That's a Wrap!

Project: English paper
Date Due: 2 May 2005
Supervising Officer: Todd Conrad
Date Completed: 30 April 2005

I'm so glad it's finished that I feel like singing.


Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you it's only seed.

Have a Happy Hands day!

They're here, they've come...

It's the weekend!!! So what does that mean??

Anyone? Bueller...?


I get to write a 4-6 page paper for English, that's what it means!

I'm trying really hard to finish all of my homework tonight and tomorrow so I can hang out with friends tomorrow night and be able to spend all day at church for this "Monster Worship" Day.

Monster Worship is named after the shows on Discovery Channel: Monster House and Monster Garage. We're going to be renovating the front of our youth trailer to make it more of a worship area. It should be a great time with great people and good food.

Well, I've gotta go and start my English paper. Maybe I'll get it done tonight, and then, I'll be FREE!!!

Senioritis

With just 35 days until commencement ceremony and only 23 more days of school, a great case of Senioritis is setting in.

What is Senioritis?

noun. A crippling disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include: laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. Also features a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude. The only known cure is a phenomenon known as graduation.

It's been like this since the start of the current semester, but it has heightened since Spring Break. We have only a month left, we're almost done learning new things, and our grades don't truly matter anymore.

It's pretty obvious when you compare my grades this marking period to earlier this year. My highest grade this marking period is a little lower than my lowest grade from second marking period. I know, it's pretty pathetic.

It is as if we are all regressing backwards through our educational careers. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we won't regress too far because right before we reach the mental capacity of kindergarteners, we graduate: There's something about that song they play at commencement that erases all of the regression to place you about where you were at the end of 11th grade.

So, what's the point of senior year if you end up regressing and just landing right where you were at the end of your junior year?

I think it's to teach us how to fill out repetitive scholarship forms. Or maybe to teach us one last lesson on how to play well with others.

Either way, It's been fun, but I'm still counting down.

In His Sight

While doing my GEW assignment on Tuesday night, I noticed something that I'd seen before, but seemed to have a little more meaning on that occasion.

21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation– 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. (Biblegateway)

When I let God down, I think I spend too much time wallowing in guilt and shame. I need to start recognizing that I was an enemy of God, but now that I've been reconciled to Him, He views me as holy. God's forgiven my sins and He's left them in the past, so I need to as well.

This is not to say that we should have a blase attitude towards sin. I shouldn't just allow sin in my life to prevail with the excuse that God views me as holy. I should pray and allow God to take care of my sins, but after that, I shouldn't dwell on my mistakes.

Bad things happen; I make mistakes, a lot, but I need to be able to move on and cling to the promise of Colossians. All of us, once God has saved us, are viewed as holy in His sight, so we should live with that in mind. Sin's a bad thing, and we should seek God's strength to put off our sin natures, but don't let it bring you down. God forgave us!

That's all I have, but I felt I should share.

Have a good weekend.

Time Flies...

When you're having fun and really busy!

Senior Sneak was awesome. We left the Friday during Spring Break and returned the following Wednesday afternoon. The first night we ate dinner at a TGIFriday's in Covington, KY right on the Ohio River. The next day we spent the entire day at King's Island in Cincinnati, OH for their opening day. On Sunday, we went to these cool Indian caverns in Ohio somewhere. Then, that night we relaxed and saw Fever Pitch at the movie theater. Monday morning we went to a Factory Outlet Mall, and that evening we arrived in Sandusky where we stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, this cool indoor water park. Tuesday, we got up, went back to the water park, then left for a picnic in northern Ohio. We drove back south again to go to Akron where we stayed on Sunday. We got dressed up in formal clothes and went to a very well done musical dinner theater presentation of The Beauty and the Beast. The next morning we left for home. It was way more fun than I ever thought we could have in Ohio. We met some cool people everywhere we met, and we got pictures with most of them. They're pretty funny.

After I got home, reality struck and I had to start doing schoolwork again. Practice AP tests are coming up, so most of my time for the next few weeks is going to be spent. This morning was my practice AP Biology test, which counts as my exam. It went better than I thought, but 3 hours is way too long for a test.

Tonight, I don't have much homework so I felt that I had to update my blog. These past two weeks were really fun, and I'm starting to sense how close graduation is.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Drive safe, everyone! (The preceding was just a random comment to end this post with some closure. (I felt I needed to add that to clarify (You wouldn't think it'd be hard to end a blog post, but it's harder than it seems) since it seemed pretty random)(To best understand that last sentence with an interrupted parenthetical statement, go back to where it started.))

That was confusing. (I just realized that Dave Rudd had a post just like this with parenthetical statements a while back (I didn't mean to plagiarize, but now that I've typed it, it's staying.))

There's Nothing Like...

...walking the Grand Haven boardwalk at 9:00pm on a 40 degree night with your friends. Dallas, Derek, Sarah, Laura, and I braved the cold weather last night and then went out for Wendy's afterward. (No, I did not have any dismembered body parts in my food.) It was a lot of fun, and it gives me hope for the coming summer nights when we can do that without shivering.

My mouth is doing fine. The pills did not give me any hallucinatory side effects, though I was sleep talking on the sofa a lot on Saturday. The next time I get my wisdom teeth taken out, I'll definitely plan it for a time that's not during a school break. I had to go for a followup checkup at the oral surgeon's today, and the doctor said that I was doing fine, but now I get to "flush out" the holes next to the stitches with this cool little syringe twice a day. It's kinda weird, but it has some interesting possibilities for pranks on Senior Sneak.

I leave you with this touching story:
Flying Squirrel Won't Be Ejected
Don't our neighbors to the north have something better to occupy their time?

Wisdom Teeth

Today is THE day. In a matter of a couple hours, I will have 4 less teeth than I do now.

And, there are only 7 more days until Senior Sneak!!!

I'll post more later (when I'm on Vicodin :P)


Hasta luego.