Last update until after Idaho

Well, the days since my last post have been relatively full and exciting.
First, on Saturday, well... first I should set the mood.
I was grumpy. Very, very grumpy. I had been in a bad mood all day and then Mother started getting after me to clean my room and hang up my clothes, and then I realized that she had hung up my pants on the small hangers instead of the large hangers, and she moved my long-sleeved shirts to the other side of the closet, and since I'm very particular about my closet organization, that really did not thrill me. So I got even grouchier.

All day, I had been looking forward to around 7:00, because I was going to phone my Aussie, so just before 7, I asked my dad if I could tie up the phone for a couple hours and he asked me to wait until after 7 because he was expecting a call. I semi-cheerfully cooperated, and then at 7, the doorbell rang. He hollered at me to get it. Then it rang again. And again. I thought it was my brother, so I fired the door open very irritated, and there are 13 people on the doorstep shouting "Surprise!"

So basically, my mother rigged up a surprise birthday party for me. There were a ton of my church friends there, plus one junior high friend and one friend from way back in elementary school who I've been friends with most of my life. I didn't really know what to do - I just left them outside, ingesting what was going on, until my mom opened the door and let them in. So we all traipsed downstairs and hugn out for a few hours.

It was so cool though - I've never had a surprise party before. It was exciting for me to have people like Graham there, who I had barely known before the missions trip, and realize that I really did make friends on the trip. And my kung-fu card from Kyle, and having Becky and Joanna, who I don't see nearly as much as I'd like to... anyway, it was a good time. I made sure to thank my mumsy and apologize for being so grumpy.

Then the next day, Kyle brought me a present which he didn't on Saturday because the invitation said no presents (grr... mother!) It was... a Canada. Smarty-pants. And a little calendar and a cheesecake recipe from his mother - I feel very special. His mother gave me a birthday present. Haha.

Later that day was Ellie's birthday party, which was fun. I gave the youth group gift to Natalie and was very excited to do so. Ellie's such a cutie pie! Hey Amy, what happened to the picture CD? Just thought of that now...

And then that night, Mom took me to Capital Ex (almost wrote K-Days there... Cap. Ex is a pretty dumb name though) to see Chantal Kreviazuk. She's a singer, she was playing at EdFest, and since I've liked her for a while and entry to Capital Ex and the show was only $10, I begged to go. It was actually really amazing - she can really play the piano - I mean, she just killed the thing. It was incredible. And then to look out and see the sunset and the rides all lit up by neon lights, and then around 11, fireworks starting... I can't even describe the beauty of it. It looked like something out of a movie. It was incredible.

And then the past few days have just been blah, getting ready to leave for potato country (Idaho) in the morning. Goody. I'm actually really excited to go shopping in the American stores though, and we're going to an amusement park and staying at a lake, so it should be a relatively good time. Anyway, that's all for now, talk to you when I get back!

~~~

"mumble mumble mumble."

P.S. Amy, women don't share their men. It just doesn't happen. That book really is a fantasy novel...

Late night phone calls = <3

So I recently discovered that my phone plan, which includes unlimited Canada/ US calling, also includes 1000 free minutes basically anywhere in the world. I have this friend that I met a year ago. He lives in Australia. All year, we've been emailing and arranging msn conversations and all that complicated stuff, while also missing each other like mad and wishing we could see or at least talk to one another. And then I figured out that we can!

So yesterday, I sent him an email telling him about the phone plan and how theoretically, I could call him if he was interested, and then I periodically checked my email all afternoon/ evening for a response. I checked it on a whim at about 10 pm, just before i was planning to head in the bed-type direction, and there he was! So i quickly talked to him and he gave me his number and i called him right then and we ended up talking until after midnight. My parents were relatively annoyed... oops... but it was the most amazing thing to talk to him again and hear his lovely accent! Somehow I didn't really think we'd basically ever talk again unless we visited each other's country, so this for me was sooo exciting and pretty much made my... well, it would have made my week if my week hadn't started in Costa Rica. But it was still awesome.

Anyway, that's the most exciting thing to happen to me since I got home.

~~~

"That guy's a big bloke!"

Costa Rica + Sweet 16!

Hey everybody!
Well, I'm home from Costa Rica now and I had an absolutely amazing time. I couldn't even begin to tell you how everything was, but it was incredible. The biggest realization I had was I guess just the power, greatness and love of God, which was probably the point of the trip anyway. But I mean, there was more to it than that... rice and beans, quotes, falling in fountains... sigh. Maybe what I'll do for the next few days is post a story about the trip every day.

It was great though, and I stayed up until 2 last night yakking about it. Then I slept until 12, which is completely out of the ordinary for me! Even more out of the ordinary is that I'm still tired, but I suppose that can be excused, because before I went to bed, in a period of 41 hours, I only slept for 3-4 of them.

And today is my birthday! I'm 16, still without a learners licence, but very excited for the new year of my life. And honestly, there's no better way to start it than having just come from the greatest trip of my life. In fact, I sort of miss the trip already. It's weird to wake up on my own, without Amy in the same room and noises of 7 other girls getting ready. And to be sitting here, on the computer, all alone without someone dibsing it after me or Graham sitting behind me with his guitar... it's just different. I got so used to all these people that it doesn't feel right without them, and I really do feel like we're all a family now. I love you all!

So now, to choose a quote to end the post... this shall be difficult.


~~~

"On the plus side, Imodium is delicious."

Sleep

(yeah, I know I haven't posted in ages. So shoot me.)

I am of the opinion that you sleep better if you know you don't have to get up. I've been having great, wonderful, long sleeps since school let out. I wake up in my own time, kind of drift into consciousness rather than being rudely shoved into wakefulness by the incessant screaming of an alarm clock. It's quite peaceful and I enjoy it, because I know that it doesn't matter when I get up anyway.

But then this morning, I had to get up at 9 because I had to babysit at 10. I woke up at 7, tossed and turned for a while, went back to sleep, woke up at 7:45, kind of drifted off until 8:15, and then stayed there in a semiconscious, not awake, not asleep state until quarter to 9, at which point I decided it was pointless and I might as well just get up.

So I had a crummy sleep for the last couple hours, because I knew my sleep would be ending soon. Turned out that my babysitting job got cancelled anyway, but the point is that you sleep better when you're guaranteed sleep. When you're under pressure to sleep; when you know that you won't be able to sleep past a certain time, you end up not sleeping at all.

That's got to be one of the more pointless posts I've ever made. Humph.

~~~

"that's... not my name."

I hate group work

No, that's not strong enough. I loathe it, I detest it, I despise it, I... I'm about to collapse. I don't even get it. This has happened before, where I'm in a group that doesn't pull their weight and I do most of the work. I don't mind - I even set myself up for it. I offer to do most of the work because I know I'll do it right. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but the truth is that I know the grammar rules, I have a wide vocabulary (at least when I'm writing,) and generally, I trust myself to do a good job. But now, the project is due tomorrow, one girl hasn't sent me a thing, and I don't even know. I think this is more the straw that broke the camel's back. It's all weighing down, it's crunch time, and only the strong ones can handle it. It just remains to be seen whether or not I can.

~~~

"That's it - we're giving you to the paper."

Every end brings a beginning...

... Canadian Idol starts tonight! I'm excited; I usually like it better than American. (plus there's always the added possibility that the winner will be from here! Haha.)

So yeah, can't wait to watch.

~~~

Cross-multiplying is basically the best thing ever.

The week the world ends

Maybe a little dramatic, but it really does feel like everything's ending this week. We had the last Sunday School today in which the youth ran a penny carnival for all the young 'uns... that was definitely really fun. Sunday School ending doesn't have much of an effect on me, being that we quizzers don't really go to Sunday School, but it was still a very large measure of finality.

My last Tuesday night youth until next year is on Tuesday (well, no duh erin... no, the last Tuesday night youth is on Wednesday...) but yeah, anyway, Bible study is ending which is... well, disappointing, to say the least. It's done so much for me, every Tuesday I leave feeling so empowered and then I start to screw up and trip and stumble, and I hit bottom late on Monday or Tuesday morning, just in time to be built up again that night. I have no idea what I'll do without that, but I guess I'll manage. Somehow.

But even before that, Tuesday afternoon is my last piano lesson. Ever. I'm quitting after my exam (in 10 days... oh gosh...) but yeah. I did some calculations last night, and I've taken piano for 9 years now. That means 9 Christmas recitals, 9 pizza parties (although I didn't make it to all of them,) 18 formal recitals, and countless spring recitals, Halloween recitals, and exam recitals.

More than that, it means that at 36 lessons a year, I've had 324 lessons, spent 324 weeks practicing my butt off (well, most of those weeks I actually worked hard... hehe) to impress the teacher. My first 3 years of lessons I had 30 minute classes; the next 4 years were 45 minutes, and the past 2 years have been 60 minute lessons, so that makes a grand total over the years of 14 040 minutes spent in piano lessons. That converts to 234 hours, or 9.75 days, spent IN the lesson. This is not taking into account time spent practicing or at recitals.
That's a giant chunk of time. I mean, think about it. I can't believe it, I can't believe I'm just stopping now... but I am, and I mean, I'll still play for fun and stuff, but yeah, it just seems so huge all spelled out like that.

So yeah, that's piano, and then the last Friday night youth is on Saturday... (oh! gotcha there, didn't I! no, it's on Friday, of course.) I know it will definitely be a ton of fun, but still, after that... it's over, just like that, and I will go from seeing my wonderful youth friends 3 times a week to once a week, and that will stink, considering that they're the best friends I have (most of them are, anyways... no comment on the rest.)

And yeah. The world ends this week and I don't know what I'll do with myself after. I've heard twiddling thumbs is fun.

~~~

"It says... non... perfumed..."


EDIT just for Amy: If this is the week the world ends, I suppose you could say... I'm "At World's End?"