Justifications

Today at lunch I had a conversation with some of my girlfriends at school. Recently, our conversations have gone from asking about the latest gossip of the school to things that have really been bothering us. I feel like today’s conversation was really good.

Last week at our school, a picture off of Facebook showed up causing a lot of conflict. The subject of the picture is a prominent senior from our school. She is a student council member and a leader on the dance team. She also apparently likes her alcohol. When this photo reached the school administration, the tensions began; who brought in the photo? When was it taken? Who was with her?

Gossip about who brought in the photo started immediately. Not that it matters, but it is believed that a high school staff member who has had conflict with this student and her family brought it in. This sparked the conversation that if it was her place to bring it to attention.

I do not drink. I do not party. I don’t do anything of the like. It’s not worth anything, especially my life or anyone else’s. It doesn’t make sense to me why anyone would party. I mean, what do you really get out of it. A night with friends? Go to dinner, you get the same result without the DUI, hangover, and an STD.

Turning in people doesn’t often happen at our school, unfortunately. I believe that people need to suffer the consequences of their actions, and more often than not they don’t. Teacher’s and staff here seem to look the other way whenever they hear student talking about their illegal evenings. Sometimes, students will even report dangerous activites to the teachers, who take no action. It’s kind of disgusting. Actually, it’s really disgusting.

Now back to the issue-was it that staff members place to turn in the intoxicated student? I’m actually conflicted in this one. I do believe that the student deserved to be turned it. She had been up to no good for a long time without consequence, and she definitely had it coming for her. But should that certain staff member turned her in? I don’t think so. The conflict between these two is not a secret at our school. The fact that this staff member also happened to turn her in this week is a little bit strategic sounding as well. As I had earlier described, this student is on the dance team. The picture of the student was not a recent one. Also, our school enforces a three-week suspension from sports for such actions. These next three weeks for our dance team are critical, and the fact that she will not be participating kinda screws her over for the rest of the dance season. Now there’s a cruel strategy.

So was it her place to do it? No, I don’t think so. I’m glad that the person is now suffering from her actions, but the method of this torture is even too harsh for me.

My final words of wisdom (for this post):

1. DON’T Go and party. I mean what are you really getting out of it?
2. If you absolutely have to party (you better have a seriously legitimate reason), be careful. Don’t take pictures with your bottle of Jack.
3. If you do take picture at the party with your under-aged face next to your bottle of Jack, don’t put them on Facebook. Duh.
4. Don’t be friends on Facebook with teachers, especially ones that don’t like you or your family.

USE COMMON SENSE. Don’t have any? Borrow mine, I’ve got lots.

Sometimes You Just Have To Say No.

I have a 45 minute drive home from work. I have a 20 minute drive to school every morning. These long drives give me time to think about things.

Usually on my way to school I think about what I'll have to accomplish that day and on my way home from work, I think of what I have accomplished and what I have yet to accomplish. Today, I thought about the same thing both times.

I'm a busy person. It keeps me from being bored and from getting in trouble, but sometimes it catches up with me. Now would be one of those times. I know, I can't be too busy if I'm spending time typing this up here right? Wrong. I just really don't want to do what I need to.

First, and I bring this up a lot, is my online design class. I'm done Monday (whoop whoop!) which means my final is due Monday (awwwwwww....gross). Of course, like any true procrastinator I have yet to work on it. Probably because I HATE CODING. I find it to be useless, time consuming, and confusing (which makes it even more time consuming, thus making it useless.) When I signed up for the class, the description said it would be about learning the set-up of the page, including learning color options and designs that would please viewers. Not a thing about "This class is all about coding-the boringest thing in the whole entire universe! No, nothing like that.

Secondly, I have to be a good person. Why? Cause I just do. It's in the fine print. But of course you be nice to one person and suddenly you get sucked into  a vortex where everyone is asking (but really telling) you to do this and that for them and you can't say no because if you do they'll use it against you in some way or tell you that you have to because your dad is a teacher and they'll be dumb and stupid and you end up doing it for them. Ugh.  I hate that too. And I can't get away from it. Blech. It disgusts me so to the point where I can't even form real words to describe how repulsed I am about it. Like this: JABBERFLABBERWAKKAWOOTRACHERNESS!!!!! Yeah, I'm that frustrated about it.

Then there is school itself. I used (being the keyword in this phrase) used to be overly worried about my grades and my assignments and school in general, but all of the sudden I had an epiphany; I don't really care. It's probably the best thing that's happened to me for a while (Not including Steve, he's probably the best thing that's happened). The only problem is that the teachers still think that I care. They pull me aside and say "Hey Emily, you do realize that you only got an eight out of ten on this assignment, right?" Yes, I do and I don't really care as long as I'm getting the credit because truthfully, my grade on this assignment won't matter in a year anyway.

Finally, there is just life in general. People expect certain things from others and truthfully (and I do mean this) people are expecting way too much from me. I can't do it all, yet when I try and fail people ask me what wrong with me if I can't do this or that-it's because you expect me to do both this and that. It's not happening.

So what do I do? I don't really know, but I do know where to start. I'm saying no. No more doing everything to make everyone happy. Because really, I'm not getting anything out of it except for a shallow good job and the satisfaction of making someone happy for a moment. But never me. I need to be happy. I need to make time for myself. And that's really hard. But it needs to be done, and soon. It's time to say no.

I heard you liked my use of semi-colons...

you should see how good I am with apostrophes. :D

Scare Tactics

I live in an older farm house, which means I deal with creaky floors, paper thin walls, and cracks in the walls where cold air from outside can come in. Unfortunately, the wind isn't the only thing that comes in; mice do to.
I'm used to them by now. Hearing them in the walls or waking up to the sound of scampering across my floors at night. As long as they stay away from me, I don't mind them. Sure it's annoying to find mouse poop or sunflower seeds in various places, but otherwise we don't usually have a problem with them.
It's when they do torment you when you least expect it-like when you're sleeping. I used to have problems with that all the time until I switched rooms with my parents. Now they don't ever bother me in my sleep.
Now that I've said all that, it's time to get to what happened today....
So recently we've had a large amount of mice in our house, probably because of the recent snow storm we had. So we've been catching one or two a day. Yesterday was no different-we had caught one in the basement and one in my closet (that's where we catch them most). But as I was getting ready for bed last night all of a sudden I heard a distressing squeak from the cupboard. Not thinking much of it (and knowing what to expect) I opened the cupboard and stuck my head inside. Nothing. I could still hear the sqeaking, but there was nothing there to make it. I yelled down to my mom and she told me it was probably in the wall somewhere and not to worry about it.
I still did of course. The poor thing sounded miserable. But I continued with my nightly routine and went to bed.
I have a horrible memory-especially short-term- so by the time I woke up this morning I had forgotten about the whole ordeal. I got up, showered, and went to school. I did my thing at school and came home. Still didn't think about it. Of course being the day before thanksgiving, I went and tidied up my room and bathroom. Wash the mirror, clean the toilet, put away my stuff. Everything was going well. I took the headbands and shoved them into the container I store them in, which is in the cupboard. A moment later, my heart leapt out of my chest.
Half-way into the container (which is clear on one side) I saw it. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me the heebie-geebies; the end of a mouse tail.
All I could think was that first, gross. I had been wearing a headband that was touching a dead mouse (i had tapped the container then shook it to make sure). Second, that the squeaking noise probably was from the mouse in the container. Third, I had just squished a dead mouse even further into my headbands-uber disgusting.
I got squeemish. I'll admit it. In fact, so squeemish that I slammed the container shut and held it out at arms length walking down the stairs yelling "mom, Mom, MOm, MOM, MOOOOOOOM!" She was confused. I handed her the box, pointed at the tail and whined "please tell me that's not what I think it is..."
She laughed. "It probably is." She opened the box and peeked around. She shook the box, then proceeded to take the headbands out one at a time. I stepped back, worrying still about my headbands being all nasty. Finally, she got down into where the suspicious tail was.
She began laughing hysterically. I didn't know what was going on. Was it really that funny? I didn't think so. She pulls out a brown headband, walks over to the drawer with scissors in it and returns to me. Taking the scissors she cuts of a loose string on the headband and hands it to me.
"There's your dead mouse."

Decisions, Decisions

This is going to sound like a very obvious statement, but as life progresses, decisions get harder. Duh, right? Well recently, my decisions have become very difficult, and I feel like if they stay at the pace they are going right now, my decisions will kill me before I'm 20.

Now to clear this up, the aren't the "classic" teenage decisions. I'm not doing drugs or drinking and driving (or even drinking for that matter). My decisions are the ones people forget to warn you about and don't have an answer everyone likes to hear, and I'm a little stressed out about them.

First, I'm starting college early. That's not a difficult decision for me to make. I'm not advancing my education at my high school anymore, so whats the point? Also, I don't have any real ties to the school for I will still be seeing my friends around. Decision made.

Of course other decisions that I'm made because of that or that were made because of it are really stressing me out, and no one seems to be trying to make these decisions any easier for me. One of the bigs ones right now is the One-Act Competition play. Last year our cast took the play "Freak"to the State Festival Stage. I was a large part of that play and have always enjoyed acting under the director and with my fellow thespians. But this year because of my class schedule, I will not be considered for a part in the play cause I won't be able to make it to 2 of the 5 practices each week. At first, this bothered me. So I slept on it and woke up with another look at it-it will give me the opportunity to have more time at the college and work, plus I'll be ending my acting career at Bagley with a trip to State.

I was contented, if not extremely happy with this outcome. So today I went to school head held high knowing it wouldn't bother me. Well, like any good father would do, my dad got angry about it, saying that the cast "needs me" because I was there talent. Blah, blah. Some of the cast was angry saying that they wanted me to do it. I was conflicted. Me against the school. I hated it.

But now I'm coming to terms with it. Here's what I have to say:

I'm done with high school. All it's doing is trying to keep me down when all I need to do is fly-let me go. I don't need anything from you anymore. Good Riddance.

Money is never free.

Neither is college. Not even close. But you can get scholarships! Hooray! Free money! NOT.
It seems like the smallest scholarships (you know, the ones normal people actually get) take the longest time while the ones that are like $200,000 for one person are where you put your name and what classes you took. How frustrating!

But I guess that maybe it'll payoff.

Maybe.

How do you eat an entire elephant?

I had a conversation with my boyfriend tonight that really made me think. It made me think how much something you say or do can have such a lasting impact on someone. And this isn't the first time I've thought of this. Actually, I was thinking about it earlier today.

This may get a little personal, but there are only a few people who are going to read this, so I think it's okay that they here this: I have a friend (well a few friends) who are struggling right now for some reason or another; they aren't happy with where they are in life. Whether it be boy trouble, friend trouble, job trouble,  school trouble, it's troubling them. Which troubles me. I'm the type of person who likes it when everything goes perfect (which is impossible considering we live in such a sinful world), so when I see my friends dealing with such things and seeing them struggle, I feel like I need to help. Unfortunately, my help can also sometimes suck.

Back to my conversation with my boyfriend. We were talking about how someone was struggling and how when people struggle, they become frustrated and say or do things they don't mean. I do it all the time. Then I feel like I need to shove my foot as far as possible into my mouth before I do something else dumb. Which frustrates me even more. Talk about a viscous circle. We digress. Anyway this person that I am talking about, well he said something that my boyfriend considered insulting and we started talking about it.

I'm don't get insulted easily. I find that if someone feels a certain way about me, they're probably right. Plus if I got worked up over the small things, I would have to deal with a lot more in my life and I just don't have the energy to do that.

But I took this "insult" as a compliment. It showed me that this person is comfortable enough around me to say something and know that I won't get worked up about it. From the beginning of know this person, I knew I was going to like him. He just had that "big brother" feel to him. In fact, if I had an older brother I'd want him to be like this person. And truthfully, I wouldn't mind him being my older brother. Because he's a cool guy. He's got a good head on his shoulders and he knows when to be fun and when to be serious. I feel comfortable knowing he's around if he's needed.

And I understand he's going through a rough spot in his life. And I respect him for not giving up. And I hope that he doesn't give up. And I hope that if there is something I can do, anything, that he won't be afraid to ask. That goes for anyone. Because I don't like to see anyone, especially my friends, struggle.

I hope this person will read this post. :)

How do you eat an entire elephant?
One plate at a time.

The Meaningfulness of a good friend.

Recently, I've felt that I am losing touch with the people I have grown up with. We're at the stage where everyone is really figuring out where we belong in this world and going our separate ways. Now I am lucky enough that the way I am headed has been paved so well for me. God truly is looking out for me and answering my prayers. Through this change, I have lost a lot of good friends, and I can tell. There are some people that I don't have in classes anymore so we just happen to exchange a glance and a friendly greeting in the hallway. There are some that I talk about hanging out with more often all the time, but we never seem to actually take the initiative to take time for each other. There are also the ones that don't even acknowledge my existence anymore (not like that friendship was much of a loss.) But there are also those people that through these changes have come even closer to me and I get to see more often and do things with. I'm liking having those two or three girls that I can talk to or that can talk to me when we need each other and I hope and pray everyday that our relationships will withstand the struggles of our lives and we will be able to be as close as we are today.
I'm posting this today because I have a friend that has been in quite the love triangle recently. I take pride in my ability to listen to others problems and hope that people recognize me as a person they can confide in with things that are distressing them. I also take pride in my ability to try and give responsible and respectable feedback and solutions to problems. But for some reason, this one even stumped me. I don't know why, I have never been so internally conflicted by someone else's problem, but I think that this one also had a personal effect on me because of how close our friendship is. All I guess I can do is pray that she makes the right decision and that everything turns out in the end.
At the same time, it makes me wonder how much i really know about things. Do I just ramble on about problems, or do I try and find the best and simplest solutions to things. I don't know. I feel like I have made some good personal choices in life (I've made some really horrible ones too, but I learned from them). I don't know. I guess I'm just going through that stage in life where I'm full of questions about life and about myself. But one thing I do know is that I wouldn't be where I am today without my friends.

Writers Block.

I'm having it. Badly. I have a paper on the central themes of The Great Gatsby due tomorrow and I've only started on it today. Sure, I had a four day weekend, but in true procrastinator fashion, I've saved it until now to do. So here I am, analyzing a stupid story filled with pompous rich snobs and how horribly messed up there lives are because they have no true care for anything but themselves and their money. See! I know the story! To bad I couldn't just write that as my essay and call it good. Nooooooo, it has to be 2-5 pages, double spaced covering the central themes of the Great Gatsby using textual support. Gah!

Tonight, I Cried.

But it was a good cry. It released tension, stress, and built up emotions. I hate crying, I really do. It causes people to look at you and ask whats wrong which just makes you start blubbering again like a little baby. And truthfully? I'm not an attractive cryer. Plus, when I do cry, it's usually about more than one thing or it's something that has been bothering me for quite sometime. Tonight, it was both.

What else happened tonight? We played (and lost to) Win-E-Mac in volleyball. Was that why I cried? Absolutely not. I was expecting the loss. They're second in the state right now. I was happy with just playing as hard as I could and that was that. But another thing that happened was drama. I'm not going to get into the detail because it is over and one should not dwell in the past. But this drama caused harsh words to be directed my way in a way that hurt me to the core. After the fact, of course, they apologized many a time and I of course accepted as should be done. Things can be said in the heat of the moment that aren't meant. Another cause of my crying has come from a ways back. I've always thought of myself as a leader. I try my hardest to do the best in everything I do and try to put the most optimistic spin on a situation. But tonight in the heat of the moment, doubts on my leadership skills were voiced (incorrectly I found out later, but at the time they sunk to the core.) I've played volleyball for over half of my life. I'm not the best player by far, but I do like to think that I give it my all and that I push the team to succeed. But recently I have heard a lot of people wonder if I should be volleyball captain and say that I don't deserve this spot and I take that very offensively. Now I know those people won't read this but I need to say it anyway: I have worked hard to get where I am and I am proud of my accomplishments. I probably wont go on and play competitive volleyball in college, so this is what I have left. I was voted captain by my peers and accepted this challenge knowing that I would be taking care of these girls. Also, those of you who doubt my leadership skills, please realize that I don't have to be the best athlete or even a good athlete. What these girls need is a motivator and someone that they can talk to which is exactly what I am and exactly who you are not. By saying these things, you hurt me and that is not okay. Learn to be the better person and try to look at things through different eyes. I think you will be surprised at what you see.

So many thoughts, so little time

Recently, I've had a lot of thoughts in class that I wanted to blog about, but somehow I always seem to forget them, or they aren't lengthy enough to use the time it usually takes me to post something. So here goes...

1. My dad keeps saying I am taking my senior year off because I'm only taking one AP class. One. That's more than a lot of people are taking. Plus an online class, which is more difficult I'd say than many other classes. Oh, and I'm probably going to do PSEO (I haven't told him cause he doesn't like that idea [which I find ironic]) which is harder than most of the other kids are doing. So I don't know what he's thinking.

2. Today I had my last volleyball tournament of my high school career (YES!).  I am excite about it for many reasons. First, I don't like tournaments. I get tired. Its a lot of playing when you don't get subbed out and have to play for eight hours. Second, this means I have my weekends back, which means I'll get to sleep in, hang out with my boyfriend, and other miscellaneous things that I wasn't able to do because I didn't have a Saturday. Finally, it means that volleyball season is half over. Now don't get me wrong, I love the sport, but...well see number three.

3. I love volleyball. I've been playing it now for eight years. And that's a lot when your only seventeen years old. But one thing I'm finding I don't like about it is that I have to deal with girls. Which I don't enjoy. Cause girls are catty, mean, and over analytical.  They take things the wrong way and are way too emotional. Now I understand that you can have a bad day and all, I have them occasionally, but I don't try and drag my teammates into them or bring them down. Also, are team this year isn't that good. There is a lot of inexperience, which is difficult for me to deal with. I'm not going to say that I play perfectly all the time, cause that is definitely far from the truth, but there are some girls that just erk me cause they just don't know what they are supposed to do. Hopefully if I play in college it wont be that way.

4. There is a SNL marathon on VH1 right now, and I am loving it.

5. I'm taking three art classes in school right now; 3-D art, Ceramics, and Graphic Design. It's a wonderful start to my day. I'm making a purple penta-pus (it's an octopus that only has five legs, go with it.) pinata in 3-D right now, and am working on photoshop for my graphic design class (which I am pro at by the way). But the accomplishment I am most proud of is my coil pot in ceramics. For those of you who are artistically challenged, it's where you roll strips of white clay out and put them together in this sort of fashion:

This is what most of my fellow classmates' pots looked like. Yes coiled dog turd. But mine? Oh, it's sweet. In fact, my teacher said that my coil pot was the most original he has seen since he's started teaching. I will be sure to post a picture of it sometime. Or you could just come over and see it in real life when I get it home :)

I have much more I could say, but I'll say it some other time. 

The Busy Bee I Have Become...

Senior year is supposed to be about fun. Going and cheering on the football team, getting away with things normal students wouldn't, leaving class early to do important senior business; all of which I have been doing. But I'm finding there is an evil side to all this.
For many years I have been involved in everything from sports to science fair...and everything in between. I wouldn't even want to list them all right now cause it would take FOREVER...but anyways, this year I've decided I don't really want to do all of those things. I want to have time for friends outside of high school (because I have many now). But so far, my plan hath failed me. Right now I'm playing volleyball, and taking classes. And that's pretty much it. Occasionally I have to do a shift at the convenience store, but not very often, and still I feel like I'm swamped. If someone were to try and follow me around, they'd probably give up from sheer exhaustion. And I don't understand it. Other years I've been able to do volleyball, science fair, yearbook, knowledge bowl, and drama (not to forget school) all at the same time and this year I wouldn't even consider doing anything else. Maybe it's because I'm a captain, maybe it's because I'm varsity, maybe it's because I've decided to have a lazy mentality about things and I just decide I don't want to put forth and energy to anything else. Whatever it is, it needs to stop. Soon. Cause I'm starting to freak myself out. That is all.

Anger, Frustration, Denial, Sadness

Yup. I'm feeling all of these at the moment. I know it's been almost a month since the last time I posted, so I'm sure you want to read about how glorious my senior year started, or the latest gossip on who knows what, but no. I'm posting about my anger toward this stupid online class.
Somewhere deep in my brain last year, i thought "hey, I'm smart. Let me take this online class about web design, cause I know nothing about the web and I really don't care that much about it." Stupid junior brain. It got me to believe this was what I really wanted. Well I started the class and right away hated it. There are so many stupid acronyms about stupid stuff that only stupid people would care about probably. And then the designing came.
Now I didn't have a problem with the designing part of it. It's time consuming, but actually kinda brainless once you get the hang of things. But then my stupid textbook told me to go onto the stupid internet and try out my stupid little website I made. And the stupid thing didn't work. I wasn't worried at first about it. I e-mailed my instructor and she told me what to do. Unfortunately THAT didn't work either, so I had to turn in my first assignment, blind to what it really looks like cause I'm not smart enough to figure it out on my own. Needless to say, this is my least favorite class at the moment cause it's causing me stress and I'm losing sleep because of it (and I like sleep...a lot.) So here I am, at 12:03 writing in my blog because my boyfriend already went to bed....and so did everyone else whose not struggling with this stupid class and I'm sitting here going, well I got it done, now she's going to give me an F on the stupid thing cause it's stupid. (Sorry about the amount of stupid in this post. I'm really lacking any kind of creativeness tonight, cause I just don't care right now.)
But anyway, I'm ready for this crap to be over. And that was only the first assignment. Lesson learned. No more online classes if that can be helped.

Laundry Thoughts

So I do a lot of thinking when I do laundry. It's kinda the time where my brain goes "you're doing something I don't have to be present for, so I'm going to wander aimlessly through things nobody cares about." So here we go...

As I was loading my laundry into the washer, I noticed something in the bottom of my hamper. Now usually I get excite cause most of the time it's something that I was like "oh no! Such-and-such is coming into my room and I don't want them to see this!" *throws into laundry basket* "problem solved, nobody wants to look through my dirty clothes!" or its something that fell out of my pocket and I have been missing it dearly. So I go into super excited mode and claw into the depths of my laundry hamper to find none other than...

that's right. A half used bottle of Crystal Rain scented Windex. Now here's the best part of this whole entire story. First, a question. What would be your first reaction to seeing this is the bottom of a hamper? I would guess many would think "Huh, wonder how this got here........." and drift to thoughts of the last time you used a bottle of Windex to clean anything, which would lead to thoughts of how dirty your house is. Well not me. My first thought? "I wonder what would happen if I put this in the washing machine....." and then I drifted off into mind pictures of windex in a washing machine (much of it ended in the washing machine blowing up. Why? I do not know...)

Then my thoughts were abruptly stopped by my OCD instincts. I want you to truthfully think about this. How dirty is a bottle of Windex? I mean seriously! When was the last time you washed a bottle of any cleaner? It's not like the bottle has some invisible force field from getting germs all over it. I mean the inside of the bottle is probably a germ-a-phobs haven, but the outside? Gross...

And that is my laundry thought of the day.

Like Shooting Stars...

I'm a geek. I like weird, science-y things. So when I was informed that there was going to be a meteor shower tomorrow night, I was literally giddy with excitement. Here are some nerd facts on the topic.

The August 2010 meteor shower is known by to the geek world as the Perseid Meteor Shower. It is called this because the point they appear from is in the Perseus constellation. Perseid means descendant of Perseus (told you i'm a geek :D). The meteor shower itself comes from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. This comet only passes by the Earth every 135-ish years. And guess what. It's about that time again. STRANGE FACT! Scientist are concerned that in the future, this comet may actually strike Earth, but we will be safe, considering they think it will be about 4000 years from now....

Carrying on with the now, experts are saying that the best times to be watching are sunset tonight and daybreak on the 13th. I personally will be watching them from the comfort of my hunting hill tomorrow night with some good friends.

One more really cool thing I was thinking about earlier was that August is a cool month this year. Somehow all of the stars aligned just right and we had a coronal mass ejection, and comet shower of massive proportions and will be having a close encounter with Mars. August, you rule!

The Real Meaning of Zombie Slaying

There was a reason I popped out of my bed ten minutes before my alarm went off on Sunday morning. No, it wasn't cause I was super excited for church (though I wasn't dreading it either), it was because yesterday was the day of the 2nd Annual Zombie Shoot! It was my first year and I was excited (and a little nervous) Let me give you an idea of the situation.

It was hot. I mean really, really hot. We get out to the target area and start getting everything set up. Clear brush here, set up zombie there, move the barrel, and use your "hand-gun" to make sure the shot was possible.  I'm game for setting things up. First of all, because I like knowing where things are, second, because I was then more comfortable with the area, and finally, cause it gave me time to calm down a little.

I'm not going to lie. I was nervous. I hadn't shot a gun in who knows how long and I had never ever used a semi-automatic gun, or an open site, or a magazine clip, all while running. Yeah, now you see why? But I was determined to do it., whatever it took.

Anyway, we get all set up and Dan (that's Steve's brother) gets me set up for a little practice. Thank God for him. I truthfully would have been uncomfortable if he wasn't there. But he let me try the Beretta Storm on Fido, the practice zombie. As soon as I touched that gun, it was like all my nerves where gone. I had forgotten the feeling of holding a rifle; empowering and comfortable. The open site was a little odd for me but I caught right on. Five shots in and I was ready for action.

Mike ran first. He did a great job. So great, in fact, that the nerves were back. I knew that I wasn't competing against him (we were in different classes) but I still had the butterflies. So people went. They shot. They conquered. A couple where "bitten". But for the most part, everyone was doing fine.  Then it was my turn. I took a deep breath, put on the vest, which was quite large on me, and took the gun. Again, the feeling of holding it calmed me. Another thing that helped was the people who came with me. I had Mike as my safety (which seriously made a differene) and Steve as my photo man (which also calmed me just knowing he was there). I got out to the jeep and got set up.

Mike said go and I was on my own. I raced through the first set of zombies. They were all really close, so I didn't aim much :) And then came the running. When I thought about it, I was nervous to be running with this gun. When I was out on the course, though, I didn't even think about it. So I raced to the next obstacle-the barrel.

Throughout the day there were many different ways this obstacle was approached. As you can see I chose the standing one, which seemed to work for me. Actually, it worked very well. I shot the first target.  No problem. Then I did this to the second one...

See that shot in the middle lower region of Achmed? Well, that's actually two shots. Done by me. And it wasn't a double tap. :)

After showing Achmed how I do, it was time for the dreaded magazine change. Now Dan, being the wonderful human being he is, had me load and unload the magazine during the practice. But, unfortunately during practice, it was a very slow thing for me to do. But somewhere in the adrenaline induce high i was in, I became a magazine loading machine. It was not even a difficult thing for me. So I carried on in the course.

I do want to note that all of this description I am giving you happened in less than two minutes, so don't think I was on the course for like a hour...

Section three of the zombie slaying was a breeze, but following it was another magazine change. Unfortunately, this one didn't go as cleanly. In my haste to reload the gun, I dropped the magazine and freaked myself out. I drew a blank. I didn't know if I could still use it or not. But Mike came up in the nick of time and wiped it off and handed it too me. See why I was glad he was there??

So I rampaged on. Apparently something in my brain decided that I was going to not move until all zombies in sight were dead. So, instead of moving on to the next checkpoint, I tool them out right then and there. Hey, it worked!

So the excitement was over. The 1:49 that it took felt like 15 minutes. But it also felt great. I had no idea how I had done, but I had done it and at that moment that was all that mattered. By the way, later I found out how I did;I had hit every target twice (like I was supposed to) and only hit outside of the targeted area four times. That, my friends, put me in second place in my class, behind Matt, who had run it the year before.

But truthfully, through all of this, it's not the point of this post. The thing I learned the most was that people can be amazing. I've hung out with Steve a bazillion times this summer, so I expected him to be supportive, even though this wasn't his forte. (Oh, and he aced the course with an AK-47. Yeah. I'm with him. haha.) But what I didn't expect was everything else that happened. I had only met Dan once and he acted like we've been family forever. And Mike. He was really supportive too. Truthfully I rather go shooting with those three than anyone else. And that's what I got out of the Zombie slaying experience. Not only guys I can trust to keep me safe, but guys who will support me in something I am unsure about and that will make sure I have fun no matter what. 

Summer

It's May. You can just feel the excitement in the air. The snow has melted and the flip flops are out of the dusty corners of your room. Plans are made for campfires and late night activites as summer draws closer. And then it is here. Summer. And everyone is excited to be out of class and being able to sleep in, not having to worry about homework or anything. But then the middle of summer is here. The time of summer I dread most. Because at this point, everyone is off doing things. Vacations, Jobs, and the like, and nobody has time for anything. Except me. So I can truthfully say to you on this day; I cannot wait for school to begin. I can't wait for the groans of homework and the books that I don't want to read. The misunderstanding of projects and the grueling arguments with teachers on who lost what assignment. I can't wait for the late football and volleyball nights and having to get up early in the morning to finish the homework that was due two days ago. Because even through all of that, I get to see my school friends on a daily basis, and my other friends on weekends. And that's what I've been missing all summer. I need it back. Soon.