hey.

I spent like the whole day in the car today. It's a good thing I love my family because otherwise things would have been a lot worse. We drove down to Bakersfield, California and we're staying with my mom's family for a couple days. I love family. I sure wish they lived closer. We don't usually do Christmas together, but we almost always do post-Christmas with them.

We're also in California to attend the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. I'm getting pretty excited about it. It's University of Oregon against Oklahoma State. I have never been to a bowl game, or any big football game really, so this will be a new experience for me. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures posted here soon.

Well, I woke up at 4:50 this morning and didn't sleep much in the car, so I'm feeling it now. Sweet dreams.

I realized today for the millionth time how much I miss playing piano. I took lessons as a kid for several years, but I quit when it became too time-consuming and when I began to feel a little burnt out.

Part of me really wishes that I still took lessons, or at least that I could still play well. I play every now and then, usually my favorite hymns or other contemporary songs that have nice piano parts. But when I finally sit down and play, I suck at it.

It's only to be expected, but it bothers me all the same. I also realized that I generally feel happier when I play music. Even though I didn't take piano lessons in high school, I have always been in symphonic band, until this year.

I think I need to get back into playing piano. I need to just soldier on through the rustiness. It will make me happier and I know I don't really want to lose the skills that I have. Is it too early for a new year's resolution?

Right now, I really want to learn to play "Bella's Lullaby" by Carter Burwell from the Twilight movie. I tried it out today, but it's not supposed to sound good on the first take, right? It's a beautiful song and it's short so I think I can do it if I practice and take it one step at a time.

Anyways, wish me luck. It isn't easy for me to try to re-learn things kinetically. Anybody want to give me free piano lessons?

(Photo credit: Blank Panda, "Bella's Lullaby Sheet Music"

my life's work.

And now my family and I are eating my life's work. :) You noticed the angels were the prettiest cookies, right? Yeah, I decorated those.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I think I have my work cut out for me...

ElfYourself videos are hilarious!

If you haven't seen one of these ElfYourself videos yet you definitely should. My friend Katelyn made a couple videos with pictures of me and our friends. Here's the links, you can watch them:

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/XWeazmYKRwSSa6ThBh3J

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/DBVKSr9J99NGzaMlzQ23

If you feel like making your own you can at: http://www.elfyourself.com/ . The funnier the pictures, the better the video will turn out. I hear the pictures take a long time to load though.

Hope you're enjoying the holidays!

penny drive.

Last Saturday, students from Mr. Crocker's senior social studies classes, and a few others, went out in the cold and rain to help out our community. Our goal was to collect as much money as we could for the Philomath High School Adopt-A-Family Fund. Every year, the Sr. Soc classes collect money, buy gifts, and give them to families in need in Philomath.

I worked on Neabeack Hill with a few others for about 3 hours. The rest of those who volunteered split up into other parts of Philomath. We knocked on doors, after handing out flyers the week before, and collected any donations that people wanted to contribute.

After collecting, we brought the change back to Mr. Crocker's and toweled off the wet coins so that they could go through the counting and sorting machine. We had some hot cocoa and thawed out a little too.

We'll see how much money we recieved, but it seemed like quite a bit. More than is shown in the pictures. Hopefully, we'll be able to bless some families this Christmas. Nice job everyone for volunteering your time and donating your money! For now, phase 1 of our adopt-a-family project is done.

snow!

I absolutely love it when it snows here. It's so beautiful and wintery. I was having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit, but I'm definitely feeling it now, thanks to the snow. My brother and I decided to take a few photos of our house with the Christmas lights up and the snow falling. Very Christmas card-esque. Hope you're all enjoying the snow too!

calculus will most likely be the death of me.

I hate math. Just wanted to throw that one out there. Calculus, especially. I suppose it's not that bad, I just have a hard time understanding it.

Here's a funny story though:

A couple days ago, I was doing my calculus homework and my throat was hurting. As a result, my mom made me a cup of Good Earth tea (which feels really good on a sore throat) while I kept doing integrals. I was getting really frustrated because I had been on the same problem for a long time and then she brought me my tea (love you, mommy). On the tea bag there was this entirely fitting quote : "In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." -Johann von Neumann

So, uh, thanks Good Earth Teas. I needed that.

be nice to me, I gave blood today.

Alright, so I didn't give blood. However, today was the blood drive at Philomath High and it was very successful too. Nice job, PHS.

I volunteered to work as the cookies and juice girl, the one who makes the donors sit down and get their blood sugar levels back up so they don't pass out before they leave. I don't want to brag, but I've pretty much achieved pro-status with that job. This was my fourth year doing it.

Why didn't I give blood? That would be because I am a 100%, genuine baby when it comes to needles. and blood. and the two of those combined. I attribute it to a bad experience with immunizations as a child.

At any rate, whenever I'm in a situation with needles/blood, my body just feels totally weak, especially around the knees. I also get all dizzy-ish and my arm starts to hurt where I usually have shots done, even if I haven't had a shot for months.

I don't like this at all! I would really like to give blood sometime and overcome my fear of needles, but I'm not sure how. I'm probably just freaking myself out mentally. I don't know. If you have any suggestions on how to not be such a weakling, please tell me.

clap on, clap off!

Sometimes when I'm procrastinating, I do things I shouldn't do...
Such as watching really crappy 80's movies involving figure skating on TV. However, these lapses in character do yield a bit of humor.

In between scenes of this really predictable, sappy, and badly-acted movie, they showed some great commercials for things that I had completely forgotten about. The first one was a Chia Pet commercial, complete with the beloved jingle : "Ch-ch-ch-CHIA!". The funny part was that I totally remember watching it in between Saturday morning Smurfs and Scooby-Doo as a little kid.

The other commercial was for the Clapper. If you don't remember what that is, it's the light that turns on and off when you clap. Here's the jingle: "Clap on! Clap off! Clap on, clap off - The Clapper!".

I have a feeling these are going to be stuck in my head for a while...

my music. at the moment.

I'm feeling very accomplished right now because I finished and submitted my first official college and scholarship application last week. I couldn't have done it without a little help from my iPod's repeat function and my perfect, if I do say so myself, taste in music.

Here's the perfect college application mix, very thought stimulating:

1. Signs - Bloc Party
2. Human - The Killers
3. Strawberry Swing - Coldplay
4. You Don't Know Me At All - Ben Folds with Regina Spektor
5. So Here We Are - Bloc Party
6. Spinning - Jack's Mannequin
7. Hammers And Strings - Jack's Mannequin
8. Annie Use Your Telescope - Jack's Mannequin
9. Backfire At The Disco - The Wombats

Also, I listened to the Twilight movie soundtrack several times. If you haven't listened to it yet, you should probably get on that. Even if you didn't like the movie, the soundtrack is worth a listen. Or six, on my part.

Yesterday I had to clean up the worst mess of my entire life. Sometimes it makes me feel a little better to hear and laugh a little about someone else's mishaps. Here you go, this one's on me:

My mom asked me to empty the garbages into our big garbage can outside. I went to grab the kitchen garbage, and in our house we keep it in brown paper grocery bags so wet items are not good. Some jokester (It had to be one of my parents or me. It wasn't me.) decided to disregard this fabulous piece of knowledge and I reaped the consequences.

I took about ten steps across the floor and then the bag split out the bottom spilling trash everywhere. But this wasn't just any trash. This was Thanksgiving-leftover trash. Yuck.

First off, it smelled absolutely terrible. I definitely gagged a couple of times. On closer inspection, I realized that the smell was coming from a brownish liquid, most likely the source of the bag rippage, that was probably poultry juice from the turkey.

I don't think I'll be eating turkey again any time soon. In fact, let's not even mention turkey for a few months. Please.