Dearest Sam

Here's a quick list of actual examples of what NOT to put on your resume when applying for a job thanks to careerbuilder.com:
* Candidate put God down as a reference (no phone number).
* Candidate explained a gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for three months.
* Candidate claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings.
* Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.
I have not posted in the longest time... lots has happened and I'm going to stick with bullet points so I don't have to worry about fluency and my brain can be dumped.

• I don't really like Jake anymore at all. But the sad thing is is that we aren't really even friends anymore. We don't ever talk and he doesn't really sit at our lunch table for very long. He leaves early with Jon. Jon has stopped talking to me altogether for reasons unknown. It's been about 3 or 4 weeks since he decided to stop acknowledging my existence and it's really weird. We went from talking ALL the time to now he won't even look at me or say hi back when I say hi to him. Nick and I don't really talk either since he unloaded on me. And the sad thing is that I was so excited to be friends with all of them and I worked really hard for over half the year and I lost it all in a short couple of weeks. I woke up from my nap today and I just felt really sad about it.

Today I successfully donated blood in 8 minutes! Last time I donated blood I was dehydrated and it took me 40 minutes to not get enough blood in the bag to donate so they had to throw it away. This time I drank 72 oz of water all throughout the day. The nurses were super nice and I got a blue arm wrap. Now I am pretty tired and easily put out of breath but it is still exciting and worth it nontheless. Do you donate blood? Or is that not your thing?

After donating blood I went to Trappers Sushi with my dad and it was super delicious! I ate waay to much though and had an intesnse food baby and the post-binge snoozies. I took a 3 hour nap when I got home.

• 
  I have decided to take a break year in between highschool and college. I want to go and stay with my aunt and uncle in Utah so I can get in state tuition for University of Utah and earn money for college and possibly other things ;) I will be able to drive and hopefully get my own car and a job. I still have to talk it over with my parents (which will not be happening for a while) and then my aunt and uncle.

• I wrote you a letter during class the other day but it was so ugly it got deep 6'd. My handwriting, if not decorative, has been deteriorating. One of the most important things to tell you was if you wanted to set a goal date to go for coffee. How's the friday after spring break. I don't get back from Hawaii till 6 am on wednesday the week back. Cutter's point is really good, so is starbucks. Let me know what works :)

• This past weekend there was a youth conference I went to at Faith Baptist called Ignition. It was extremely fun and even though I don't really agree with all their doctrine I still really loved it. Hanging out with Heather and all the bible study friends was great.

• Speaking of hanging out with Heather, last Wednesday Ms.Lloyd was not here (her sister died) and we had Mama G as our sub. There was also a multi school band competitiong in the PAC so in stage tech we had nothing to do but sit and wait with all the band geeks in the lobby. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we weren't doing anything and being stuck inside was driving us crazy. All of the sudden Heather said "Let's leave." And I was all for it so we picked up our back packs and walked out the front door of the lobby just after attendence was taken so we weren't even missed. We walked to her house over by Mattson because she doesn't usually drive her car to school because she lives so close. Then we hopped in her car and got gas and then went over to Cutter's Point for coffee/frappuccinos and it was so much fun! Obviously we are a tad nerdy and goody goody because we couldn't get over the fact that we were so rebel for skipping school. It was nice to get out because at that time I was grounded. I texted my mom telling her that Heather was going to give me a ride home from school. I still haven't told her and I don't think I will for a long time. I think that highschool is the time to have some safe fun and being "sneaky" (not really that sneaky seeing as that was the first time I had ever legitimately skipped school and I've never snuck out of the house.) It was good. And I didn't get in trouble at all :)

• I am starting to compile my Spring and Summer music collections. In sewing we have a class "DJ" for the days we sew. This kid named Tanner got to pick the music the other day and he typed in Matt and Kim into pandora and all the music was uber wonderful! My favorite is something good can work by Two Door Cinema Club. Florence and the Machine is good as well as Phoenix and Mumford and Sons and Matt and Kim.

• This summer we should take a trip into seattle via train!
  Lent began March 9th. I don't even know if I have officially told you yet but I decided to give up chocolate for the 40 days. It has been going pretty good. At first I started having dreams where I would start eating chocolate and then halfway through chewing remember that it was taboo and I would spit it out. Even my Psyche is all for this sacrifice :)

• Recently I got on a documentary kick. I watched one on Meth, North Korea, "War Made Easy", Stress, Steroids, The science behind Evil, one on M13 the gang. I cannot think of anymore at the moment. I did find the one you were talking about last time, "The Corporate Side of Birthing" and am going to watch it after I finish this post. I'll tell you all about it :)
  
• Stephanie Bush's Dad died today. It was really sad and I think that this will be my first funeral.

• I am going to try to post everyday from Hawaii, so sorry in advance for the mini monopolation... well, that's only if you don't post in between which you should do.
  Well I do believe that is all. I hope you have a great rest of your week and I hope to hear from you soon!
  Lot's o love (Soon to be from Hawaii)

Jessica

Just a Quick Thought

My seminary teacher told us a story one morning about him and his brothers and crackerjacks. He was selling chocolates for a boyscout fundraiser and they cost about 25 cents. Well he lived near a drugstore that sold crackerjacks for 10 cents. He really wanted some and so did his brothers. They thought up an ingenious plan: when they got to the next persons house they would simply raise the price of the chocolate by 10 cents and then sweep off the profits and spend it on some crackerjacks. They did just that. They told the lady that now the chocolates were 35 cents. She, in passing, made a comment about remembering that they were less last year, but she trusted them. The boys then promptly marched themselves over to the drugstore where they proceeded to, a little less than, enjoy their crackerjacks. They broke her trust. Nearly 50 years later what he had done that summers day still stuck with him and nearly 50 years later he was given the opportunity, through a business trip, to right his wrong; An oppourtunity he gratefully took.

Do you ever have times when you do things that stick in your mind? Like something that you said or did to another person, or a way that you acted, that just stuck with you. And continued to nag at you the entire day until you did something about it. What you did or said didn't even have to be a big deal, they might not have even noticed it but you did?

That happened to me today. During lunch Anisha wanted to do some filming for Conk TV at lunch and she asked me to go with her. I don't care about Stefano, I don't watch American Idol and I didn't really want to have to bother. But of course I said yes. We couldn't find any upperclassmen who were brave enough to be on smartboards across campus, and then I spotted them: a group of giggling, giddy, classic jock/prep sky-high (Varsity volleyball players that had at least 6 inches on me) freshmen. I pointed them out to Anisha, promising that they would never miss out on the opportunity to follow the stereotype.

So she asked them. Lauren Hackett, Jake's "little" sister was in the threesome and I actually think that she's super pretty and her family rocks. I wasn't very nice and was actually pretty snippy and sarcastic. The entire day I thought about how I wanted to be friends with everybody and try to be the nicest person I could all the time and be known for being nice and safe and consistent and positive; All I could think about was how bad of a person I showed myself off to be.

It stuck with me all day. Through the rest of APLaC, into sewing, past stage tech, persisting through sewing club and finally throughout Set building until I finally got to a computer and had the chance to send her a short little apology on facebook. She probably didn't even really care enough to notice and it's not like we're friends or anything. But that makes it all the worse because those little glimpses, unlike a friend, is all they see. My note went a little like this:

Hey, I just wanted to apologize for being rude at lunch today.

I didn't mean to be so sarcastic and snippy and even

though I don't know you very well I still feel kind of bad.

So I'm sorry and I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow!

For a split second I was worried that she'd think I was a creep or something but then I realized
"Who cares!?"

At this point in life I care more about my mental and emotional well being than some other stranger's opinion of me. And if she thinks I'm crazy for apologizing, then looks like we weren't meant to be friends anyways and life will go on :) And I will feel better about myself for doing it.

And besides. There's only one opinion that really matters anyways and he doesn't frown upon apologies ;)

Dearest Sam

Bullet points are so wonderful so I'm going to use some here!

Coffee has been wonderful! I have recently discovered it and it is a magical and delicious substance! And I really want to check out local coffee joints. Specifically, Zola's Coffee. Jake's mom Diane and some of her family members have a band called Hired Help and they sing at Zola's sometimes and I really want to go and hear them. Diane Whale Hackett is such an amazing woman and I think she is awesome and I really want to be her friend. I doubt that's going to go very far, but I have some tricks up my sleeve. She made Tolo a million times easier and she has always been so nice to me in general. Hired Help is singing on March 25th and 26th from 7-9 pm. We should go get dinner there :) And we can work on planning our road trip in greater detail.

• Nick Santiago and I have been hanging out a lot more lately. I am worried that he may think that I like him, which I don't. But either way, we went on another walk together today. This time, instead of walking our usual route (From my house to High Point, around that neighborhood, out back to the main road, down to Savannah, through that neighborhood out to the back road with the church on it. Then down that street back to the main road that goes towards the FOSS roundabout, then back to my house.) we went to Timberlane and went to his old house. At first it was really hard for me to change the route and be okay with going a different way, but things ended up being fine. It was right next to Cedar Valley Elementary School. When we walked up to it the new owner was working in the yard. Being the social butterfly Nick is he struck up a conversation and we ended up getting invited in to see what the man had done to the house. He originally planned to only live there for 2 years, flip the house and then sell it. Bummer for him because the market soon plunged and he's been there for the past 6 years. He plans on moving to Alabama soon and opening his own hot yoga joint there with his ex-girlfriend who is still his business partner. He was an older man and at first I thought he seemed super nice, but once in his house I was getting some super creepy vibes and ended up being extremely grateful that Nick was there. The whole time something was telling me to run. It was like fight or flight and I was feeling the flight urge bad. But everyone walked away without anything happening and that was good. It was fun to see Nick's old house and the man's decorating style.


• Acne, this past week, has waged war on my face. It has been an intricate schedule of drying Acne cream, Lotion for the dry skin, Aloe vera for the irritated skin and waiting. Lots of courage has gone towards getting up every morning and going to school. At first it was just annoying and painful, but by the end of the week I was starting to feel truely ugly and I didn't like what I looked like. One day a weird orangey rash broke out on my face where I had been putting the Acne cream. My face hurt because new zits would break out during the day and they were deep. So my confidence took a hit and I have a Dermatologist appointment on tuesday. Which was a miracle actually! Before appointments would have to be scheduled 3 months out. My mom called, expecting more of the same, but it turned out that she had decided to stop accepting new patients and our appointment was scheduled less than a week out! I'm very excited :)
• ROCK AND WORSHIP ROADSHOW!!! It was so unbelievably perfect and I loved every second of it. We were supposed to leave from Faith Baptist church at 4. My mom and I were fighting and things were pretty crappy. I almost decided to scratch the whole concert thing and just stay home I was so frusterated. However, I told myself that I would regret not going and that it could end up being really good and just what I needed. I am so glad that I went becuase it was exactally what I needed. The lyrics were so powerful and perfect. The main minister man even gave a 15 minute mini sermon about how we're all beautiful all the time. That GOD already loves us more than we can imagine and that when we look in the mirror and hate what we see it breaks GODS heart because we are his masterpeices and he loves what he made and he is proud of each of us and wants us to feel the same about his work and what he has spent so much time and love creating.
  
• Today I decided that I didn't want to go to church at all. So I texted Heather at 7 this morning that I wasn't going to be able to make it this morning and then I went back to sleep until noon! And it was wonderful. It was sunny and wonderful and then, when 1 rolled around, I didn't go to my church either. And you know what? It felt good.

• Therapist: I cannot tell you how much I love my therapist! She is such a wonderful lady and I really think that she has helped me through what has been the hardest year of my life so far. Teenager years are already hard as it is and then when you add religious issues and confidence and crappy friends and trying to sort out weird emotions that you've never felt before... it can get pretty crazy. And I can tell her anything and get advice from her and that's her job! To give advice and to help you think about issues in a different way than you normally would and give techniques on how to handle different problems and reccomend things like mood stabilizers and such. (Which, by the way, SAM-e has been really great.) I just really enjoy getting to talk to her and bringing my problems to her for her opinion on them.

My life is awesome and I just have been really happy lately and I realized that I needed to post about it because not good times are probably going to be coming. Bad times are scary but this time I will be prepared.

Storytime! + some other stuff...

I'm only going to briefly go over my day today, then go on to tell you a fun story that I hope will make your heart smile.

So today, Jessica and I began the day discussing my last post, my last night, and the day to come. I decided that, although I didn't feel like today would be a fantastic day, I would face it with the most positive attitude I could manage. Apparently, some force decided to challenge that concept, and my day from there began to tear at the seams. Nothing incredibly bad, but I had woken up with a terribly sore throat, which I thought was my cold resurfacing for a moment. As the day went on, my body felt like death-- my muscles ached like crazy all over (even my mouth muscles!) and my skin became extremely sensitive, and I got hot and cold *que Katy Perry song* quickly. I went home by 5th period, making myself stay till art so I could see what I needed to do for that class. It seems I have come down with the Flu.

After that my day became a typical sick-day day. I slept, and got a nice warm heating pad, drank water, and laid in bed watching TV. I'm hoping it's only a 24 hour thing and I'll be good as new tomorrow, if not, well, it at least gives me time to do homework! Anyways, now to the better story!

Long long ago (a.k.a. last summer) my dear friend Lindsey and I went on a walk at my dads on this trail that leads through a forest. The trail winds down the hill I live on and behind all of the houses all the way down to the park. As we walked down the trail suddenly we heard a magnificent voice singing, accompanied by an acoustic guitar; it was a real person, known only because he, yes he, would sometimes stop, correct a wrong chord and continue on. They sounded something like Jack Johnson in teenage form.

When I got home I ran to my stepmom, relaying the story and, since I knew which house it was, she was able to tell who it was. A boy that used to go to their bus stop when he was younger. She said she'd seen him before, but briefly and only the back of his head. Supposedly, he has lovely blonde hair.

That was all I knew for quite some time, until just the other day. I got to my dads house and my stepbrother began talking about a girl in his science class. Janice came quickly in saying for Garrett to not talk about it until she got back from picking up pizza. Immediately I squealed and said "Garrett, oh my goodness, do you have a girlfriend???" Seeing as he didn't deny it, I proceeded to tease him, as a sister's job deems necessary. He confessed later that no, he likes another girl more (a story which I intend to keep discussing with him, cause, that's exciting news!)

Once Janice got back she revealed that the story, in fact, had to do with me. It turns out that girl in his class, was mystery-singing-guy's little sister!!! After I decided that I would marry this guy, I decided I should probably do some covert spying first. I need to find a first name, for starters (but now I know a last) and find out what this guy looks like. Until then, who knows, he could like this:

Or this!


Or possibly this....


Look at that gorgeous hair!

Well, that was my exciting story. I hope you enjoyed!

Love, love, love forever!

Sam

Dear Jess,

My philosophical words of the day: 'Never underestimate the thereputic power of a good bath.'

That sentence will have more relevance as the post unfolds itself, but right now, I feel like I should begin with a statement of the two reasons why I haven't posted. 1-General laziness. 2- I like to have pictures on my posts...and my camera is indefinitely incapacitated. As my sister packed her bags and literally headed out the door for her road trip to college, she found she was in dire need of a battery for her camera. Due to the fact that he camera battery had mysteriously disappeared she grabbed mine, and sadly I hadn't transferred any new pictures to my computer. So now I have no camera, aside from film ones (which take quite some work to develop) but I will try to get another battery (and charger) soon, and until then, will probably post random pictures I've taken in the past that have no relevance to what I'm saying... such as this:



Now going back to my bathological statement above. I have been taking baths nearly every day of the week mostly because I need that one sliver of stress relief in my day so I don't explode. For some reason I believed that this semester would be about me (by the way, that statement was not meant to be bitter in any way) in the sense that I would do things I want to do, and accomplish what I want to accomplish. With my assignments piling and piling up to the point of exploding into a million assignment pieces, I realize, this is not going to happen.

In my ideal next few months, I had planned to take some form of martial arts, work out, and above all study like a maniac for the AP Biology Exam. Now my do-absolutely-nothing class of Health is gone and switched with a class where I have homework and need to spend time with (CWI), and more stressful than anything else I've done in my life, Art 2 is consuming my time. Already I have a 50 point persuasive essay, as well as a 100 point exact copy (minus dimensions) of a masterpiece, all of which is due every 2 weeks for the next 8 weeks.

Art has always been a stressful subject for me. I love it in general, I love doing art, but when it comes to art as an assignment and class, I stress like none other. Just the other day I completed my first assignment and when I was finished, I cried. I cried, and looked at it, and thoughts of hate of what I'd made came into my head and I cried some more. This is not a proud moment for me, I admit, but sadly, it's the way I think (something I work on constantly to change.) I made myself stare at it until I finally believed that I was okay. It turns out, it was better than okay. I got a perfect score on it, and some of the best feedback in class, and I need to start believing that in the first place or this class will destroy me.

I'm working on changing my opinion of my art (and luckily it's only in art that I have such unhappy thoughts with what I do); each time I begin to feel stressed I tell myself to breathe and think of positive outcomes. Right now, these projects coming up, as time consuming as they will be, look interesting. I've picked the first artist I'd like to copy, Monet, making sure to keep it relatively simple so as not to utterly kill myself. I know that, most likely, even if the process of creating it is a happy one, by the end my mind will pick out one thing that makes me want to rip it up, but once that happens, my goal is to stop myself, accept that most likely miniscule error, and focus on all the beautiful things that I created.

All in all, I didn't mean for this to be a depressing post, but more one of goals and hope. Don't worry though, my next post I already have in mind is quite a bit more giddy :)

I hope you second semester is going fantastic though, and I love you, love you love you!

Samalamadingdong

p.s.
I planned to have more pictures on this post... but as my luck would have it, after the first picture, it wouldn't upload any other picture, oh well.

TOLO '11: Beauty and the Geek!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

These Pictures are kind of in a random order. It would've been too much work to organize them chronologically. Maybe at a later date I shall do that. Also, these are pretty much of just Jake and I. There were so many other pictures, I decided to focus on what's important ;)

This is closing night when I asked him with the flowers and card. I was really excited and my face was flushed and I think I look a tad silly. But that's okay because he looks pretty silly too.

Our group at The Rock.

From top left. Left to right for each level: Jordan Kawachi, Dreu Lambarena, Brandon Miller, Laura Nielson, Carlos Tablit, Amanda Olsen, Jake Hackett, Jessica Maloy, Navid Azodi, Rhaquel Abutin.

Not sure what Jordan is doing. I, however, am busy at work creating a masterpeice. It's a funny picture... I love working in the kitchen. We went to Jordan's house after the dance for Midnight pancakes. Jake Initially didn't want to go, but that night he decided that he would and he had a good time. We left the dance at 11.

At The Rock. Wating for our, what turned out to be, delicious pizza!

We went to Starbucks afterwards and both got coffees so we would be able to stay awake and have fun. It worked. I ate Harvest Moon (Capers, Mozzarella, tomato slices, basil leaves, some kind of meat... I want to say prociutto.) He ate Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy. It was a meat lovers and it actually looked really good.

Jordan and I were the Master Pancake makers. I made the Letters, he fixed them up after we flipped them onto the second pan (Because they were too crazy to flip with a spatula.)
Coffee had definitly kicked in and I had plenty of energy :) I was so happy that I didn't shut down and that things were fun. We both got crazy and it was great.
Jake wanted to make a pancake after all the letters were made. This is his creation. Can you tell what it was supposed to be? Answer at bottom ;) After he flipped it over, he proceeded to pour blue Gatorade on it. It was quite foul.

This was the one J that was made for all three of us J names.
The Pancakes tasted pretty darn good.

We are boss! We made everyone the first letters of their first names. R, N, J, A, C, D. Laura and Brandon left the dance early so they didn't participate in the pancake making.

Jake and his mom :) They have a typical teenage-parental relationship.

His mom was so beyond wonderful and helpful and sweet! I really like her a lot. I have a pretend family tree that I like to add people to as if I could chose my relatives. She would definitly be that awesome aunt that you are besties with... yeah.The stairs pictures didn't really turn out. The camera was out of focus so he was clear and I was a fuzz in the background. This was the only one that worked.

Jessica (Cleans up pretty well ;))

Jake (is so handsome)

NERD!

We got so many pictures at his house that we decided against getting singles at the dance and instead all chipped in to get a group picture. I am super excited to see how it turned out!

"Pretend like you're the crazy nerd who somehow got to go out with the pretty girl. Act excited."

When I went to the florist to order his Boutonniere the lady suggested a "nerdy" boutonniere. We chose a pink gerber Daisy and, lo and behold, it magically ended up matching his black and pink tie!! I was so excited!

I love all of his crazy faces :) During dinner he and Carlos got into character and pretended to be real nerds. Jake's name was Shmedly. He even had a Dell pass card ID thing on a retractable hip clip. Someone had taken a real one and edited Jake's information onto it. Jake's mom was super fantastic! On Thursday Jake told me that she wanted to talk to her about Tolo. He wasn't telling her anything and she needed to know. Turns out that he wasn't telling her because there was nothing decided. She facilitated the communication that wasn't happening. And she was so beyond excited about all of this. Her son! Getting asked to a dance! BY A GIRL! She hemmed his pants to high waters and got him hightop converse. Then the badge and suspenders, a nerdy tie and [of course] tape on the glasses. It was priceless.This is one of my favorite pictures :)

So excited. Filling in not knowing what to do next with silly looks.

He is so attractive.... *sigh*

When we slow danced he didn't know where to put his hands so he put his hand on my shoulder. We slow danced 4 times and it never changed :) Funniest thing of my life.

He apologized many times for being so tired. He also commented about how the would be stressful and kept randomly saying things, without thinking, about how he wanted to go to the library and read or sleep. But it wasn't debby downer, it was being nervous. I do the same thing. He was really nice all night. Like at Starbucks, he saved the arm chair next to him for me and he told me to come sit by him because he saved it. He also offered me some of his molassas cookie, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was "No thank you :)" I wish I had said yes, but whatever. The coffee was good.

His dance moves were hilarious. I can't even describe them because they were so random and nerdy. He was a good sport and was Jake-Jake. Not weird-Jake or awkward-Jake or NotInterested-Jake. He was jus himself and that was really nice to be around, finally.

My dear mother teaching me the art of boutonniere pinning.

My corsage was made from Orchids! They were white and so beautiful. It was funny because when I was at the florists, I was looking around at all the flowers they had available and I saw the orchids and I was caught by how gorgeous they were and I wondered what my flowers would be. Turns out I would get some of them! Foreign object... brain does not compute

When we left for The Rock, My parents told me I should open the car door for him. He got in, said thank you and that he would now open the door for me. He reached across the seat and pushed the door open for me on my side. Quite nice :)Exchanging flowers. Neither of us knew what to do. Good thing both our parents were there to coach us along... We pulled up in their driveway and I saw him sitting in his front room. I was quite terrified! So I got out of the car on the far side. Knocking on his door I thought about how crazy I was for doing this and when I stepped into his house my legs were so shaky I was worried I was going to fall over. But that only lasted for a short moment. Because I'm pretty sure he was just as nervous. Things weren't awkward at all [THANKFULLY!] We both had lots of fun. We got to the dance right at 8:30 and we stayed for 2.5 hours. We said hello to our friends and danced and danced and danced. It was good fun and I'm glad that I did this, even though it was a little crazy...

"Is there any special ceremony?" -Jake

{It was a unicorn.}

I am going to be Positive!

I've decided to tell you all the positive things that happen in my life. Like a gratitude journal, so that way I can come back to it when I feel sad inside and read about all the positive things in my life.
A bulleted list would be easier:

• In APLaC we took our final on Monday. She corrected the MC while we were writing the inclass write and she said that the highest grade was 49 out of 54 which is SUPER good. Those questions are really hard. (Don't believe me? Check these out http://www.pagefarm.net/ap/sample/mulcho.pdf) She wouldn't tell us who got what scores and it was driving me crazy. Well turns out that the 49 was me! And I, kind of, set the bell curve for the Final grading for all the APLaC classes at kentwood. It ended up being out of 43, so I got 6 points of EC on my final!
• I had a C+ in that class before lunch and my parents decided that I had to have all A's and B's by the end of semester in order to be eligible to participate in the next play. After lunch, Newton came back and said that she and "the boys" (Mayden and Weeks) and they had collectively decided to give all APLaC classes a 5% grade bump. I pushed me up to a B!!! Officially I ended the semster with 1 B-, 4 B's and 1 A. I consider that pretty good for what they were before I hauled booty.
• I went dress shopping yesterday and got 2 dresses and 3 pairs of jeans. I LOVE MY NEW JEANS!! They fit so well and are so comfortable and I love dark wash. The dresses are pretty cute as well. I just have to be brave! Oh, and it was extra awesome because my most bestest friend in the entire universe came with me and we got to be silly light-hearted highschool girls and have fun and play with Jewlery and talk. I also got proposed to. ;)
• Jake and Jon both now have second lunch and I am feeling pretty optimistic about that plan. They went looking for me today at lunch. We ate outside on the roundabout hill infront of the school. It was really cold, but beautiful. They mostly talked about video games and movies/tv episodes they have recently watched. I've already given up on trying to play catch up with them. So I just sit there and smile and politely ask questions when pertinent. And they know that.
• I have sewing instead of drama now 5th period and I loved it. During the period before I had prayed for a love note from Jesus (I'll explain that to you later.) I walked into Sewing and there was a seating chart. My heart started pounding and I was terrified I wouldn't be sitting by any of my friends in that class. Lo and behold: Jesus had sent his love note. Jake was sitting behind me and behind him was another one of my friends, Cara Yamaguchi. She's also in my 6th period. I was so happy. I asked Jake about going to The Rock for tolo and he was fine with it.
• We played Survivor on Monday in stage tech 6th period. Each person had to a.) write down their top three first years and why they thought that they were the best, most hardworking individuals in the class. b.) Then they had to pick their favorite 2nd+ year. There are only 6 of them, so they only had to pick a single one, and then of course, write why. c.) Finally, they had to write the name of one person in the class that they never want to work with and why. For the first years, each positive placement had a point value. First was 3 points, second was 2 and third was 1. She read all the positive feedback about all the people in front of the class and the points were totaled up. I think Kirse Johnson got 1 or 2 points, Joey Alonzo got 7, Drew Monson got 9, Heather Dial got 6 or 7 and some other people got a few. I won, by far, with a point total of 30. The entire class thought I was a hard worker and they said things like "She always has such a positive attitude." "She knows how to build things right and make them look good." "She knows how to lead without being bossy or rude." and "She's so much fun to be around and she still gets a lot done." That was really cool.
• In APUSH we got to pick new seats and Brandon Fisher got super excited and said "Sit by me Jessica! Sit by me!" It was cool to feel so wanted. James Morcom also wanted to sit by me and so did Christina Hart.
• It was sunny today! And it was a late start so I got to sleep in and see the sun rising and got to get ready in natural light at 8 in the morning instead of artificial blackness at 5. It was quite wonderful.
• Last but 110% definitly not least, yesterday I went to bible study with Heather Dial and it was so beyond excactally what I needed to hear. I really think that I was meant to go there with her last night. They talked about things that I had been struggling with and they put names and definitions and reasons behind problems I've been having. And they addressed the source of those problems and how to combat them. They're reading a book called Captivating By John and Stasi Eldredge and I think that every woman out there in the world should read it. (That's where the love notes from Jesus came from.) It was really nice to hear from a bunch of girls my age, that they are going through the exact same problems I am. I really enjoyed it there and am looking forward to go to more of them.

There were definitly negative parts to my day, but I only want to remember the good. So that's all I'll write. Maybe I'll send you a facebook message about the bad stuff because I do want to tell you. But I don't want to remember it here. So here are my positives. I'm going to try to do this a lot more.
LOVE YOU TOOOONS!
Jess