorry!), I’ll just say that it was awesome! Turns out that Angie and I weren’t the only girls going, and Lauren and Tiffany came, too (you don’t know them yet). Even Beth came, and she brought Miller with her. The weekend was just tons of fun, packed with services, swimming, good food, and socializing with the youth group. My personal favorite was the campfire by the beach one one of the nights. We had the best thing ever -Reese’s smores- and Angie, Lauren, and I went down on the sand and stared at the ocean and just talked about random stuff. It was really cool because it was almost a full moon, so there was enough light to see all around us, and even to cast shadows. (Tiffany wasn’t with us because she fell asleep on one of the campfire benches.) All of us agreed at the end that it should’ve lasted longer.

Let’s see… Since I last posted, this is pretty much what’s gone on- not in order, of course: Sarah’s visit- tons of fun, and pretty laid back; the Kiefers’ visit- also fun, but left us all really tired; Paster John and Karen’s visit- good, but I didn’t do much with them; Pastor James and Julie leaving our church to start a new one- I still think it sucks, but there’s not much I can do about it; and now Mom and Mel’s trip to PA- they left last night. I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, but oh well.

Today was kind of neat. After I went to our homeschool group at church, I got to stay home all day. At times it sort of felt like I had my own apartment and I was studying for college or something. Kinda stupid, huh? But at least I’m getting a chance to improve my study skills (or lack thereof). And Dad came home for lunch, so I got to take a break and talk to him for a while. I ended up getting my work done a lot earlier than normal, and having time to play video games. I s’pose I work better with less distractions. Though I still think the empty rooms are sorta depressing sometimes.

Gah! My left hand has been twitching on and off since this afternoon, and it’s driving me up the wall! It’s right in that little part where my thumb joins my hand. It’s okay now that I’m typing, but if it’s just sitting there, it’ll start up again. And my right knee hurts for some unknown reason. …Jeez, I sound like a whiner. I guess I kind of am, though. Ah well, I’ll stop.

Looks like I’m stuck on using “kinda”, “kind of”, “sorta”, and “sort of”. And “pretty” and “really”. And parenthesis. I need to practice my writing some more. I should go do that, but instead I think I’ll watch some Invader Zim on YouTube. Heh, I have this little Zim cartoon sitting on top of my browser, and every time I click it, it yells, “I AM ZIM!” Yay Zim!

Oh yeah, almost forgot: writing class is almost done- only two more classes to go! YES! I still have to take the final exam, though… but it’s still almost over!

…For Dave! If it weren’t for my big bro, I’d have next to nil comments on my blog. Yay for you and your commenting, Dave! =)

I’m going to try to get into the every-couple-of-days blogging like Tara does, especially since I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands. Well, at least for a while, anyway. And if I don’t, I’ll try and make time. I like writing, and I like telling people what’s going on in my life.

Since I don’t really feel like doing school right now, I thought I’d blog about the Happy Hands Club at our church. It’s actually the same group that got together and did signing for Easter, composed of moms, one younger married woman, and three teenagers (Megan, Arlene, and yours truly). I like learning the signs, but I’d like to do more contemporary songs. We meet on Mondays, so we’re going tonight.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Peter, our youth leader, got a puppy of his own. He’s a cute little beagle by the name of Jake, and when we asked how much Peter paid for him, he kind of had this pained look and said, “Let’s just say he was more than any laptop I’ve ever owned.” He’d been looking for a dog in the shelters around the island on the Internet (with our help, of course) but he couldn’t find a puppy that wasn’t a pit bull and didn’t have heartworm, so he just gave up and bought a purebred. Peter actually brought Jake in to youth group before he was even named, and we all got to put in suggestions for his name. Angie and I both thought he looked like a Sirius, but of course Peter didn’t agree. Ah well, Jake’s not too bad. Much better than Bailey, anyway.

Wow, I wrote a lot about Peter’s dog. I must be bored or something- imagine that! I suppose I should get busy on my schoolwork, then… no use in putting it off.

Or maybe there is. I can write about my schoolwork! It’s the thought that counts after all, isn’t it? So I guess you could say school’s going well. It’s not interesting at all, but then again, when has it ever been? I feel like writing a list, so I’ll do that 1-10 rating thing like I did in last year’s posts.

Geometry- 6: Kinda boring since I’m still in the beginning stages of defining terms and writing postulates.

World History- 6: Again, boring and tedious since I’m still in the beginning. I’ve only gotten up to the great flood.

Chemistry- 4: One word- ugh. And the guy I’m supposed to be on the same module with happened to start a week before I did, which means lots doubling up.

Chinese- 9: I’m learning Chinese! It doesn’t get much cooler than that, even if it is ridiculously hard.

Wordly Wise- 9: I love Wordly Wise because, well, I love words.

English Review- anywhere from 1-10: I know that’s a really, really broad rating, but the review book has everything from proper capitalization to recognizing different parts of a sentence. The mechanics and vocab I enjoy, the other stuff not so much.

Reading- 4, surprisingly: The only reason that’s rated low is because I have to read Mere Christianity by tomorrow. I had two weeks to do it, but I kept putting it off… so now I have to read the rest of the book in a day, which is like more than a hundred pages. And it’s a pretty hard book to read at times, too. But I still like it, and C.S. Lewis’s writing style cracks me up.

Yep, school. Not rated very high at all right now, but I’m hoping that’ll change once I get out of the beginning stages.

Bleh, it’s been really hot and muggy lately. Certainly not as bad as PA, but then again, we have air conditioning there. I wish it would just hurry up and rain instead of being all cloudy and humid!

Guess I won’t be getting out of the beginning stages of my school if I don’t get it done, so I’ll go skulk off to do my homework now.