| Do you remember the 21st night of September?
What
a question! Three-hundred sixty-five days ago, I quit this blog. Now
I'm beginning to wonder where those days went. Maybe you've been
wondering too. For all of those who have been wondering whatever
happened to Nella, keep reading. If you don't know Nella, and you
haven't been wondering what happened to her, nevermind. You may leave
now if you wish, or you may remain if you will behave yourself.
School
Life:
Let's
see. Sherman, set the way-back machine for 12 months ago! Nella had
just begun her sophomore year of high school when she got this crazy
idea. She'd graduate early, that's what she'd do. Instead of taking
four years to complete high school, she'd have three. Then maybe
she'd go off to college, but more than likely she'd have a gap year.
(She's
loving this third person stuff, by the way. It reminds her of David
R. asking her if she always refers to herself in the third person.)
So
Nella went to work on a schedule, and soon it was done. She began
telling her friends about her plan to graduate early. The problem
was, she forgot to tell her mother. She asked her daddy what he
thought about it. He didn't mind, but he forgot to tell Nella's
mother, too. Nella was in biiiig twubble.
Nella
knew that her mom would never agree to let her take as many courses
as Nella had scheduled for that semester, so Nella conveniently
forgot to tell her mother that Nella was doing another course.
Okay,
referring to Nella as Nella is getting old. Nell. . . I'm switching.
Anyways,
so I was already doing Marine Biology, Algebra, German, World
History, and English 10. The next semester I kept all those course
(exchanged English for Literature, but we always switch mid-way
through the year) and added American Government, Anatomy and
Physiology (just lectures-- no tests, etc.), and English 11. That's
eight classes. 'Twas nuts! But I survived.
I
didn't take off during the summer. That was even crazier than doing
eight classes. You'll see why, in a little while.
Friendship
Life:
Wiebke,
the German exchange from last year, wasn't anything like Janina. Not
even close. She and I didn't hit it off anything like I did with
Janina. So after Jill departed for Clark Summit, I honestly had no
one to talk to on a daily basis that was my age. I still had good ole
Ian to keep in line, but I really wanted a girl friend who would
encourage me in my walk with God.
So
I started praying. God, of course, answered my prayer, but He didn't
give me the girl I wanted, He gave me a guy this time. Seth. Now
before you think I went ballistic over him and we're dating and all
that, let me correct your thinking. We met on the Rebelution and
began our friendships while discussing fantasy books and stories we
were writing. (I haven't changed a bit, have I? I'm still nuts about
fantasy! And I'm still, slowly but surely, writing Karubi.) After a
while, we stopped PM-ing since we had discussed every fantasy book we
could think of. Then he wrote me, asking me how many siblings I had,
etc. So we discussed siblings, and I introduced him to Ian. (He
hasn't quite recovered yet, I don't believe :D.)
Now
this is really cool. God must have been behind this, because there's
no way we could have managed this one on our own. Seth lived in the
deep South, and I live in the far North, so we both thought “There
is no way we're ever going to meet in real life.” Haha! God had
something different in mind. So we got to meet Seth's whole family on
May 5th of this year. How it all worked out is still
beyond me, but it happened, and that's the important thing.
God
has really brought our friendship along. I thank God every day for
blessing me with a friend beyond my narrowly-focused prayers! Now I
have an awesome friend. We can transition from talking about nothing
(which is really a something, you know!) to predestination in less
than a minute. I love talking to teens about theology. It's such a
lost thing, but it's quite refreshing when it happens!
Ian
and I are still best of friends. Unfortunately, he disappeared a few
months due to the college monster. He's still as convoluted as ever.
;) I really miss our talks till all odd hours of the mornings. I was
rummaging through his desk the other day, looking for a cable, but
instead I found a host of things that were just so Ian-esque. Nearly
made me cry, but I've had enough of crying for now. I can't wait to
see him at Thanksgiving!! My dad was joking that when I see him at
Thanksgiving, I'm going to run him over because I'll be so excited to
see him =D
I
got to see a lot of Jill over the summer, which was very good for me.
She's so encouraging and gave me a lot of good advice on how to
handle some things going on in my life, especially Ian leaving.
Work
Life:
During
the winter I worked as a junior ski instructor at the Peak. Now, I
have a new job. I work in the dining room at the northern-most
Chick-fil-A! I absolutely love
it!! I have a funny name for just about every position there. The best one is filetting, which i call massaging dead chicken. Sadly, it's accurate.
My
Summer:
This
was undoubtedly the craziest summer of my life. I could recite to you
what I did each week, and probably each day of each week, too.
However, I have to go to work in five hours, and I need to eat lunch,
read 20 pages of Chaucer, read a chapter of Systematic Theology, and
do some laundry before then, so I don't think I have time to relate
my whole summer. The highlight was definitely a missions trip to Salt
Lake City, Utah. Combine youth group, train ride, lotsa late nights,
Mormons, the Rocky Mountains, souvenir shopping, meeting awesome
people, and God, and you have a very fun two weeks! I have so many
testimonies I could share about those weeks. If you want more
specifics, I can send you something that I've already written. I
don't have time to write something new about Utah, but I could talk
about my trip for days.
Other
summer activities included Ian's graduation, Utah prep, a day at
Cedar Point, family vacation in North Carolina, VBS, my 16th
birthday (including permit!!), and our Chick-fil-A opening craziness.
(Id est, making 10,000 sandwiches to give away. Yeah. Nuttiness.)
Well, I think that's all that I've done in a nutshell. I'll update again next year! ~Nella
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