love

i think love is the theme of my life. loving others as best i can, being loved by some of those others, being loved by God. not romantic boyfriend/girlfriend love, but just love, like from the heart and soul. its like something you can't really properly explain with words, actions work best. :)

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear. It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. There are three things that will endure – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.

-1 Corinthians 13:4-13

indecisive

Ok, anyone who really knows me knows that I am like the most indecisive person in the world. If you ask me 'where do you wanna go to eat?', i could spend hours trying to make up a decision. same thing with dinner, my mom always asks 'what do you want for dinner?', and everytime it takes me forever to decide. With my french switch, yesterday i had thought more about it (thats the really deadly thing-thinking) and didn't know if i really wanted to switch. With the help of sane parents, i realized that i'm for sure switching, everythings already done and i needed to just accept the decision i made and get on with life. I think one of my main problems is that it seems to me like every decision is life-changing. It is, and I know that, but like life changing in a big bad way, not just a little one. I need to learn to just quickly look at the options and pick one and be done, and stop over-analyzing everything. it's not as easy as it sounds, trust me! I dont know why I have such trouble with this, maybe because I'm too attached to the material world, that I don't want anything to go wrong in it and don't want to lose what I have. Maybe I need to lean more on God, esp in decision time, and realize that I'm not going to live here forever, but in heaven, with God, and that I should base my (big) decisions on what God would do, not what this world will do. Now, I don't know how I'm going to apply that to choosing between pasta and chicken for dinner, hopefully I'll find a way or I'll just get more decisive as I grow up....

cette semaine

This week has been pretty stressful. I usually go to bed at like 9, 9:30. I've been going to bed at like 11. I know that doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world, but it seems like it to me. I'm a girl that NEEDS her sleep. Without it, everything seems to go wacky. My brain doesn't work right, my body fails me, and I just feel like crap. The sole reason for me having to stay up so late was homework too. I told myself at the beginning of high school that I was not the kind of person that made up that excuse, but it happened. Though most stories I hear are about staying up til 3am, when 11 is their normal, so I guess I just became normal. I don't like being normal. Anyway, so I tried to figure out what it was that was making everything take so long. Although I didn't really find the totally answer or anything, I realized that I really was not liking French 4. I took french 3 over the summer, for 4 days, meanless to say, it didn't stick. So, I've decided that for the better of my life, and my French education and continuement, that I'm going to switch from French 4 to french 3. It makes me feel good, knowing I'll be back in my place. This means though that I'm going to have to switch my english class too, and I'm sorta sad cause I'll miss some of the people in english and french, but I know I've made the right decision and can't base my decision on others and their thoughts. It will also be nice having a not so hard class. I've got IB Math HL and IB Art HL that can take up quite a bit of time, along with AP Eng. H Marine isn't bad, and now French 3 will join the not so bad group. I just hated having no personal time at all to relax, rewind, whatever this week with all the homework and other comittments. Hopefully next week will be alot better.
Small group helped make me feel better, but it can only do so much ya know, like it cant add time that I don't have, but it helped me have a better outlook on things.

yay

So this weekend I visited Lenoir-Rhyne and Gardner-Webb. Lenoir-Rhyne was really cool and I really liked it (and they'll give me money :) It had a good feel to it, and there were lots of nooks and crannies and just really nice people and atmosphere. Gardner-Webb was ick. They were rather impersonal and didn't act like they wanted to be there, so now I don't want to be there :) So, as of now, I'm planning to apply to just Lenoir-Rhyne, see if I got in, and if I do, then my college hunt is over :) That's another plus to a smaller school, the turnaround from sending in the application to getting your letter is like a week, not like 3 months. :) After all the college visiting fun, we drove to Asheville and saw my sister on Saturday. It was really nice to see her and talk to her, especially since she's been having a rough time lately.
I don't know what was going on here in the 'boro this weekend, but up there, their was madness. Because the Texas refineries were shut off, there was fear of not enough gas, and the gas prices rose. This made everyone go get some gas in case it took a while to turn the refineries back on. Now with all these people going to the gas station, and not as much gas coming in, several gas stations ran out of gas before they could get more the next day. Seeing gas stations empty and run out of gas, made more people panic and go to the gas stations. It became a vicious circle. It was sort of fun being sane and watching all these people line up to the street for $4.59 gas. What is the world coming to, when our most prized commodity is gas? It makes me think about what my youth pastor talked about last night; how everyone worships something, and unfortunately most people don't worship God. All those people lining up and waiting and paying huge amounts of money for gas, were in a way, worshiping the gas. Now that's sorta scary I must say.
We were made to worship, and made to worship God, not other things.
I must say though, that I'm glad I still have half a tank so that maybe the gas prices will go down a bit in the 2 weeks before I have to go get some more gas. Low gas prices are even more wanted when you don't have a fixed income of any kind, but still need to drive to and from school :)

change?

do you think i should change the backround/design of my blog? make it brighter and more interesting or whatever, or do you like it the way it is? thanks :)

love

i love love. who doesn't. i love best friends. i hope best friends love me :) family rocks too.
ok, so i dont know if its this way for anyone else, but i'm weird about compliments.
i take things that probably aren't originally ment to be complete compliments to be compliments.
when someone says "i like your shirt" or "wow! you made your purse! awesome, thats so cool." i dont really respond to that kind of stuff. it just seems run of the mill normal old me. i know they mean it as a compliment, so i say thanks and smile, to be socially correct :) , but it doesnt really hit deep down or anything.
but, when someone says randomly, "your looking good today" or "hey cutie" or smiles the right way or something random like that (these are girls talking, not creepy boys with cooties) , i know they probably say that to like everyone, but i take it personally and it actually makes me feel really, deep down good, to know that i'm cute, or that i do actually look good and dont just blend into the wall like i feel i do sometimes. or the little things like saying thank you after me giving them a ride somewhere or something. i dont know im just weird like that. i take the little things to heart, that aren't necessarily meant to be, and sorta more or less shrug off the bigger, more official stuff.
i do that with bad things too. i tend to sortof ignore/shrug off big bad stuff (may also have something with me relying on God too...) , but if someone says something small thats mean, i take it more personally or whatever. for whatever reason, swear words really annoy me too. i know they should or whatever b/c they're bad, but they sometimes actually make me feel sad, like cause i realize what a crappy world it really is, without God being here, on earth. yeah.
so, if you know me and you're around me, and i'm looking like i'm in a not so great mood, it'd probably more effective to cheer me up by doing little things like smiling or laughing or pretending to be attentive at my long talkitiveness, instead of actually trying to make me feel better and giving me compliments or a pep talk or something. just some advice... :)
does anyone else do that? or am i just crazy, and thats just another wonderful example of evidence?

(p.s. itd be really cool if someone actually left comments and stuff... :)

life

Life right now consists of visiting colleges, thinking about colleges, being bugged about colleges, and thinking about scholarships and crap, along with the normal dose of school, piano, church stuff and trying to find time for myself and to hang out with my friends, whom I don't really get to see much :( Life

Friday, I got to go visit UNC. It didn't seem all that different from anyother state university i've been to. One thing really interesting did happen though... So, I got out of school early so we could go over there, and I got out before it was lunch time, so I hadn't eaten lunch. Then, once I got home, we left and were supposed to get some sort of foodecular object to eat on the way... well, we didn't. The tour was at 2, and we got to the campus at like 1:20, and we were supposed to be at the tour place 20 min early (1:40). We drove around and around and couldn't find somewhere to eat quickly, so we didnt eat. so, we went on the tour, then went to the hour long info meeting. Then, we couldn't find somewhere to eat, finally we found McDonalds. So, We ate lunch at about 4:50pm. very interesting day I must say. It also kept sprinkling/raining during our tour. I have a feeling this may have impacted my feelings about the school, but whatever. So, next friday I get to not go to school at all and go and visit Lenoir-Rhyne and Gardner-Webb...
Another random thought... It seems like I never get to see my friends anymore. And it sucks. I don't have any classes with either of my two best friends. I have lunch with one, but about half the days she goes off campus and eats at her house or something, but I just bring my lunch and eat it at school cause its a waste of gas and time to go home to eat it. I fortunately get to see both at Core (youth group), and the other one at small group and nursery. But still.. it feels like i never see them. Never really enough to get a good talk on and really find out whats happening in eachother's lives. The one I have lunch with has a pretty open schedule though, so hopefully we'll be able to hang out out of school sometime soon, but the other one... has like the busiest schedule possible and there seems to never be any time she isnt busy. She says she wants to spend time with me, and I with her, but there never seems to be an open spot in her schedule for me. This friend also sometimes seems bossy about what'll do when we finally do get together, like its her way or the highway. She sometimes does this in other things, like my college choices and such. It's starting to annoy me. Its like I want to spend time with her when she has time for me, but not if she's going to dictate everything. I love them both to death, but it just seems like sometimes this love I have for them isn't fully reciprocated. Yeah, I don't mean to make judgements or make them feel bad, it's just the way I feel.

you know you want to read it

Hey! you know you want to read my first college essay! the prompt is 'Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and it's impact on you.' its from the common app but i'm using it as my long essay for UNC. enjoy :)

There are things I’ve wanted to do all my life; go to France, go to college, get married and have kids, among other things. When presented the opportunity to go to France on a Rotary Club exchange, I pounced on it. I was paired with a French girl, Mailys, and we would spend three weeks at my house and three at her house. I was so excited! I was finally going to France! Having Mailys here was amazing; I could see her learning and growing, especially in her English. I couldn’t wait to have a similar experience in France. Whenever I thought about the trip, I didn’t really think about the challenges I knew I would encounter. I just kept thinking ‘I’m going to France! Alone!’.
The first week was unforgettable, but not what I expected. I had jet lag and my body wasn’t cooperating. Mailys’ mother and I had trouble getting along. I was totally unprepared to live with people I barely knew and who didn’t seem to like me. With time and some uncomfortable conversations, we began to better understand and accept each other. The language barrier was unpredictable. At times I couldn’t get around it, but at others it felt like it didn’t exist. Instinctively, I had been expecting my experience to be just like Mailys’. I had to adjust my thinking and focus on the positives. I was then fully able to appreciate France, from the beaches to the beautiful vineyards. By the time I had to leave, I didn’t really want to. French life had grown on me; I felt like I couldn’t leave all the vineyards and chateaus behind and I had made great strides in understanding French. On the flip side, I couldn’t wait to get home to my friends and family.
For me, this was the trip of a lifetime. The personality clash wasn’t something I had expected, but I certainly gained from it. It helped me see how different people can be; their reactions, their motives, their personalities, and the effect of their society’s expectations; but that we’re all humans with similar needs. I also took many risks and tried new things I normally wouldn’t consider. This experience helped me expand my ‘bubble’ of comfort and taught me how to handle stressful situations. I also experienced first hand how it feels to be judged critically. I’m grateful for it all, even the hard stuff. Now I know that I can do anything as long as I put my mind to it. I learned a lot about myself too, like how I react and the reasons for my actions. Most important, this experience allowed me to better understand people’s diversities and to be nonjudgmental. I enjoy challenges, and this one was right up my alley. I will continue to learn from this amazing experience throughout my life. When I go to college these lessons will help me adjust to my new environment and accept those around me. They will also aid me in the future as I help others to deal with their challenges. There were so many emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects to my experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

p.s. hope you like it, but at this point i dont really care if anyone likes it cause im sick of it. :) Oh, and I hope everyone had a good day off, I know I did :)