Here it comes (or goes?).

Tomorrow is my last day of high school! I think I'm going to miss high school. It's been good to me for the past four years. I'll miss seeing people and playing soccer and all the fun stuff. But I'm excited to start something new.

Graduation is Saturday! I can't wait to see my family and friends who are coming to visit. My party is going to really fun too. You should come. It'll probably start around 3:30 pm, if you're not going to the ceremony.

I'm loving the weather right now. Rumor has it, there are going to be thunderstorms tomorrow. I love thunderstorms. Really, I just love it when the weather changes in any way, but thunderstorms are almost my favorite. After snow, that is.

I played my piano again today. This time with my sister! Just like the old days... We were jammin'.

I still need a job. Hook me up if you know of anything promising.

Yes, I am still alive.

It's been a while... Too long, in my opinion.

I'm not entirely sure why I stopped posting. I think I just wanted to take a little break after passing my senior project. I was feeling the senioritis reallllly bad at that point and had no motivation to do a lot of things. I also wanted to make sure that I was writing because I wanted to... not just because I had gotten into the habit.

Anyways, today I was feeling the need to blog. How about we do a little catching up, hmm??

Those pictures up top are from prom this year. It was quite the night of fun. I went with a group of my girlfriends and their dates and, of course, my date was my boyfriend. Before the dance, we went from house to house taking pictures and eating delicious food that our parents provided for us. We had appetizers at one, dinner at another, and dessert at one more house.

What else? Oooh! I made my college decision. This fall, I'm headed to Eugene for U of O. To be honest, I'm not very excited about it. I really wanted to go to Missouri, but there are several reasons why that isn't logical for me, the most prominent being money. I know life will be good wherever I go, but it's hard to be jazzed for a school that is only an hour away and will also have a bunch of people that I went to high school with, none of which are my close friends. However, U of O did give me some decent scholarship money and in-state tuition is significantly less than out-of-state.

I have 7 days of high school left! Craaaazy. I can't believe it's almost over. I'm glad to be getting out though. It's time for something new, I think. I'm having a graduation party too! My friend Katelyn and I are combining for a party at my house right after the graduation ceremony at my house. If you're reading this, then you are probably invited. :)

Other stuff:

I'm all done with club soccer and am missing playing/running/endorphins, but knee is sort of hurt and is preventing me from working out.

I LOVE the nice weather we've been having. I have been spending a good amount of my time outside.

When I was in my projects class (it's interior design/home economicsish stuff...), I realized that I hate sewing.

I went to Outdoor School as a high school staff member and it was really good.

I really need to find a job. So if you know of somebody that is hiring, you should let me know. Pleeeeease.

I missed blogging. This post was slightly painful since I haven't done it for so long, but it needed to happen. I hope people keep reading because I like writing and I promise not to desert you for two months again.

help me!

For some reason, Blogger won't let me do paragraph breaks by skipping lines. It's driving me crazy!!! I'm sure it's probably annoying you too... I have tried everything I can think of. If you have any idea how to fix it, please please please let me know!

Love,
Kelly

lovely spring break.

Who invented spring break?? Because whoever he/she/they are, I would like to compliment them. Or marry them. Or do something that would show my undying appreciation towards this blessed week off.

Anyways, my spring break was awesome. I just got home from Seattle, for the second time in a week. The first trip was for a Christian youth event held at the Key Arena. It was a lot of fun and I got to spend some quality time with friends and people from my youth group.

I spent a few days in Sunriver/Bend skiing with my parents too. Mt. Bachelor was gorgeous - some of the best and prettiest snow I've seen in a long time. I had the best ski day of my entire life on Thursday. The snow and weather conditions were absolutely perfect. Even the summit lift was great without the usual harsh winds and bad visibility. However, I did pay for my fun.

Listen to me now, all of you. If you ever go skiing or snowboarding, don't decide that because you're invincible/hate the smell of sunscreen/hate taking off your gloves to put on sunscreen/it's not really thaaat sunny.. that you don't need sunscreen. Because you do. Otherwise, you end up with a nice sunburn on half of your face with a perfect outline of where your goggles used to be.

Yes, that is how I look right now, and believe me, it is not pretty.

Anyways. My second Seattle trip was nice and relaxing too. I slept for 12 hours one night I was there! Who does that? I know I haven't in a really long time. Perhaps that's why I needed to. I also got some quality shopping done at the Macy's in Bellevue and drank lots of Tully's coffee. It was very enjoyable.

Now I have to go back to school tomorrow and face a new trimester. Also, now don't start shedding tears yet, my senior project (this blog) will be over and done with (hopefully) by April 9th. That doesn't mean that I'll stop posting, it just means I will be doing it entirely for fun after that day. Wish me luck with my presentation!

what a life...

Spring Break cannot get here soon enough, let me tell you. I have been pretty darn busy these days. This trimester of school is wrapping up, which is a nice way of saying my life is rather stressful.

Mostly, just calculus is stressful. I think my math teacher might hate her calculus classes. She decided that one final wasn't enough. Instead, she gave us three. Three! Excessive? I think yes. But... silver lining: Tomorrow I will take my last high school math test EVER!

Soccer has also been hectic for me. Last weekend, I made three trips to Portland. I had another game in Portland this weekend too. I scored an epic goal though. It was in the last two minutes of the game and my team was down by one. I shot from far out on the left side and hit the right post of the goal and it bounced in. The keeper was this really obnoxious girl that I have been playing against all through high school so it was especially satisfying to score on her.

We found out the results from our cooking competition this week too. My team placed 11th, in the top third of the competition. I guess we were really close in points to a few other teams too.

At this point, I'm just looking forward to a week of vacation. I'll be in Seattle for about half of the break and in Sunriver for the other half. Hopefully, I'll get some skiing, shopping, and quality relaxing done. I'm hoping to see a concert of some kind while I'm in Seattle too.

my trip to mizzou!

Last week, I finally got in my visit to the University of Missouri. My dad and I flew out to Kansas City and then drove to Columbia where the university is. I loved the school! Everything about it so nice. The buildings are all well-kept and beautiful, unlike most state schools I have been to. Columbia has about 90,000 people and the university has close to 30,000. It's definitely a college town where everyone gets into football games.

The journalism school is really exceptional too. It's the reason I want to go there so badly, and I wasn't disappointed when I toured it. They have a lot of opportunities to practice journalism too, including a couple of newspapers and magazines and an NBC station for their broadcast majors. They just finished the construction on their journalism school last year, so the facility is great.

Also, I got to see my friend Sam Bookwalter on my visit. He took me to a couple of his classes and showed me around everywhere. I kicked his butt at ping pong too. It was definitely nice to have a familiar face in a place that was new to me.

The trip home wasn't so good though. One of our flights got delayed, causing us to miss our connector flight into Eugene. We ended up spending the night in Denver and catching a 6 a.m. flight home. I was also getting stalked by this creepy guy who was on our flight out of Kansas City.

The photos are all of the Mizzou campus except for the one on top which is a shot of the sunset from inside the Kansas City airport.

This trip made me decided that I really want to go there. It costs a lot for out-of-state tuition though. And I have my doubts about whether or not I could handle being so far away from home. I think I would be willing to make a few sacrifices for it. We'll see...

more photos... for your enjoyment.

The top two photos are of me and my team in our kitchen. The bottom one is the long table that held all of the food from each school along with their menus. There were some really interesting and intricut dishes from other schools. I should have taken some close-ups, but it was beginning to be a little food-pornish. What is food-porn, you ask? Pictures of really scrumptious looking food that make your mouth water. Or for the adventurous ones, the Food Channel on TV. Anyways, don't stare too long...

my culinary competition!

On Saturday, I had my culinary competition up in Portland. It was a lot of fun to finally apply and compete with the skills I had been working on. Everything went pretty smoothly with my team and our dishes. My dessert turned out very nicely with good textures on both the whipped cream and chocolate mousse. The photos (from top to bottom) are of me in my chef's get-up, the starter, the entree, and the dessert. Although we didn't win any awards, it was a great experience and I'm excited to see what kind of scores my team got from the judges.

voila!

I am part of the competition team for my culinary class at school. This weekend we have a culinary competition in Portland where we will compete with different schools around the state. We have to prepare a starter, an entree including a starch and vegetable, and a dessert. I'm in charge of the dessert.

The pictures are from my endeavors in class today. The dessert consists of wafers of melted, and then hardened, dark chocolate cut-outs, layers of whipped cream and chocolate mousse, and a garnish of raspberry coulis. I have been working to perfect it for a few weeks now.

Our starter is Pacific crab-stuffed mushrooms. Our entree is a pork roulade filled with sun-dried tomatoes, wilted spinach, and feta cheese, accompanied by red potatoes, carmelized cepolline onions, and string beans. Pretty delicious all around.

We're going to be judged in several different categories at the competition including: Safety & Sanitation, Presentation, Taste, Mise en Place, and probably a few that I'm forgetting. We also have to demonstrate several knife cuts in front of judges.

I'm excited for the competition, but a little nervous too. I have to be very professional, which means no goofing off in a kitchen like I usually do. Also, my dessert takes a long time to make, and we don't have a long time to cook. I'll be wearing a full chef's outfit too, complete with the tall hat, coat, and apron. I'm sure I'll put some pictures up of it later.

On Saturday if you get bored, you should come watch me cook! I'll be at the Portland Expo Center for the day. I believe my team is cooking at about 11 a.m. Even if you can't make it, you should think of me... (maybe say a prayer that I don't catch anything on fire.) Good luck calls are always appreciated too. :)

new couch = love.

Here it is: the new couch. It is heavenly.

this week.

I'm sorry I haven't been writing this week. I have been loving the support from all of you who received an email from me though. You guys are great. But don't be shy about leaving comments for me. I love to read them.

Valentine's Day came and passed and I had a pretty good time. I survived, but I thought it was going to be a close one with the chocolate intake... I hope you all had a fabulous Day of Love as well.

My house is currently being torn apart very noisily. We are putting new wood floor down and getting both the living room and the family room ready for new furniture. It's a wreck right now, but should be looking pretty good in a week or so.

Tomorrow we're getting our new couch delivered! I can't wait. This couch and I have some history together. We bonded in the furniture store for one glorious half-hour after one of my soccer games a few weeks back. Sadly, I haven't been able to get its chocolatey-brown leather skin out of my head since then. Anyways, tomorrow we shall reunite and pick up where we left off.

Last night I watched "Fight Club" with Becca and Sam. That was quite the experience. If you haven't seen it yet, you probably should. Unless you have a strong aversion to people beating each other up. Or if there are little kids around. I enjoyed it because it was different than the average movie. I don't want to give anything away, but Brad Pitt is very attractive and Helena Bonham Carter is the creeper she always has been. I think I might even read the book now.

(Photo Credit: Google Images, mymoviebanners.com/fightclub.html )

the bra tree.

I spent the weekend with my family at Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Oregon. We love to downhill ski and picked a good weekend to go, even if the mountain was a little scant on fresh snow. The weather was great: sunny, clear, and cold. It was really beautiful up there, as it always is.

I have been skiing since I could walk, and maybe even a little before then. I love to go as fast as I can down the slopes, speeding past all the other people. If my eyes are watering, that usually means I'm going fast enough to satisfy myself. I like to race my sister too, but she always ends up beating me in the end.

Bachelor is one of my favorite places to ski. It's got a lot of great runs. My favorite run is off the Northwest Express chair lift. The main reason I like it is because it is perfect for bulleting down at mach 10. It's called Atkeson's Zoom, in case you ever want to try it out. But if you're going to try it, you have to go fast. Otherwise, it just won't be the same.

Northwest Express is a really long chair lift. It takes a long time to get from the bottom to the top, which can be a good or a bad thing. It gives you time to rest in between runs, but I also tend to get pretty cold when I'm sitting on lifts. Anyways, there is always time to kill when riding Northwest. Which I believe is the reason for the bra tree.

What's the bra tree? It is a very special tree. In years past, it has been covered with the bras of many many women, along with mardi gras beads, other forms of lingerie, and numerous other...tasteful items. I don't think it's been around that long because I can't remember it when I was younger.

Pretty much women just take off their bras while they're bored, and sometimes a little tipsy from lodge beer, and toss them on the tree. It was looking a little feeble this time, only six or seven bras total. I really wish I could have gotten a photo of the tree to show you because it's hilarious. However, I forgot my camera at home and missed out on numerous photo opportunities throughout the whole weekend.

I felt like I needed to pass on the knowledge of the bra tree to anyone who has never experienced it. Next time you go to Bachelor you should keep a lookout for it.

(Photo Credit: 97439weathernerd, "Majestic Mt. Bachelor" )

I'm an addict.

This morning, I explored the extent of my caffeine addiction. It was not pleasant.

I had the worst headache and I could not, for the life of me, figure out why. I suffered with it for a few hours, as I'm prone to do. I don't really like to take pain killers unless I need to. Then, I realized it was because I hadn't had any caffeine yet today. So I promptly made myself a cup of tea to relieve my pain.

Three sips into my glorious cup of life, my headache was gone.

Every morning, I drink a mug of hot tea while I drive to school and during my first period class. Usually it's Irish or English Breakfast Tea with half-and-half and brown sugar. Occasionally, I branch out and have some Chai (I'm a real daredevil, I know).

One time, I was running a little late and didn't get to drink my tea until about 8:30 a.m. I only delayed my caffeine intake by half an hour and I already had a headache.

I think the reason my addiction is so bad because I have caffeine at the same time every day. I should probably break the cycle. It's pathetic that I have to have caffeine every morning to function properly. But it's painful to break the cycle. I get physical withdrawal symptoms just like a drug addict. And I like coffee and tea.

I used to be addicted to coffee, but I switched to tea because I felt like it was healthier. Tea has less caffeine than coffee, I think. It also has natural anti-oxidants and doesn't make me so buzzed as coffee does.

So if you have any tips for quitting, you should tell me. Or maybe we could make a caffeine addict rehab. group! That could be fun...

(Photo credit: adalau, "Irish Breakfast - Tea")

My Grand Plan for Conquering the World

I stayed home from school today because I'm sick with some kind of nasty cold. Staying home sick always gives me time to think (which can be dangerous), and today I compiled a master plan for my future. Really it just incorporates a bunch of my interests and things I find myself daydreaming about frequently.

I know I'm going to sound a little bit conceited right now, but I have good taste in music. I can prove it too. I just watched Garden State this week and I had almost every single song from the soundtrack on my iPod even though I had never heard the soundtrack before. And they are pretty obscure songs too, definitely not mainstream radio material. Also, I am always finding that the songs I listen to and download appear in the tv shows and movies I watch about 3 months after I download them. So, Step 1 in my plan: Have my own record company. I would get to listen to music all the time (which I love to do), sign the people I like, and make sure people hired me to do movie and tv show soundtracks. When I get bored, I like to come up with names for bands too, so this would be a good outlet for all the ones I will have invented by then.

Once upon a time (more like...last year), I tried to become a model for this agency in Portland that recruited me one time when I was at Lloyd Center. It didn't work out so well considering I needed to shave two inches off my hips to meet their criteria. I tried to do it, but it was kind of gross when my shoulders started poking out more and I realized I was trying to be somebody who I'm not. Anyways. I think it would be cool to own a modeling agency that hired models who were beautiful, even if they aren't the perfect size.

Perhaps the reason I couldn't make it as a model is because I love to cook. Someday, I would love to have my own restaurant. I would get to choose what goes on the menu and keep up with all the latest trends in gourmet cooking. Plus it would taste delicious too because it would be my restaurant.

Since I will be insanely rich from all of my businesses, I would have the money to start my own line of gowns. I love shopping for, trying on, buying, and wearing formal dresses. Sometimes, I find myself designing the perfect dress in my head. I'm pretty sure I could design a whole line of perfect dresses too. And I could have the beautiful people from my modeling agency model them for me. There you go.

Now you know what I daydream about. Pretty nice future I have set up for myself, huh? Don't worry. When I'm famous, I'll still remember you read my blog.

Corvallis Culinary Week = Kelly Eats A Lot Week

I feel like all I've been doing this week is cooking and eating really good food.

This week was Corvallis Culinary Week, which was totally awesome. If you didn't take advantage of it, shame on you. (Actually, I meant to tell you about it earlier this week, but couldn't make it happen.) I think it was eight or nine different restaurants in Corvallis that participated in it. Each of the restaurants offered a chef's specialty dinner for ten dollars. I went to Iovino's and Strega for dinner on a couple different nights. Both dinners were excellent too. I think Iovino's was my favorite though.

I'm also taking advanced foods right now (which I might have already mentioned) and this week one of my classmates put on a cooking competition at our school as her senior project. It was a black box competition which is basically where you're just given tonos of ingredients and no recipe and you have to make something delicious, creative, and make it look really appealing too. My group made a stuffed salmon, fried rice, and asparagus for our entree. Our dessert was an almond meringue garnished with kiwi and strawberry slices, dark chocolate shavings, and brie cheese. Ours was delicious and beautiful, but we missed winning second place by just one point.

To top off my scrumptious week, I worked at a church retreat this weekend, cooking for about 50 people. I flipped soooo many pancakes.

I realized that a lot of my blog entries have food pictures on them, or are about food. But hey, I like to cook. It's one of my favorite hobbies. I like to eat good food too. Also, one of my hobbies. But now that I think about it, my blog probably just makes me look like I'm obsessed with food. I'm not, I promise.

Inaguration day!

Happy Inauguration Day! In case you are completely secluded from the world, Barack Obama is now the 44th president of the United States. I watched his inauguration today at school during my senior social studies class. We had a bit of an inauguration party, complete with Dixie cups of sparkling cider to toast our new president.

I thought Obama gave a really great speech. It wasn't long and dragged out and it addressed some important points, while filling us all with that hope he campaigned about. As everyone knows, this elections is groundbreaking on many levels. I was sick of all the election hype and I'm glad to finally see our new president as a reality. Let's just hope he can deliver on all those things he promised.

In my English class, we compared Obama's inauguration speech to Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. We watched them both on a projector and had the texts to read along with too. If you've never listened to MLK's speech the whole way through, you should. It's amazing. I got goosebumps from it. Obama's couldn't exactly compete with that one, but it was still great, in my opinion.

Also, the Bible he was sworn in on was huge.

(Photo credit: Scorpions and Centaurs, "Obama's speech...")

my new favorite kind of shopping.

This weekend I was up in Portland for a big soccer showcase tournament. It went pretty well for me and my team. We won 2 and tied 2 of our 4 games. It was a little wierd for me though because I was playing with a new club team (to me) and I was adjusting to the new position I'm at. But it was fun and there was some good soccer.

In between games, I got the chance to relax with a little therapeutic shopping. Usually, shopping means walking around for hours and trying a million different things on, but not this time. Oh, no. I was furniture shopping!

A couple weeks ago (I think?), the icemaker in the refrigerator at my house decided it would break and leak water all under the kitchen and living room floors. We ended up ripping out the carpet in the family room and the wood floor in the kitchen buckled a little bit from the water. Sooo... we're redecorating the living room.

We went to a lot of furniture stores throughout the weekend. I developed a bit of a routine too. I would look around the store to find the most comfortable looking couch or chair and then I would just park it. Sometimes, to the humor of the sales people, I would bring in my blanket and fall asleep, or bring in my book and read for while. My excuse was, "How am I going to know this couch works, if I don't test it out right?". Really, I just wanted to sleep. Which I did a few times.

Let me tell you, furniture shopping is wonderful. If you ever need to seriously relax, pretend like you want to buy a couch and just go lay on a bunch of different ones at a store. Ethan Allan is my favorite. Plus, the sales people will bring you cute little Ethan Allan water bottles if you stay there long enough. I think I might be sad when we are all done buying furniture.

my near-death experience.

I know I exaggerate about a lot of things, but this time I promise I'm not. Last night, I almost got into a very serious car accident. Here's the story:

I was on my way home from Albany on Hwy. 20 during rush hour. I was following this big truck that turned off onto a road on the right side of the highway. There was another car on that road waiting to turn left onto the highway. While the truck was turning, the car didn't look left to see if anyone (me) was coming and pulled out into the lane I was driving in, blocking it completely. I was going at least 50 mph (the speed limit) and had no time to slow down. I had to swerve into the turn refuge on my right quickly and then I overcorrected to avoid hitting oncoming traffic. I lost control of the car and started fishtailing really badly. I ended up doing a 360 degree turn across both lanes of traffic and off the highway into a field. I wasn't hurt and my car wasn't hurt which is miraculous, in my opinion.

The worst part about this experience is that nobody stopped. Not even one. Not even whoever almost killed me, who must have known that they caused me to lose control of the car. I felt like I was living out Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan. I think I could have flipped my car and been lying there dead and nobody would have stopped.

This showed me exactly how stupid our society is. We're always too busy, or too tired, or just don't care enough to help somebody in need. The real truth is that we don't love each other enough. If someone needs help and you can help them, you should.

Also, don't pull out into traffic without looking both ways. It's bad news.

I got in!

I got accepted into University of Missouri's pre-journalism program too. Just thought you should know. I'm excited.

the reed sea.

My friend Michael Finn is in a band that released their EP this week. They're called The Reed Sea. I think this is pretty great for several reasons. First, I think it's amazing that someone has enough musical talent to put together an album while they're in high school. Second, their music is actually really good!

Of course, their music is my type of music: indie rockish with good lyrics. But even if this isn't your kind of thing, you should still check them out. They put out four songs that you can listen to on http://www.myspace.com/thereedsea . Also, if you like it, you can take advantage of the free downloads at http://www.thereedsea.com/ .

I got my first acceptance letter this week! Once again, I feel very accomplished. I will admit I actually let out an audible squeal of excitement when I opened it. As you may have guessed from the photo, I got into the University of Missouri. I also was awarded a $4,000 per year academic scholarship. I applied for their journalism school too, but I haven't heard if I got in or not yet.

I still don't know where I want to go to school yet. I have applied/am applying to: University of Oregon, University of Missouri, Gonzaga University, Whitworth University, and Linfield College. I want to study journalism, but I want a school with enough academic diversity that if I change my mind, I will still be able to get a good education.

I can't really decide if I want to go to a big school or a small one. That's why I'm applying to some of both. I also don't know if I could handle going out of state for money reasons and also the homesickness.

Add in the question of whether or not I want to play soccer in college and you've got the amount of confusion I'm feeling right now. However, I'm not too worried about it. Maybe I should be. I feel like God has always taken care of me in the past though, and I need to just trust him with my future too.

it's stuck.

Last night I downloaded this really great song and it is stuck in my head for good, I think. That may be due to the fact that I have been listening to it on repeat since I downloaded it, but, eh, who knows? Don't worry though, I'm happy with it on repeat on my iPod and in my mind.

The song is Electric Feel by MGMT. It's amazing. I was going to put up the music video, but it happens to be rather ridiculous, like most music videos these days. I'm pretty sure those peaked in what? the 70's? Ah well, you should definitely listen to the song though. And if you feel like a laugh, watch the video. I didn't watch the whole thing, but it did involve a strange jungly/Amazon setting and really bad dance moves. The photo should give you a little preview of the music video.

(Photo credit: Heidi Heidi Heidi, "boysboysboys"

pictures! finally...

Okay, so the two top photos are from the Holiday Bowl. They had a really awesome half-time show with fireworks going off all around the stadium and like a million high school kids and marching bands playing. It was intense. And then some ashes from the fireworks fell on my hair and I was really afraid it was going to catch on fire.

The other pictures are from my time with my cousins in Bakersfield. We invented a new game that involves throwing, kicking, punching, heading, or whatever else, a beach ball at each other. It was a little violent at times, mostly when tickling and tackling got involved, but we all survived and had a great time while we were at it.

Oh yeah! I forgot to wish you a happy new year. Happy New Year! 2009 is going to be good. I can feel it.

you missed me. admit it.

I'm sorry I haven't written for a while. I guess I got a little carried away with the whole vacation business and let myself be a little lazy. But in my defense, I was in California visiting family and that kept me pretty busy.

So what have I been up to? I went to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. It was pretty awesome, especially since the Ducks won. I spent time with both sides of my family which I enjoy immensely. I think cousins might just be the best thing in the world. Aunts, uncles, and close friends are awesome too.

I have been spending a lot of time with my older brother and sister who are both home for the break. My brother came home from law school in Santa Clara, California. My sister just got home from studying in Spain for three months, so it's been great to hang out with her again. My life is not as great when I don't get to talk to her much.

When I got home, and on the drive home, I read two novels for my AP English class and did calculus like crazy. I read "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.

I know I've been promising to put some pictures up, but I'm at school right now and this computer won't take the memory card from my camera. Not to worry though. I'm going to make up for skipping out on blogging. In fact, I'm gonna blog the crap outta you guys. You just wait...