do i love you beacuse you are beautiful, or are you beautiful because i love you?

Every girl wants to be beautiful, right? So does every woman. I've wondered for a while now what beautiful means. The dictionary says that beauty excites the senses, especially sight. That doesn't help too much. Don't even bother looking around our media/culture asking what beautiful is, or you'll be miserable forever. So I asked myself, what is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen? I came up with this:



I know the picture cannot possibly do it justice, so I'll try and tell a little bit of the story. We decided to climb the belltower in Florence, all the way up to the top. It was over 400 stairs set in a spiral staircase. Aside from the physical nightmare, the space was closed in and stone and dark, and the longer you were on the stairs the dizzier you felt. The city was hot and muggy, and you couldn't see the sky, and the stairs were worse. But then you got to the top, you bursted into the sky. It felt like the streets and the stairs and the dust and heat were very far away. I felt separate from everything I had ever known. All that existed up there was the rain-smell, and the breeze, and the quiet. It was soft and gentle, but at the same time it was exciting, it was calling me out, challenging me to feel and to be. Somehow those little red roofs and narrow, winding streets, and the blue mountains and the grey sky added up into something that was bigger and stronger and more beautiful than my life had ever been.

We spent an hour just standing on the roof, letting everything soak in. I wish I could explain to you how it changed me. It restored me, it strengthened me, it stretched me out and made me bigger. When I walked into that building I was happy, but it was in spite of sadness. When I left, I was joyous. Not giddy, but full of joy that has met and known agony, and has found something more powerful than pain could ever be.

Ever since that day, I have been trying to figure out what that something was. What could be so restful and challenging at the same time, safe yet dangerous, so gloriously heartbreaking? It was beauty, real beauty. Not make-up and hair color and a dress size 2 beauty. The kind of beauty that doesn't belong in this world, the beauty that will outlive every ugliness ever known. It calms your heart and brings it to life at the same time. God-beauty.

And if you are a woman, and it doesn't matter if you're a little woman or an old woman, this is part of you. The beauty that was in those little roofs and blue mountains is nothing compared to the beauty that is in you. You can't buy it, bottle it, preserve it with exercise, or lose it with age. And believe me, I have my share of self-esteem issues. But I know what I am made of. I know that I am beautiful.

So the next time you feel fat and ugly, don't look at a magazine, don't turn on the TV, but look outside. Look at the millions and millions of stars, look at the sun when it rises and sets. Remember the most heart-breakingly beautiful thing you have ever seen and be reassured. Because it has nothing on you.

hate-post

Guess where I'm going to be in 12 hours. Yes. High school. Let's break this down.

It will be a Monday. The Monday after a week off. The first day back to school after a college visit. The first day back to school after enrolling in college. And we just ran out of coffee. Is it the worst possible scenario? Ok, it's probably not, but I'll bet it's really close.

Someday when I'm sitting in my dorm, homesick and friendless and wanting to go back to the good old days, I will read this entry. These are the good...old...days. I will be sitting in my Euro room before the sun is even up, after a week of freedom and college, and I will not be caffenated. I will have three hours of study hall, and I will eat a lunch that has been sitting in my locker for four hours in a noisy, over-crowded, reeking cafeteria.

I. Hate. High School. I wish I could convey my level of disgust over the internet, but it's just not possible. I feel about CCHS the way most people feel about diarrhea. From the way it's always, always cold, to that specific CCHS smell lingering in the halls, to the lockers and flooring and wall tiles from the 70's (avacado green, urine yellow and burnt orange,) to all of the busywork classes that waste my life away and the people that hate to be there just as much as I do. I'm tired of eating lunch in the same exact place every day and always without fail having to ask permission to go to the bathroom. I hate getting up at quarter to six every single weekday. I hate it when teachers outline your projects for you so that everyone does it their specific way, and hand you packets because they can think of nothing beter to do with their lesson time. I hate it when people are already ooing and ahhing over prom, and the teachers that are already flipping out about APs. I can't think straight in that place, I cannot breathe there.

I want to be treated like an adult. I want to be trusted to use the bathroom when I need to. I want everyone to chill, just chill; if I go out for lunch you can trust me to show up for my next class, I'm not going to blow up the school, and prom is not for three months yet. Chill.

To everyone who has moved beyond high school, I know, I know it's not the end of the world. Believe me, I know. But if you had to get written permission to walk twenty feet down the hall and grab a pen out of your locker, you would be pretty grumpy, too.

Movin' on up...

I filled out my enrollment to Penn State today. (Again, with the fractional possibility in mind that Syracuse could give me an obscene amount of money.)

It feels so good to know where I'll be for the next four years of my life. I can pick school colors now, I know my bedding has to be extra-long twin and that I don't need to buy a minifridge. I know what classes to take, what classes not to take, and to start thinking about the portfolio that I need to get into my major. I finally am finshed with applying and hoping. Now I'm filling out housing forms and looking at classes and sports. It's finally happening, it's finally real.

I love sitting around with my friends and talking about college. Most of us know where we're going, and we're pretty much all happy about it. We compare our schools, and everyone believes that theirs is the best of the bunch, but we'restill completely able to appreciate other people's choices. Plans about weekend get-togethers, and ways to stay in touch. Telling each other about our own plans, how we want our lives to look. Building castles in the sky.

It's not as scary as I thought. Like my Senior meet - the last home meet of my life. I always imagined that I would be crying and heartbroken and scared. It ended up being the most fun I've ever had at a meet. It didn't feel like I was losing anything. I felt like I had gotten everything I could from it, and I was really excited to be moving on, moving up. Even today I miss swimming. But then I think about what new sports I'll play, and who my new teammates will be, and what other things I'll love as much as that.

My senior year is the same thing, and I'm pretty sure my graduation will be just like this. I'm not really losing anything; I've sucked up everything high school life can give to me. It's hard to explain the feeling. I'm sitting here, I go to CCHS every weekday, I sometimes sit in the same room that I took 10th grade history in. But I'm not there anymore. When I was younger I could usually pick out the seniors, and now I know how. I knew that I was present in high school, I was still. Just by the way they talked with their teachers or played with their car keys I could pick out the people that were moving, that were already gone. Even when college seemed lonely and scary, I knew that once I got moving like that, I would more than be able to handle it; I would be ready for it.

Now I'm moving, and I'm ready. Not only can I handle college, I am so ready for it. I'm already off, I'm just waiting to walk across the stage to grab my diploma and make it official. And sometimes it is scary. But mostly it's a lot of fun.

life is crazy

I'm still a little brain-dead.

I spent 2 years looking at colleges. 24 months of research and planning and charts. 9 college visits. 2 major changes.

I'm going to a school I didn't even look at until 4 days ago. And I'm 100% happy about it.

You would be a little brain-dead, too.

So. Here's to pajamas, popcorn, and a new episode of Grey's Anatomy. And here's to life.

: )

What a week.

Saturday: Got my wait-list letter and thought it was the end of the world.

Sunday: Still thought it was the end of the world.

Monday: Got in the car and drove for 5 hours. I pulled myself together for the admissions presentation, where I found out that not only is the wait-list brand new, but so is the November 30 application deadline. So new in fact, that there was no deadline when I applied at the beginning of December. By the time the 60 minute admissions presentation was over (too little, too late) I was certain that Erie was full and I would have to go to Niagara and not learn my major and end up on the street sleeping under a newspaper. Then a met with a wonderful admissions counselor who sat through my panicked schpeel, told me that they only wait-listed a few select students and that I should be flattered. Then she got me into the Erie campus (the Behrend College) in about 45 seconds. I smiled for the rest of the day. Oh, and this admissions counselor was married to the head of the Penn State Film Department. She said I would go places in life because I was flexible.

Tuesday: I met with a head student services of the Penn State Communications College. (This was set up less than 24 hours before by my life-saving admissions counselor.) To be a film major you have to send in a portfolio your sophomore year. That will not be fun. But we talked about how because of this portfolio, I would be sent to University Park a semester early. He set me up with a tour of the Communications facilities (incredible) and a meeting with an advisor at Erie for the next morning. I also got to the bookstore and got a T-shirt. Then we drove the four hours to the Erie campus, ordered a pizza, watched Star Wars and went to bed.

Wednesday (today): I got up ridiculously early and was on the Behrend campus at 9 am. I went into the admissions building, which is an old, cobblestone farmhouse. I met with an admissions counselor and talked about boring stuff; money, housing, APs, blah blah. I went on the tour. Behrend is beautiful. Most of the building are new, and the old historic ones are preserved really well. There's none of the 60's era cement block building thing going on. It's all woodsy, and they have a hill that the students have sledding and bonfire parties on. Then I met with the head of the student services of Communications at Behrend. Apparently it's a really big deal that I got wait-listed, and on top of that chose another campus to start out in. She said that my APs might count for a whole semester, which means only one year at Erie and three at University Park.

It was an insane three days. I picked Behrend before I even looked at it. I went to Behrend and loved it. I'm going to University Park sooner than I thought. (Behrend even costs less!) The craziest thing was the people I met with. It's a university of 80,000 students total, and I don't even go there yet, and they were amazing. Setting up meetings in 24-hours notice, sending out an application in 3 seconds. I would call someone and start out "Hi, I'm Rachel Reeves," all ready to introduce myself and they're like "Oh Rachel! I just talked to Jamey about you! We have a 10:00 tomorrow, right?" Jamey as in a head of the student serices communications department of the entire Penn Sate. As in I walked out of his office three hours ago. This is the most massive school in the country, and you know my name? It was just insane.

I can't believe it all worked out so perfectly. I can't believe I love it this much. I think I'm going to be happy.

Ok, we're good.

I just got back from a meeting with a Penn State admissions couselor. I have been accepted to the Erie campus.

Woo!

It's not my first choice, but I'd only be there for one or two years before going to the University Park campus. It's still Penn State, and that makes me really, really happy. It's about 4,000 students, 5 miles out of Erie. Out of all of the Penn State campuses, the kids that go to Erie are the happiest. Which is saying a lot, considering how happy University Park kids are. I can start my major there, it's only a few hours away from home. It's even a few thousand dollars less than University Park. The best part is, I am getting a Penn State communications degree.

So unless Newhouse accpets me and gives me tons of money, I think I'm good to go.

And that's a really nice feeling.

Go Nittany Lions!

i got hit by the dream-killing bus

My eyes have hurt since yesterday. My head had hurt since yesterday. I've felt sick since yesterday.

I have one day left to wallow in self-pity. One day to cry and whine and moan. Because tomorrow I am going to my Penn State visit. I was really looking foward to it. I was gong to see Beaver stadium and check out residences and buy a Penn State t-shirt. It was going to be a glowing world of wonderful possibility. Now I'm going for damage control. I have to figure out exactly how screwed I am, and what to do about it.

I won't be thinking "Maybe this is where I'll be a year from now. Maybe I'll be making this place home." It will be more like "Look, look at everything that could have so easily been yours. But it's not. Because you applied one month too late." Everything I love about that place will just rip me up inside. One month. I could be losing this over one month.

This is not a one-day visit. This is three days, over 72 hours of being bombarded with everything that I could have had. Informational seminars, campus tours, meeting with someone from the awesome communications school. Best February break ever.

It used to be fun to think about where I'm going to be Fall of 2007. Now I have no clue. It looks like I won't be where I want to be. It looks like I'm going to be getting crap out of the way for a few more years. I hope so much that I'll look back on this and laugh at how melodramatic I'm being. I hope I'm overreacting, I hope I really have nothing to worry about.

I can't believe it. I owuld have never, ever guessed that this would happen. I was really counting on Penn State. I've worked too hard for this, I deserve better than this. Karma is the biggest load of bull, ever. Although college admissions is right up there.

So. This is the last post of whiny self-pity. From here on out it will be the silver lining and making the best of things. I'm good at getting a grip, and sucking it up. I've had lots of practice. But sometimes, grown-up life just plain sucks. And right now, it really, really sucks.

Is going to a college you like for four years too much to ask? Spending four years in the same place with the same people working on the same degree, and enjoying it, is that really so hard?

Apparently it is if you're me. I got my letter from Penn State today. I got into the school, but I got wait-listed to Univeristy Park. That's the main campus, the only one I'm interested in going to. So, they'll tell me by June first if I made it. Which is really cute, considering that you have to send you acceptance in by May first. Whose brainchild was that?

I applied too late. Penn State has rolling admissions, which means you can apply anytime during the schoolyear. And since I didn't know that I wanted their communications degree until too late, I missed the boat. I missed the boat by about a month. So unless either Penn State says "hey, you're in!" before May first, or Syracuse says "hey, here's admission to one of the most elite communication schools in the country, if not THE most elite, as well as an earth-shattering financial aid package," I have no idea what I'll to. Either three years at Niagara and Syracuse for gradschool, or two years in some Pennsylvania state school and then Univeristy Park. There's Hofstra, if I get a good deal. There's also MCC. Or finding a hole to curl up and die in.

Ok, so I'm being dramatic. It's hard when some of your friends are already signed up for a school this fall. And then the rest of them are sitting pretty on their acceptances, just waiting to see who gives them the biggest scholarship. They will probably spend their entire collegiate careers in one school that they like a lot.

It's hard to explain how heart-breaking this is. I hate high school. My mantra for the past two years has been "Fall of 2007. Just have to make it to college. Then I'll have arrived, I'll be learning what I love, I'll finally be starting my life." I'm sick of just getting through it. I'm tired of getting all of the crap out of my way. I thought that by this time next year I would finally be in a place that I want to be. When my Penn State letter came, it was supposed to be a wonderful reward for all of the killer work I have done. It was supposed to be the beginning of my life, the beginning of a good life.

I'm not saying I'm done. Something wonderful could still happen. I just thought I was done putting up with crap. I thought I could finally start getting to the good stuff. I thought that I was in the home stretch, that I could finally get my life started. Life was supposed to get better. Maybe not easier, but better.

I need it to get better.

I heart February Break

Today was my last Pep Rally.

That's actually a good thing, because I am completely out of CCHS pep. I wore my swimming sectionals shirt today, and that's as close as I'm gong to get school spirit-wise until I pick a college.

I'm so glad I have a week off; I'm really getting sick of that place. This morning we ran out of peanut butter, thanks to the salmonella outbreak (I have a point, don't worry) and I was trying to figure out what to do for lunch. So my mom asks if seniors can go out for lunch. I actually laughed. One of those harsh laughs, with bitter undertones. Go out for lunch? Privileges? We don't have those. One day out of the entire year, seniors can sit in the courtyard for lunch if we really want to.

So getting lunch consisted of this. I was waiting in the pizza line for 15 minutes without actually moving, because junior basketball players kept on cutting me. Their thought process was obviously along the lines of "I'm so tall and ripped and hot, I bet she's glad we're cutting her. After all, right now she has the best view in the entire cafeteria."

Right. Then they actually started pushing each other around. We are in the lunch line, for crying out loud, is it too much to ask to just buy pizza and get on with our lives? My foot got stepped on twice. The shortest junior kept saying to me "Hey, I'm really sorry" and then grabbing the kid that ran into me and yelling "I'm gonna throw you around like a rag doll!" and pushing him into me again.

After $2 and 15 minutes of drowning in underage testosterone, I got one piece of pizza and some ranch dressing.

I'm actually going to quote Nathan here, "This place is getting more and more like a prison everyday."

play volleyball. fight cancer.

Everyone that goes to my school, check this out:

March 24 (it's a Saturday) we are throwing an outdoor winter volleyball tournament. After break you can sign up for a team. It's 8 people to a team, and I think teachers are going to play, too. Since it's a fundraiser to fight cancer, you pay or raise a certain amount of money per team, and we're going to have great prizes for the winners, and the team that raises the most money, and maybe a raffle.

We're just getting it started, so I don't know too much now. There's going to be T-shirts and livestrong bands, and probably pizza and music in the gym where people can go between games. We might have booths in there about cancer awareness. If there's no snow we might be able to borrow a snow machine from Northampton.

This is going to be big and a lot of fun. And it's to raise money to fight cancer, so it's fun and good.

I can't believe how excited I am about this. It feels so good to be doing something. I know in the scheme of things, our donation is a drop in the bucket. But it adds up. I would say that this is something I want to do for my entire life, but I'm counting on the fact I'll see a cure in my lifetime. So until they find a cure, this is going to be a priority in my life.

I've thought a lot about how it will feel to see that paper headline or that newsbulletin. To know that people don't have to ever be afraid of cancer again, that no one will have to fight it or die from it again. To know that someday it will be completely forgotten, like it never existed. Erased from the face of the earth. I want for my grandkids and great-grandkids to never know what cancer is except for a small statistic in their science books. How much better will I feel if I know that my money, my energy, my time was spent on this cause? To know that if I hadn't helped, it would have taken that much longer to find a cure. Maybe everything I devote to this will add up into one person that gets to live, one person that doesn't ever have to know what I know, what my family knows. It would be worth it a hundred times over.

snow days: mother nature's way of telling you to relax.

I absolutely love snow. I love the tiny glittery snowflakes that sparkle in the head lights and the soft powdery snow that you can run and jump into. I love how it crunches under my feet when I walk through it. I love how it makes the trees look when it sticks to the branches. I love how clean it makes the air smell. I love sledding and snow angels and snowball fights. I love scarves and gloves, and hot chocolate. I love sitting in my warm, glowing house, wrapped up in a blanket, eating popcorn, and watching the snow fall outside. Most of all, I love snow days.

After breakfast I got all bundled up and played in the snow. I ran around with my dog who kept sinking into drifts, and I tried to snowboard down my driveway on the tiny fake K-mart board my brother has. I tried to build a snowman, but it's not very good packing snow. I did build this fantastic snowfort, with the front wall at least three feet high and rock-solid. I made a little tunnel to store snowballs in. I picked a spot in my yard and shoveled a hole through the snow straight down to the grass, and packed the walls tight. The I grabbed some recycling bins and made massive snowbricks for the front wall. It took half the morning. I was going to make a little bench in the back, but I had snow in my boots, and my nose was about to fall off, and I was really, really hungry.

So I came in and took one of those gloriously hot showers that turn your feet red, you know? And I made a grilled cheese sandwhich for lunch, with a great big glass of milk, and I read some of the Count of Monte Cristo. The library called right after that to tell me they're closing down and I don't have to go in tonight. And mom is about to bake a chocolate cake (from scratch!) I don't have any homework because for whatever reason I'm ahead in my classes, so I have time to read and play DDR and bake and watch American Idol tonight.

Is life good, or what?

i've never talked about this before...

Some people are lucky enough to grow out of adolesence. I was not. My first trip into the adult world was not my driver's lisence or my college dorm. It was a call from the hospital, and it came when I was not ready. My teenager problems were wiped away, and I was in the real world. It's not the death, it's the dying that gets to you. I was 16 years old and facing the process of death for someone I loved.

Just recently I am beginning to see how important this was. I am just starting to understand how easy it could have been to lose everything, how close I was. I could have fallen apart that year, I could have broken into a million pieces. But I didn't. It was more than a tragedy to my family, it was a tragedy to my faith. It was a year-long attack on everything I had ever believed in.

I could have lost it. I could be a fragment of the person I am now; it has happened to so many people. I could be wandering instead of living. I could be cynical instead of hopeful. I could be defeated.

But I'm not. I survived. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and it grew me up really fast. I am only 17, and I may be clueless, but I am not a child, or an adolesent. I know adult fear and adult despair and adult pain. But I also know adult courage and adult hope and adult truth. I have fought and won adult battles. I am a dangerous 17 year old.

You know those great stories where a kid is stranded on an island or lost in a forest and has to take care of themselves? They learn how to provide for themselves, and how to survive. Even after many moments of peril, they beat the odds, they stay alive. Eventually, the are found and brought back home. But nothing is the same. They sleep in their own beds and meet up with old friends, but it doesn't fit anymore. They have to live in a child-world, but they don't belong to it.

I graduated a long time ago, but I still have to show up for class. Sometimes I almost wish I could go back to the way I was before my island; it would be easier. I don't belong here anymore.

longest entry ever?

My tour of over fifty people had 15 minutes to get ready for the World Cup final. My mom saved the day when I called at 1:45 USA time, and she asked why I wasn't getting ready for the game. I told her it wasn't until 9:00 my time, but she said ESPN was showing it at 8:00. We did the math, and the 6 time zones did not account for the missing hour. We were running very late.

Mel tracks down our bus driver Mario, who apparently cursed up a storm in the lobby of a five-star hotel before running off to find Matteo. Lindsay and Paul and I run to the other floors and call room after room. This gives us exactly enough time to throw on our game shirts, scribble green, white and red paint all over our faces, and grab some crackers (no time for dinner). We flew through an inappropriately wild first-class hotel, rocketed down a few flights of stairs, slid into the lobby and crash-landed right in front of the massive TV.

We just caught the start of the game. Mario and Matteo were already there, decked out in the official FIFA jersies and Italian flags tied around their necks like capes. Soon our entire tour look up the floor in front of the TV, the chaperones were at the bar, and roughly 50 Spanish Italy-supporters filled in every inch of space behind us. We sat riveted through 45 minutes of glorious World Cup soccer, cheering and screaming and groaning and cursing together, whether it be in Italian, English or Spanish.

Then half time came. Matteo jumped up and told us to go down to the dining room for dinner. We asked him if he was insane; half time was only 20 minutes long. Apparently, the tour says we have to eat dinner every night, and as Matteo put it, "If I'm going, you're coming with me." So we rocketed down the stairs and into the dinning room, where waiters in tuxedos were getting ready to serve a 3-course meal as slowly as they possibly could. We skipped the appetizer at Matteo's insistence (he kept on chasing the waiters out of the kitchen to keep them moving) downed the pasta course in 6 minutes, the fish course in 8, threw a toast to Mario because it was his last day, and ran out on dessert, leaving place settings askew and chairs strewn all over the room.

At some point in the second half the TV went black. We stared in disbelief before a few seconds before Matteo busted out his map to look for the closest bar. Fortunatley, the concierge ran over and started wiggling wires and before we could even stand up we had the game back. She was the hero of that night. The second half was the same kind of delicious agony, tied at 1-1 for another 45 minutes.

Overtime. Another twenty minutes to score, but Italy was locked into its gritty defense. Every European in the room was chain-smoking, and the air was so thick you could hardly see the screen. Finally, after an hour of waiting and waiting, something amazing happened. Zidane lost his temper, and earned himself the red ticket out of the game. Even though the room exploded into cheers and hugs, the tension continued to mount. Overtime ran out, and we faced the kick-off.

This was bad. Italy is the worst striking team that has ever played in a World Cup final, and France was one of the best. I was squeezing Lindsey's arm so hard it turned blue. I couldn't breathe, I could only think in blips. If Italy lost, it would be so bad. This room, this world would deflate like a dejected party balloon. We would slowly stand up and silently make our way to our rooms. in the morning, Mario would be gone, and Matteo would be absolutely miserable. An entire country would be miserable. I would be miserable. They had to win, they just had to. But I couldn't see how.

As the teams sent off their kicks, one right after the other, time slowed and almost stopped. The entire process could not have taken five minutes, but it felt like forever. The pressure was so intense I thought I would crumple or explode. People sucked on their cigarettes like their lives depended on it, some people were even chewing on the furniture from the agony. France missed one. All Italy had to do was overcome every statistic and score five perfect goals, and glory would be ours.

Italy's last kicker sent off the last kick. And time exploded. I don't remember actually seeing the ball hit the back of the net, I felt it happen, I knew deep inside of me that it had hapened, we had won. I don't remember leaping up and hugging every human being I could get hold of, and running in a mad dash into the street. It was all bright, blinding light and blind noise and pure joy for one flashing second. Finally, after so long, victory. After so, so long, I had won.

We spent a couple of hours in the street, taking up a few lanes of traffic. We waved our flags and screamed like maniacs. Sean found his bongo drums, and we chanted and danced like crazed savages. People poured of hotels and apartments and filled the rest of the road. Mopeds with blaring horns and flags flying off the drivers cut through the crowd. The Police came and yelled at us, and after a serious discussion with the officer, Matteo ran through our group with his cell phone in one hand, his cigarette in the other and his flag-cape streaming behind him shouting "Do whatever you want!"

Even after we were ordered to our rooms, we weren't done celebrating. We grabbed every flag and ran to every window for three floors, waving and shouting over the street. I grabbed the phone and called up my family, first Gramma and Grampa, then Mom and Dad and Nathan. I dangled the phone over the balcony, and left it swinging over the street so everyone could hear the party. For four hours we cheered and chanted and screaming until we were completely wiped.

At 2 am, there were five of us in a two-person room, and no one wanted to go back to their assigned rooms. We left the balcony door wide open and pushed the two twin-sized beds together. We collapsed in a jumbled heap and fell asleep with hot air and chaos pouring in through the balcony doors, and out fingers and toes tingling from exhaustion and happiness.

We all woke up at the same time, all tangled up with glaring sunlight streaming into the room. We were stiff and still very tired, but we lay there for a few minutes letting all of the joy seep back into our bodies. Laughing because we had won and the world was a beautiful place, we started another day.

it's not an adventure if you know how it ends.

There's something in my fingers. What is it? Isn't it funny how my fingers can know something that my brain doesn't? Maybe there's something wrong with my corpus callosum.

Fun.

I need to have more fun. I need to throw my hands up in the air and stop trying to steer the rollercoaster. I need to trust that I can handle whatever comes my way. Sometimes you have control. But sometimes you just have to see what you get. A long time ago, before I was 17, I read a poem about the all-too serious age of 17. I get it now. Despte how the world actually works, we think that every situation, every decision we make is life or death.

I'm tired of worrying about what's around the corner before I even get there. I'm tired of worrying about several corners in advance. I'm tired of thinking that one decision is going to make or break me. I am in my senior year of high school, and I can either spend it worrying and waiting, or I can spend it having fun, getting in my last hurrahs. How much energy do I spend trying to cross a bridge that is still miles away? I'll worry when I get there. Life is crazy. You see what you get, and you work with it the best you can. If you fall down, it's ok, just get back up.

This is the only life I've got. So I'll have fun. I'll bomb it 60 yards down the field into double-coverage. I'll challenge the odds again and again. When someone tells me I can't do it, I'll say "Watch me." I will walk off the edge of my tiny map and go exploring. I will see and learn and discover wonderful things. I will actively seek everything the world has to offer. I will taste fear and defeat, I will know courage and triumph. I will not sit in my little grey house and say to myself, "Maybe something will happen for me. Maybe I'll win the lottery." No. I will go west and "plow the land, plant the seeds, grow food for the whole wide world." I will win fortunes and lose them and win them back again. I will have great adventures and love great loves. I will have stories to tell my grandchildren that will leave them wide-eyed.

I will not take the safe route. I will not wait for life to happen for me. I'm going to turn this place upside down. This is the declaration of youth. This is the promise of the next generation. This is my oath until the day I die; it will carry me beyond youth and middle age and old age and into eternity. I will live with abandon.

And it's going to be fun.

Me-time

You know how everyone talks about "me-time?" Last year, I scoffed at the idea of "me-time." "Me-time" was sitting down to eat a meal, or actually sleeping. "Me-time" was occasionally enjoying my assigned reading for my English class. How were you supposed to get anything done if you waste time doing things you like? I had school to excell in, and a sport for a part of the year, and a job to pay for a trip to Europe, and college to start worrying about. I was too busy for "me-time."

As some of you may know, I was crazy last year. I was tired and cranky and tired all of the time. Life was a frustration. But my grades were really good.

So, when I finally got out of the dreaded Junior year, I made myself a promise. This oath was to spend some amount of time every single day doing something I like.

Now when I get home, the first thing I do is Pilates. I unroll my green mat, and change into workout clothes, and put on my playlist of current favorite songs, and I spend a half an hour doing Pilates. 45 minutes if I'm having a bad day. I blame swimming for my exercise addiction, but for a few minutes I need to feel instead of reason, and concentrate on my own body instead of everything else.

I also write every single day. This might be better for me than Pilates, or sometimes sleeping, and sometimes even breathing. This is how I think, this is how life makes sense. I can go about three days without writing before I start to lose it. No matter how late it is, how tired I am, I write. I can sit down at my computer or pick up my pen and have no idea what's going to happen. Sometimes it's nothing important, like this entry. Sometimes it is important. And every once in a while I can feel something tugging at my fingers, and as I begin to move my hand across the page, something amazing comes out. Something I didn't even know I had inside of me.

My point is, if you scoff at "me-time," well, don't do it. I don't care how busy you are. I take three APs, and I work, and I teach a class at church. And Stacy Kmentt, it may not be AP Bio, but even 2 blocks of study hall is a drop in the bucket when you're taking AP Lit with Westby. I speak from experience. I, the textbook Type A personality, "I don't care if I die sooner than Type B personalities, at least I'll accomplish more" kind of person, say that those two percentage points on your report card are not worth hating life.

The moral of this story is, find something you like to do and do it. Quality of life. Sanity. Just do it.

Snow Day!

Just when you feel like you can't take it anymore, life comes through for you.

My mom came into my room at 11:00 last night to tell me to turn my alarm off, because today would be a snow day. I remember saying "Really? Yay!" before swatting at my clock and collapsing back into bed. I woke up all by myself at around 6 this morning. My thought process went something like this:
"Why isn't my alarm going off, I'm going to be late for breakfast. Wait. Snow day. Seems like today is a snow day. Is it? Was that all a dream? ......... I think I'll take my chances."
I woke up again at 8:30. I stayed in bed for about twenty minutes, enjoying the fact that I wasn't in French. I came downstairs and actually saw my school's name run across the channel 13 "closed" bar, for the first time in what feels like decades. I spent a half an hour eating breakfast. I made coffee, and it didn't taste like soap. I watched Regis and Kelly. I took a blasting hot shower. For lunch, I had a grilled cheese sandwhich instead of peanut butter that was sitting in my locker for 4 hours. Now here I am, IMing, blogging, wasting glorious time.
The only downside of today is that I have to work from 5-9, but I can get over that.

I got 11 hours of sleep last night, I've eaten nothing but hot food all day, and all of my work is done and ready to go. Best of all, I have 40 wonderful hours of not having to set foot in my school. A whole day of not having to do anything. Even my laundry is all done. Only four days of school this week, and then one more week, and then February break. I can make it!

Beware the Rants of February

When you're doing something pretty unpleasant, you can still start off in a good mood. You chat with people, listen to some music, think entertaining thoughts, and the work isn't so bad. Yeah, you're cleaning your room, but you plug in your i-pod and crank up some Jet, and dance around a little. You're working for the next four hours, but you have side conversations when you can, make up stories about the people hanging around in the stacks, and play other little games to keep you sane.

And then something happens. Completely out of nowhere, and usually for no reason at all, a tiny internal switch flips. And it's really not fun anymore.

High school. Everyone hates it by now. Until this point you've been disliking it, but hanging in there and finding ways to make it fun. This morning I got up at 6:00 to watch nearly every school in the county run accross the "cancelation" bar except for mine. I took a hurried groggy shower and ate a hurried groggy breakfast. I bundled all up and went out into the dark and subzero degree cold, and went to school. I did make coffee, but it tasted like soap. In Euro I watched a long and dull movie about some old English Proffessor talking about early Indian Imperialism and didn't understand a word. Of course I didn't! It was not only a Monday morning, but Superbowl Monday morning, and I was watching a movie at 7:30 am in a dark classroom, and my coffee tasted like soap. I didn't stand a chance. I then spent an hour and a half in study hall, doing psych notes. After a loud and crowded and freezing lunch, I went to Psych class and took some more notes. Then I went to another hour and a half of study hall. Where I took some English notes.

It hit me in my third hour of study hall, with my hood up and gloves on because the room was so cold, trying to get 70 pages read in 90 minutes. Staring down the barrel of French class first thing tomorrow, followed by an agonizing gym class with only freshman and sophomores and juniors in it. Not to mention seven long and cruel months without any football whatsoever.
It stopped being fun.

I know I'm usually all upbeat and sunshiny and "look on the bright side of life." But I am in the infernal high school in the dead of winter (without any hope of a snow day) just waiting and waiting for college letters to come. A sane human being can only take so much. And my "let's make the best of it" minutes are gone. I feel like opening my window wide and screaming into the unforgiving, frigid black hole "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

If you think I'm crazy to gamble obscene amounts of money and years of my life to learn how to make movies, this is why. If I roll out of bed every day of my life feeling like this, I just won't make it. I'll combust or something. There is no amount of money in the world that can bribe me into a job that makes me feel like this. I don't care how many hours a week I have to work or how poor I am. I want to be able to breathe.

cheating again

"You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way."

The meat and potatoes of my life.

There are three basic ideas concerning faith. One very popular thought is that faith is an excuse, an easy way out. Faith is what people fall back on when they're too afraid or tired to run their own lives. Another very popular idea is that faith is giving up the reins and trusting God to steer you through life, around all of the nasty stuff and straight into the bright blue yonder. Most people don't know what faith really is.

"Faith is the constant assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the belief in things that we cannot yet see."

I live a life of faith. True faith, not fluff faith. And I don't know much, but I can tell you this. Living in faith is the scariest and hardest thing I have ever done and will ever do, and it is the most rewarding. God's plan for you is not like the bulleted grocery list that hangs on your fridge. There is no point A, followed by point B, and so on. God's plan is a purpose that he has made especially for you, and you are a person made specifically to fulfill that purpose. How you discover and meet that purpose is all up to you. You don't even have to go anywhere near that purpose if you don't want to. Free will.

Faith is discovering and developing the strengths that God has equipped you with. Faith is finding your passion and pursuing it. Faith is knowing that good will come out of bad. Most importantly, faith is not avoiding the scary stuff. Faith is challenging it. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." Death. That is as scary as it gets. "...I will fear no evil." It doesn't say you won't be afraid of the scary stuff, it says that when you walk in faith, evil cannot touch you.

Faith cannot act if it is not challenged. It cannot win if there is no enemy. Living in faith means being scared, it is living outside of your comfort zone, it is not knowing what's going to happen. It is seeing the odds and the danger and knowing that you have something more. Faith is a decision every single day, many times a day. Faith is going and getting what you know belongs to you.

The most important ingredient in faith is God. This is what gives faith its authority, it's power. Faith is not the belief that everything is going to go your way. Faith is knowing that an entire heaven stands behind you, that all of the bad things this world has ever seen is no match for the authority you wield, that good will ultimately win. That you can do anything through Christ who strengthens you.

Faith is believing in the things that you cannot see. You cannot smell God, touch God, or hear God. And I know why. He is more. If you tell me that there is nothing more than numbers and smells and sounds and stimuli creating reactions in our nervous system, I will tell you that you are wrong. There is more. We are more. You can look me in the eyes and tell me that I am nothing more than cells and atoms and a few billion years of evolution, and you will see that you are wrong, that there is eternity in me, that I am more than even I can comprehend.

what are the odds that i will miss your smile?

Far away isn't as far away as it used to be. You can call people mail and e-mail them, and send them pictures, and web-cam. You can buy a plane ticket and be halfway around the planet in twelve hours. Some of this stuff you can even do for free. It makes going places easier. I have a friend who lives in Paris. I have another friend who will live in Romania all of next year. And once college starts in the fall, I'll have friends all over the country.

The world is more accesable. And people all over the world are more accessable than ever. But it's still not the same. Time zones have to be accounted for. If it's nine at night here, it's three in the morning in Paris, and if I want to talk to Lindsay that's just tough. Melanie won't be online any of the same times I will be; my mid-day will be her late-night. I won't be able to pick up the phone whenever I want to talk to Stacy or Emily or Carolyn unless I want to pay out of my butt. I can't swing by and drop in on Hannah Dale or Megan. You would think that a webcam is as good as the real thing. You can see a friend, you can hear them, you can laugh with them. It's lke sitting across the table from them at Jitters, right?

They've come up with a ton of great stuff, and I'm thrilled with it. But I don't think anyone will be able to take the miles away, or erase the ocean. The world is getting bigger, and bits of my life are starting to fill it in a little more. My tight little life isn't so dense anymore. Things are spreading out, expanding. I am spreading out, expanding. As good as that is, you still lose some stuff in the process. And if you don't work to keep everything close, it will fall off the edge of the map.

So I'm just going to have to work. We're going to have to work. Deal?