Crazy Pictures!

I was looking at the pictures that we have taken lately and I noticed that I am weird! When the camera is out I just grab it and take pictures of myself making funny faces. I am weird! That is for sure! So, I just thought that I would post some of the pictures of me b/c it has been such a long time since I posted that I am sure everyone has forgotten what I look like. :) jk This is just a weird picture of me in a sweet davis track hoodie! I think that it is impossible for me to not pull a face in a picture. I'm sorry.

This is a picture of me spinning. Mom wanted to take a picture of my skirt because it spins so well! This was like a few Sundays ago.

I couldn't figure out how to rotate this b/c it was rotated until I uploaded it, and then it wasn't the right direction. Well, this is when I went on a bike ride with mom and dad one Saturday. I wore as many colors as I possibly could. It was sweet!

This is when I got back from one of my track meets and it was raining at the track meet, so I was very wet.

Hey Family! Sorry I haven't posted for MONTHS! I never have anything to post about. The first picture is a picture of Spencer the morning he went into the MTC. I didn't go to the MTC with the family because Spencer said, "Why do you want to go? You saw the exact same movie two weeks ago." I had two tests that I would have missed so Spencer convinced me to go to them. That morning I didn't go to half of my first period so that I could spend a little more time with spencer. Well, my last memory of him is him making a dozen homeade doughnuts which is what he is doing in this picture. Not only did he make a dozen doughnuts, but in about 10 minutes he had completely devoured each and everyone of them. It was so funny! I was laughing so hard!

Well, after he ate an entire plate of doughnuts he then made a plate of about 15 cheese sticks and ate them too! What a breakfast! Then we took some pictures and mom and him drove me to school. I had seminary, so we said goodbye in the seminary parking lot. I gave him a hug and then started crying. I got back in the car and refused to go to school, but both of them(mom and spencer) told me that I had to because I had tests, and I was already there. So I got out of the car and walked into the building crying. My whole class was pretty freaked out because I was bawling for no aparent reason. It was pretty funny.

This is a picture of how sad we both were because he was leaving except we weren't even sad yet.

Cross Country Camp

First of all everyone should know that This blog would have been updated a lot sooner if mom and dad hadn't kicked me off when I was trying to update it last week. I got back from cross country camp last friday and I had so much fun there! It was in the uinitas at marsh lake. It was in the Unitias because of the higher alttitude. I was really nervous about going because the two weeks before camp I hadn't done my best running wise. This picture is of my coach talley finding the spare tire when out tire broke down about 10 miles from the campsite. The lady whose car we were in didn't have any idea where her spare was. It was actually under the car and you had to crank it off.

This picture is of Natalie Haws. She is the craziest person I know!
This is a picture of Natalie and I at the top of red castle. We ran/ hiked that on wednesday. It is a 23.2 mile hike round trip and it was fun! We would run for 5 minutes then hike for five minutes. That was pretty hard. We didn't do much running on the way back. We only ran 4 or 5 times (on the way back.)


This is a picture of some people playing games. When we weren't running, eating or sleeping we were playing games. I was pretty good at mafia and scum. I was terrible at apples to apples! We had been playing for an hour and nobody had picked my card, so I cheated and put in five good cards, but still nobody picked it.
This is natalie and candace they are so funny! I was in their tent and both of them would never fall asleep!
This is a picture of Jami Dixon and I. She was also in my tent. I slept right next to her and one night she completely rolled over on me and squished me against the tent wall. I woke her up and asked her to move she did a little bit, but she didn't realize that she was complete off her mat and on mine. After trying to sleep on a third of my mat I woke her up again and then she rolled over a lot and ran into the girl on her other side. It was so funny!
This is natalie, candace and I right before we cleaned up on the last day. We were all sad to leave, but a shower sounded so nice! We were also looking forward to flushig toliets since we had one outhouse for the whole team. It smelled pretty bad.

I should probably tell you about the camp. Everyday we were awaken to coach buhrley's voice yelling, "wake up ladies sale at Nordstroms." Or something like that. Then we would lay there and try to get out of our sleeping bags. When we finally did we had to go to our "stuff" tent and seach through out bags and find some dry running shorts and a T-shirt. It rained quite a bit there so a lot of everyone's stuff got really wet. (t reminded me of a certain backpacking trip I once went on.) Then we would all gather around the fire until everyone was ready to go.

I have to finish this later becuase mom is telling me that I have to go and clean my room

Parade

I was in the forth of July Parade last tuesday, and I had such a blast! I was in it with the other officers and sophomore committee. I wasn't sure how to get very much water on the trailer. The only thing I could come up with was to put those 55 gallon water storage barrels on it. I did put them on plus a few other other buckets. We might not have run out of water if we hadn't wasted it all on the water fights we had before the parade started. The water section of the parade is after the real parade, so everyone in the water section had to wait for almost three hours before it was our turn to go. We had to line up an hour and a half before the first parade even started! It was so dumb. Anyway, we used half of one of the barrels squirting the seniors, juniors, and SBO's. Before the parade started we had our trailer decorated really cute, but these dumb little kids who were on the baseball team came up and them apart! It made me really mad! We ran out of water about when we had about a forth of the parade left, but it wasn't really that bad because we would fill up again when we got to a fire hydrent or someone with a hose.

This is me before the parade started.
This is how I looked at the end. Actually I looked like this almost as soon as I got to our float and the boys started spraying me.

Iwas in the forth of July Parade last tuesday, and I had such a blast! I was in it with the other officers and sophomore committee. I wasn't sure how to get very much water on the trailer. The only thing I could come up with was to put those 55 gallon water storage barrels on it. I did put them on plus a few other other buckets. We might not have run out of water if we hadn't wasted it all on the water fights we had before the parade started. The water section of the parade is after the real parade, so everyone in the water section had to wait for almost three hours before it was our turn to go. We had to line up an hour and a half before the first parade even started! It was so dumb. Anyway, we used half of one of the barrels squirting the seniors, juniors, and SBO's. Before the parade started we had our trailer decorated really cute, but these dumb little kids who were on the baseball team came up and them apart! It made me really mad! We ran out of water about when we had about a forth of the parade left, but it wasn't really that bad because we would fill up again when we got to a fire hydrent or someone with a hose.

Hero

Okay, I was reading this english journal that Mr. Thompson (my english teacher) had us write in this past year when I found this. I wrote it on November 3, 2005. I thought it was kind of cool, so since I couldn't sleep I thought I would blog it. I don't even remember writing it, but I did. It is kind of cool. Here it is.

I think that a hero is someone who does something that is selfless. A hero is someone who does something that makes the world a better place. A hero can be someone who is famous and amazing. Someone who does something for the whole world. Another kind of hero is an everyday kind of person. A person who is nice to everybody. Maybe your a hero to the kid who was sitting alone at lunch. You can be a hero to a little kid by teaching them to ride a bike, or do a trick on the tramp.

To be a hero you don't really have to have certain qualities. It is just how people look at you. Someone could have saved the world but not be as big a hero in a little kids eye as his dad. You just have to have someone think you are a hero to be a hero.

My heros are the people who have the power to make others happy. Like my sister Miriam. She doesn't even care how cool people are, or how smart they are. She is nice to everyone. Maybe Mr. Incredible is a hero b/c he is way cool.

That is cool huh? When I said, "To be a hero you don't really have to have certain qualities. It is just how people look at you." I was right! Isn't it cool that I wrote that? Wow when i'm famous that is going to be one of those quotes people type up and give us for young womens. Just kidding.

Who is your hero?

EFY!

I just got back from EFY, and I had a blast!!! EFY was so much fun you don't even know! At the most I got about... 6 hours of sleep a night. Twice I went to bed at later than 1:00 am, and I woke up everyday at 6:00 every morning since you have to stand in line for the shower. This is a picture of some of the girls in my group.
This is my counselor Jen. She is so awesome and fun! Unlike the other counselors Jen would let us stay up later and she would talk to us. She told us tons of funny stories like "worst date ever, most embarrassing moment, and first kiss." They were all hilarous! Jen also did all of the girsl hair in our group for the last dance. She is so awesome, and I know I am going to miss her!
This is a picture of our group during the cheer-off. At EFY every group does a cheer-off and they have a contest to decided which cheer is the best. First we do the cheer for the BC's then if we make it to the finals we do it for all of EFY. We didn't even have a cheer until about 30 minutes before we had to do it. Then this girl had a great idea and that is what we did. Our name is hidden treasure and this is what our cheer was.
boys: before we came to EFY we used to steal and plunder.
girls: The way that things were going we thought they'd go down under.
boys: But then we came to EFY we tried it for outselves.
girls: And now we know for sure that they won't go to ......
Everyone: olay, olay, olay,olay, olay, olay,olay, olay, olay,olay, olay, olay,olay, olay, olay,
We would sing the olay song. The boys were in the middle of the circle with the girls around them. When it was their turn we would bend down. When it was our turn they would bend down. Then when we got to the olay part we would dance around, which is what I am doing here. The we would all go into the middle and yell "HIDDEN TREASURE!" Oh yeah, when we are entering we get into the formation of a boat and row in. Our cheer ROCKED! We totally got first place!

This is a picture of the girls in my group on our floor on pizza night. We ordered this huge pizza from american pie. I think the pizza was 26 inches. It was huge! We had ten people and we couldn't even finish it.
This is a picture of all the boys in our group. We had twice as many girls as we did boys so they were scarce. At first I didn't like the boys because I thought they were weird. Two of the kids were total skaters! It made me laugh! On the day that we were supposed to wear the shirts the skaters didn't. I thought they were just trying to be rebelious, but they just forgot and they felt really, really, dumb! After awhile though everybody becomes friends and it is awesome. I think that we had the best boys in our group becaue they were kind and considerate. Also they didn't think they were too cool to cry and actually show some emotion.
The is a picute of my friend Whitney Hoops and I. Whittney is so awesome! She is Funny! She lives in Provo and we are the same age. Out of everyone I got the closest to whit. We always did crazy things together! We were doing a service project and the BC's came in and dumped a bunch of scissors on the ground, so we were playing around with them when I said, "Do not run with siciors or hold them with the tip out." I said it in this total teacher voice it was funny. We decided to make a movie of what not to do with scissors. We ran around screaming and pretentending to stab each other. It was pretty stupid, but we had fun! Later that day one of the BCs told us that the counselors had, had a contest to see who could bring the scissors to their group the fastest. The result was bloddy hands and arms. Seriously they had battle wounds! It was so funny.
This is a picture of all of hte girls in our group. They were so awesome, and we all became so close this week. It is crazy how you can make friends so fast. It was only a week, but all of us are such good friends. EFY was great! Not only the fun part, but mostly the spiritual part. That part is the best. I love you all, and I hope you have a fabulous summer!

Life Update on Lizzy

I saw Jon's blog and decided that I should do a "life update" also. School is going to be over in three days! This year has gone by so fast. I can't even believe it! I reciently made Sophomore president of Davis High School, and I am way excited. I haven't done to much yet except pick our jacket, pick committee, and go to a bbq. I will have meeting in the summer and I will be in two parades. During the interview, (the one where they decided who is going to be pres.) I thought I did terrible. They asked hard questions like, "what talents do you have that will help contribute to sophomore class president?" The only thing I could think of was that I could sing, and I didn't have any idea how that could help me. I decided to say I was creative which is not exactly true. Kanien is creative. I am just weird. I am excited to do the interviewing for next year. That is going to be fun. Oh yeah, the sophomores got stuck with yellow jacket AGAIN! The last sophomore officer told me that she always got called, "banana peel," or "rotton banana."

I also work at lagoon in the ticketing department. I don't love going to work, but it is fun to get out of doing yard work. Actually work isn't all that bad. It is usually fun at the beginning, but then I start to want to leave, and when they start letting other people off who came in before me it makes me a little mad. I also hate counting money at the end of the day! It was my 4th time working at the ticket windows on monday, and my first time not being more than 5$ off. Usually I am way off because I miss a twenty, or I add wrong, but this time I was only 1$ over on my first try! If you are more than $5 over or short they make you recount everything! The good thing about lagoon is my department. I like working in ticketing. It is by far the best department. Our supervisors are so much fun. Most of them don't get mad at you, and you just joke around with them a lot. It seems like there is always food in the ticket windows that somebody has brought, so that is fun.

Today was the cross country meeting at Davis High. It made me feel really guilty for neglecting running for the past few months. I ran today, and I was feeling ok until I realized that I was running about a 10 minute mile. That is way sad! I am going to be so slow! Oh well, all I can do is train hard now. Coach Talley told me that I should be doing the medium workouts, but today I did the slow one. The workouts he wants me to do range from 3 to 6 miles, along with trail runs, tempo runs, and fartleck runs. I think that in a few weeks I will be able to get into the mode of running again. Me and my friends from Cross country are "going to find a six pack." this summer. That is going to be interesting. As soon as school gets out I have EFY from the 5th to the 10th. Then I have a week of nothing. Then from the 19 to the 23 I have girls camp. This summer I also have Cross country came in late July. Oh yeah, we have a cabin trip with the McCanns, (which I will not be going of there is no water.) and family vacation. HOLY COW! That is a lot of stuff! Well, it should be fun! I hope that everyone is doing well and getting ready for summer!

Poetry Contest

Let me just say before you read this that I am not good at poetry!

Peace

Small, still and beautiful
A glistening reflection of the sun
The water was glass
It was new
It was waiting
Untouched by anything or anyone
The water was peace

I know that was way painful! Sorry.

Locked Outside

Okay so on Saturday I went to this leadership conference at Cottonwood High school with all of the officers and SBO’s from Davis High. It was way fun and crazy. Imagine about 200 kids who all love to be the center of attention, and have more self confidence than Matt Smith. It was insane! Everyone yelled, clapped, danced, and sang the entire time. By the time I got home I was pretty hot, sweaty and exhausted! I was hot and sweaty because I drove home in this old non air conditioned Mercedes that can’t go faster than 65 miles per hour. I was in the car with two loud, crazy, and freakish senior boys. (how do you feel about that dad?) Anyway I was pretty tired when I came home.

When I got home my sister in law Kanien wanted me to go with her to Salt Lake to feed Grandma. My brother Jon and sister in law Kanien are babysitting us while my parents are in Europe. They live with my 100 year old great grandma and take care of her. Well, while they are here they have to go home every morning and night to wake grandma up and feed her breakfast, then feed her dinner and put her to bed. She is pretty helpless and she can’t do any of this herself. Anyway so were going down so Salt Lake to feed Grandma. When we go to the house I was asleep to be rudely aroused by a cry of anguish from Kanien. “LIZZY, I forgot the key again!” Earlier this week Kanien forgot the key to her house when going to feed Grandma. She did this because she has been driving a different car meaning a different keychain. When she forgot the key last time she had to call my Grandpa, and he gave her two spare keys.

Calling Grandpa again was out of the question. Obviously. We were not going to face the embarrassment of that! I solemnly told Kanien, “We’ve gotta break in!” My Great Grandma’s house is about 50 years old, so it has these old windows that have this thing on the inside that you have to turn with all of the strength in you to get open. Actually first you have to unlock the window by lifting up the latch then they slowly open as you turn the little crank. I do not know how to explain it very well! We looked around the entire house and only one window was even unlocked. The window was a small basement window covered with spider webs, and this bush that had thorns on it. We kicked it for awhile then decided that is was useless.

We next started picking the lock. We decided that our best bet would be the basement door because it was only one of those push and turn doors. We tried a bobbie pin for hours pushing it this way, then the other way, up and down, right and left. Nothing worked. We then moved on to the little, tiny file in fingernail clippers. The result was the same. Kanien then called her dad who works in the military if he knew how to pick a lock. He told her that is was impossible without a lock picking kit. Having no such kit, we proceeded using the bobbie pin on the other doors in the house. We thought about unscrewing the window, but we didn’t have any tools. We were about to go when I said, “Kanien I think dad keeps a tool box in the trunk of the car.” We looked and I was right! There was a tool box in the emergency compartment inside the trunk.

Neither of us knowing what kind of tools to use, we took them all. We tried everything, but nothing worked or would fit. It was so depressing. Then Kanien found some knives in the backyard. You know how on the movies the bad guys just slide a knife up and down the door and it magically opens? Well, yeah, that doesn’t exactly work in real life. I don’t know exactly when, but Kanien had called my Grandpa to see if he would bring us a key, but he and my Grandma were both gone. So we had three options, break in, wait until my grandpa came home, or drive back to Kaysville, get a key and drive back to SLC again. “Lizzy let’s just go home.” Kanien said. “Okay, but can we please just try that window one more time?” I begged. We walked over to the window and tried to kick it some more, but then Kanien remembered, “Lizzy we can’t kick it. We have to pull it out.” After trying to pull it open with our hands we got the knives and started to pry it open. Guess what? It came open! But only about an inch, and that inch was only on the top. The bottom part wouldn’t open because that is where the thing we had to turn was. We pushed sticks in the windows to keep it open. Then while we were both laying on our bellies Kanien pulled on the window while I stuck my hand inside and tried to reach the thing we had to twist. If I had, had a arm the size of a six year old, this might have worked.

Our next attempt involved a stick and lots of pulling. I stuck a long stick inside the small opening and tried to push the little twisty thing with the stick. Kanien had to pull the window open as far as she could while I tried pushing with the stick. I didn’t know which way to push it so I periodically tried both. “Wait Lizzy.” Kanien said, “let’s think about this. Righty tighty, Lefty loosey. Okay push up.” Push up I did. I pushed, and pushed and pushed! The problem was the stick kept slipping off the dang thing I was trying to push. I stuck my arm in further so I would be able to have better control over the stick. Kanien pulled harder. “CRACK” The window had cracked. It didn’t shatter it just cracked the bottom pane. I let out a moan, “Kanien, we are so close.” Lizzy let’s call grandpa one more time and if he isn’t there let’s go home. We called grandpa and he wasn’t there, but Grandma was. She wasn’t mad. I don’t think Grandma’s can get mad at their grand daughters. All she did was laugh. Well, all I can say, is I’m glad he could laugh about it.

Still laughing she gave two sweaty, grass stained, and distraught girls a key to the house. When I got to the house I ran to the HATED window and tried to turn the knob. “KANIEN!!!!! WE WERE PUSHING THE WRONG WAY!” I am not even kidding! The whole time we were pushing the wrong way. That was almost the most depressing thing that ever happened to me. It wasn’t exactly the fact the window broke that made me so mad. It was the fact that we had failed. We both tried to hard, and in the end we failed when we were so close to succeeding. Oh well, it made a good blog.

I'm not exactly sure what to call this blog.

Will people stop trying to make me cry! Seriously let's try to make our last month of school slightly enjoyable! If people would stop writing, or making us write stuff about how much high school is going to be lame maybe school would be fun. See that picture? It's funny. You should be laughing. Not trying to make me depressed!

I am excited for the summer! I really am! First of all I am not going to have any time at all to be bored. That is a relief. I hate summers where I am bored. Not only do I have a job, but I'm (along with Brittany!) am going to do cross country which trains in the summer. I also have vacations such as: EFY, Girls camp, Cross camp, family vacation, backpacking, and my cabin. Don't ask me how I will get the time off of work, or how I'll pay for it. Oh, yeah I have job. I bet I will have to cut out backpacking and cabin. That is going to be way lame. Oh, well you can't have everything you want.

I am grumpy enough right now that if I talk about school it probably won't make me sad. Don't ask me why I am kind of grumpy right now. Oh, I know why. It is because I just ate a ton of wedding cake. When I eat bad food late at night it puts me in a bad mood. That's weird. Anyway, I was thinking what have I accomplished this year? The first thing that comes to my mind is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. That was the thing this year that required the most work (besides math) and was the most fun. Maybe that is why I thought about it. My next accomplishment is math. I really have accomplished a ton! in that class. Even if I only have B's to show for it, I am still proud that I didn't drop the class in the first place. This English class is an accomplishment. The thing is this class is fun. I don't really look at it as a chore. Math I see as a chore. English is more like after I have finished all my lame and boring homework I get to read or I'll write a blog. I usually won't let myself write a blog before I do other homework because then I feel like I have tons of time. When I have tons of time to write instead of writing I think about what I am going to write about, and I read everyone else's blog "to get an idea."

Most likely the greatest accomplishment is how my attitude has changed. If I was the same person I was last year I would have dropped out of math, and this English class. I never would have run for 10th grade office because I would have been afraid of not making it. Now I actually stick to stuff, and can handle disappointment. This year I kind of found out who I was. I have changed so much. Just look at some pictures of me last year. Most people don't remember what I looked like. I looked way different, but I have changed even more in the way I feel and act. Last year I was a small insecure want-a-be. Okay so I wasn't that much of a loser, but I was dumb. I cared so much about what other people thought about me that it was killing me. If you care about what people think, especially if the people are not of the greatest type, then you will be miserable. This year I decided who I wanted to be and how I wanted to behave. I decided that I wouldn't care what people thought, and I also decided that I would try as hard as I could to be nice to those around me. This was hard for me because it really is hard to be nice to people you don't really like. I know that I have been mean, and rude to people throughout the year, but at least I tried to be nice. It is so easy to say something to someone that is mean and hurtful just so the other people around you laugh. There are people who are labeled hilarious, but really they are just mean. They claim to be just kidding, but it still hurts. Do you know what I found out this year? There is good in everyone you meet. If you go through this life picking out a person's faults and bad habits you will never have any friends. I bet if you started talking to a bum on the street you could still find something you liked about that person if you only look hard enough. It is that looking part that is hard. 

my little sis.

This is a picture of my amazing little sister Kristin. Isn't she cool? My little sister is the greatest! I wonder how she does it. She is twelve years old and in sixth grade. She is going to be in Jr. high next year. I am terrified for her because I think Jr. high is dang scary! She however is just excited, not worried in the least.

All of my friends are so envious of me because of Kristin. Once when my friends and I were talking on my bed and Kristin came in. She came in and talked to us for a little while then left. After she left Kaylin said, "Oh man, I wish I had a little sister! Lizzy you are so lucky." Then every other girl in the room agreed with her. They were amazed at how nice and fun my little sister was. I always took it for granted that when I needed help Kristin was always willing. When I was sad she will comfort me. She will always tell me if my hair, or clothes look okay. I really don't deserve a sister as nice as Kristin is. It really isn't fair to Kristin, she is so nice to me, always doing so much for me. I feel like I don't show her how much I really do love her. I'm sorry Kristin for being such a jerk sometimes! You really are the greatest! I love ya!

Lazy Lizzy!

Holy cow, I have been kinda grumpy lately! I know exactly why I have been grumpy too. It is because I have been lazy! I feel like all I ever do is nothing! Take this weekend for example, I was a complete bum! I have done absolutely no homework and all I did on Saturday was sit in front of the t.v. and eat mint chocolate chip ice cream and left over pizza. Seriously that is what I did. Alright, so that isn't all I did, but that is what I did until about 5:30 in the afternoon. You should see my face right now. I have the most disgusted look on it. I will tell you about my totally lame Saturday.

My whole family was going to the morning session of conference, except my little sister, my older brother, my 10 yr. old cousin, and me. When I woke up everyone was gone. I thought that Kristin and Tim were still asleep, so I started watching t.v. waiting for them to wake up. That was my first mistake. Don't ever begin a morning by watching t.v. because if you do the rest of your day will be terrible. When I went and checked if Kristin and Tim were in their beds they were gone. I was so mad because I knew that they had probably decided to go to conference, and now I was going to be all alone except my big bro. (When my brother is home he is usually in the basement studying or doing something on his computer so I knew he probably wouldn't keep me company.) So, I was faced with a day (until 2:00) all by myself. I called my dad a million times to make sure that is where Kristin and Tim were. When I finally got a hold of him I found out I was doomed to a day of boredom.

Instead of trying to make the situation a good one by doing something productive I mopped around the house. I ate left over pizza for breakfast then I watched t.v. AGAIN! I am such a loser. That's all I can say. When I am watching t.v. time passes fast in a way, but in a way it passes slow. I think that because t.v. requires absolutely no brain power. When I watch t.v. it is like I am dead. I don't do anything! I get so bored! When I watch t.v. I have to be doing something, so I eat. Seriously that is what I do when I watch t.v. I eat. Do other people do that, or is it just me? I hope I'm not the only one. So, I watched t.v. and ate mint chocolate chip ice cream. (Out of the carton!) I did that until 10:00 then I watched conference while making a way cute calender. Watching conference put me in a better mood, but I was still grumpy. I played the piano (note, I played it. I didn't practice it.) until everyone got home and we sat down to watch the second session of conference. Basically I feel asleep after the first talk. I slept until 5:30, and when I woke up I was way grumpy! I felt like I had wasted my whole day.

I called Kaylin and asked her if she would come on a walk with me, but she didn't want to. She convinced me to go to her house, but I had to shower first. Yeah, I got ready for the day at about 6:00 pm. I went to Kaylin's house and fought with her evil second cousins. All of these tiny little girls under the age of 8 were at Kaylin's house and they were driving me crazy. They had the highest pitched voices and they would say stuff like, "How old are you?" ,"Fourteen." , "Really? You only look like your eleven." Followed by five minutes of giggles. This was what they kept saying to Kaylin, over and over again. I finally locked them in her brothers room. They however were perfectly happy with that because there were plenty of things to destroy in there. Anyway Kaylin and I went back to my house, and what do you suppose was happening there? My family was making milk shakes. We went to the store and got some wicked sweet candy bars and make homemade milkshakes. It was super fun, but after I ate the shake I felt like such a bum! I didn't eat ANYTHING healthy at all that whole day! Well, I did have some mock lasagna but that isn't exactly healthy. The rest of the night was fun because we watch a bunch of home videos. To top it all off I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning talking to my sister. Actually that was the best part of my day.

"To the world you're just one person, but to one person you can mean the world"

Deltashark wrote this comment on Mr. Thompson's blog tiltled, "Hope Is Alive.":

"Yes, it really is frightening to think of the state our country is in... We may believe that we are the most advanced country in the world, and we might be....to a degree. But not many people know that we are 25th in the world in education! Outside of our sheltered bubble, more intelligent foreign kids are laughing at us... And it isn't hard to see why when you go to school. The boys are almost always the jokers, the ones who could care less about school. So it is the girls who redeem us; as they are often more mature at our age, they get the good grades and actually become intelligent. But then what happens?? They marry a man, and will likely do no more to contribute to society than make one more child who will face this hopeless taboo of education. Mr. T, I feel depressed when I look at the future. It's just so utterly futile to even try and make a dent in a nation controlled by media and corporations. I'm glad to see that there is still a teacher out there who is aware of what is going on, and is willing to fight it. I really do miss your class, not for the English, but for what we really learned. Thanks for everything, Thompson.Trey Williams"

It made me so sad when he said," Mr. T, I feel depressed when I look at the future." Your future will be what you make of it. Of course you can't say everything will be perfectly easy all the time, but your attitude will determine if your future is a good one or a bad one. I know that a good attitude will change your whole perspective on things. At the start of the year when I was at school in the morning and something had already gone wrong in my day I would say to myself, "This is going to be the worst day ever!" and it always was. Then I realized what I was doing so I started saying to myself that I was going to have a great day no matter what! Guess what? I always did. If I tell myself I am going to have a awesome day I do. Even days that should be terrible, if I will smile and stop dwelling on the bad things everything is so much better.

Deltashark said that, "The boys are almost always the jokers, the ones who could care less about school." I know that is how it seems, but it really isn't true. Of course there are always the kids who don't care at all about their grades, or what people think of them, but I know that a lot of them do care, but they won't show it. Yesterday three of my friends, (two guys and a girl,) sat and talked for about 3 hours outside on my tramp. I then realized that yeah, all boys are mean sometimes and they joke, laugh, and show off, but they notice things, and they care about people and each other. We were talking and I commented about how this one person, (most of you probably don't know her.) had really been rude to me lately. One of my friends who was a guy said, "Lizzy, I know that you are right, and I am not saying that what she is doing it right, but you have to understand that she is going through really hard times." I was shocked. My friend went on to say how worried he had been about her lately and how he didn't know what he could do to help her. I never thought that a boy, especially this, crazy, sarcastic, and popular boy would ever care enough about some one and stand up for this girl, and show that he isn't too cool to be nice. So, Deltashark when you say the boys are all the jokers you are telling the truth, but even though the boys are jokers that doesn't mean that they don't care, or worry about things.

When you think about it good grades are not the most important thing in this world. I think it is important to do the absolute best you can in school, but if you don't get fabulous grades and you have tried your hardest then you should feel just as good as the kid who has never not gotten a 4.0. I know that I will probably not remember any of the A's I have gotten this year, but I know that I will remember how hard I worked in math constantly coming in to get tutored, studying for hours trying grasp a concept, and in the end still getting a B. Do you know what? I am so proud of that B! The reason that some people get good grades and other people don't, is simply because it is important to some and not to others. Just because someone doesn't get good grades doesn't mean that they are stupid, or that they don't care about anything. A lot of times I think that it is immaturity. I have a brother who told me that he never got a lot of A's in Jr. high, or high school. He is now an English major and his professors call him brilliant, and they talk about how amazing his writing, and poetry is. Even though he didn't get the best grades he is still a very responsible and successful adult.

Deltashark also said, "It's just so utterly futile to even try and make a dent in a nation controlled by media and corporations. " It is not useless to try and change a nation. Of course it is a little hard when you are trying to change a whole country, but one person can make a difference. "To the world you're just one person, but to one person you can mean the world." Instead of feeling depressed about so many people who don't believe it is important to read, or a country that teaches it is okay to be lazy, selfish, and shameless, be happy because there are still those people who know how to think. There are people out there like Mr. Thompson who are trying to change the way our society is. Mr. Thompson is making his students think about the importance of books and what books hold for us. Sure, there are the kids who don't care, and who didn't even pay attention to "Fahrenheit 451," but then again a lot of kids did. Even if it was only one person in the whole school who started to think it made a difference. Everyday people like Mr. Thompson, Trey, and Brittany are making a difference by the way they act, and the examples they are setting for others.

The Attraction (see previous blog)

I wrote a short blog about how busy I am, but I didn't really write a blog. It was just a preview because I was so tired. I want to write a blog about how busy I am because I wasn't totally prepared with the Anthem essay. I didn't make a cover page and had to make one in Mr. T.'s class. Basically I am making excuses to Mr. T. of why I wasn't prepared. Just Kidding I won't do that. It was really totally my own fault for not being prepared.
Also my essay was really lame. It should have wrote the essay right after I finished reading the book, but being the procrastinator I am I didn't.

Why do I do this to myself? Why am I constantly running from play practice, to voice lessons, and then to young women's, getting home at 8:00 and still having at least 3 hours of homework. Plus I have my mom who understandably wants me to clean my disastrous room, and do my part in cleaning the house. I also am expected to practice piano for 45 minutes, AT THE LEAST, everyday. (that would be a miracle.) Then I want to go on a bike ride, or go running. I wish that I were better at managing my time! It would make everything so much easier! I hate feeling like I am a day late and a dollar short. I know that I am pretty busy, but other people are just as busy and it seems like they can handle it so much better! I am not saying that I am, or have been in total chaos my whole life or even right now for that matter, but I am not on top of things.

The thing is I hate going to piano lessons unprepared. I hate coming to school late 3 times in a week because I have been doing homework. (I do this a lot.) I feel like I am cheating. It is not fair that I sometimes miss 1st and 2nd period to catch up on things, when everyone else comes to school for the whole time. In my defence I do not go home and watch T.V. and sleep. I am always doing something. Homework, practicing piano, voice lessons, or family things. I am the kind of person who stresses out about most stuff. Stuff like a big test, singing in church, 4 hours of homework that is can't do, or anything that is important. I wish that I could always stay calm, but I can't! It is so hard when I have a million things to do not to take out my frustration on the people around me. I feel so bad for my family sometimes because when I am especially stressed they are the ones who suffer. I will come home from school after a bad day and FREAK OUT at them. Then I feel really bad about getting mad so I mope around my house being sullen. I get mad at myself for getting mad at my family, so then I am sad because I know everyone is so annoyed with me.

Preview of a coming attraction

I do not have time to write a full blog because I have to get up at 5:15 tomorrow due to an early morning piano lesson. I have however been wanting a write a blog about how busy I have been lately. This was what was written in my planner last week, I was pretty busy!. Oh yes, my mom and dad were also out of town so things were not exactly routine, (even though they were a lot more fun. just kidding dad!)

Monday:
Play Practice. It went until.... 5:30
Math
Anthem essay
Jenny's house to work on flyer for play

Tuesday:
Play practice. This one only went until 5:00
Choral festival
Lagoon Training
Anthem essay due tomorrow!
Huge MATH TEST to study for
I didn't get home until 8:30. It was totally lame. The Anthem essay was also way hard for me!

Wednesday
6:15 piano lessons
Geography extra credit due
Anthem essay due
Play practice until 7:20
Young womens until 8:45
HUGE MATH TEST to take

Thursday
Geography South Asia test
Second part of HUGE MATH TEST
Play practice LONG!
Lagoon training BORING!

Friday
day of rest except FOREVER LONG PLAY PRACTICE!

Do you see how busy I am? Maybe that is not busy for you, but for me that is pretty crazy. Espically when things start overlapping and I start getting yelled at.

"The way you wear your hat!"

(just a note before you read this blog, the first three paragraphs are me trying to figure out what to write. "The Way You Wear Your Hat" is a line of the song I am listening to right now. My blog was inspired by Ashley's blog.)

I don't feel like writing a blog right now, but I have to. I am going to try not to do homework on Sundays any more because a load of homework over my head every Sunday really is lame. Now,........ what to write about......... I could make this into a complaining blog, but after reading Brittany's blog I can't. I could tell a story, (that is the easy way out.) I could start listening to really good music so I feel like writing, or I could keep stalling like I am now. Let me see I am going to go look at Mr. T's blog to see if he as posted lately. His blogs always give me something to write about.

DANG! He hasn't posted since February 28th (not including beatty's lecture.) Not that I'm one to talk. Actually I did write a blog last week but I didn't post it. I was in a really weird mood when I wrote the blog, and I decided to sleep on the blog before I posted it. Well, I did and then I decided not to post it. The blog was really, really random and weird! So now I have two blogs to do. Yeah!

O.K. I am going to try listening to some music. Let's see..... Weezer, "take my breath away" nope! That is just weird! Time to change. Now I am listening to Wicked, "loathing." That didn't work. Now the choice is "The way you are" by Louis Armstrong. Alright I am going to actually start writing something now! No more stalling. I went and read Ashley's blog and it gave me an idea.

Responsibility

Why is it that some people have no personal responsibility? After reading Ashley's blog I thought about how much responsibility she has being the oldest out of eight children. I bet her mom and dad expect a lot out of her. I think that being the oldest would be hard. You are the first child your parent have ever raised. I have a friend who is the oldest and her parents are VERY, VERY, VERY, strict! I know that I wouldn't be able to take it if my parents were that strict! Even though I know that my friend hates it she rarely complains! Instead of being angry and hating her parents for not letting her do a lot of stuff she says, "they are so awesome! They just don't know how strick they are." That is a good attitude! I am not saying that my friend's parents are not totally awesome because they are! They are amazing parents and my friend has some of the best values and morals of anyone I have ever met. This friend I am talking about IS responsible! You can trust her with anything. If you are working on a project in school with her you know that she will put everything she has into it. Maybe the reason she if responsible is because she has learned responsibility through the work she must do at home.

It is important to be responsible! You have to be responsible while you are young because if you don't know how to be responsible now how do you expect to be responsible when you grow up? You can't go through life expecting other people to take care of you and solve your problems for you! You have to be the kind of person who is able to get things done! We can all start now by doing our homework and being prepared. In my drama class I am surprised how unprepared a lot of the students are! Every other friday we have to memorize a poem and recite it for the class. Usually more than half of the class doesn't know what they are doing. They stand up and say, " umm....... my poem is called.......umm how do you say it?" They can't even pronounce the title of the poem! It is pretty sad! First of all the people who do this look and sound DUMB! They are embarrassed, and they don' t realize how stupid they sound. Being unprepared and having enough responsibilty to do an assignment will ruin their reputation. People are always saying that your actions now will come back to you later. They are probably right. Maybe in ten years we will walk into a job interview and the person sitting behind the desk is "that one kid" from your drama class in high school. What is the interviewer going to think? Is he going to remember you as the kid who never did anything or the student who was always prepared. I don't know if this would really happen. Most likely it wouldn't, but it is true that if you are a hard worker now it will pay off.

Life is GREAT!, so live it.

Isn't it sad how many people have quit Honors English? I can't believe how small we have gotten. I think that there were about 35 people in our class to begin with and now there are only 19! Almost half of the people who were signed up to do it dropped out! That really is just sad. Sixteen people quitting because they are actually expected to do something. What made them quit? I know that the students whose parents forced them to take the class, were not going to stay in. Then there were the people whose friends made them take the class with them, they were bound to drop out. I asked Brooklyn why she dropped the class and she said, "I hated those one things." "What things?" "The blobs." It didn't exactly help that Mr. Thompson assigned "The Yearling" second term. He actually did this to get the people who weren't serious out. (Thanks Mr. T.) I think that it is highly amusing! Still it just goes to show that most people are too lazy to do something worth while. They wanted Honors English to be easy not requiring a lot of work, or time.

I was once talking to my dad about not having enough time to do all the things I wanted to do. I was having a hard time deciding whether I wanted to be in our school musical or run with the Davis indoor track team. I asked my dad, "Why do both things take so much time?" he said, " anything worth while, takes time,and a lot of it." This is so true! If I was taking no Honors classes I would probably on average have homework 2 nights a week. I have at least 1 hour of math homework a night. She gives us no time to work on it in class, because all of the class time is spent learning. I bet most of my friends on average, do an hour of homework a night. I swear they hardly ever bring their backpacks home. It is totally not fair. Actually it is fair, because I work harder than them and have learned to study and do my homework throroughly I get better grades than them. Even though they do their homework I always get better grades than they do on the assignments. This is probably because I have better homework skills than they do because I have so much more homework than them.

Anyway back to Honors English, it does take quite a bit of time. I think I am most likely slower than others especally when I am dead tired, like I am now! I spent so long reading Anthem and doing the study guide last Saturday! I don't even know how long it took me but it was a long time. After I finally finished it I felt accomplished and like I had actually done something with my time. I was glad that I had done it then, so I wouldn't have to do it the night before it was due. I know people who really don't do anything. Do you want to know what they do? They sit at home and watch T.V. Wouldn't that be the life? NOT! It is not worth while to watch T.V.! What do you gain by donig it? How is watching it going to help you later on in life? If you are one of those people who don't do anything but watch t.v. and are not involved in anything, sign up for a club, make your own club, start working out, just do something! Life is GREAT!, so live it. Learn to love life and make of it what you can. Don't go through life telling yourself, "that is too hard." or " I would never be able to do that." Try new things, make new friends, join Honors English! Finish the stuff you are doing. Don't give up! LIVE LIFE!

Friends

I have a friend who is so amazing! She doesn't know or admit how cool she is, but I notice how she acts and how kind she is to everyone. She is never mean to anyone. She always has something nice to say to people. It is amazing to me how she always seems to be happy and in a good mood. When I am sad or feeling down I know that I can just call her and she will make me feel better. She doesn't care what people think about her. She won't not be friends with someone because they aren't "cool." She will give up something she wants, because another person also wants it. Sounds pretty cool huh? Don't you wish you could be more like her? I do!

My friend always finds time to help me with my homework. It is nice having a friend who is DANG smart. When I call her on the phone asking her to explain something to me she always does. I would hate it if I were really smart and I had my friends calling me 24-7 so I could explain the math to them. My friend is a true friend! How many of you can say you have a true friend. Can you say that you are a true friend? What makes a true friend? You don't have to be like my friend,(who is basically perfect), to be a true friend. I think that when it comes right down to it, to be a true friend all you have to do is be honest. If you are a true friend you will never EVER say anything mean about your friend. Your friends will trust you to stick up for them and not turn on them. When you are around a true friend you don't have to worry about being cool or impressing them. Your friend will like you even if you say something stupid or you look like you have been in a hurricane.

I have a friend who I met in eighth grade and we clicked. We were the best of friends! We liked exactly the same things and we had very similar personalities. Whenever we were together we had a blast! After we had been friends for about a semester she stopped being nice to me. Actually she didn't stop being nice, she started making my life miserable. I would come home and cry because she made me feel so bad. This girl turned almost my whole group of friends against me. You might not know it but girls are mean! And it is possible for one person to make another person's life miserable. I got over it, made new friends, and moved on. In 9th grade she was really nice to me. It was weird, she acted as if nothing had ever happened. We are now friends. I have several classes with her. I will however never trust this person. I will never be let myself become close to this person again. Even though this person and I have worked on projects together and I would call her my friend, I know that she is not a true friend. My first friend I know I could trust with anything. She will always be my friend no matter what.

Cinderella

I had a list of things I was going to do this weekend to catch up on homework and school. The list was,

Term Project for science
4 mile run or hour bike ride
Persuasive
Study Math
Finish Anthem
Memorize lines for play
Catch up on piano
Practice dance for play

Well my mom and another idea. This was the list she gave me Saturday morning:

Weekly Job, Vacuuming, comp. room
Clean Mop boards in bedroom with tooth brush
Clean carpets by mop boards
Dust dressers and desk (only in my room)
Dust shades (only in my room)
Clean light fixtures
Clean window trades
Clean living room mop boards/carpet
Piano technique

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? I did all of it except clean the carpets. It took me all day! I am so mad! Now my mom is telling me that I have to clean our computer room b/c I forgot. I am not Cinderella, even though I feel like her. I was cleaning for my mom for 5 hours. Then I collapsed on the couch for a 2 1/2 hour nap. I took the nap because they woke me up at 8:30! On a Saturday! That means I only got 8 and a half hours of sleep last night. I seriously need 10 on the weekend becuase I get so sleep deprived during the week. So I slaved away for my mom woke up from my nap and it's 4:30. Guess how many things I had done on my list? NONE! I am still in my pajamas, I haven't done any homework, I haven't exercised, and I wish I had another day so that I could do the things on my list! It is so unfair that parents make you do all this stuff for them. I know that they are doing stuff for me every single day and I should be able to do this for them, but I am mad. I think that they could at least let me for get about cleaning the computer room. They won't if I don't clean it I will not be doing anything tonight. Tell me have any of your parents asked you to be a Cinderella before? I don't know of anyone who has parents who would actually ask them to clean and work that much at once. Let alone a kid who would do it like me.

Kids

Little kids are the best. I sometimes wish I could be a little kid again. When I was little I could entertain myself without T.V. or computer games. I was a "wild child"! being the 7th kid my parents were not very protective. By the time I was six I could say to my mom, "I'm going on a bike ride." and if my chores were done, I would be gone for hours. Can you believe that? How am I not dead or kidnapped?

My best friend and I during ages 6-8 had some real adventures. Not lacking an imagination or mischievous personalities we were seldom bored. We played cops and robbers, lost children, and super hero's. We would spend hours in a tree pretending it was our house. My best friend's older sister's even made Matt and I repeatedly get married. When we would play make believe games it actually seemed like someday we really would go on adventures and have super freezing powers, or live by ourselves without our parents. Being a little kid was the greatest! I had no responsibilities, no real sorrows, and I lived for the moment not thinking ahead. I didn't have to worry about anything because my mom knew everything and there was nothing my dad couldn't do!

I always hear the story about when I was two years old I was found walking down mutton hollow road. My mom was super pregnent with my little sister and had to take a nap. She pleaded with me to stay in my room, but I probably left it as soon as she went into her bedroom. In the midst of her nap she heard someone calling her name. "Katherine, Katherine?'' She being pregnent had no idea what was going on. She got up and went to the front door and saw our two neighbors inside our house holding me in their arms. "We found Elizabeth walking down Mutton Hallow with her baby and stroller." I am not sure how my mom explained her way out of that, but I wasn't put in a children's shelter. As you can see I was rather more than the perfect child.