Letters to My Parents

Hey guys! I hope your flights were good and you guys didn't get too bored.

Today was an awesome day! I have been looking forward to Friday and the weekend the entire week! This was a super long week. I brought my outside reading project to school and everybody in AP biology thought it was the coolest, cutest thing ever. Christy, though, kept telling me that she wanted to punch me in the face. I don't really like it when people are rude about it and jealous instead of being happy for you. That is something I think I will try to work on harder; to be happy for people when they do good at something. Everybody has talents. Christy can dance and I can't, but when I see pictures of her dancing and hear about it I don't tell her I want to punch her in the face...

Anyways. I ate a sub for lunch today and while I was waiting in line with Megan and Angela we were talking and Megan told me that Lloyd was talking to her the other day at rehearsal and she said good things about me!! I was SUPER excited. Megan said that Lloyd said I was doing an excellent job with my monologue, that I was extremely funny and that I was improving alot :D Megan was happy that I was happy. She also was happy that I did a good job on my outside reading. She told Christy that it was good that I didn't procrastinate and that it wasn't my fault that she did. (Christy glued her ABC book together in Bio) It was cool to have Megan be happy for me. Angela was happy for me as well.

Talking about AP Bio, we had a quiz today on Genetics and inheritance. I think I did good, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

Celina was here today. She hadn't been for the past two days because she was sick: fainting and dizziness. I missed talking to her at lunch. She is such a funny kid and we have great times together in Drama. I am so happy that she is taking Drama II next semester because there are a ton of people who aren't. She is the one who will be Galinda in the play. She is really excited because Ms.Lloyd likes her and that she got such a big part in the play. She is a blonde freshman who sings very beautifully and is great at acting. She asked her crush, Brandon Fisher, to Tolo and she is way excited. I was texting her today at the Jackson's and I learned that she is Buddhist.

I went to Mattson to meet Sabrina after school like I said I would. I was a little late though because I had to type up that "Creating a Character" thing I needed help with the other day. It was due in class today but I hadn't done it. Well she said that she would take it until 3:00 pm. I went straight to the Library and typed my little heart out. I e-mailed it to her at 2:57 pm. Right on time :)

So it was wonderful to go home to the Jackson's house today. Valerie was by Sam's house to pick us up. That was really great because after walking from Kentwood to Mattson with about 35 lbs of junk, my back and calves were on fire and it was hard to breath because an overloaded backpack tends to do that. (speaking of walking, I forgot my running shoes, so next time I go home I need to remember to get them) Anyways. When we got home, Valerie went to go clean her car and Craig was playing the Drums. It was SO loud that you could feel it all over the house and even though he was down stairs with the door closed, you could still hear it upstairs as if it was right behind you. I took a much needed nap for two hours. I woke up to the dogs all barking. Kaylee had brought home two boys from the singles ward in Maple Valley. They played Rock Band for four hours and then stayed for another hour eating and talking. They left at like 9:30 pm. while they were here I didn't get off the couch. I watched four or five episodes of The Office and one Hero's. Then I just sat there.

I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow. I have no jobs and nothing/nowhere to go. I talked to Valerie about it. I wasn't asky or anything to go anywhere. I just asked her if she was working tomorrow (yes, 4:00pm - 9:00pm) and then if she needed any help with jobs because my day is very "open." We are going to go on a walk tomorrow morning and tonight she let me use her elliptical machine. I did it for an hour and five minutes. I am really sweaty right now and I need to take a shower. Anyways. It was a really good day. Right now Sabrina and I are watching Quest for Camelot. It feels a lot like being at Bunny's house. I like it and am thinking about staying here longer... we'll have to see how things go, but so far so good. Plus I had a good eating day. I did everything I was supposed to, even resisted the offers for food after 8:00pm.

I told people that you guys left today. I miss you guys and DON'T FORGET TO SEND A POSTCARD!! :) Hope you guys are having fun and enjoying every second of this trip!!

Love you lots!
Jess
xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxooooo

Quick Catch-up

Dear goodness! I have slacked so bad. Not one post in a whole month! so: Things have been going very good lately and I hope they stay that way :) Play auditions are 9 days and I am very excited to try out! Last week I started taking voice lessons to get ready and just because (good) singing is absolutely gorgeous. This time the play will be The Wizard of Oz but Ms.Lloyd is going to change it up a little. We'll all be taught a song (Somewhere Over the Rainbow) and a dance and it is an open audition which means we will be singing/dancing in front of all who come to audition and those who come to watch... a little scary, no?
But it will be lots of fun! There are tons of parts so it's almost guaranteed a part in the play, however small it may be.

Meanwhile, the quilt I have been working on is coming along and almost done! I can't believe how it all got done, I don't really remember working on it that much. I can't wait till it is finished and get to see it in all it's crooked glory :)

For a while there I started biting my nails. Things got a little stressful at school and I didn't even think about it until one day I looked down at my hands and they were even uglier than before. I was so dissappointed in myself. After all, I had made it so far. Anyways, all of the sudden about 3 weeks ago I just stopped, once again, without even thinking about it. I looked down and lo and behold: there was about a millimeter of white growing. And I just didn't bite again!

Last but not least. I know that pretty much everybody has heard of Jenni Warner's Fitness Blog, but I just wanted to say real quick how much I am looking forward to this! Hopefully being accountable for every moresel I put in my mouth and every minute I spend sweating will help me get my derrier back into shape. Wish me luck and I wish all you guys luck in you 'New Years Resolutions.'

Thanks for CTRing

In English, all of the sophomores had to make a nonverbal power point presentation. It is a show all about you and it is set to a song of your choice that you feel best represents you. My honors classes arn't pure, they're blended so there are core kids in them. You can tell the differemce between a Core kid's Presentation and an honors kid by not only the look (matching fonts, coordinating colors, lots of family pictures ect.) but also by content.

The Core presentations are really sad. Some things I saw were that they had no family. they lived in foster homes, were homeless for a while because the foster homes were so bad. moving all over the country, from one relative to the next. Broken families. No father, no Mother, or neither and all siblings. Some said that kentwood was their home, their family.

Polar opposite of that were the Honors presentations. Talking about all their family members, the places they've been, the instruments they play, the things their interested in, religion. It really is an eye opener to see theses kids and the kind of lives they've had and the circumstances they come from. homeless!?!

Now, Some things that have been going on in my extended family lately, have made me more aware of what an awesome life I have! There were some not so great choices made that involved a child and now it is causing lots of arguments and things.

That made me think that it is so wonderful that I was born to two people that love eachother and are commited to making things work and doing the darn best they can. Not saying that we don't have problems, that is so not true. But the problems are not as bad as they could be because of the choices that my parents have made. So thanks Mom and Dad for Choosing The Right and doing the best you know how. I am so lucky and grateful that you have done what you have done.

Busy as a bee

You know how life has really slow, relaxing times and then all the sudden out of the blue it picks up the pace? Well this is really one of those speedy times.

This year, I decided to pick drama 1 as one of my electives. At first I was so scared and thought that there was no way that I could handle this class and I thought about switching out of it. But as time went on it got better and better and now it is the class I look forward to the most. Anyways, recently we started working on stage combat and it has been super fun. Today Ms.Lloyd told us that in exactly one week we were going to have a non-optional performance after school at 7 pm at which we will perform a little fight scene skit that showcases what we have learned in stage combat. I'm really excited for it, but at the same time totally scared silly! I've never had to do anything like this in front of anybody, let alone a theater full of strangers and fellow classmates. So for the next week, the days will be full of writing and practicing.Hopefully all goes well. :)

Next fun thing is the movie we are making in Mutual, which I am WAY totally psyched about!!! So the boys were in charge of the combined activity for November and they chose to do a movie night. But it's not going to be just any movie night, it will be one with videos that we make about standards from the Strength for Youth pamphlet. The Mia Maids chose Language and that's about all I can tell you right now :) We all are going to be filming that next Wednesday around Covington.

My Saturday is also going to be really busy too. That's the date for the PSAT, which sounds really scary, a key club road clean-up right after and my birthday! I'll finally be 15 :) yay!

Finally, in AP biology we just got assigned a really big and super fun project. It's on the organ systems of the body and it requires a lot of time consuming easy work and reading. For it we are supposed to an online magazine called Discover and there, there is a regular article called Vital Signs. For all of you who have ever watched Mystery Diagnoses, its pretty much like that and I actually am looking forward to reading them. There are 11 organ systems so we have to read and write about 11 articles, one for each system. That project will be due the Monday after next so the26th ... I think :)

Real quick, last thing: today I used my recorder for the first time in Bio and it WORKED!!! I am so excited about this and can't wait to use it in the future :)

Etsy goodness and F's

So the past few days I've been making some cards with the Scrapbook Nook paper from a few days ago. Well last night after i finished my homework i was looking on Etsy when I found the cutest little bundle of random scraps. I ran up to my parents room and asked them to help me get it (I have yet to master paypal:) anyways, I did and I am so excitied about it! hopefully I'll think of some cool card ideas to use this stuff for :)

On to a more serious matter. We had our first AP Biology test yesterday and it was bad. The class average was in the 50% range! i got 66% which was pretty close to the class high of 74%. So pretty much everybody failed. Thank goodness, though, for test corrections from which you can get 1/2 of the points that you missed back. So for instance, some one who scored 50% on their test could raise their grade up to a 75%. I resolved to do better than that, so yesterday after dinner I was talking to my dad and he told me about this time that he had a class in college that was based solely on the Final and if you failed that then you failed the class. (scary huh?) Anyways, he said that he got a recorder and recorded the teachers lectures. That seemed like a pretty good idea to me and so that's what we got yesterday. I love all the genius advice and ideas my dad comes up with :) thanks! I'm looking forward to using it and seeing how it works. Either way, this is the last F I will get this year.

Last but not least, on monday I decided that I was done with the horrid nail biting habit and I'm proud to say that this is my third day "sober" :) wish me luck!!