update
this will be a quickie...i'm at mom's office waiting for them to finish fixing the basement. so what have i been doing? well, i can't really remember monday-don't know why-must have been too boring. or tuesday. but last wednesday i had nothing to do all day long. i had taken all my finals and was just bored out of my mind all day. so i kinda let loose and went a little crazy. i was hyper and actually talked through most of the day! i know--shocker. i hit a turkey--it took out my headlight. it must have been pretty funny to see my car driving down the road with the light hanging out the side and turkey feathers stuffed everywhere. i talked to Dan at the bank--got my job. then had to go in and talk to the manhattan track club guy. i wasn't in a happy mood so i probably came across a little rude. anyway, thursday was also pointless. although i do remember having to write a stupid paragraph about why i should pass English III in 10 minutes. the rest of the day was ok i guess. taellor and i played frisbee in the front of the school when we got too frustrated with the terrible people playing volleyball inside. it was hot. so when mrs. dowell (oh crap, i need to call her still) drove up with water, we totally took advantage. but when we were getting our drinks, the four sophomore girls took our frisbee spot. so we wandered around a little more, looked for a soccer ball-guess what, i think our school has deflated all the soccer balls we used to have (i think it's a conspiracy), saw the new science teacher (she looks crazy) and talked to the cool teachers (i'm a cool mom!). sorry about all the interruptions, i've been shut up in town all day and my mind is going crazy!!! so what else... i got burned during a water fight down at sand volleyball with the teachers. then me taellor and britney and mrs. dowell stayed down to enjoy the heat and water. we rode back to the school in the back of mrs. dowells jeep, superintendent saw us and was compelled to talk to us. got back to listen to mr. winter blab about "Friendship camp" mrs. dowell threw me my frisbee in the middle of that meeting. she missed and i had to go running to catch it. i wanna go to friendship camp--it sounds like soooo much fun!! (if you can't tell i'm being sarcastic, there's something wrong with you)
got home (finally) and pulled an all night FIFA with Jason, Diego, and Brennan. Only way it could have been funner was if Kris had come (ha ha ha) and if I had won a game. Next day kinda sucked--I had a headache from being up all night. At 6 or so we went out to see the sun rise. Then at 10 we went to Olsburg to play frisbee and soccer. Not such a good idea. My feet were burned from thursday and they hurt when i kicked the ball. Plus i didn't have enough energy to kick it anyway. When we got home, Brennan left followed shortly by Diego. Then I went and took a shower and fell into my bed. That was at 11 am or so. Mom woke me up at 8:45 for dinner. After that i went back to bed. Sunday i had to go in and help move the Bernina shop across town. Early. It was muggy but we finished before noon and went to lunch at Valentinos (eww, thanks a lot April) Monday and Tuesday we were in Greensburg visiting the grandparents. Then Wednesday I had to get up and go into town for practice. I finished that at about 9:30. In the morning. Then I hung out at mom's office till 11 when i thought we were going to lunch. Dad didn't show till 11:30. Mom couldn't leave till 1:30. We ate Chinese--probably not the best idea. Then I went back to mom's for hours!! I was bored as you can see from the above paragraph.
Thursday was my first day at work at the bank. It was ok. But when I got done, I had to turn around and go help babysit for FCCLA in Manhattan. We were there till 10:30. Today I had to get back up and go into work. I was so tired that I had trouble reading numbers when I was filing checks. Came home for lunch, then went back in to finish the day. Had to ask Dan for all this time off next week--feel kinda bad. Then came home. I was supposed to go back in to take the stuff to the yard sale at 6:30. I took a nap thinking "I'll just sleep a couple more minutes." My couple more minutes turned out to be an hour. So I rushed in to give them the clothes. They were only waiting on me before everyone went home. Tomorrow is the Olsburg Festival. Have to work the morning at the bank, then I'm done. Mom and Dad leave for the south early Sunday morning.
throw the caps, they're gone
so i'm blogging today because someone thinks I don't blog enough. Hey. I just blogged yesterday--you're impatient.
graduation was this weekend. Mom and I went to Marci's party saturday night. It was nothing special, just a lot of her family there. It was very crowded. Then on Sunday, we started the day out at Brooke's. She had awesome food and a picture wall. At 2:20 Jason and I left for Brennan's. We were supposed to pick up John at 2:30 in Olsburg. We were a little late, and sure enough, John calls at about 2:31 with a "Where are you? What time were you supposed to pick me up? and what time is it now?" He is so responsible according to Jason. Brennan's was packed with family--I tried the fruit and dip--it was good. I can assume the cheesecake bites were good since both Jason and John had at least 3 of them. We had to leave early so I could go to Hattie's. We stopped in Olsburg to drop the two of them off and I continued on to Hattie's alone. Her party had a ton of people there also. I talked to her in the kitchen for a while, then we went to the lodge and I talked to her grandmother. Her grandma loves me. Of course she loves a lot of people, but I think I'm special. It was so funny to watch her get all excited over Hattie's presents. She could hardly stand to watch Hattie carefully unwrap each one and take all that time to read the cards.
I left a little after 5 for home. Where I got dressed and had a small difficulty with my hair. It didn't want to stay up in my Japanese pin. I got a call from Diego saying that he was now at Brennan's and where were we? I informed him that we had been there earlier and that if he hadn't gone in to see that movie, he might have seen us. Then since I was escorting the seniors I got into a long discussion about why that was important and I had to sit up front the whole time in a pretty dress. Which was ok with me because I like my pretty dress and don't mind sitting quietly in the second row for a hour and a half.
I walked in with Jordan and had to keep his attention focused on me because I could tell he was a little nervous. Then we had to stand and watch all the seniors file in behind us. Do you know how hard it is to keep a fake smile on your face for 16 or so couples walking in to a slow graduation song? I can tell you it was extremely hard. I spent some time trying to get some of the seniors to laugh as they walked in. Dora and Becca were last in. They took there sweet time, too. Then we sat down for the long haul. The Valedictorian and Salutatorian speeches were shaky--there were a lot of people there to listen to Bill Snyder. Now that I could have stood to skip. I wasn't looking forward to it too much in the first place. He droned on forever. I had to entertain myself somehow. I found myself laughing because he was saying the same thing for the umpteenth time. "Now I'm gonna end with this...priorities...let me tell you a brief story...I wanna leave you with this thought...blah, blah, blah." When Bill Snyder says to you, "Let me tell you a brief story," say NO! and run in the opposite direction. His brief stories are ANYthing but brief.
when it was finally over I found myself being pushed out the door in a mad rush of people with Jordan close behind. Mom made some rude gestures at me that I will not repeat or explain here. Finally, we made it out, and I wandered over to talk to Diego. He said something about me looking nice and I said "I told you." He thinks I don't take compliments well. I thought it was rather funny considering our previous conversation. I'm going to speed through this next part because it is much of the same thing and quite boring actually. Went through the line, had to keep Marci from crying, saw Mrs. Klinker--our retired middle school science teacher, talked to some people, saw Lauren's burned legs, took some pictures, then left for Dana's party.
Dana's was crowded, I had some food (I've decided that I did a running poll of the food at each of the parties I went to and it was all pretty good. I had a glass of punch at Marci's, too). The best part was seeing her get Debbie Brighton's grad present. Debbie is an artist and she drew a picture of Dana's horse for her. Dana is probably one of the best horse people I know and that picture meant a lot to her since she had to sell some (some? all? not sure) of her horses this year.
After that I went home and hung out with Jason, Diego, and Kris. We played with a beach ball in Jason's room for a while. Then Jason and Kris played FIFA. I think Kris lost one game 7-0. Geez! I think even I have done better than that. At some point during a game Dad came down and told me I needed to go bed since I had school the next day. What a downer! School? Who needs it? I could have skipped all my finals and still managed A's in all my classes. But oh well. All in all, I had a great time.
Regionals
Ahhh, Regionals. Actually, before that, I had to practice with the seniors for graduation. We actually got done somewhere during 2nd hour, but neither Jordan or I wanted to go back to class. So we socialized in the gym for a while, then went to the office. Jordan complained about being hungry to his mom, who also happens to be the secretary. So she went back to the teacher's lounge and got us both a donut. It was sooo good! Man was I hungry. But then Ms. Milner came in and said that if she had to go to class, then I had to, too (I have her third hour anyway).
So we left for regionals at around 12:30 on Friday. Just like the last time we went to Beloit, we had to wait on Brooke. So we went into the commons and stretched out on the cold floor. Funny thing is, the weather was totally different from last time. The last time, it was pouring rain and cold and I think I got a little sick from that meet. This time it was so hot I was wishing for a little rain. Turns out it got over 100 degrees that day. Two hours crammed into a small, hot bus. I tried to sleep, I don't know if it worked. We got there and it was miserable from the start. Hanson had made some gatorade for us--only problem was, he made it way too strong! It was disgusting to drink. So I bought a water just to add some to my cup.
We started high jump with 16 people at 4'6". I think everyone made that height. Then the problems started. The guy running the track meet couldn't figure out how to run 4-alive. Amy Howell from Linn had a terrible time because she was frustrated with the system. We never knew when we were going to be called. There are three positions for high jump. I was in the third one round, then all of a sudden I wasn't even on the list. Then I jumped into the second without knowing it. I cleared 4'8" (barely, it bounced a little). Amy didn't. I was pretty mad about that, it was her senior year and she can clear 5'0". She should have been going to state. But that was it for her. They got all the way through that height and Kendle and another girl hadn't even jumped yet. So that meant Kendle had no chance at making that height--she had to jump them all in a row. I don't know that she would have cleared it anyway, but it still wasn't right. Then 4'10" comes. I cleared it everytime. And everytime, it just barely got knocked off. One jump I was so mad about missing it, I was stepping off really fast, and I fell onto this box next to the pit. Who puts a box next to the high jump mats, really? I don't really know what happened, I just kind of slipped on it stumbled and ended up on the ground. My ankle is scratched and bruised now. And the worst part is they didn't even move the box after I fell on it! Deters, one of the girls who qualified for state, always landed so far over on the mat that I thought she was going to knock herself out on the box. Anyway, it was a bunch of crap. It was like they just pulled some hick off the street and said, "Here, you run this."
Skip through most of the rest of the day. I did nothing for about 5 hours. Ashley Hoard was annoying everyone throughout the day, even Kammie. When an angel like Kammie thinks someone is annoying, it has to be true. At the end of the day, we were waiting on Hanson to get back with the results. So Brooke and I raced over to the mat and jumped on it. It was cooler than the air outside by then, so it felt really good. We ate at pizza hut after. Didn't leave Beloit till 9ish. On the bus ride home, my legs cramped up and just ached the whole way home. I had trouble shifting gears it hurt so bad.
When I got home, Brennan was at our house playing FIFA with Jason. I played. I lost. I didn't care. Jason played Brennan and got a fake goal. The ball didn't even go in the goal, it went outside the net and they counted it. It didn't matter though because Brennan was losing anyway. Sorry Brennan, Jason has a lot of free time to practice. Anyway, I went to bed at 1:30 or so.
wonderful
So apparently I'm stressed. I'm worried about the school, the summer, and track. Our school is losing several teachers due to the administration. They may say that this move was their choice, but really it doesn't help when the administration is pushing them into it. They aren't happy here because the administration makes it so hard for them to be so. We have a new science teacher with a physics certification. That is one good thing. But we are losing one of our English teachers. That messes with my first 3 hours of the day next year. I don't know if we will even have AP English next year. I'm not looking forward to speech. If we don't hire an English teacher that will teach AP, I need another AP class. AP Chemistry is third hour--when I have to take speech. The only other speech class is last hour when I have physics. AP History is during Spanish II. So I'm pretty much screwed with this schedule and teacher change. This summer I need to get a job, I need to find out if I'm going to San Jose in June, and I need to prepare for FCCLA Nationals in July. Plus I'm losing my dad to another state for the next year. We have Regional Track tomorrow in Beloit. I would really like to be able to clear 4'10" again and possibly qualify for State. That would be soo cool. But all this is coming at me at once. Jason says I just shouldn't worry about it. But it's not that easy. It's almost like I'm sub-consciously thinking about all this...
Summer
I love this picture. We were in a Shrine in Japan, I'm not sure which one or where exactly. The little placks are called Ema. You write your wishes on them and hang them around the tree. Then every morning a priest is supposed to come around and bless all the wishes so they come true. The woman standing there is my grandma. I didn't realize at first that she was in the picture, but now that I look at it, I like it better. If she weren't in there, I don't think it would look as real somehow.
Actually, Dad and I just hung a bunch of photos in my room that are from Japan. They are all different sizes and and placed around the path picture. This is one of the bigger ones (besides the path picture) because it really catches your eye when you look at the group as a whole.
I'm thinking that since I still haven't received an email from the guy in charge of the Pre-Departure Orientation for Japan, it means that I'm not going. This may be a good thing--I'm not sure I really want to be gone that much this summer. In July I'm going to FCCLA Nationals in Nashville. It will be fun but it is for an entire week and it costs a lot of money. Plus I'm not so sure that I want to be stuck on a bus for that long with all those crazy people. My only consolation will be Brooke, Robert, and Marci (maybe, sometimes she can really get on my nerves). Dad is moving down to Georgia the first week of June and Mom is going with him for the week. There won't be any room (or money) for me or Jason to tag along, so that means my only vacation will be with FCCLA. I don't think our family has had a true family vacation in a long time. But oh well. I think I'm feeling a wave of loneliness washing over me right now. Not so sure why. I'll enjoy the rest of the summer--I'm really looking forward to going to county fair
without all that jet lag.
band is boring
so i'm sitting here bored to tears in band. Not really but I couldn't help but write it. So this morning I had the usually trouble pulling myself out of bed. I left it until Mom came back and told me to get up. I kept hoping that maybe we had a freak snowstorm in May and couldn't go to school. Or that there was some holiday that I wasn't aware of that got us out of school. No such luck. English we had our final vocab test YEA! I don't have to learn that crap anymore. It took almost the whole hour because she wanted all the stupid people to have plenty of time to finish the test. No offense, but I was done with like 15 minutes to spare. I just don't know what to do with myself with that much free time in her class.
second hour I took my very last AR test ever. I got 100%--it was a very easy book to read and didn't take me very long at all. I was so happy and took my time walking down to the library to return it. When I got back, I decided to enjoy my new book--Spindle's End. I've read it so many times before that I have it basically memorized, although sometimes I get it confused with some of the author's other books. What an easy class that will be for the rest of the year.
chemistry we have a sub since Miss Milner is on senior sneak. We're just doing a review for our final the rest of this week so all I had to do was look up what we did earlier in the year and figure out the new problems. I'm going to enjoy the rest of the day (well, at least try) it seems I don't have much else going on today that I can remember.
Hurdles
"Let me explain...no, there is too much. Let me sum-up." We just watched The Princess Bride on TV last night. There's some of that randomness for you. Anyway, this post was spurred by Amber's comment on my last entry. She didn't understand what I meant by "3-step." Which is completely understandable, since that is a term only used by hurdlers.
So I'll have to explain. In a 100 meter hurdle race, there are 10 hurdles. Each hurdler has one leg designated as a lead leg and the other as a trail leg. (Some can switch lead legs, but I won't get into that.) So to jump a hurdle, you have to put one leg over first, and the other follows. If you've ever seen a race, you'll know that there is a lot of form to hurdles. You don't have to run a fast 100 meter dash to run a fast 100 meter hurdles. To get up to the first hurdle, I take 8 steps. If I take 9, I will come up to the hurdle with the wrong leg forward. The space in between each hurdle is the same as the way through. I take 5 steps in between so that I reach the next hurdle with the correct leg each time. And I only run in the 19 second range. The girls who run in the 16's and 17's are 3-stepping. The fewer steps you take between the hurdles, the faster you are. So if I could 3-step the space between the hurdles, I would be running them a lot faster and be placing in more meets. Also, the closer you are to the hurdle as you go over it, the faster you are. I almost drag my leg over the hurdle. That means I have pretty good form. But if I get just a little lower, I tend to hit my knee and ankle on my trail leg, which slows me down not only on that hurdle, but on the ones after because I'm trying not to hurt myself any more than I already had. You don't want to glide over the hurdles in the 100, you want to snap your lead and trail legs down to the ground as fast as possible. Gliding will lose time. (That is different from the 300 hurdles, where you want to glide to cover more space since the hurdles are placed farther apart.) That is mostly what it takes to run a 100 meter hurdle race.
League
yesterday was my league track meet. It was so crazy! High jump started at 4'6" and I was worried I wouldn't do too well. I cleared 4'6" easily on the first jump. 4'8" came around--Amy Howell didn't clear any of 4'8", and I...well...I missed...the first time. The second time, I cleared it! 4'10" was a beautiful jump--cleared the first time without even coming close to the bar. I got off the mat saying, "Oh my God!" The guy holding the bar just looked at me like I was crazy. I ran up to Mom and said, "How the HELL did I CLEAR that?!" It was great. Tied for 3rd with Brianna Bruna. Take that Teeter--who you sending to Regionals now? Linn Coach, now do you want to take a jump away from me? Amy Howell said she would personally deliver the message that the McVay girl cleared 4'10" easily to her coach.
100 hurdles, I improved my time for this year--19.06. Good I guess, but I was a little disappointed because I thought maybe I'd break 19.
6 hundredths away! If I could just 3-step, I would be right up there with them. Once again, I died in the 300 hurdles. Oh well. That didn't really bother me.
does everything start today, or end
so this bolg truely goes with my overall title. Today is possibly my last track meet. Or maybe I will go to Regionals. I don't know. I will only make it to Regionals if I can jump 4'8" today. Last year I was jumping 4'8" a lot, but I got screwed over by Mr. Teeter. He has a one track mind that never included me in his talented group. Even though I had totally out jumped Kendle almost the whole year. Nothing against her--it wasn't her fault she went to Regionals on one 4'8" jump (and didn't do too well, I might add). But now Teeter is gone and it is all up to me. So far I haven't been able to clear 4'8" this year for some reason. Kendle is once again going to Regionals because she cleared that height once. Today is windy and not exactly prime jumping weather. So I have to really concentrate on this height if I want to go to Regionals. But then there is the fact that if I don't clear it, I will be officially done with track for the year. I can completely concentrate on my numerous English finals coming up, and I don't have to worry about getting back to the high school on time for track practice. It will symbolize a close to my junior year of high school.
and then I will be a senior. I'm not sure what to expect for next year. Chances are that I will be NHS president, FCCLA officer, heavily laden with other resposibilities. Plus I will have to start making decisions on where I want to go to college, what I want to do, how far away from my family I want to be. This summer, Mom, Taellor, Tami and I are going up to visit Macalester in St. Paul, Minnesota. Great looking college, and I would love to go there if money weren't a problem. And then the fact that my parents will be on the opposite side of the country. That is one long drive to get there for Christmas break. I won't be able to come home like Jason does to do his laundry. Or if a relative is visiting, or anything. But do I want to limit myself to going to a Georgia college when that may not be the best place for me? UGA is also a great place, but do I want to go there?
a lot of questions and not a lot of answers here.
a path
I took this picture in the Inner Garden of the Meiji Jingu Shrine in Harajuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan. It has been the background on my computer for the past few weeks. It seems to symbolize something more than just a path through the grass. Maybe for me it means a path through to the unknown. When I was there, I never walked that path. I took the picture as I was walking another way. The one poet I remember studying in middle school English was Robert Frost. "I took the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference..." Looking at this now makes me think maybe I didn't explore all my options before choosing my path. Or that in some way I'm holding myself back.
This Day and Age
I've been listening to This Day and Age for the last hour and I plan on listening to it for the rest of this hour. It seems like it's one of those days where I just want to listen to my music and not be bothered by anyone. It's not anything against anyone in particular, I just want some "me time." So This Day and Age has a great sound I like. It's mellow, but it's not acoustic. Then theres those songs where they're right on the edge of the soft rock category that I like. And that makes them that much better.
So I've got nothing in particular to blog about, just some more ramblings. Last night was our band concert. We did awesome, although my favorite song (the Irish tune) could have gone a whole lot better. We got a standing ovation at the end and we played Soul Bossa Nova for an encore (for all you spell-checkers out there, I'm really not sure about how I spelled half the words in here, so I don't want to know if they're wrong). (Oh, that is how you spell Wednesday... thanks spell check...) Taellor sang twice and was, of course, good. Her second song was a dedication to a friend of her mother's and Jessie's mother's. It was sad. I have to say the choir was still a let down after the band opened as always. Franzi, our German exchange student, told me how embarrased she was about singing their last song (Hey, Big Spender). It was also quite gross to watch Jam motioning obscene things to her boyfriend during that song, yuck!!
We've got a track meet today at Riley that I'm not looking forward to. I have this feeling that I'm going to suck like I did at Beloit. Plus Riley can't run a track meet worth a crap! I gotta go to lunch now.
Beloit
so friday we had a track meet at Beloit. I got to the school a little before 7:30. It was dreary outside and I wasn't looking forward to running. I slept the whole way there. It was so cold outside and raining, so Kendle and I went to the bathroom to put on our underarmor. Then we went to the high jump in pouring rain. We warmed up a little and waited in the rain for the guy to start. Kendle and I were 3rd and 4th, and every time we jumped, we landed unhappy on the wet mats. Both of us cleared everything until 4'8". My last jump at 4'8" was pretty good--I cleared it enough to be able to look back and watch my feet take it off.
After that, I found myself running to the start of the hurdles. It had stopped raining for the time, and I thought I was ready.
Runners to you marks... Get Set... And the gun goes off. I pull out of the blocks and get almost to the first hurdle when I realize that my steps are way off. So I slow down and adjust and jump over it with horrible form. The rest were ok, but I hit my knee on about three. This is the same knee that I managed to hit in practice and bruise badly two days before. So when I finish well behind everyone else, I hop off in pain and frustration. 20.23--barely faster than my time on the grass track. So if I hadn't messed up the start and hit those hurdles, I probably would have managed to improve my PR time for this year. That just pisses me off.
The rest of the day, Brooke and I walked around the track. It rained every once in a while, but I didn't really care. As the 300 hurdles got closer, it started to pour rain again. Bailey and I were so cold and miserable. We were contemplating false starting just to get out of it. The rain was coming down so hard that it was ridiculous for the track meet to keep going. I was so cold in my race that I was shivering while I was running. I hit my knee again. 7th in my heat--no surprise--I'm slow and not too motivated for that race anway. No one is there with my time, so I wait around to see the sheet before it goes up to the announcer. I find out that no one even bothered to record my time! That is a bunch of crap. If I had known they weren't going to record the 7th place time, I wouldn't have run the stupid race to begin with! I am not very happy with the people in charge of the meet.
waiting
waiting for the word
for that extra little shove that gets me going
for someone to tell me
waiting for the day
for the end of this neverending cycle
and the start of something new
waiting for you
for a decision that makes up your mind
and for you to do something concrete
