Pomp and Circumstance

Today was one of the longest days of my life. The nervousness and anticipation flooded my thoughts for the entire day as I drove my mom to work, attended rehearsal, got dressed and ready, went out to Olive Garden, walked into the annex of the LC Walker Arena, marched onto the Arena floor to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance, listened to our band, listened to speeches, and received my diploma. After that, it was all just going through the motions as I waited for the rest of the 300+ names to be read. I turned my tassel to the other side, and walked out of that arena relieved to be done.

I'm going to get some sleep now, 'cause I'm tired. I'll see you guys later, and you GH'ites, I'll see you tomorrow at lunch. I'm coming for the lunch that starts at 1pm. See you then.

(In best Kip Dynamite voice) Peace out...

The Lord of the Lemurs

I went to go see Madagascar tonight with a ton of people from my youth group. Sarah, Chris, Ryan, Elaina, David, Shannon, Kath, Laura, Stephanie, and Leanne all showed up to let themselves sit back and be entertained: no thinking required.

With all brain functioning momentarily shut down, we were able to bask in the hilarious antics of the psychotic Houdini penguins. These guys stole every scene they were in. That's saying a lot when the other characters consisted of a hypochondriac giraffe, an arrogant lion, a mellow hippo, and an identity-confused zebra.
The lemurs were hilarious as well. I'll have the "Move it, move it" song stuck in my head for weeks. The self-proclaimed Lord of the Lemurs, King Julian XIII was also a funny addition to the cast.

Overall, the movie is a great choice if you want to just sit back and be entertained with your friends. Its humor is sometimes over the top, but sometimes you need to just laugh.

"Just smile and wave."

By the way, Dallas posted; he has me worried again...

Free..... Smeagol is freeeeee.....

As of 11:30 yesterday morning, I am done with high school. I'll enjoy the peace while it lasts.

Yesterday was stuffed to the gills with everything that started with "Senior": Senior Breakfast, Senior exams, Senior Check-out, and Senior Banquet at Fricano's where we watched the Senior Slideshow. I had never been to Fricano's before, and the pizza is pretty decent once you soak up the lake of grease that sits atop each slice. The slideshow gets a little boring, especially if your last name starts with "A." It was cool seeing some of these people that I'd only met in the last 4 years when they were in elementary and middle school.

After the banquet, I ran the lights for the CCS Kindergarten Graduation: By far the most fun thing I've ever had to run lights for. Liam was superb at being the Baby Brown Bear. He was an expert pouter.

Now, Open House season begins. The kick-off for the next month or so of free food starts at Alyssa's house today from 12-3 pm.

I've got to be getting there soon, so I'll need to cut off this post, but I'd like to invite all of you to come see Madagascar with the youth group on Sunday night after GEW. The movie starts at 8:40 pm, and since there's no school on Monday, the fact that it ends at 10 or so shouldn't matter. I figure with our group's history with that island we should all go see it.

Blow that little island right out of the water.

Final 4

...days of school!

Last night was the Honors Convocation for all of the 3.0+ seniors. I was hoping that I'd get the award for top math student named for one of my all-time favorite teachers, Mr. Fielstra, but instead I was pleasantly surprised to get the top science award. It was really cool because I got to share it with Jack who has an identical science record.

I got home, finished my egg-drop project, and then got some long-awaited sleep.

Last night during my GEW assignment I thought it was interesting how the three verses I was reading all said "Give Thanks" to start and "His love endures forever" to end. The only difference lied in what was in the middle of the verse. The phrases "to the LORD, for he is good," "to the God of gods," and "to the Lord of lords" filled in the gap and explained why the psalm was telling us to give thanks. (Psalm 136:1-3, Bible Gateway)

A lot of times, I find myself giving thanks to God for what He's done in my life, but I think these verses illustrate the importance of giving thanks to God for WHO HE IS. He is good; He is the God of Gods; He is the lord of Lords. I'm going to work on focusing more of my praises on WHO He is rather than just WHAT He has done.

I'd like your feedback on this to see what you guys think, too.

Well, I've got to get to Spanish, so hasta luego.

Home Away From Home

This place is awesome! It's right up there with Starwood.
Jeremy and I have talked about stowing away to the Rudd property someday just to be there again.

(I'm supposed to be researching Obsessive Compulsive Disorder right now, but I found this picture last hour when I was supposed to be researching for English class, so I had to post it.)

Episode III

All I can say is that it is definitely better than Episodes I and II. I'm still too tired to form a real opinion on the movie. I was entertained. That means that I was wowed by some of the cinematics, amazed at some of the fight scenes, and made to laugh at a lot of the dialogue.

There was a quote in the movie that I consciously thought, "I want to blog about this," but I can't remember it word for word, nor the exact context, so I'll post about it after I see it again with a lot of my friends tomorrow.

I'm 17 today. It feels no different. I can go see R-rated movies now. No big deal. The only thing that I'll enjoy is the freedom to not have to be home by midnight every single time I go out. So many times my friends have been watching a movie or something that I have to miss the last half of because I couldn't drive after midnight.

My English class is almost over now, so I've got to go. I have to admit that I accomplished nothing in class. I don't know when I'll actually do all of the research for this essay, but it'll get done.

If you haven't seen Episode III, I'll whet your appetite with this: Yoda and Chewbacca in the same scene.

My Worldview

You scored as Fundamentalist. Fundamentalism represents a movement in opposition to Modernism, stressing the highest importance on foundational religious tradition. Science has brought on corruption of society. God is real and is watching. Scripture leaves little room for interpretation; man is God’s creation. About a quarter of the population in the U.S. is classified as Fundamentalist. Fundamentalist 81% Cultural Creative 75% Romanticist 50% Postmodernist 44% Idealist 25% Modernist 25% Existentialist 25% Materialist 19% What is Your World View? (corrected...hopefully) created with QuizFarm.com

Sounds about right...

The Beginning of the End

The first day of the last two weeks of high school is halfway over.

The comedian was really funny on Friday night. Nick came and got to meet a few of my church friends; Becca scared him.

Afterwards we watched Episode I and Episode II at the Encks. Nick, David Mann, Ryan, and Dallas were all there, but we had to leave at 11pm.

Saturday, we had a training session for our missions trip to Chicago from 9:00am-1:30pm. We got a lot accomplished along the lines of planning activities for the kids. I can't wait to go.

Yesterday, the bake sale at church for the Chicago trip went very well. We made over $800. We're doing another one on June 19.

This Friday, a lot of my friends are going to go see Star Wars at 8:00 pm. If you read this blog, then most likely you are considered a friend, so you should come. I wanted to go on Thursday, my birthday, but my mom said it would be best to spend that night at home with my family. I agree.

I've got a lot of projects to do in the next two weeks, so please excuse the upcoming sporadic posting. I'll try to post more when I have time.

Later.

Rain

Well, it's Friday morning and the rain is calling me back to my nice, warm bed. But alas, I'm already at school so it's too late to stay home.

My classes are all wrapping up with final assignments. In Bio, we've got to do the children's book I posted about earlier. In Psycho, we were going to just relax and watch movies, but the substitute says that we need to be working so there's going to be some movie assignment. In English, we're doing research for an investigative researh paper on some aspect of Muskegon county that we're writing in class on exam day. In Spanish, we're finishing up our artist unit next week, but after that I'm home free. In Physics, there's an eggdrop project due on the 23rd made only of drinking straws and yarn. In math, we've just to take the last part of our exam, I think. (She's been known to randomly come up with stuff for us to do).

Next week is the last full week of high school. The week after that closes with some partial days, and May 27th is the final day of my senior year. It came up really fast. I'm excited about it, but at the same time I know that high school's familiar, easy, really easy. This fall is a brand new experience at GVSU. I'm looking forward to it, but I know it's going to be a lot more work. I fear what my Biology teacher says about her first semester of college. She got straight A's in high school, played the game of how to get good grades without studying, got to GVSU and got a 2.4 her first semester because she didn't really have good study habits. That sounds an awful lot like me, so I hope I can learn from her mistakes.

Tonight I'm going to be volunteering at Ross Park's school carnival. After that, I'm going to a comedy show at our church that benefits the Muskegon Rescue Mission. It's free to get in, but they will have a free will offering that goes to the Rescue Mission. It's featuring Brad Stine. I've heard him before on a DVD, and he's really funny. You all should come.

Well, I'm off to Spanish class for a stimulating game of Jeopardia.

Peace.

I refuse, I refuse, I refuse...

As my heads spins like 18-inch chromed out rims
My friends
Influence me
That all I need to succeed is to take a puff of this weed
Rays of embarrassment reveals images of my face ‘cause I know better
Once upon a time I promised myself I wouldn’t sway
any way the wind blows
I have dreams of being a Model
Actress
And a novelist
You may laugh and say my dreams are unrealistic
But I REFUSE
I REFUSE
I REFUSE to be another drug abuser teen statistic.

This rap is from a commercial that's on Channel One at school everyday. In my Bio class we've almost memorized the whole thing. The girl that wrote it, Shacoya, is my new idol:


http://www.freevibe.com/Share/realteens/shacoya-poem.asp

They're evil I tell ya...

Cat Survives Fire, House Explosion

I believe I've posted on this matter before. Cats are evil, plain and simple. They may look all cute and innocent, but they're very sinister behind that facade. You can't kill a cat very easily, as the article shows. (I also would not suggest putting them in bags to see if they can wrestle their way out. (They can get violent (see David Mann)))

I know that the preceding may have offended many catlovers, but we'll see who's right when the cats attack.

Disclaimer: It's a joke... or is it?

AP Madness

The hope of college credit makes people do some crazy things...

For instance paying $82 to take a 2-4 hour long and difficult test is something a sane person would never do.

Getting students to hold off on slacking off entirely until after the second week of May seems impossible for most, but not when college credit is attached.

Making those same students sit in an ever-changing, never predictable climate that is known as our auxiliary gym for many hours is also quite difficult.

Having those testing students in the ever-changing climate also listen to the loudest seagulls in the world squawking right over their heads without losing their minds is also a great accomplishment.

Being able to threaten their very test grades if they ever spoke a word about the Multiple Choice questions would never be acceptable unless in the environment of the AP tests.

Being able to command an entire room full of intelligent students into spending 30 minutes bubbling in their name and address without a revolt is about as hard as a camel passing through the eye of a needle... (well you know where that's going)

My point is that they have us trained well. We test and test and test for them in some very unenjoyable conditions all for one purpose: College Credit.

Is it worth it?

Heck yes it is!

Star Wars at Encks

I, being the unamerican freak that I am, had never seen any Star Wars movie all of the way through. That changed tonight at the Encks. I'm planning on watching all of the movies in the next few weeks before Episode III comes out on my birthday (see Ryan). We watched A New Hope, and then put in A Phantom Menace, but we haven't been watching it too much. We were busy reading blogs. I found an interesting post on Dallas's blog. It has me very confused...

Well, I've gotta be going. Episode I just ended, and it's time for The Empire Strikes Back.

Dallas's post really has me worried...

Please pray for this dear brother that he would not fall deeper into sin.

Skittles and Combos

Today I found out that I'm supposed to write a children's book for Biology that will actually be donated to an elementary school. Methinks I can really traumatize some child.

I've decided to write about the epic story of the fish in our classroom's tank. What started out as 8 happy fish has been wittled down to 3. There's a huge fish that ate some of the other ones named Mobes after Moby Dick. There's one ghost fish left that swims in place and you can see through. And then there's this little guppy that's somehow survived the decimation of his friends. The story will be about him. I think he's gonna stand up to Mobes and teach the kids a valuable lesson about bullies or survival of the fittest (I haven't decided if he lives or dies). Lately, Izzy (as the guppy was named today (we were just calling him the pansy fish, but decided that we can't use that term around kids (it's like Ahhhnold saying "girly man"))) has been hiding in the filter so as not to get eaten. Mrs. Adams took him out of the filter once, but he keeps going back in there, so she's started feeding him in there.

In this case art will imitate life as I tell the story of "Izzy's Underwater Adventure." Through the story as fish die, I'll just say that they escaped to the ocean.

Other people are writing about the immune system, and Dan has the idea of Nemo's dead mother having a virus that infected the barracuda that ate her, but that's another story.

While I was watching everyone working and talking about their books I realized: She's turned the class into a book factory hoping to get something good to send to a publisher. Sure she tells us it's a project grade, but I see right through that...

Disclaimer: I do not truly believe that Mrs. Adams will try to publish our books and / or take credit for them to make money. I was just kidding. Thank you.

Monster Worship and Other Happenings

Yesterday at church, we spent the entire afternoon completely renovating our youth trailer.

We built a partitioned-off prayer room on one wall of our trailer that holds a small sofa, recliner, and endtable for the sole purpose of coming to God and resting in Him. There's a cross on the wall in the prayer room that we can nail prayer requests to until they're answered. At that point, we rip the paper off, leaving the nail, and place the prayer request in the Book of Answered Prayer, which is a small scrapbook on the endtable. There's also a small fountain and some relaxing music in the room for a calming "ambience."

Some people worked on a large cross to be placed in the very front-center of our praise band stage. They distressed the wood with hammers and stained it with shoe polish. We later draped a purple cloth over it, and it looks really cool. It's a great way to focus our attention on why we're there: to worship God.

We moved all of the games to the other end of the trailer and partitioned off our meeting area with dividers and made an entrance out of two pillars. The meeting area is no longer set up in rows, but in a cafe style with small tables.

Some people worked to build two large storage cabinets for all of the miscellaneous junk our youth group's accumulated.

Finally, we placed an altar and "washing basin" near the entrance to the prayer room and meeting / worship area. The altar is a desk with gold and purple cloths draped over it, an offering bowl for our missionaries, candles, and a cross on it. For the "washing basin," we covered an old podium with burlap and cut a slot in it big enough to slide papers through it. We are supposed to write down problems in our lives or things we need to confess, and then place them through the slot. Beneath the slot, completely unable to be seen, is a paper shredder that shreds whatever you're getting rid of. It's very symbolic of what Christ can do in our lives.

Needless to say, the trailer is completely different now with a more God-focused worship area. It was a long, tiring day, but the people were really fun to be around and it felt great to get something that big accomplished in one day.
***

Today, school went well for a Monday. There wasn't too much arduous or tidious work. I found out I did well on my exam in psychology, so I'm not worried at all about the actual AP test because I only need a 3 for college credit, and my exam grade was a 5. Biology has been endless review for the past two weeks, but it is helping me remember some long-suppressed information. I didn't think I'd have an exam in my independent study, but the teacher finally stopped putting it off and said that we're starting it tomorrow. I'm sure it will be curved, so I don't think it will affect my grade at all. In English we've got to finish revising our papers that were due today and then we just have one more paper and the exam until we're done. Physics is truly a joke because we can get as much help as we need on the test if we ask the right questions. The only class I don't really care for is Spanish 3. That's not because I don't like the language; because I do. It's just that the teacher is way too serious and I can't joke around, be sarcastic, or do a lot of the stuff that I could do last year in Spanish. We're studying Hispanic artists right now and they all have really messed up lives. I'd like to get back to learning the actual language, but I don't think we will any more this year. I hope to keep studying Spanish in college until I'm fluent; I just hope that my teacher doesn't turn me off completely to Spanish.

Small groups went well tonight. I enjoy being with all of those guys and just sharing life and talking about God. I'm glad that we're able to have deep conversations, yet still joke around.

Well, I've been typing for far too long, so I've gotta go.

Hasta luego.