i was trying to think of a word to describe today and all i could come up with was "uhhh." I think that word might be the one that fits best. I've been thinking a lot lately. about a lot of stuff. (yes, great word selection.) thinking is good and healthy and everything but it's not always the most encouraging activity. i've realized that i'm like really, really small and basically, i just don't understand the world. of course, i knew that before. but still, the world is way bigger than me.

(oh dear, you look so lost.)

today, i needed an environment other than my bedroom so i went for a run. and 1/2 mile down the road, the world was going too fast and when it goes that fast, it's not enjoyable. (so I slowed down.) and then a car drove past me at 50 mph on our dirt road with a speed limit much lower than that and he left me in a big cloud of ugly grey dust and feeling way behind. (so i sped up again.) i repeated a similar process a couple times and eventually realized that some things are just meant to go faster than me. and that's okay. and so i walked home. because, after all, i'm just a little kid. well, sorta. i'm also supposed to be all grown up and mature and that stuff...and i don't think i ever will be, completely.

the other thing i did today was clean up my desk and my room and my bathroom. i found some old letters (and some really old letters)  from friends and one of them said this:

"I had piano lessons today. In the middle of one of my pieces one of the keys just stopped working. I kept pressing again and again, and it wouldn't work, so, I decided to try to play without it, but something too big was missing. My teacher made me stop. She opened [the piano up] and fixed it...How often in life do we keepdoing the same thing over and over hoping that it will just fix itself? How often do we try to ignore the broken things and tell ourselves that we don't need them? It's always harder to actually fix it-but, if we don't the problem continues to exist or we lose part of the melody. Sometimes, we just need someone else to step in, take our hands off the keys until things are right again. I keep asking God to take my hands off the keys, because, lately, I'm making a mess."

too often, when i'm incapable of doing something or i'm just having a hard time, I decide that it doesn't matter. if a school assignment is a little too challenging for my attention span, i figure it's not that important. or, working at the hospital I was trying to fix a broken electric stapler and tried the same thing over and over again until someone pointed out to me that it wasn't actually plugged in. too often, if something i do doesn't work the first time, i do it again and again. then i'm suprised when it doesn't work the fifth time, either. this is one of the many, many, many, reasons I'm glad that I am so small and that there is a God who knows me better than I know myself and can fix things and make them all better again. I just need to trust him more. because without him, well, that's a scary thought.

and mayor's 100 teens says that I need a life philosophy. and a life goal. and a way to describe myself. and a "greatest accomplishment" all before tomorrow morning. yeah..

(i think i'll go to boston, where no one knows my name.)

oh, & my email inbox just informed me that if i don't send some chain email to my 10 best friends i'm going to die at 10pm. so, i guess this is goodbye...

It's pretty much been a good week. And, that's pretty much an understatement.

People keep telling me I need a "regionals post." I can't say that I remember most of regionals but I remember it was rather weird and very fun. I remember the hot tamales, jr. speech kids, and honorable mention certificate at the hoedown. Oh, there was also dancing and then I lost my mommy at the end. I think that was also the night Marla and I called Jesus. On Thursday, I remember getting a bye, I think I debated but I don't really remember that part. And Mrs. Blum got me Jamba Juice and then there was a good duo round. Friday I don't remember. Except that there was some Starbucks. And that Laura came and watched my not-so-great round against Jesse. Oh, actually I also remember that this was the day that Taylor told marla and I that our outfits did not coordinate. (they really did, i promise.) Saturday...oh, yes, Saturday. That was the day we had breaks and I thought I wasn't going to break and I really did. Then I debated Jesse again and broke again. That's when I found out I was debating Mackenzi. That's when I realized that if I won, I was going to nationals. I did win...That was the day I qualified for nationals. That was the day Mackenzi and Marla qualified for nationals. That was the day Alanna q'd in LD and all sorta of other amazing people qualified, too. That was also the day I made it to LD finals. That was also the day I won a tournament in LD. That was the day I got a 1st in something. That had never happened before. That was the day there was also a cool ballot party which involved lots of standing in line and eating disgustingly unhealthy food but not caring. That was a good day. That was a good tournament.

I didn't catch up on sleep until yesterday. monday I had soo much school to do and I think I actually might have gotten it done. Monday I also found out that I am one of the Mayor's 100 teens. Tuesday was cold, pretty much. The power stayed off from about noon until 8am today. (not cool.) So, I helped benjamin write his first-ever apologetics card (the sovereignty of God) and realized that he is going to be a very cool competitor next year. Then, I slept... and woke up, and made eggs, and lit candles, and read for a while. and slept for a while longer.

yeah. that's all.

I'm sitting here typing with tears streaming down my face.

(i can cry.)
(i am a real girl now.)

Before any of my slightly over-paranoid subscribers start freaking out and calling to ask if I'm okay, you should know that no, nothing terrible happened. I'm not even sad. Or overly joyful. Although I'm in a strangely good mood because I just figured out the art of fake-crying. oh, yeah. i am amazing.

so, the crying story. Last night after my [pretty much awesome] party, marla and I were duo-ing. We changed the conclusion and decided it would be cool if we could both tear up at the end. (awww!) Marla, being the geeky-google-loving kid that she is decided to google "how to fake cry." After reading a rather short wiki-how-to article and practicing for about 20 seconds, she figured it out quite easily. Actually, her only problem was that she couldn't stop crying. I am officially jealous of her abilities. I spent the next 45 minutes staring at bright lights, thinking about sad things, looking at sad pictures, listening to sad songs, scrunching my face in weird positions, lying on the table staring at the ceiling fan, and trying to blow-dry my eyes. I. still. could. not. cry.  I am so untalented, it is not funny. eventually, we decided it was hopeless and moved on to better things. We went to bed a little too late...she had smudged mascara and tear-stained eyes and my eyes were still pretty much dry (although i did pour water on them just so my mascara could be smudged too.)

I woke up still incapable of crying. At least, crying on purpose. Then we made the mistake of videotaping our duo. duuuuuuuude.
(maybe it was rather motivational.)
We practiced our duo over and over and over again. "your voice is monotone." "no." "do it again." "why are you looking that way?" "wait, what's my line?" "we. suck." Eventually we sorta kinda got it down and tried to do it for the video camera again. After we figured out how to work the tripod (this took way too long) we did a rather-okay-but-not-great-and-quite-cheesy performance of our duo ("focus. and stop making out with the camera.") and then after it was all done discovered that oh, maybe we can't work the tripod afterall. The whole recording had our heads cut off. But we listened to it/watched it and figured we might have made some improvement. She could still cry. I could still not cry. We gave up on the video camera and did it for my mom. It was better...I think. There were even sound affects courtesy of marla's cell phone.

Oh, but then we went to our meeting-place starbucks and sat and talked with our mommies for a long time about teen court, debate, college and other stuff. and then went home. Being the dedicated duo-partner that I am I decided to try, try again. So I basically just looked in the mirror and held my eyes open. and THEN, it was like in the helen keller story when they're at the pump and annie's all determined and helen really is trying to learn and then it's like, "water!" yeah, it was pretty much that exciting. when it started stinging a little I kept them open. My eyes got like watery and then there were tears.

(duo tears.)

I am no longer pinnochio. I am real. I even have smudged mascara to prove it.

see, marla, I actually am dedicated.

certain people have been pressuring me to post on my dead xanga. so, you get a recap of my life for the past two months. Looking back on it, I'm pretty much just nerdy.

Seattle was a long day in an airport, three grandmas on an airplane (honey grandma, sugar grandma, baby grandma), a western civ test, memorizing speeches, nice host-housing people, meeting people, exploding mac n' cheese in a cup, disgusting noodle stuff, getting intoxicated by marla's peanut-breath, being stabbed by an umbrella, being anointed with bathroom water, getting sued by a group of strange skinny children with umbrellas wearing suits, drinking water with glass in it, lots of debating, speaking, breaking, and not breaking...yeah, normal tournament stuff.

Then was Peak which was short, windy, and marla-less. Joanna wasn't competing either so that just made it weird. But I had cool rounds and then awesome outrounds (cosette+alanna+jesse+finals against mackenzi.) 2nd place. 2nd speaker. $50 in Barnes and Noble money. yup. pretty awesome.

So, I debated three weekends in a row. The next weekend I did nothing. at least nothing singificant.

Cedarville was two weeks afterwards. Day one involved an airport and a hotel with america's next top model and lots of schoolwork. Day two involved a hotel security camera, an amazingly silly duo partner, screaming, moths, getting slapped, yummy parfaits courtesy of marie, registration, LD work with marla, nathan, and this other "boobah-head" guy. Day three brought the start of the tournament, a very cold ohio, lots of walking, okay speeches, boring speeches, really good speeches, and rather fun debate rounds. Day four was cold, pretty much. That's about all I remember. There were no breaks. Oh, but there were teletubbies. and a crying-judge-apol round. and a rather awesome iPod. and a rather strange clique. Day five was a little too much citric acid, breaks that didn't involve much breaking, watching LD rounds and making fake ballots, breaking to finals for the first time in speech (that took too long). 5th place LD speaker. semis in some stuff. finals in apol. Day six was an airport, good coffee, a snoring guy on an airplane and a lot of sleep. that was all.

The weeks between Cedarville and RMC I pretty much worked on debate. a lot. Oh, and I got a C on a chemistry test. rdecftvgybhujnhtg.

So yes, RMC was next. There was duo work, a city of blinding lights, singing, a little more psychotic immaturity, suit coordination that didn't always coordinate, lots of debating/speaking and other stuff that I don't remember. Oh, but I officially have the best duo partner in the world. Seriously, she's pretty awesome. anyway, I went 6-0, was 1st seed and got a bye to quarters. cool stuff. ld semis..I debated marla and it was basically the best round ever. Then it was a griffith/griffith finals that involved a lucky (or not so lucky) sticky note pad, two debate boxes, two debate notebooks, and 'the usg is a reckless teen driver.' 2nd place. 2nd speaker. again. (dream on, but don't imagine that they'll all come true.)

The next weekend I did something totally unrelated to debate/speech/nerdiness. I went to a youth retreat in Kansas. It waswarm doughnuts, fresh fruit, 8 teenagers in a car for fourteen hours (seven each way), lots of singing and lots of playing sports, and a slightly sliced open foot and bruised ribcage. saturday night was fun...normal girl sleepover stuff. then there was the drive back home, a stop at elise's great-grandparent's house (they are amazing people) and lots of sleeping once I got back.

Tonight was teen court. Sometimes, I do not like juries. But I still like Mackenzi.

I am old. very old.

(oh, and my dad is taking me skating at sertich tomorrow. 11:30-1pm. $1.50. if you aren't doing something lame like getting your wisdom teeth pulled, you should come.)

so, there, i posted.