Cheese.

I'm tired of cheese!!!

I'm tired of cliche's and happy plastic people...Give me the truth...Show me something real...something wonderful and unique...show me something that doesn't require all of its members to be mindless drones that spout off what they think they are supposed to spout off...Show me goodness, and real love...Don't show me a single act of charity performed by you and a group of all your close buddies a couple years back and act as if that's the definition of love! Don't give me your facades...Keep your bubbly, plastic, gray subsitution for real life...Don't even use the word 'evil'. Don't turn this into a political game. Don't use acts of kindness to secure yourself a position among the 'higher-ups'. Don't take advantage of my heartache. I am not just a number. I am not a dollar in the offering plate or a digit on the attendance chart. Don't try to get me to admit my sins to you just so you can spout them off to all your friends...

Don't. Just don't.

Co'op

Today was the first day of co'op...and it was better than I thought it would be.

We got to the place before the first class started at about 8:45 am, and a couple of ladies told my sister and I could go into the library and hang out while we waited for the other kids to be done with their first class, and mom helped get things set up. So we went into the library and I caught up on a little bit of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while I waited. About halfway through, Kaitlyn and I killed some time by walking around the place and met some kids who were also skipping out on the first class.

At 9:45, our first class, English, started. My sister and I were the first ones there, partly because we had nothing to do, and partly because we were excited and wanted to get the day going. The teacher of the class was young...in her early twenties - a homeschool graduate - and very nice. She told us to sit down, so we did, and soon the other kids started pouring in.

I thought I was going to be the only one over fourteen in the class...I thought I was going to feel big and out of place...but actually, most of the kids in the class were 16 or 17! It was pretty cool! Everyone in the class was nice, and the lesson was good...nice and easy for the first lesson...

Our next class was literature. In this class, there were only two students besides my sister and I, and they were both boys. I think it's cool to have a nice small group of people for classes like this sometimes...your opinion can be heard better, and it's more of an intimate atmosphere. I really like this class so far, because I'm a reader, and in this class I'm able to learn about and discuss concepts that I already had down in my mind, but could not find names for. It was a very good class. Our first book will be Around the World in 80 Days.

After that we had lunch, during which we met a whole flock of girls, all of whom were very friendly, and asked us to sit with them. While we sat in their general vicinity, Kaitlyn and my mom and I stuck together for the first day. When we went to heat up our food in the microwave, this very tall blond boy came up to us out of nowhere and started shaking my sister's hand, saying, "My name's Steven!" when I came up from the microwave, he shook my hand and introduced himself, too. Now, I thought this was very impressive...and he didn't stop impressing me all day. He was just a sweet gentleman.

My Biology 2 class was a bit harder than the first two, although I liked it, and it was very enlightening. It was good to have a teacher explain things that the book just did not seem to explain very well without visual aid, and I think I'll do okay in this class. The teachers are both very nice, too...Just very sweet ladies. They are excited about God, and Biology...I think they'll do a great job.

After Biology, this girl named Kaitlyn came up to me and was asking me about how I liked Biology and we talked about what we were having a hard time understanding and how good the class was...She was just so sweet! She came up to my sister and I again after that to ask us how we liked our first day of Co'op.

I don't think people realize how much the little things count. Just being friendly and bubbly and going up to someone and talking to them can work wonders, and this co'op was just full of spectacular people all day long...we never felt left out...we never felt like the 'new kids', at least not in a 'you're-separate-from-the-rest-of-us-way'...

I loved it.

"Old Enough" - And Co'op!

Today, I did not get on the computer at all until just about an hour ago, and today has been spent blissfully in my PJs, reading 80 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and studying my Biology.

I have been applying myself more than usual and getting a lot done lately...which I am very happy about. I'm tired of days spent on the computer, dreaming and planning about what I am going to do when I am old enough instead of just BEING old enough right now. There are so many things I can do that I just don't do because I'm 'not old enough' - when in reality it's just because I'm lazy and I don't want to get things together in order to do what I want to do...and since I've been making myself do these things, there is a great satisfaction about life because I'm at least dabbling in the things I want to do instead of vegging out on the computer.

A lot of good things have been happening lately...I have just come out of a season of depression - not horrible depression, but just missing the things I used to have in West Virginia that I feel like I don't have here...we had things to do - obligations to fulfill. I prefer a little bit of stress to no expectations at all. Sometime in June, I just started losing my optimism a little bit and sinking into hopelessness. I couldn't see how things were going to get better living here...

But just recently, my mom heard about this homeschool co'op...Homeschool Grace Co'op, and we will be attending. It seems like a great place...You go once a week, and it is structured like a school, except you only take classes that you want to take. It seems so great, and it fits in alright with the whole unschooling philosophy I try to abide by, too...because I'm not taking any classes that I'm not interested in. My subjects will be English, Literature, Biology 2, Art, and Drama. I can't wait!

Apparently there are going to be a lot of kids my age, too...plenty of high schoolers to get to know - people I might actually have something in common with...

I feel like a geek for being so excited about this...sort of desperate...but I think it's okay for me to be a little bit overexcited about this, considering the fact that in some ways, I've been the boy in the plastic bubble for the past year and a half!

YAY FOR CO'OP!!!

Girls Night: Bikers, Babes, and Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans

I had my first really fun girls night in awhile a couple days ago...
My friend Bethany has been wanting me to come visit her youth group with her for awhile now, and the other night her church was having a youth rally, so we decided to go to the youth meeting while our moms had coffee and shopped or whatever it is they do...
So we went to church. It was great...it was a lot of fun, in a high-energy, 'you're-going-to-get-onstage-whether-you-like-it-or-not' kind of way (they had my sister and I come onstage and give them a short version of our life stories), and there was a speaker there that talked about how to be a 'suphero of the faith' (and also, there was a really cute guy there! My sister, Bethany and I were drooling, lol).
So when church was over, our moms were there waiting for us, and we left pretty quickly. Mom gave us chocolate covered espresso beans, which I think hit our bloodstream immediately. Soon the topic of a movie we have been dying to see called 'Becoming Jane' came up, and before we knew it, a pathetic attempt at a 'this-isn't-really-going-to-happen-but-I-might-as-well-ask-anyway' sort of plea from the teenagers became an actual plan, and we were on our way to the movie theater!!!
We got to the first theater, and in spite of the fact that it was opening day, and there was a poster for it outside the theater, it wasn't showing there. We spent a couple minutes trying to call the other theater without success, and soon decided to just drive over to the other theater and see if it was playing.
As we were leaving the parking lot, Kaitlyn and Bethany looked out the back window and saw two guys on motorcycles right behind our car. They started waving..."Wave, Kendra!" they said. Soon we were all waving and grinning flirtatiously at the bikers behind us. They started trying to go around us, and when one of them went by my window, I waved and smiled, and he grinned like the Cheshire cat at me, then got right in front of our car with his friend.
Bethany is crazy. She rolled down her window and we all started yelling, "Hey boys!" and such at them (please don't think we're bimbos...you never know what you're going to do when you're in a group of girls and all hopped up on espresso!).
We saw the two guys grinning at each other and talking in front of our car, then, when traffic started moving again, you wouldn't believe what happened! One of the guys did a wheely right in front of us on the motorcycle, and the other guy kicked both legs up in the air! It was so awesome...we started cracking up and squealing...it was like having our own little show!
So, needless to say, we were hyper for the rest of the night...
We got to the other theater, and the movie wasn't playing there, either...so we ended up seeing No Reservations instead...it was a great movie! Really sweet...all the food looked delicious, and Catherine-Zeta Jones is beautiful, as always.
On the way out of the movie, we ran into my friend Sunnie, who had been over at my house for basically the whole day before we left for church...she just happened to be there with a friend at the same theater at the same time! I don't know why It's a Small World After All hasn't been stuck in my head for days, lol...
Kaitlyn, Bethany and I all took mini-naps in the car on the way home...we were worn out! I think though, the espresso beans did have a pretty good effect on us, because when I finally got to bed I couldn't go to sleep! I'm not sure if this helped or not, but I had a glass of milk and then went right to sleep...I've heard that milk helps you sleep...Can anyone verify this?

Double Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of two different events in my life.

The first is this: Three years ago today, my first boyfriend, Justin, asked me to be his girlfriend. To me, at the time, this was the best thing that could possibly have happened to me...I really, really liked him, and although I knew the answer would be yes, I told him I'd have to talk to my mom about it...tortured him for a few hours, and then finally gave him my answer (yes, duh). It was a very important day for me, and he was a very important person to me, and I guess he always will be. I'll never forget him.

It's hard to believe it's been three whole years; And yet it's just as hard to believe it hasn't been even longer. I feel like I'm a completely different person now...I think, that while I still have quite a bit of growing up to do, I have grown up a lot since then...

And here's the second: Two years ago today, I got my first blog. I still have it, and the URL is homeschoolblogger.com/missingyoualwayz. I don't use it anymore, but I used it to let my friends know about some pretty interesting things in my life. That blog helped me to chronicle some of the more dramatic events in my teen years so far. I wrote about boys, friends, and about how I rededicated my life to God. It's good for a writer to have an outlet:-)

Colorquiz

My friend showed me this a long time ago, and every once in awhile I take the quiz again just to see if it still has me right...

It's AMAZING! Just by me clicking a bunch of random color squares it can tell me what's going on in my life...I mean, of course only I know exactly what the situations they're hinting at specifically are, but still...the fact that it can even vaguely determine what's going on inside me is just amazing.

Take this quiz...you may be as amazed as I am!

(And also, feel free to read my results!)

I took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Needs a change in her circumstances or in her rela..." Click here to read the rest of the results.