Inspirational

These are so inspirational that I can't even begin to explain. First up- Nick Vujicic is this guy that... well, see for yourself. And then Rhema Marvanne is an amazing seven year old Christian singer... see for yourself. It's amazing and beautiful... And she lives in Dallas.

BAD CAT!!

Okay. I was holding my cat. Someone *ahemGRANDPAahem* dropped a metal pot lid, which made a really loud noise.
Little Prissy Princess Kitty-Kins here gets all scared and digs her claws into my stomach.
So?
Next thing she does is jump.
Or attempt to jump.
Because you can't jump off someone very well if your claws are sunk into them, right?
Yeah. Unless you make it painful for them. Which she succeeded in doing. And somehow managed to get 22 marks on me.
It's not as bad as it sounds, but CATS SHOULDN'T BE SO VICIOUS!!!!!!

Tootsie Rolls!

I figured out how to make Tootsie Rolls! AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!

Flute!

Okay. So what was wrong with my flute after Elizabeth-cousin got it run over by a car??

• Keys mashed down and out of whack
• Flute. SHAPED LIKE A BANANA!!!!!!!! Meaning the entire middle section was bent. It's still not perfect, and it never will be.
• Corks/pads under the keys slightly torn up. They're not fixed yet, but they still work.

Good thing the headjoint, probably the most expensive part, was totally okay. *insert 'Hallelujah Chorus' excerpt here*

And that's not event the best part. It didn't even cost a hundred dollars!! I really like this repair shop. It's a whole lot cheaper. And same quality.

With music shops, it's the more famous, the more expensive.

Dance

The Taiwanese Aboriginal Dance is... interesting.
Awkward.
Interesting.
And the music annoys me. A lot.
But it's fun.
Isn't it, Sam?

Ch1k3n. Trombone.

DOES HE HAVE TO PLAY THIS LATE????????????

Fun Friday Freetime (or so called...)

Fun? No.
Friday? well, yes.
Freetime? no.
Here's what we did-

• Scarf down our lunches with Mrs. Hages yelling over the megaphone
• Play Red Rover, ALTHOUGH last time quite a few people got hurt.
• Get snacks.
• Sit around.
• Released 2 minutes from late bell.

Fun. Right.

Mollipop

I'm finding Mollipop very amusing. (I find amusement in everything, it seems like.)
After PE I saw Mollipop, Nattle-E, and Sam near the door, and I didn't want to go in just yet so I sat down with them.
And then Mollipop went on and on about how her hair color doesn't have anything to do with her 'problems.'
Me- So what is your natural hair color?
Mollipop- I DON'T HAVE PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!
Me- Um... what's your natural hair color...?
Mollipop- ...red... red...
And then she ripped up a leaf and threw it at me, screaming, "TREE!!"
Huh. Huh. STRANGE people.

YouTube

I found some more amusing videos of people from our school. They are quite amusing.
Yep.
Bye.

Post

I feel like posting, so I am. Just so you won't get bored.
By the way, when Mrs. Nest said that we were doing monologues in drama, I got excited, naturally. But then we have to write them ourselves (lowers excitement) and they're supposed to be about a 'memorable happening that changed our life'. (Vanishes excitement.)
But wait! What about my first roller coaster? (Excitement peeks out from under a rock.)
I might get it on here, and I might not. So.

Interesting Topic

I just recently read Maybe a Miracle by Brian Strause, and now I'm really, really interested in stigmata. It's so wierd!!

Poor Skandie!

I heard about your agent disaster.

Twubble

Don't feel alone, Jestar. I'm in trouble, too.
After the funeral, I went back in the room to get my jacket and had my cousin, Elizabeth, hold my flute. Then when I got it I didn't bother get it back. I should have. Because when we were waiting at the car for my other cousin, Rayne, to get there cause she drove, Elizabeth put the flutes down.
We got into the car and as we were backing up, we felt a bump. Then, for some reason, Rayne decided to be smart and roll over it AGAIN.
Then we realized that Elizabeth had left the flutes behind the wheel.
We ran over them.
Twice.
My flute is worth a car. Plard would trade me BOTH his flutes for mine. That's how good it is.
Yeah.
We ran back to check them, and they were fine. Whew!
Then we were questioning Rayne why we ran over the twice, then Acer said, "We ran over them the second time just to make sure they were there!"
So. At band today. I get out my flute. The footjoint doesn't fit. Not only that, but the whole right pinky key is jammed down.
I nervously ask Plard to borrow his flute, and I do not tell him what exactly happened. Maybe tomorrow.
But then Grizzly pointed out that another key was squashed down.
Yippe.
How much is this going to cost?
Oh, I don't know, maybe only A COUPLE THOUSAND OF DOLLARS!
So I get home and call my mom, who's still at my cousin's house.
She. Freaks. Out.
You know my mom, you know how scary her freak-outs can be.
This is WAY worse. She's yelling at me over the phone, in front of my cousin's whole family. Except for Elizabeth, she was being brought to dance class.
You probably don't want to know the whole sequence of calling people and working things out, so anyway, my mom told me not to worry. Yeah. Yeah, right. No worries.
Just hope this works out.

YAY!

Skandie changed her name.
What shall we call her now??

...funeral...

Yesterday was the funeral.

Nothing much to say.

My violin and flute wasn't that good. I mean it was good but not perfect. Meaning I'm not settling for it.

The preacher's voice cracked constantly.

...

Oh, yeah, the casket/grandmother, whatever you want to call it, wasn't there...

Then afterwards our parents went to the crematory... and burned her...

and that't it for now.

Gramma

We visited my grandmother today, cause this evening we're having the visitation.

She looks worse that before. Whoever did her mouth is terrible at lipstick, and she could have used a little more foundation or whatever to block out the blue around it. I think the wire holder thing stretched her lips out.

Her neck looked flabby. The pillow was too high and it looked strange.

My grandfather talked to her for about ten minutes. It was depressing.

And the worker called my uncle "ma'am." Twice.

The we left.

I don't feel like going back.

Jestar-Sam-Skandar Copycat

I've decided to make a list, too, of the songs stuck in my head. Here it goes--

• -----------
• --------
• --------------
• ?????
• ------------
• ---------------
• ------

Nothing. Nothing is stuck in my head. I don't listen to anything... at all...

Except for my violin practicing, but that doesn't count.

So there's my list. Nothing. I don't know half the most well known song artist's names.

So there it is. My little lonely corner of no-musicness. I like it that way.

...green...??

Since I couldn't get a picture up here, I'll just say-

I hope you're wearing green.

Check.

Check now.

You're not checking.

CHECK!

Good.

If you're not wearing green here's a virtual pinch from me.

-----*virtual pinch*-----

Birthday Time

Oh, another thing-

after my grandmother passed we were looking through her pictures/journal and in a phone book/calendar thing, she wrote my Chinese name, my birthday, and the time I was born.

I never knew exactly what time it was cause my mom was asleep. We guessed it was in the 5pm hour, but it turns out it was 2:15pm.

Maybe I could have thanked her if we found this before... Cause it's something that I've always wondered.

Resemblance

See the resemblance?

NOM-NOM-NOM *violin* NOM-NOM-NOM

...Grandmother...

Yes, my grandmother who once randomly demanded grape jello, is gone.

She fell off the attic ladder and hit her head in the garage at my cousin, Elizabeth's, house, and my grandfather found her laying on the floor, unconscious, but it was too late. Even so, the ambulance came and drove her to the nearest hospital about 45 minutes away. The hospital was too small, so they flew her to San Ant in a helicopter.

When I was picked up from school at 12:00 because of the early release, I was told that something happened to her. So when we got home, my mom cancelled a school show she was planning to dance and perform at, and picked Ch1k3n up from his school early.

Then we picked up Rayne from her dorm downtown, and left for San Ant, with our uncle coming from his house.

When we got to the hospital, they took us into a room and said things like, "We tried to save her... She was severely damaged... We have her in a quiet room..." and my uncle and my mom lost it. It was pretty hard, because my grandmother was the last grandparent we would ever think to have gone first. Now that I think back to it, we were probably really creeping out the people in the waiting room next door...

The nurses took us to the 'quiet room.' The room probably was quiet before, but once we got it and my uncle/mom saw the bed with my grandmother all covered up, it was definietly not quiet.

I wanted to stay out of the room, but still was really curious. I decided not to look as the nurse pulled back the sheet covering my grandmother's face. But then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that she looked exactly the same, except for the wires sticking out of her mouth, like she was in the middle of eating a robot. I finally decided that it would be all right if I touched her, because my uncle and my mom were already stroking her head. So I touched her forehead, and she was still warm. About two hours later, when everyone calmed down more, after prayers were said, and after the 'men' in our family talked to the nurses outside, my grandmother was colder than usual, and the bottom of her right ear was turning blue, although I think I was the only one who noticed. The warmth I felt when I first touched her forehead was gone forever.

But there were other things to think of, like if we would let them do an autopsy, and if she would have wanted her organs donated. We decided 'yes' on both, but the only problem left was how to tell our grandfather.

Our cousins had already left to come to San Ant, but we told them that our grandmother wouldn't be able to be visited by the time they got there, three hours later. So they went back.

We also went to their house to be with our grandfather. My mom was in my uncle's car, and they didn't stop for dinner, like we did, so they got there earlier.

About twenty minutes away, my mom called and asked if Ch1k3n or my dad knew CPR. That scared me.

When we got home, my uncle was calling up a doctor in the garage. We went inside, and my mom, across the hall, motioned for us not to go in.

My grandfather was practically hyperventilating. He started from a high pitch, and then mumbled words that lead down to his usual range.

When we finally went into the living room, all my cousins were there, and the girls were crying.

The adults comforted and encouraged my grandfather and even made him encourage himself. This went on until about midnight, then we went to bed.

So now my grandfather looks emotionless, but I know that his feelings are just to big to show. People have been coming to see him...

And I probably won't be posting too much.

It's okay, though, cause as I see it, my grandmother's in Heaven, and she's happier than ever, and has already met everyone she's wanted to meet-- including God. :)

Track

Today in track I actually went with middle-distance, the group I'm in.
(By the way, turns out we have five coaches, Coach Brad, Coach Long (bye-bye!), Coach Middle, Coach Sprint, and Coach Field.)
Anyway, we worked really hard, and the last thing he made us to was to run from the yellow bridge to the bleachers, run up and down all four sets, run back across to the single silver bench, touch it, run all the way across to the three picnic tables and hurdling the single rusty bench on the way, climb up the picnic table and jump down, run to the boat in the playground, get up on it, jump from the point, run back out to the picnic tables in the middle of the forest between the playground and the soccer field, climb over the tables, run to the table next to the long jump pit, climb up and jump, then sprint on pure adrenaline back to the yellow bridge. All hard running, no jog.
WHEW!!!!!!!!!
Good coach, good coach.

KID!!!!!!!

Yesterday we were at Subway and this... random little boy was running around. I didn't really pay any attention to him until he ran into the Woman's restroom!
I thought it would be funny to see his reaction if I opened the door and went in to wash my hands. So I part way opened the door, then realized that it was a one-person bathroom and he hadn't locked it.
By then we were going outside, so I rushed out. Then in the parking lot we saw him. He was holding the door handle and was is the window, just watching us. Ch1k3n and I cracked up, and when we were leaving I thought, "He's never going to see me again, so why not?" and I waved really big and enthusiastically to him. He saw, grinned, and waved back.
This, somehow, got Ch1k3n laughing harder.
AWESOME LITTLE KID!!!!!!!
(Not most awesome, because the most awesome little kid was the one that battled with invisible fire/ice shooting out of our palms when I was with Deer practicing our duet.)

Laps

After school today, Nicole and I went to see how many laps we ran.
32.
THIRTY-TWO.
For me.
Nicole?
31.
THIRTY-ONE??
This isn't right. We at least had 35.
So after a lot of 'technical' math works, we concluded that we ran 35.
I know we ran more, but Coach who was in charge probably wouldn't have fallen for anything higher. Cause we know that Mike only lapped us three times, but his counter fell off and they ended up saying he ran 38.
So, yes, we're stuck with the tiny number 35.
Only an extremely slow runner can only run 35 laps.
Well, anyway, that's an average of 7 mph...
Easy to calculate!
Anyway... Twilight-lover got in the top 20?? I didn't even know she was fast...

Jog-a-Fun

Yes. Today was the dreaded Jog-A-Fun.
I somehow ignored the nervous pangs deep inside me as we carried through the day.
At lunch Nikki and I decided to go to Mrs. Love's room. We soon figured out- her husband was there. And it was awkward, because he was being really wierd. Well, he might have been being himself... Anyway, this is how conversation went-
Me- So, um... you're reading Green?
Mr- Yeah. It's better than the other book.
Ms- And by the 'other book' he means Maximum Ride.
Me- Oh. Okay.
*awkward silence forever*
We left because of the awkwardness, probably much to the Love's relief, and because Coach Paytoll gave us permission to (the class was out on the field), Nikki and I sat out at the circular driveway-thingy next to Mrs. Hendy's Spanish room. We sat on the picnic tables and cheered on for the high-schoolers.
We yelled at Skandar and Sam to run, and when Sam came back we yelled, "Run like an ostrich!"
Now, Nikki had an idea that Hale, her, and I have bandanas to wet and tie onto our wrists. I chose a pink bandana, and Nikki just had to have her horse one. She was making me tie it on her wrist perfectly ("Can you make it tighter?" "Can you tie it more up my hand?") until she finally was content with her bandana with the horse showing (of course) and wrapping up over her thumb. I liked this and did the same thing.
Then we met up with Hale out at the field. We go our clunky computer lap counters (different from last year) and then when we got outside everyone was all lined up.
"Are you ready to run?"
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Aw, come on. Are you ready to run?"
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Okay, Junior High, this is the last race of the day, and it's gonna be the best. ARE YOU READY TO RUN??"
"mmmmmmmeeeeeeehhhh........."
"We're going to keep you till midnight. One last time- you ready to run?"
*random -ish- cheers*
"Okay. On your mark... get set... GO!"
We started off, and Nikki was going way too fast. The whole thirty minutes was a blur of rolling dust, splashes of water every lap evaporating off our shoulders, and dodging slow people. Somewhere in there we lost Hale. But by the end I was really about to throw up. Literally. But Nikki and I found Hale and we just stood there and hugged (yes, even with us all sweaty and tired) for I don't know how long... I guess it was kinda like unspoken communication or everything we wanted to say during the race, apologies, and confusion.
After that I went up to the locker room, wettened my bandana, stuck it on my face, and leaned on the wall. I stuck it down my back and went to find Nikki and Hale.
I was okay after that. I still don't know how many laps we ran...
But that was my last time doing that...
Bye-bye Jog-a-fun!

PSIA

So... PSIA. I was in On-Site Drawing. I left the house at 7:00... And the set was HORRIBLE. I mean, it' wasn't even set up artistically. Nikki sat on my right and Mango sat on my left. I think Nikki had the worst view of sitting. The set is covered when you walk in, so you can't choose your angle. So, as you can guess no one had a good composition.
Nikki, Hale, and I got permission to stay in the bridesroom to practice their speeches. And talk.
For a while. Until Hale's Prose verification. She was looking up the times of her Prose finals and wondering if she had any conflicts and talking about the finals. So anyway we go with her into the hall and wait for her to come out. And when she does, she's crying. Turns out that she was the only one from Brentwood who didn't make it. It's hard to get into the finals, by the way. Just saying. So she went into the bathroom and Nikki and I told her we'd meet her at the Woods of Brent table in the gym. Then the two of us took off and quickly picked a scrawny arrangement of flowers and grass. We were still trying to figure out how to tie it up when Nikki had to go to Impromptu, which Haley also did.
I found Deer and we went up into a staircase area that was just a flight of stairs with walls right up close and a wall so that it was like a box with a door at the top and stairs going down. It was a private place, and IT WAS FUN sitting up there.
Then I heard people announcing the results for On-Site Drawing just as I had to leave and go outside. So I stayed through their agonizingly slow process of reading off names for seventh grade. They finally got to Eighth grade, and this is how it went-
"In sixth place we have, from Brentwood, Mango."
*Nikki and I glance at each other*
"In fifth place, ---blah blah blah--- not us..."
*Nikki and I look relieved at each other, glad we weren't getting too low*
"In fourth place, -not us again-..."
*Nikki and I look questioning*
"In third place"
*Nikki and I are restless*
"-not us AGAIN-"
*Nikki and I look hopeful/glad at each other*
"In second place we have ---NOT ONE OF US!!!!!"
*Nikkii and I look at each other anxious, but with sudden competitive-ness*
"And in first place we have--"
*one last glance*
"----SOMEONE THAT'S NOT US!1----"
*Nikki and I l,ook at each other with looks that clearly state, "How is this possible? Mango beat both us??*
Then I left.

Track

This track season is... different. Coach Jordy isn't coaching us anymore. Which I am somewhat happy about. And we have four coaches- Coach Brad for field events, Coach Long for long distance, Coach Middle for middle distance (the guy whose most famous line is, "Jared... I, just... Jared, just... just, Jared...") and Coach Sprint for sprints. I actually don't know his name yet.
But Coach Brad, at the beginning, when he was splitting us up into our groups to work on our events, he said to me, "I know where you go," and put me with Coach Long. I do not belong in long distance. The middle distance people were having a lot of fun... And Coach Long likes Peely a lot better than me, but then she realized that Peely was running faster because she was listening to her iPod. So it got taken away from her, and she got slow.
Basically, all we did in "long distance" was 30 second run, 30 second walk. 60 second run, 30 second walk. Coach Long gave Peely the timer, and Peely messed the times up. *applause* It was supposed to be a 'Fartlek run' but it... wasn't. In cross country, a Fartlek run meant half a mile run, half a mile walk. Mile run, mile walk. No "seconds!" kind of playing around.
Anyway, after practice I asked Coach Brad if he was sure I wasn't supposed to be in middle distance, and he said, *insert Coach Brad accent here* "Yeah, I kno, I pud you in the wron wun."
So next time I'll get to go middle distance, where they get to run up onto the boat in the playground. :)

*gaspGASPgasp*

Guess what I just found out?

?

??

???

??

?

...you're not guessing.

Okay, then. My orchestra will be playing a song, and PETER BAY will be conducting it!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!