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