Wise words from my dad

My dad and I go on bike rides almost every night during the summer. We like the workout. I also like the talks we have. My dad and I have a history of late night talks in his den as well. We like to talk about life and stuff.

Tonight was no different. We talked about some things that have been going on with me particularly. You may or may not hear about the problems I've been dealing with lately. It's one of those things that if I'm gonna say it, I have a whole ranting lesson about it, so if I come up with a way to make that happen (it's already forming in my mind), I might just write it down because I believe it's something that needs to be addressed.

In talking about the problems I've been dealing this week, my dad and I started talking about certain traits that I have. The one that struck me the most is the one I fear I get in the most trouble with. It's the ability to stand up for those that are weak.

My dad said that he hopes I never lose this trait because it's a good trait to have. Since I have gone through high school and not lost this trait, he doesn't think I ever will.

I have gone through times in high school when I was really weak, but I didn't lose my trait for standing up for what's right. You know, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger...or so I've heard.

There have been times when I've had a friend that no one wanted to hang out with, so I decided to hang out with them.

Ok, so I'm trying so hard not to go into my rant right now, but it's really difficult for me. I think I am what I am today because of past events. When I was younger and in elementary school, I was bullied. I had the popular kids bully me. They probably just wanted to make themselves feel better. But then I also had those kids who were supposedly my friends who teased me too. You'll probably hear all about my bullying rant later on.

My dad believes I'm this way because I have always had this mindset. And it's a good trait for a teacher to have. I've always thought this way. I can see the kids who are probably pushed around.

Don't lose this trait. It's a valuable trait to have. That's what my dad said to me.

Celebrating 175 Years

I turned 175 years old this weekend. Yet I don't look a day over 18, do I?

I've been saying this all weekend. And I have got a few laughs out of it. Well, ok, those laughs were my own, but still, I thought it was pretty funny.

You do understand that I'm completely joking about this right? I'm not really 175 years old. I am only 18.

Now my town on the other hand. Yes, my town celebrated it's 175th Birthday thing this weekend. I don't know if it's called a birthday. Whatever.

In case you didn't know, I joke around with this because I have the name of the town. Go ahead and laugh at this. I know it's funny and it'll make you laugh. I am Chelsea from Chelsea.

The highlights of this weekend for me were probably the parade and the fireworks.

Yesterday, my town had a parade around noon. It wasn't as long as our fair parade normally is, but it was still pretty long. They had all the old, old fashioned cars go down the street. It's cool to see what people used to drive around in back when the roads probably weren't paved as well. There were also some floats.

In the afternoon, I had to go to a graduation party. No seriously, my friend made me. Haha, actually that's a joke too. She was just joking for the longest time in our practical law class that we all had to go to her party. It was actually really fun and she has the most adorable puppies right now.

Later in the evening I walked out to my dad's church, which is across the street from our fairgrounds. And I met up with some friends in a store parking lot to watch the fireworks. The fireworks weren't as good as the ones they have every year at the tractor show I go to for the Fourth of July, but I'm thankful we got to see these ones.

Now I'm really tired. I've just had an intensely busy weekend. What with turning 175 and everything. Haha. :)

Talking to a brick wall

Have you ever tried talking to someone thinking they're listening only to find out that they're staring straight ahead not listening at all? Have you ever talked to a brick wall?

I find that trying to talk to someone who isn't listening to you at all is like talking to a brick wall. They just don't get any of it.

At my graduation rehearsal, which by now, happened almost a month ago, that happened to me. Ever since 8th grade, I have sat by and was in the yearbook next to this one particular girl because our last names are so close. We used to be good friends, but not so much anymore. I had to sit by her at graduation rehearsal.

I guess, I don't know, I could have been joking around when I wasn't supposed to or just talking when she was trying to listen. Whatever it was, she wasn't listening to me. Am I that annoying? I'm not trying to selfish in any way. I just want to know why what I say goes right over some peoples heads. It's like I don't exist. I'm some ghost or something.

If you can't tell, that really bugs me. The other thing that bugs me is the fact that the girl I was sitting by would turn and talk to the girl next to her. What is it about me that people don't like?

I don't want to be the center of attention. But I also don't want to be completely ignored.

Yes, I will admit that I do talk to myself. I'm talking my way through this blog right now. I argue with myself sometimes (that's actually kinda fun). Am I really that weird? Am I really that annoying?

I hate the feeling of talking to a brick wall. If you don't want to talk to me, why don't you just say it? I feel like I've been ignored for a while. I used to get teased a lot in elementary school. I didn't get invited to things all the time. I have felt hated. By ignoring me, that just makes me feel even more hated.

Why not give me a chance? I really don't think I'm as weird as you think I am. In the end I think I'm just trying to get you to laugh or smile. That's one reason why I say really goofy things all the time. But you know what? I also know how to hold a serious conversation. I'm not an all around joker.

What about you? Do you have brick walls in your life? Do you hate being ignored?

I just have to keep telling myself that God has something way better for me even though I don't know what it is right now. I guess that's what helps me get through my times of talking to a brick wall.

Parents Pride

You know I've been thinking about this for a while now. Actually ever since I was about to graduate, I've been thinking about it.

Parents have this thing about their kids. I'm actually old enough to realize this and understand it a bit more. I've even talked to my dad about this.

Parents have this pride thing about their kids. Your parents may say they're proud of you and hey, I'm sure they are. My parents are proud of me for all that I've accomplished.

What really bugs me though is when parents boast about their kids to other parents.

I can give you one example of that, that my dad told me about.

He was talking to some parents of a girl I used to be quite close to, but not so much anymore. My dad mentioned how I've grown up a lot and how mature I've become and stuff. Then the parents of this girl said well so and so has been mature for a long time.

Too much pride there? I kinda think so. Growing up this girl, I don't think she's anymore mature than I am frankly. Who knows, maybe she's just that mature around her parents and family. I didn't see a lot of maturity in high school.

I don't think what my dad said was wrong at all. He was just mentioning how much I have grown up over the four years in high school, but this one girl's parents, it just bugs me what they said about their daughter.

What makes their daughter any better than me?

My kid is better than your kid. Please don't be so snooty with your kids. They're living beings, not inanimate, material objects to obsess over. Not that you should obsess over inanimate, material objects either.

Dying Celebrities

Four celebrities have died in the United States this past week. That's more than I usually hear about, but hey it happens.

Everybody dies. Am I right? We don't live on this earth forever. On earth, we're not eternal.

Why do we have to make such a big deal out of just four celebrities dying in one week?

There are children who die everyday because they don't get adequate care given to them. They die from starvation. They die from disease. These children aren't famous.

You can tell what people focus the most time on. Oh Michael Jackson, the king of pop. Oh Billy Mays, the Oxiclean guy.

Really guys? Really?

Why do we set our sights only on celebrities? Are they really that important? Celebrities are people. Children are people.

I don't think either one is really more important than the other.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

Except I do think children are really important just as Jesus said.

I just want to know why people spend so much time caring about the celebrities who die when they could be spending time sending money and crisis care kits to people in need of supplies and food.

Why doesn't anyone care about the children who are dying everyday from things that could easily be treated?

College changes people

The other day I was really thinking about this. About how college changes you and everything. Friendships, relationships, I mean everything.

Particularly as you may notice, friendships.

I have a friend who left me to go to college this past year while I finished up high school. She would come back totally excited to see me. I wasn't particularly that excited. As different as I wish I was, I wasn't and it was just me. Nothing really that exciting about me.

I have noticed this year with this particular friend that she has really changed. If you know me at all, you know I don't deal with change that easily. One person who has known this for a while now and who realizes it the most with problems I have is one of my old youth pastors Lindsay. She knows how much I hate when things change and she gets it more than other people do.

My friend has straightened her hair a lot this year. I know her brother doesn't like it. Her friends are nice, yes, but I don't know, they might have a bad influence on her. Some of them drink. I just worry about her.

I thought she wasn't gonna get into that kind of stuff. I thought she wasn't gonna drink. But like everything with this friend this year, things have changed.

I'm kinda shocked by it all. Actually I'm kinda hurt. I know she and I joke about me being her designated driver, but still I don't like it. And I feel like there has been some friction between us this year. Actually I feel like this friction has been going on for a while. She doesn't mention anything, but I just feel it and I hate it. I feel like we're moving apart.

Not a bad thing I know, but it's kinda sad. We've been best friends since we were seven. That's hard.

College really changes people. It kinda scares me to know that I'll probably be different in a year after my first year of college. However, I'm not going to a party school. I'm going to a private, Christian university. If anything, I'll be a lot closer to God after this next year. Who knows?

I would also like to make a promise here to everyone and especially to God. Like my pact with God in high school about not dating, I would like to make another promise to God. I want to promise to never drink alcohol.

I would like to say that I have never drank alcohol, but I have before. It's probably why I never want to touch the stuff again. And when you hear what I went through you'll probably think that's not a big deal, but I hated it.

I grew up in the Catholic church. I did pretty much everything except get confirmed into that church. I had my first communion and one of our practices involved the wafer and the wine. The priest made us drink the wine and we had to go through a few times. It tasted horrible. I don't like the idea of alcohol. At my actual first communion, the guy who had the cup said I didn't have to take it, so I didn't. The church I go to now uses grape juice.

I just have bad memories of that one time with that priest. Probably one of my reasons for not really liking the priest of that church very much. There are other reasons for not liking him though. Frankly he kinda just scares me.

Anyways, beer and alcohol, I don't know, I just don't like the idea of it. I don't like the smell of alcohol really of any kind. I think beer is revolting. I don't mind when my dad has a beer once in a while. That doesn't bother me that much. But watching a few of my aunts get drunk before parties just so they can deal with the family, that really just bothers me. I don't want to end up like them.

I hope by going to Spring Arbor University, that I won't get involved with the drinking and icky gross stuff that party schools deal with. I want to stay clean. My body is a temple and I don't want to ruin it. I want that purity. Yet another purpose for my purity ring.

Extreme Weather

I don't know what you call extreme weather, but we seemed to have been having some very extreme weather lately.

It has been so hot out. Wednesday it was in the 90s. I don't have air conditioning in my house. We have fans, but not air conditioning. I was sweating up a storm doing nothing, but sitting and watching tv. There's something wrong with that situation.

So I jumped in my pool. That was nice until I got out and started sweating again. I mean, come on, I was lying in my bed no blankets over me or anything and I was sweating like crazy. And I wasn't doing anything strenuous.

I was relieved to know that Thursday brought the promise of thunderstorms. I like thunderstorms. I like rain. Rain is nice. It cools things down. So Thursday afternoon (it feels weird saying that since it's like midnight right now as I sit here writing this) it wasn't looking like rain on the doppler radar, but then something changed on it. The rain was headed just over us. Outside, it got darker and darker. You could hear the distant rumble of thunder.

The rain started soft. It was just sprinkling. Then as the thunder got louder, the rain got heavier. After a while, you could see flashes of lightning. It's not the lightning I'm used to either. There were lightning bolts in the sky. I think they were hitting pretty close because every boom of thunder was really loud.

At one point, I was standing by our back door watching the storm. I saw a flash, heard a crack, and then a huge boom of thunder. My mom called to me from the front. We think the lightning hit a light pole or a tree near a light pole because the light on the pole was flickering.

The rain lightened a little bit, but then came the hail. I haven't seen hail for a few years. Watching and listening to it bounce off the metal shelves in our backyard, it sounded almost musical to me. It was pretty cool to watch. It's pretty amazing how that happens and knowing that God created it all.

After the storm had moved on I had to go to church for worship band practice. I was looking forward to getting into the air conditioning even though it was cool for a while after the storm. Unfortunately as I found out down the road from the church, the power was out. The traffic light I usually turn at wasn't on, so that was interesting. Then I got to the church and the flood lights were on and there was this annoying beeping noise letting us know that the power was out. One of the guys wanted to punch it.

I really hope it cools down and stays that way for a while. I can't stand this hot, hot weather. It makes us all cranky and tired. All I seem to want to do is sleep, but I don't seem to stay asleep at night, which really stinks. I get headaches and it's just bad. I wish the weather would cool down.

Isn't it interesting? What's that? Well during the winter time when it is miserably cold out, we wish for summer, but when it's hot, sticky, and humid out during the summer, we wish it were the cold, snowy winter again. I think that's interesting. I almost think we just like to complain. Haha.

I would just prefer to stick with spring or fall frankly. Perfect weather. Not too hot and not too cold. Well in the fall where I live it does get pretty cold, but the spring is usually nice. Of course it does snow once in a while in April.

Gotta love living in Michigan. But at least I can point to where I live on my hand. That's the really cool part of Michigan. That's just an awesome part of God's creation. I love it!

R.I.P. MJ

Today was an average day or so I thought. I found out this afternoon that Michael Jackson, the legendary King of Pop I think they call him, had a heart attack. Not only did he have a heart attack, but he actually died from it.

I figured I should probably write something about this because I know there have been celebrities that have died in the past that I really liked. I can't really explain how I feel after a well known celebrity that I know of dies. I'm just kinda left in shock for a while. Did it really happen? What happens tomorrow? This happened to me when Heath Ledger died. I wasn't really sure what to think. Michael Jackson, however, is not one of the celebrities I ever really liked. If anything he scares me. He may be the King of Pop, but he just out right scares me.

People for years have joked about him. He has been in the Scary Movie series of movies just for weird parodies and stuff. Well not exactly him, but a look alike.

I feel bad for the people in London who were all looking forward to seeing him perform his last performance. Stupid questions to ask, but what will they do now? Are they gonna get their money back?

I also feel bad for his kids. He was only 50 years old.

I guess he scares me because of all the news stories he's been in over the years. And I'm sorry to admit this, but he was a scary looking man. A totally cute kid, but I wasn't a fan of him becoming what he became even if he was the King of Pop.

In October for one of our football games, in fact the Halloween game, we played Thriller for pregame. I hate that song. The music video is pretty cool, but also really long. But the real reason I hate that song is that it always gets stuck in my head.

Thriller. It's just one of those songs that you say the name of it and it gets stuck in your head. At least that's how it works in my mind.

Please pray for his family and fans in this tough time.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Around this time last year, this show was showing previews on tv a lot. It says in the picture that it premiered on July 1st, so yeah it had been showing the previews still.

When I first watched this show I was very attracted to it. Who wouldn't want to know about the secret life of the American teenager? Come on. I soon became addicted to it. I was craving it a lot. When the season ended in September (I think), I was sad and I didn't know what I would do without it.

One of my old youth pastors, Lindsay, and I would would talk about it all of Monday or Tuesday online (because they were living in Virginia at the time) and then we'd watch it whatever night it was, and then come back the next day and comment on everything. We kinda lost that after the first season ended.

This show is about a girl who gets pregnant at band camp by a guy who is known for sleeping around, but we find out later that this guy has had a pretty messed up life and has been in therapy for a while. The girl whose name is Amy decides to keep the baby, but struggles with whether or not to give it up for adoption. There are a lot of story lines going on in this show. There's the good Christian girl Grace, who is pure and hasn't had sex even though her also Christian boyfriend Jack kinda wants to. Then there's the guy from band camp, Ricky, who sleeps with this girl, Adrian, like all the time. Then of course, there's Ben, who is a virgin, but doesn't want to be and so his friends point him to Amy and he falls in love with her right away.

Lindsay and I were really excited when the second season came on because I remember complaining about wanting to watch The Secret Life, but it hadn't come on yet. Then the second season ended. If you ask me, these seasons seem really short. I don't know why that is. And the episodes of this show go really fast for me probably because I'm so into it.

I think the reason I'm so into this show is because I really enjoyed watching 7th Heaven for as long as it was on the air. Well the episodes I was able to watch of that show. The Secret Life of the American Teenager has the same creator I think as 7th Heaven. I also like that the show follows a bunch of different teens, but in the end these teens all kinda intertwine in each other's lives. It's a good show.

I've been asked a couple times why I like watching the show. It's a show about teenagers and I'm a teenager still. My high school has dealt with teen pregnancies before. When I was a junior in high school, there was at least one girl in each high school grade excluding freshman who was pregnant. And I believe each girl had the baby, but the only one I'm sure of that she kept the baby was the girl in my grade. I know all of them had the baby; I just don't know if they gave it up for adoption or not.

Anways, today there was an all day marathon of this show. Then tonight was the season premiere. I was really excited to see it finally.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail seeing as how I don't want to spoil it for everyone else, but tonight's episode was definitely a shocker. I almost think they put too much into the episode because it moved pretty fast. But still, I can't wait for next week's episode!

Pesky Deer

I live in a small town. I don't live out in the country or as we should call it a rural area. Of course, my town isn't that big either. It's a small city (I hate calling it that). To me, it will probably always be known as the Village of Chelsea. It's small enough that almost everyone knows everyone else.

Well ok, that's more my mom. She knows just about everyone in this town because of our family flower business. We sell flowers from our house. My mom grows them right here in our basement and then out in the 4 greenhouses in the backyard.

Another thing we have in our backyard is woods. We live right in front of my town's hospital, which is surrounded by woods. There aren't a lot of wooded areas in town anymore because the town is building subdivisions and I find that to be really dumb with how the housing market is going right now. Plus it's destroying natural habitats.

The picture I have here was taken last year in the winter in my backyard. We have a deer problem. Of course, my mom has said we also have coyotes in the woods in the backyard. That's kinda scary. I took that picture because there were a lot of deer; more deer than I had seen before in the backyard. We haven't had that many this summer though.

One of my jobs here at the house is scaring away the deer. With a flower business, do you really think we'd want the deer to be that close? Come on, they walk through our greenhouses and pick and choose what they want to eat. There's something wrong there in my mind. We can't just close up our greenhouses every night in the summer because it gets too hot.

Whenever I see a deer wandering towards our greenhouses, I go out there usually taking one of my cats with me. I think my cat thinks he's a lion or much bigger cat than he is because he actually likes to stalk the deer.

The other night, I saw some deer out by a path we have that leads to the hospital. So I took my cat out there to go chase the deer. My cat was preoccupied with the birds though. So I took it upon myself to scare away the deer.

The deer in our neighborhood seem really tame because you can get pretty close to them, so I had to scare them a bit more. I raised my hands and chased them into the woods. Then I picked up my cat and headed back to the house. As I was walking, a lady who lives at the apartment building down the street got out of her chair and I'll say it the nice way, she told me to get my butt over there (that's not what she said at all, but I'm not gonna use her dirty profanity on my blog). I just ignored her and walked back to the house. I called my mom and told her what happened and she said the lady probably wasn't yelling at me.

So the next day, which I guess was Sunday, I got home from church and my parents both said to me that the lady was yelling at me. My good friend, adopted grandmother (she's actually my Aunt Beth's mother-in-law) who also lives at the apartment building came over to get some plants and I was talking to her about what happened. She said the lady over there is always in a bad mood and complains about everything. My neighbor thought that I had been on the property of the apartments when I was chasing the deer, but I wasn't. I even showed her where I was and she said that was fine and just ignore the lady next time.

Tonight there were three deer outside, so I walked back there and tried to scare them away. It took a few tries, but I got them into the woods. And hey the scary lady wasn't even out there tonight.

But I tell ya, the other day when she was yelling at me, I thought she was gonna come over to my house and yell at me. It scared me enough to want to lock all the doors since I was home alone, but I didn't.

Perspective

I know a lot of people who have been having bad days lately. Saturday was one of those days for my family.

We were all in a bad mood. Our basement had flooded and so did the backyard. The backyard problem was resolved Friday night, but the basement was another story. My dad has his den down there and there are a lot of computers down there, so he wasn't too happy. My parents along with my brother had to tear up the carpet and clean up down there. Meanwhile I wasn't too happy to have to watch the family's business.

Later I was going to a graduation party with my aunt and she asked if we were having a bad day. I guess my uncle was having a pretty bad day too.

Now today I know there are some people who are feeling like it's a bad day too. Man, do I have to go to work? I don't want to go to work. There's more flooding and it's such a pain.

To tell the truth I just the idea of this blog from two bands. I was sitting on my bed reading a book when a song popped on my mp3 player. Perspective by Seven Places, which is usually followed by Perspectives by Kutless.

I was curious, so I put down the book and looked up the lyrics to both songs. Both are obviously about perspectives, but what kind of perspective?

Well your life might be going out the window. What kind of perspective are you viewing this from? I like how Kutless puts it:

It feels like your life's crashing down all around you
Let me ask if it's really so bad
Look at the world in it's suffering
Can you honestly tell me that no one else could understand
All of the hurting inside

But I also like how Seven Places puts it:

My new car broke down, just the other day
They sold me a lemon
Good thing I like my lemonade
My glass was half empty
But now I see it full
It's when I'm stranded and empty handed
I become dependent on You

Everything is about perspective. How are you gonna view your life? So your life is going to the dump with all the wet, nasty carpet from my basement, are you really gonna view your life that way? Is your life really that bad?

We take so much for granted in this world. Tell me something, what would happen if you jumped in someone else's shoes for a day? What would happen if, as Kutless puts it, your lens was changed for a moment? Would you still view your life the same way?

There is world suffering. There are starving children in this world. There are poor people. There are genocides. There is violence. There are wars going on. There are famines.

I don't think your life is really that bad. When we're having a bad day, we need to jump into someone else's shoes for a moment and see what they're going through. I think it would change our perspective a lot.

Do you see the glass half empty or half full?

Happy Father's Day!

In my mind for some reason, it seems like Father's Day is never important. Well let me rephrase that. Father's Day never seems as important to everyone as Mother's Day does. Do we treasure our mother's more or something? That just doesn't seem very fair.

When I think of Father's Day, I don't just think of my own daddy-o who I get a card and a present for. I also think of God. He is our Father right? But we shouldn't just celebrate God today. We need to be celebrating God everyday.

I enjoy reading Greg Stier's blogs every time he writes them. Now if you don't know who Greg Stier is, he's the president of a ministry called Dare 2 Share. It's for teenagers. Even though I haven't been to a Dare 2 Share conference, through reading his blogs, he seems like a pretty cool guy. So yesterday he wrote a blog called Father's Day Everday. You should definitely check it out.

It's really interesting seeing how he grew up and seeing what he is today. I really enjoyed reading his blog today when I read it. And it almost brought tears to my eyes, but then again I'm a cryer like that I guess.

But Greg Stier has a point. Whether you have a father or not, you should be celebrating what God has done for us, so that we could be adopted into his family. And we should be doing that daily.

Happy Father's Day! I hope you all had a great day with your dads.

Summer Solstice

I just realized that today is the summer solstice. If you don't know what that means, I'll give you the short explanation that I know how to tell.

Today is the longest day of the year. At least for sunlight. Where I live, it is now dark out, but the sun was around until nine tonight.

I think it's pretty cool how the days do that. Leading up to this day the sun stays out longer. And after today the days will get shorter and shorter, but not too fast because during the summer, the days last.

Busy Bee

I don't know what it is, but I just haven't been writing as much as I usually am around this time of the month. I'm not in school anymore, so you would think I would be writing more, but I'm actually not.

What's up with that? I don't like it. I have a goal in mind and I need to keep on writing.

My aunt got on my case about that today saying I don't have to worry about it because I'm done with school. What's that supposed to mean? What does that have anything to do with my blog anyways?

Well it has nothing to do with it. I made this goal in January to write more and more every month, so bear with me if I start writing 5 blogs in a day. I'm trying to get my writing in there to beat last month's quota. Man, I need all the ideas I had in April. That was a month of ultimate writing.

Guess I'm just not so motivated this month. I'll definitely try to work on that for you though. I've still got a few ideas flowing at least. I just haven't written them on here yet.

Welcome class of 2013!

Ok, so I was gonna write this yesterday, but after the other blog I wrote, I just wasn't really in the mood.

Yesterday I had to get up early to go to class registration for college. It was actually a fun day. I met some cool people and now know what my schedule is like for next year, but I won't find out my roommate until August.

We first had to hang out with our parents and get some information. Then we were split into 3 different groups because we had three different things to do.

I was in group 3. We first went to student development where we talked about our core class that everyone at Spring Arbor University takes every year. It sounds really interesting. They made us stand up and say our name, hometown, summer yeehaw (or the best part of this summer), and fall fright (what we're most afraid of when starting college). When I stood up, I said I'm Chelsea from Chelsea and you can laugh at that because it's an old joke. I really don't care if you laugh at the fact that my town is my name. It doesn't bother me at all. Then we had to play a game called Slap your Neighbor. They'll say something like, "Slap your neighbor if you have a little brother." If you do, you get up run around the room and slap the hands of anyone else who is standing up. It was interesting.

Then my group went to Cross Cultural. When I'm a sophomore most likely I'm going to have to go on a 3-week trip to some other country to see a different culture. My parents really want me to go to Costa Rica or Guatemala. I don't feel comfortable with my Spanish skills anymore though. Actually I never have felt like I could speak Spanish correctly. I think I'm dyslexic at Spanish or something. Anyways, every student has to go on a cross cultural trip in order to graduate from this college. We had a MK (missionary kid) in my group from Brazil and he probably won't have to go on the trip.

We had pizza for lunch and got to meet up with our parents and talk a little bit before going back out to our activities.

My last activity was registering for classes. I got a few really early morning classes, so I probably won't be going to bed late or I shouldn't be at least. Who knows with college though? And I'm not taking any math or science next year. The professor who was working with me was an English professor, which is my major. She was nice. For my spring term, I couldn't find anything math or science that I could do without messing up my schedule, so I ended up with a philosophy class, so basically my freshman year, I'm getting rid of religion and philosophy studies, which are both general education classes that I need to get out of the way anyways. That's the goal I guess.

It was a good day. I woke up this morning though thinking how scary it's going to be. I'm gonna have to get my books on my own. What if I mess up? It's a shocker knowing you're no longer borrowing books from the school like I have always done in middle and high school. Crazy stuff there, but I guess you could say that I'm getting excited.

Rain, rain go away

Last night, we had a couple icky thunderstorms. I like storms, but not when they're obnoxious and pelting down the rain and lightning is really bright and stuff. I wasn't asleep when this was going on, which is actually a good thing. I was however watching the weather channel. We had a flash flood warning in our county. I was looking for any severe weather, but instead it was just the flash flood warning and I wasn't really expecting that one to happen.

Here we go again with those pesky doubts.

Just before I went to bed last night, my dad told my brother and I to come downstairs because he wanted to show us something. When we got downstairs, he told us to take our socks off. We went down to the basement first. It was flooded with a few inches of water...great.

Next he took us outside. Our backyard slopes down a little bit, so we were walking down the sidewalk and my dad was ahead of us a little bit. He had the flashlight and I could see light reflecting off the water a little ways into our backyard. We also heard our dad trudging through the water.

This flooding sure did happen in a flash. It happened over the course of an hour according to my dad. But this morning when I got up, it was gone. At least the water in the backyard was.

And it's really a pain to clean up a flood in the basement because we have my dad's den down there and he has a lot of computers in there, so they had to rip up some carpeting today.

It's also very hot and sunny today. But still I have to say, rain, rain, please go away.

You asked for it!

The other night I was kinda mad and in a ranting mood when I wrote my Come Together blog. So I kinda went to bed fuming. Not fuming to anyone in particular. Fuming to myself yes, but also fuming to God. But hey it's ok to complain to God right?

I just wanted a reason why our youth group events always get canceled and some other things. For instance, why is it every time we try to do something with or that has to do with our old youth pastors and their youth group, that it never works out?

Are we cursed? Am I just too much of a doubter? Is it because I don't want it to happen?

These were all things I asked God. I didn't ask for a sign like I usually do. I just wanted a flat out answer for why these things always happen to us.

The answer didn't come to me in a dream. And I didn't feel the answer when I woke up. It came later on in the day.

I was talking to one of my old youth pastors. She told me she read my blog. Now I had put on my Twitter and Facebook status that I had written that blog finally because it had been nagging me for so long, but that's not how she came about the blog.

I was curious to know if that's how she came about the blog, so I asked her if that's what happened. She said she just hadn't read my blog in a while and decided to go read it. That's was my second guess.

Sometimes I wonder why I put these things online if I'm gonna regret it because once she said she had read my blog, I felt so much regret for writing that. I want people to read my blog, I really do, but sometimes I just regret some of the things I write. I'll probably even regret this one in the morning. I think I continue writing these blogs because I feel the need to write them. I feel like that's what I should be doing and that's probably why I don't delete them even though I feel regretful for posting them.

I'm not mad she read the blog. Just kinda shocked like I always am when I find out a youth pastor has been reading it especially one I once had. But what do I expect? I put that link out there for a reason. Go on read my blog. I'm putting it out there. Yeah, what do I expect?

So some of the stuff I discussed in my Come Together blog, yeah, one of my old youth pastors explained some stuff to me about it. Well I got my answer from God.

I don't know that my youth group is cursed and I don't think they are. I am a doubter and I should probably stop doubting because it'll just make the situation worse. The last question I asked came to me and it held on tight. It is something I feel like I've been struggling with. Do I really want to hang out with these old youth pastors anymore? I didn't really want to go to Cedar Point when they were going at the same time at first, but then I started to get really excited.

The problems always seem to start when I start getting excited for things. That's when things don't usually happen and truthfully it sucks. When I started to get excited about seeing the old youth pastors at the 30 Hour Famine, things went downhill fast, but then I found out the truth for why they didn't want to come. Not a comfort zone issue at all. But I still do feel really strongly about coming together with other youth groups and getting out of your comfort zone.

Last night when I went to bed, I was kinda frustrated again. Once again complaining to God. Why'd He have to tell me that way? Well, I did ask for it.

So yeah, be careful how you ask God a question. You never know how God will give you an answer to it.

He pushed me!

I love little kids. They are so adorable. I'm kinda lucky to live around so many of them. Ok, lucky for babysitting, not so much in the dating area. I've been hoping a hot guy my age would move into my neighborhood for so long. Oh well, maybe someday.

Next door to me lives three incredibly sweet little boys. Well I guess that could depend on who you ask, but to me I think they're really sweet kids. But like all siblings, they fight. They push and shove and are mean to each other. My brother and I were the same way when we were that young.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder what Jesus would think of all this. I understand that siblings fight all the time and the Bible might be something adults understand more than children, but hey cut the kids a break. Their brains are still developing. Even my brain is still developing.

This is where Matthew 5:38-42 comes into play:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, don't stand up against an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek also. If someone wants to sue you in court and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. If someone forces you to go with him one mile, go with him two miles. If a person asks you for something, give it to him. Don't refuse to give to someone who wants to borrow from you."

Sometimes I'll see a little kid push another kid and the kid who gets pushed will push the other kid back. Sometimes I wish I could tell the kids to turn the other cheek. But I think for them it might be easier said than done like with all of us plus the kids would probably ask me what that means.

We don't always want to turn the other cheek. Most of the time we just want to fight back.

He pushed me! Well don't push him back. Let him keep pushing you.

Am I right in saying that if you ignore him and allow him to keep pushing you, he will probably stop?

It's so hard for little kids to do that though. And when the pushing begins, the crying is soon to arrive, which will get the attention of the adults who will show the discipline.

If I were you, I would just ignore it and let them keep pushing you. It may bubble inside you, but you won't get into as much trouble. Again though, easier said than done.

Jack "Doe" and Jill "Doe" v. Imperial Bucket Corporation

Remember a few weeks ago how I said I might just put a case study up for you all to read? Well here you go. It will explain the case, explain the parties involved, ask questions, and come up with a solution. And just think, this is actually one of my shorter ones. My last one that I did for the class ended up making it to three pages. I hope you enjoy this one.

Two minors, Jack and Jill, went up a hill to fetch a pail, manufactured by Imperial Bucket Corporation, of water. They filled the bucket too high and on the way back down the hill, they lost their balance and fell. Jack suffered from a broken crown in three different places, fractured his ribs and his right arm. Jill endured bruising and contusions to her legs, ankles, and wrist. Some of these injuries may well be of a permanent nature that will affect the rest of their lives. jack and Jill are suing the Imperial Bucket Corporation for failing to put warning labels on their buckets, so people would know what not to do with these buckets.

The Plaintiffs are Jack "Doe" and Jill "Doe." The Defendant is the Imperial Bucket Corporation.

The Imperial Bucket Corporation proved to be of unsafe design and manufacture. There were no proper safety guards making it unsafe to be used by minors.

The Defendants supposedly left out warning labels on their buckets. Meanwhile Jack and Jill were recklessly skipping up and down the hill not even thinking about the full bucket of water.

As a way to reduce the amount of injuries sustained from these buckets, warning labels should be required on all bucket products and minors should not be allowed to operate such buckets without proper safety gear.

Did it ever really say that the buckets didn't have warning labels? And if they did have warning labels, is it possible that maybe Jack and Jill just can't read?

Plaintiff: The buckets are unsafe to use no matter what. All buckets should be safe for any age to use. The buckets need to have proper warning labels and instructions on how much can be put in the buckets.

Defendant: The minors in question should have known better than to skip up and down a steep incline in order to keep the bucket from "sloshing." Instead, they should have walked up and back down the steep incline very carefully to avoid catastrophe.

The Defendant has a better argument whereas the Plaintiff could use some work on their argument.

The illiterate minors need to have their parents' assistance when operating these buckets, so there is no confusion as to how much the buckets can include.

I agree with the Imperial Bucket Corporation. The buckets should not be operated by minors who don't care about the warning labels or are too uneducated to be able to read said warning labels.

Perhaps the minors will stay in school to learn to read and by the time they become adults, they will know how to properly operate a bucket. Bucket sales may go down, but at least the children's medical bills would go down too.

Come together

Is it just me or do youth groups have their own little cliques going on? I know there are sometimes problems with cliques inside of youth group. Oh the new kids, the old kids, the kids who have been raised on the Bible, the kids who are freaks. Come on, admit it, there are problems within youth groups involving cliques. But what about the youth group as a whole?

From my experience, I have seen that youth groups as a whole can act like their own little clique. One of the biggest churches in my town is the First United Methodist church. There youth group is pretty big too and they all hang out together at school it seems. They're all best of friends. It almost comes off to me as negative towards everyone else though because they're so tight knit like that.

I will admit that this idea has been nagging at me for quite some time now. Probably because this idea of cliques of youth groups are seen all the time.

Remember my doubt it blog from April? I doubted that our old youth pastors would come back and chaperone as well as bring their youth group to participate in our 30 Hour Famine. Yeah, so it ended up that, that youth group couldn't make it because they had other things going on. Right.

I have to wonder if maybe they were a little afraid to come hang out with us. I've been in the same youth group for 9 years. I know these kids don't bite and we're not as scary as we may look especially with our very tall youth leader. So what are you afraid of? Get out of your comfort zone and come hang out.

So about my doubts, another doubt happened. And I don't know, maybe I should just stop doubting things. So today (as in Wednesday), we were supposed to go to Cedar Point. A bunch of youth groups from our district were going. When I first found out about the trip, I was a little annoyed thinking hey we should totally go a different day. Oh so youth group clique right there. But no, that's when all the other youth groups were going. Sure, we'd see the other youth groups. Yeah, but it's not like we were going to hang out with them or anything. They all had their own set agendas.

Of course, last night, I got the call that the trip was canceled. Why do I always get excited for things that somehow I know won't work out? I knew this wasn't going to work out from the very beginning basically. I'm such a doubter.

One of the teens who was going to go was sick and the weather wasn't looking terribly good. If it had only just been the weather, I'm sure we could have still gone. It was supposed to thunderstorm all day. Did it? No. It rained a little bit this morning, but the rest of the day was cloudy and cool.

I really don't like the idea of youth groups forming their own little cliques. We are all in this together aren't we? So what's the problem?

Is your group afraid to jump out of their comfort zone? Do we smell funny? Does your youth group just think they're too cool for everyone else?

I know a lot of youth groups in my town do the 30 Hour Famine. I'm wondering why not get together as a whole big group, raise a ton more money than all the youth pastors combined bet we'll raise, and then get to do a few silly things to our youth pastors who bet we wouldn't raise the money, and also have fun fasting at the same time.

I know there are pastors and youth pastors of churches that aren't afraid to get together to have lunch and talk. Why can't the teens be the same way?

Jump out of your comfort zone. I don't think we smell unless you like Ohio State or something (joking, joking). And let me tell you, just because you think you're cooler than everyone else, doesn't mean you really are. In Christ, we're the same. God has a plan for each and everyone of us. Don't think you're any more special than the next guy. As Christians, we're all in this together.

One final word, the few times that I was able to go visit a different youth group that was lead by a youth pastor I had once had, I had to get out of my comfort zone. The first time, I only went to Sunday school where I got asked if I was related to the youth pastor because I was joking around with the youth pastor. The second time, I went to a Valentine's Day party, where I got to meet a lot of kids. Normally in that kind of situation you would probably see me sitting with the youth pastors, but once again I surprised myself by jumping out of my comfort zone and hanging out with some girls in that youth group. I also played some games with some people. It was really fun and if I had just hung out with the youth pastors, I probably wouldn't have as good of memories of that youth group.

I realize I'm only one person jumping out of my comfort zone. I can't be the only one though. A group cannot be made of one person. Come on, jump out of your comfort zone and come together with other youth groups. We should unite as one big youth group.

Thank yous can be such a hassle

As you may have heard, I had a graduation party over the weekend, so now comes the hard part. The part I've been hearing a few people complain about. Writing thank you cards to those that gave you things.

It can be a real hassle, but I am thankful for those that gave me money and stuff for my graduation. And from what I hear it's a huge thing. Plus my parents have been getting on my case about it and might get on my case about it again when reading this blog if that happens.

I'm over halfway through my cards and decided to take a break to write a few blogs to let my hands chill out. I find that it's a very time consuming thing to do, but I guess I am glad to be writing thank yous to all these people. They deserve it.

So make sure, when all you younger people (who I know are reading this blog) graduate, say thanks to those that gave you stuff. And even then you don't need to graduate to say thanks to people. We should be giving thanks everyday to people and especially to God.

I may be one, but I'm a cute one

I got the idea to write this yesterday and you may or may not think I'm a dork for doing it, but whatever I don't care. I'm writing it anyways.

Yesterday is the day last year that we got our kitten/cat/whatever she is right now. That's a picture of her from last year sleeping in the headboard shelf on my bed. She is adorable!

This is Abby. Actually her full name is Flabby Gabby Annoying Abby. But we call her Abby for short.

We hadn't originally planned to keep her. My Aunt Linda found her under her hot tub at her house. We had no idea where she had come from, but she came the day before my aunt was leaving for Germany. My Aunt Linda has two big dogs and as much as the dogs can deal with cats, I'm sure the kitten wouldn't have been too pleased to live with the dogs. At least not until she got used to it.

So Abby came home with us. We tried to get rid of her for a while asking people if they needed a kitten, but for some reason no one wants kittens. They all want puppies. Why though? Puppies are so much harder to take care of. Seriously kittens and cats, you don't have to do much. They all have very different personalities. Some may be very independent whereas others like the attention. Cats are easy to get along with.

Abby is now about one years old. She's cute, yes, but can be so annoying. She peed in my room one time. That's why I now shut the door to all the cats.

Now don't go calling the animal cruelty cops on me or anything, but I like to bother my cats. I have been known to dress a few of my cats up in the past. No wonder, my cat Max is gender confused. Haha. There was no exception with Abby.

As much as I bother Abby, I still find her following me all over. She loves to come into a room that I'm in and just lay across the room from me or on the couch a few seats over. I can tell she wants to be close, just not too close. She's not a very good lap kitty and doesn't like to be held.

She can be a brat to me, but I can be a brat to her too. We put up with each other still though and love each other.

Post Party Depression

This past weekend was full of nonstop partying. I think I'm still tired from it. I'm also going through some post party depression here, so I thought that I might as well write some of this stuff down before it loses itself in the back of my mind somewhere. By the way, I do write in journals, so this isn't the only place I write. And those are balloons from my party. They match the colors of my high school, but they are also Spring Arbor University's colors, which is where I'm going in the fall.

Let me start with Friday. It was the last day of school for the underclassmen. Let me say that many of them were shocked to see me there. I had a real reason for being in school that day. I had to drop off scholarship stuff, but also I wanted to see my band teacher to give him a senior picture and visit my practical law teacher, Ms. Hepner, on her last day of school. First hour, I just hung out in the band room with another kid I graduated with. He had nothing better to do that morning either, so we just hung out. Then second hour, I think I surprised Hepner when I walked into her room. We had cake and pop. And basically we had fun bothering our teacher on her last day. And I guess they decorated her car 10 minutes before school started. They were watching to see when she would pull in and then she wouldn't get out of her car because she was talking on the phone to someone, so they had to wait. She got flowers too. It was a good morning.

On Saturday, I had to finish up most of my poster boards. I had also made a few movies in the middle of the night when I was really slap happy. I went to my friend Chris' party with my friend David and then we headed out to my party to set things up. After parking at my Aunt Ann's house, my Aunt Theresa drove in and when she saw David, it got kinda awkward. David got out of the car and stood by another friend, JJ to help unload stuff. My Aunt Theresa says to me, "Who is this? Chelsea, do you need to tell me something?" Um, this is my friend David. Hello? Awkward! She totally thought something was going on between us. Gross, I've known David so long that he's like another brother to me. I think she was a little tipsy though.

There was a good turnout of people at my party. My band teacher stopped by for a little bit. My practical law teacher stopped by too. I got to meet her fiance (or however it's spelled). I showed them and my friend Becca a video I made in the middle of the night talking about how I'm suing my friend Becca. If you've read my practical law blog, you'll understand that a little more. It was very entertaining to make.

Later some friends and I were sitting at a table and they started throwing nuts at me. They were all trying to get them in my mouth. I had to get up though, and went to talk to some other people. When I was talking to some other friends, I felt something in my shirt, so I started shaking it out and two raisins fell out. I just glared at my friends and let them know that I was watching them. At the end of the night, some friends from youth group decided to play the Ha game in my aunt's basement. It was really funny.

My friend Chris' dad kept taking candid pictures that night and the funny ones were when the church kids were drinking out of beer bottles because I couldn't get a keg. Don't worry I'm talking about rootbeer here because we had rootbeer floats.

But I did have some issues with drunk cousins. Two of my cousins just turned 21 last Wednesday and it was the goal of some of my other cousins to get one of them hammered on Saturday. Really? Really? For my graduation party? Sometimes I really don't like my family for all the drinking they do. It's just something you gotta understand about my family. They drink and drink and drink. I know what I am and that means when I turn 21 I'll be drinking too, but forget them, I'm gonna break this tradition real fast. I don't plan on drinking ever.

Yesterday I had no desire whatsoever to get up for church, but somehow I managed. I had to get up and play piano. Now usually I have a really serious face when I'm playing piano, but I managed during church to smile a few times. I was actually having fun playing. I might consider playing piano for church again.

In the afternoon, I went to my friend Amanda's graduation party. It was fun for the time that I was there. But then I had to go to my grandpa's 80th Birthday party. It wasn't nearly as fun as Saturday and I ate way too much yesterday. My cousin Brian was once again getting a bit tipsy. I really don't like when my family does this. So annoying.

I had a really great weekend. I woke up yesterday morning feeling that it was really over. And I got a little depressed over that. Not throwing a pity party though, so don't feel bad for me. I don't know how to explain this in a way that would make sense to most people how I'm feeling. It feels like the day after we had our going away party for our old youth pastors, Matt and Lindsay. Or the day after their wedding. It's one of those, it's over moments and now I guess I have to move on. I know this depression like all the ones before it will pass. It just takes time.

Caught in the middle

Help!!!!! I'm caught somewhere in the middle!!!! I can't move. I'm completely stuck like super glue. What do I do?

Things are changing yet all I can do is stand there. I feel them changing. I see them changing. It's inevitable that this change will happen, but here I am stuck in the middle.

Ok really I know you're curious to know what I'm talking about. I'm really finding myself caught in the middle at church.

I'm really fresh out of high school, so I almost feel like I should be with the adults. After all one of the guys who just graduated with me is already going with the adults. But at the same time I don't want to leave the high school group. Right now the classes are split by gender, so I could easily stay with the girls.

I know when I go to college I'll be able to find a group that fits my age and everything and what I need for my spiritual health, but right now, there's nothing for me. There's the boring adults (sorry old people) and there's the talkative teen girls (it's totally true we're talkative). Which do I choose?

Currently I'm in the girls Sunday school because hey they haven't kicked me out of it yet. I'm not actually out of youth group until the end of summer. When I heard that one of our guys is in the adult class already, I kinda felt like I was supposed to be there too.

I think my church needs to start a college group frankly. Problem is we don't have that many kids that will be staying back and we also will need to find a teacher.

I think it would actually be better if we had a college group during the summer because most of us will be home during the summer and will be able to get together. I don't want to come back next summer and still be caught in the middle between classes.

Cherry Coke and Gangs

I told you I would remember something from practical law that I forgot to add in the first blog.

So I kinda broke a promise to my awesome teacher Hepner. I told her I wasn't gonna let her forget the Cherry Coke mishap, but I forgot it in my blog yesterday, so low and behold I am here today to share more about practical law class.

Ok, so one day our teacher was complaining about being tired, so she went to the teacher's lounge to get a Coke Zero from the machine. She came back with a Cherry Coke explaining that she had pushed the right button and got a Cherry Coke instead of Coke Zero.

We asked her if she was sure because after all she was pretty tired. Maybe she pushed the wrong button. Maybe she thought she was pushing the right button, but then she pushed the wrong button.

She gave the Cherry Coke to one of the guys in class who was harassing her about the Cherry Coke. Probably just to shut him up. I'm joking, but he really was bugging her about it, so she let him have it. She went back to the teacher's lounge and did end up getting a Coke Zero, but still I like to bother her about it.

But enough about Cherry Coke and onto gangs because gangs were an actual topic we studied in this class. Ok so last night, I was looking through another journal from last summer to see what I wrote about on my first day of summer. But before that, I was surfing through some other pages and found something really funny that was gang related.

First of all though, we had to do this book work one time on gangs and the question asked if there was a gang problem in the community I live in. I said that there is not a gang problem in my community that I know of. Key words there "that I know of." Haha. That was the best part of my answer.

So anyways around this time last year. Actually it will be exactly a year since I wrote what I wrote tomorrow because I wrote it on June 10, 2008. So I was talking about my Spanish class and how I can't speak Spanish worth a darn. I'm like dyslexic at Spanish. It's really bad. I took it for 5 years and I still can't speak it right. Actually I don't remember anything from that class last year either. Probably because we didn't really learn anything.

Anyways, I wrote in my journal on the subject of Spanish gangs last year. This just cracked me up when I read it last night.

I can't speak Spanish to save my life, so if I get killed by a Spanish gang, you'll know that I couldn't speak Spanish to save my life.

It was so kinda relevant because we had discussed gangs in practical law. Now I don't know of any Spanish gangs in my neighborhood or community, but who knows where they may be. I know I was also kidding when I said this in my journal last year.

My handprint

Last night, I decided to go downstairs to show my dad my latest project. I am working on a trifold board for my graduation party. He thought it was cool and got a little sentimental. At first he was really excited, but now he seems to be really rather sad like I am, but I haven't cried since Saturday. He showed a box full of projects my brother and I had done in elementary school that my mom never got rid of. I guess she just didn't want to throw the stuff away. I found a couple of things I'm gonna use.

One thing that really got me was something dated December, 1995. It's a handprint I did probably in kindergarten or in daycare. But it also has a poem to it and I really wanted to share that with you.

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small -
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls

But every day I'm growing up
And soon I'll be so tall -
That all those little handprings
Will be hard to recall.

So here's special handprint
Just so you can say -
This is how my fingers looked
When I placed them here today.

I Love You...

Chelsea

Merry Christmas!

I know my parents might get sentimental about this. Actually they probably would cry seeing this. My dad didn't when he saw it last night, but there's still time. But seriously this poem is enough to make me cry. I place my hand on that handprint today and see how much my hand has grown in about 14 years.

And that reminds me of a picture I have of me in a diaper with blue or purple stuff all over me. Apparently I had gotten into finger painting.

Practical Law

Ok, first of all forgive me if this post gets really long. It may or it may not. But right now I feel like I could write a book on this subject. Well I did learn most of this subject out of a book though. I learned the terms and stuff from the book, but the fun, social stuff we did in that class can't be learned from a book. And if I remember something later that I may have forgotten in this one blog, I may be writing on it later. So Bear with me.

So where do I start? Practical law. Not really a class I was eager to take. It was on my schedule and I had planned on getting out of precalc, but there were no good classes to take my last hour of the day. I wanted to take a creative writing class, but at the same time, my friend Becca, who I had gotten to be friends with second trimester in web design, was in the practical law class, so I didn't want to leave her.

On the first day of class, our teacher, who at first I thought seemed nice enough, made us do a classmate interview with someone else. So my friend Becca interviewed me and I interviewed her. The third question asked why you enrolled in this class. I said I didn't really want to be in this class, but my schedule basically made me. I really could have gotten out, but to be honest, the counselors seem mean, stressed, and I just didn't want to deal with their crabbiness.

So I stuck it out with this class. And boy oh boy do I regret it. Oh no, that came out wrong. I'm kidding. I DON'T regret taking this class at all. It was so much fun.

On the first day of class, I really thought it would be a boring class full of class notes and lectures. Boy was I wrong. The first day was the only day I think my teacher used the Smart Board to teach. And we were just talking about what law is.

Most of the time we just did book problems and worksheets. That may sound kinda boring, but they were actually a lot of fun. I definitely got my creative side out on these problems and worksheets. I've got a few things I'm willing to share on that too. For one book problem, we had to give a role play between an attorney and a person. So here's what mine had to say:

Attorney: What happened?
Marie: Fred, this totally reckless driver, hit my friend Al's car while we were stopped at a red light at the corner of Sixth Street and Florida Avenue.
Attorney: How much damage was caused by the accident?
Marie: My friend's car was smashed in as far as the back seat. My friend suffered a severe neck injury, four broken ribs, and many cuts and bruises. I suffered a fractured skull, facial and numerous other cuts, a broken right arm and hip, and internal bleeding.
Attorney: Well I can tell that your face hasn't healed up yet.
Marie: Excuse me?
Attorney: Oh nothing. What happened to Al is not important. Anyways how long were you in the hospital for?
Marie: Yeah, that better have been nothing. I spent six weeks in the hospital, but returned to work after twelve weeks. I missed 3 months of pay. That's ridiculous.
Attorney: How much has Fred's insurance company offered you?
Marie: They offered me a $4,500 settlement. But I thought I would come to you and see if you think it's enough.
Attorney: Do you think it's enough?
Marie: Duh! That's why I'm asking you. With how much work I missed, I don't think it's enough.
Attorney: Well, let's see what we can do about it.

Another thing I have to show is some answers from a worksheet done a few weeks ago. We were talking about property crimes. So on our worksheet, we were supposed to draw a picture of each crime happening or write a short little story on it. So for robbery and identity theft I did these:

• Robbery: Billy is a mugger. One day Billy is walking down the street. He sees Becca walking down the street. He runs up to her, grabs her purse, stabs her in the stomach, causing her guts to come out when he pulls out the knife and pushes her into the street.
• Identity theft: Billy the mugger and now murderer looks through Becca's purse and finds many useful things. He takes her credit cards and buys a gigantic flatscreen tv. Then he steals her social security card, buys a boat with her credit card, and puts the boat in her name.

I came up with some interesting stories besides those two. And another friend I made in that class, the other Chelsea claimed for her identity theft part of the worksheet said that I had stolen her identity, which is actually really funny to think about. Another thing we got into the habit of doing mostly on Fridays was legally correct fairy tale case studies. I'm not gonna put one on here at the moment because of how long this is becoming (oh story for that one too), but I might later. Now you may be wondering what a legally correct fairy tale is. Well Jack and Jill sued the Imperial Bucket Corporation for failing to put warning labels on their buckets. For case studies, we described the case, gave the parties, and solutions and stuff. I had to question this one though.

Did it ever really say that the buckets didn't have warning labels? And if they did have warning labels, is it possible that maybe Jack and Jill just can't read?

That was the first case study we did and I was surprised to learn that my teacher picked my case study and someone else's for examples of how to do a case study. Now this particular case study was almost a full page long. By the last case study we did, I was writing up to 3 pages.

They're just so fun to write. But you may not get my length joke here. So my friend Becca and I wrote really long things (much like this blog is becoming to be) in this class. Most of the time because everyone else put down short answers. One time though we both wrote really short answers and she commented saying "wow...very short responses!" So after that, mind you I know she was joking, I would go up to her and ask her if my paper was long enough for her.

And a few weeks ago, I got a really good idea for one of the case studies. I put my term paper, which is like 10 pages long, on the back of the case study and handed it to her. She told me there was no way I could or would write that much. Haha, she's right, I don't think I could write a case study that long for a fairy tale.

At the start of this class, I had my one friend Becca. By the end of the class, I had a whole lot more friends. There were four of sitting against one wall of computers. It was two of us seniors, a sophomore, and a junior. Becca knew the sophomore I guess. They were talking right away anyways. Over the weeks, we all got to know each other and really helped each other with the problems. Our junior friend even decided to find prom dresses for Becca and me even though we refused to go.

Ok, no joke here, there were times when I walked into the classroom to see my sophomore friend Sam sitting in our teacher's chair and I had to do a double take. To me they look alike. It's kinda scary. Oh that brings me to another point. When I first got to this class, I did my work and turned it in and got on the computer. But somehow I got more interested in bothering the teacher. My sophomore friend Sam had our teacher (that's it I refuse to call her teacher anymore, it's gonna be last name now, it's bugging me) for business foundations other trimesters, so she knew Hepner (that's my teacher's last name in case you didn't understand my rant in the last parentheses). And she bothered Hepner a lot too. Actually Sam abandoned our computer group a lot to go "do" her work with Hepner. I say "do" because we all know she never really got it done. Sam, if you're reading this, I'm kidding, I know you got your work done. It was fun to yell across the room to both of them sometimes.

So my friend Chelsea one day stole Hepner's phone and recorded herself singing a song she made up about Hepner. Yeah, I'm not likely to forget that for a while. So our teacher Hepner likes to stamp our papers, but I think some of us like stamping a whole lot more than Hepner did. One day Becca got a little crazy and decided to stamp my arm. I could have used the wipes to clean it, but I just let it sit there for about a week. My arm had many smiley faces and thumbs ups on it.

Oh yeah, that brings up even more points to make here. This is getting so long. Haha. While our teacher Hepner was grading things, my friends Sam and Becca would write on each others' papers and mine too, so I have some papers that are 20 out of 20s, but they say FAIL on them. Those two are so ridiculous. It was really fun to watch them fight and not get in the middle of them.

So in class there was the good side and the bad side of the classroom meaning those that did their work and those that didn't. I understand there are computers to distract people with, but honestly how can you fail a class that is so easy? Of course, I know some will tell me it was probably just easy for me, but really? I ended that class with 106%. Yeah, I did the extra credit. Now Hepner knew who would and wouldn't do the extra credit if she handed it out. Those that did it didn't need it and those that did need it didn't do it.

Becca and I liked to argue about our grades. I'm still not really sure why Hepner trusted Becca to do the grades one day. Because Becca kept trying to change her grade to something far better than 107%. Geez, Hepner don't trust Becca with your gradebook. That and Becca and I kinda got out of hand the other day and started arguing about Becca's grade on Hepner's Facebook. That was actually entertaining even though she might want to kill us now. I'm saying first-degree murder if it was premeditated, but maybe she didn't plan it out, so maybe second-degree murder. Haha.

For a law class there was some violence in it. One time a guy kicked Chelsea, so she retaliated by drawing a smiley face in permanent marker on the back of his shirt, and it hasn't come out yet or so I've heard. Then I wore the same shirt the next day and Chelsea said hey that's the shirt I drew on yesterday. I asked her nicely not to draw on my shirt. Then there was also another friend who kept getting her shoes taken away. One time they were put up in the ceiling, and they forgot where in the ceiling the shoes were. That was funny.

Oh random this is, Becca claimed the pencil sharpener didn't work. So sometime last week, I was being lazy and didn't want to walk all the way back to the band room when my practical law classroom was right there, so I went in and asked to use the pencil sharpener. It worked with my pencil. I don't know what she's talking about.

Oh and then there's the part of me telling Hepner and Sam just about everyday that I was gonna sue Becca. Well Becca tried to hit me with her car while I was riding a bike. Really though I didn't see her, she was just telling me that she saw me and then I made up that story. Becca also doesn't believe in the insanity plea, so one day she might have issues if she gets in trouble and needs to plead insanity, but doesn't believe in it.

That class is so very random at times. One day, our teacher Hepner (notice how I still call her, 'our teacher' can't help it...random rant here in the middle of this) was complaining about how Sam made her get up early to come in and play Wii. So we played Wii during her class. That was rather entertaining.

Oh the last couple of weeks I had in that class, I found it fun to go in during lunch. There were kids in there all the time. My friend Lexi was eating lunch in there everyday and she didn't have that class or any business class. Oh and Becca took her final early during lunch (cheater! just kidding), probably so she could bother Hepner during class. That exam really didn't take that long though. And I probably would have gotten 107% too if I had known the name of that one thing for those rights the police give you so you don't self-incriminate yourself. I now know those are called Miranda Rights. Way to go me! I'm smart; I'll keep telling myself that.

Somehow I don't think Becca deserves that 107%. She was in this class when she got pulled over for speeding. Who does that? Really? Really Becca? Haha. I don't think she learned a lesson like she said she supposedly did. I told her I'm taking her to court on her speeding habits.

I mentioned earlier on my Twitter, which updates my Facebook, that I am like the grammar police because on one of the worksheets I looked at to get examples of my work for this blog, identity theft was spelled as identify theft. So my status was commented on asking why I was looking at my worksheets and work since I graduated yesterday. Well it was because I was writing this blog.

There aren't many classes that I have taken that I am willing to write this long of a blog on. This one is special to me though. Now that I've graduated, I realize that this is the class I will miss the most from my senior year at CHS. This was probably my favorite class not really because of the work (even though the work had some play in it), but because of the friends I made and the totally awesome teacher I had. I don't think I'll forget this class ever. At least it's been one of those things I really hope I don't forget.

I'd like to thank my teacher Ms. Hepner for making my last trimester of high school fun filled in the area of practical law class and also putting up with me and Becca (even though we know Becca is the more annoying one, haha, just kidding Becca). And one last time I have to ask, is this long enough for you Hepner?

Did that really just happen?

Today I had something very significant happen to me. I graduated from high school. It all seems like a blur now that I'm writing it here. Hm, what really did happen today?

Well I went to church this morning and played piano, but that really has nothing to do with this big day.

I got to my school and had to hang around in the auditorium with the rest of my class for a while. We got our class flower, the sunflower. Then we had to get out of there and into the gym.

I really enjoyed both of our student speakers. The first said a lot of stuff I had thought about a lot throughout the years. My class has gone through so much. We were the last class to have 6th grade at the middle school, last to know what semesters are really like, first to have the new principal, and a whole lot of other things that I can't think of right now.

Our other speaker talked about going into a 3rd grade classroom and she actually recorded some of the things the kids want to be when they grow up. It made me think back to what I wanted to be when I was that age. For as long as I could remember, I've wanted to be a veterinarian, but now that I've grown up a bit, I've realized all that gross stuff is not my strong point. English is my strong point.

I didn't get really nervous about getting on stage to receive my diploma until my name was called. And up onto the platform I went where my pastor (who is on the school board by the way) was waiting to hand me my diploma. I got a "good job kiddo" from him. And I gave the most awkward smile at the camera. Oh well. At least I didn't trip across the stage. I was fearing that because my shoes were slipping off.

After graduation, I hung around with friends at school taking pictures and stuff. And that picture I have here is actually of me and my best friend. She graduated last year from my school. I was looking for a teacher that I might be writing about in the next few days some time, but I couldn't find her, which made me a little sad, but right now I'm actually pretty content.

We had dinner at my aunt's house tonight. I was already really tired and not looking forward to spending more time with family. After all I will be spending my graduation party there next weekend. I was falling asleep. I still am and probably should go to bed, but I'm on summer break, so I'm not really that concerned I guess.

I'm still kinda shocked. I've been crying about this whole thing the last 3 days, but today I don't feel like crying. I almost cried at graduation, but I refused to let it go too far during graduation. I won't be surprised if I cry in the next few days. I'm slowly getting through all of this. Ok, wait, actually now I think I feel like crying. I told my friend that I think I might be trying to set a world record or my own personal record for how many days in a row I can cry. I feel like crying, yes, but I have a feeling, tonight I just won't. This doesn't make sense, but that idea kinda makes me want to cry. Crying about crying, that really shouldn't make much sense to you. It's ok, I'm just weird like that.

Did that really just happen though? I just graduated today. That's a really scary thought to me. I feel like I've been so sheltered throughout my 13 years of schooling. And actually we are rather sheltered in my opinion. Some of us have to get jobs, but we're not in the real world just yet. And there's so much drama in high school. Now I feel freer and that just kinda scares me a whole lot more.

Did that really just happen? I feel like I'm dreaming. I didn't think this would ever happen. I didn't think I would get to this point in my life. As one of the speakers put it today, we always thought this year and infinity were the same thing. Yeah, I didn't think this day would ever come. And when it started edging closer and closer during my last trimester of high school, I wished it wouldn't come. It was inevitable though. It had to happen I know that.

How do you know I'll really enjoy college?

Sorry I haven't written lately. I've been really busy this past week. It was my last week of high school. So I'll do a week in review for ya.

On Monday, a bunch of seniors decided to skip school because they feel that our senior class really got jipped by the icky trimesters. I didn't skip school because I like school and I hate the idea of missing just one day plus I don't want to have to make up anything. I'm the complete opposite of all the seniors in my school in that I actually would like to go for another week of school. So yeah, I was at school on Monday.

Tuesday was normal. I had to write an essay for part of my final in English. Then on Wednesday I had two exams. My bio 2 exam and practical law exam. Both were really easy, so that was nice. Oh and Wednesday night we had the music banquet. It's not as formal as they sometimes make it out to be because it's actually really goofy. All the seniors get really goofy gifts most of the time. I got patriotic hair ties for being late to the Memorial Day parade one year.

Thursday was my last real day of classes because even though we were taking exams, we still had classes. Two of my teachers brought in cupcakes for their classes, which was really nice, but I felt like I was eating all day. After school that day, I felt the need to cry. And when my dad called all excited to ask how I was doing, I actually did start crying. I told him I was feeling overwhelmed and my mom was standing right there and she asked why I was so overwhelmed since I was done and graduating. I just started crying and ran upstairs. She just doesn't get it.

Though I don't expect a lot of people to get it. I'll explain that in a minute.

Yesterday we had graduation rehearsal, which lasted for about 3 hours. Then we had to go to the "mandatory" class party. That meant all we had to do was sign in and then we could leave if we wanted to. I ended up staying for a while and actually ended up helping clean up a little bit at the end. I was among the last to leave around one in the afternoon. So then I went home and just hung around until class night. Class night is a ceremony for the seniors where some get awards. Every senior is invited to come, but not all of them get awards. I got The Judith Lynn Wagner Owens Teachers Scholarship, which was a scholarship my dad made me apply for even though I didn't want to apply for it. Oh for those that don't know next year I'm going to Spring Arbor University to study English Education. Yep, I'm becoming a teacher.

After class night, my parents wanted to go out for ice cream. They wouldn't stop harassing me about graduating. It was really bugging me. Then my stomach started bothering me and I was just so upset by it all that I yelled kinda loudly in the restaurant, which upset my mom a bit.

My mom really just doesn't get it. My dad was pretty clueless too. One person who got me pretty well the other day though was one of my old youth pastor's, Lindsay. She knew exactly how I was feeling and why I was feeling it. She knows how much I hate change and understands that I feel overwhelmed because it feels like everything is ending at once.

I'm so tired of everyone telling me how much I'm going to love college. My mom just keeps telling me that I'm onto something new. Really? That's not helping the pain I feel right now. Everyone is so happy to graduate, but not me. It's tearing me up inside and I can't even explain why. Everyone has felt happy except for me. I haven't cried this much since Matt and Lindsay left us two years ago.

Please don't tell me how much I'm gonna enjoy college. How do you know I'm going to enjoy it? I think you're just taking it out of your own experiences. My dad sure was. He came up and apologized to me last night after that whole ice cream fiasco. He just assumed that I was ready to get out of high school because that's how he was. He was just really excited for me and too blind to see how I was really feeling until last night.

So now that my dad understands finally, there's two people who get it. And actually three because my neighbor tonight was talking to me about it and she actually gets how I'm feeling too.

My dad told me last night that the reason I'm probably feeling this way is because reality has hit me pretty hard this year. At least that's how I'm putting it. No one else has gotten hit in the face by reality yet. When they leave for college maybe it will hit them.

I just wish someone else my age graduating with me would understand how I'm feeling. They all are so happy like I've said. I guess I never thought this day would come. It's not just missing friends, it's my school that I've gone to for four long years, my teachers, my memories, my youth group, my piano lessons, and whole lot of other things.

I guess I shouldn't be so sad about missing high school though because I hope to come back to it someday. I didn't tell you that I'm hoping to become a high school English teacher. I was inspired by my eleventh grade English teacher, who really made our class fun.

And I guess one reason no one else gets me or actually a couple reasons is that I'm different, which is actually a good thing. I love school. A lot of kids say they like going to school because their friends are there. I love going to school to learn. I love learning. I have friends yes, but that's not the real reason for why I like school so much. I love my teachers. I love that these teachers want to better the education of all of us. I love the school environment. I just love school. And I don't care if anyone thinks I'm crazy for loving it. I told you I was different and there's nothing wrong with that. I've got DNA. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

Tomorrow I graduate from high school and most likely I'll cry again for the fourth day in a row because somewhere while writing this blog, I actually started crying. I'm such an emotional wreck right now and it totally doesn't help when I am told how much I'm gonna love college. I just cry even harder.

Let me be for now, my emotional self missing high school so incredibly much because I can wait for college to come at the end of the summer.