It’s crunch time. The last 15 or so days of school. I am so stressed (as I mention in pretty much every single one of my other posts) and I can’t seem to focus on anything. This past week tricked me into thinking it was summer. Tuesday afternoon, I left on Kairos. We returned Friday, and had a three day weekend of absolutely beautiful weather to enjoy. With the circumstances being that it was 83 degrees out for 3 days in a row with abundant sunshine each day, I, of course, took advantage of the sun and laid out, went to my friend’s pool, went on a run…and kind of forgot about all of my homework, tests, quizzes, etc. you name it. It wasn’t until 9 p.m. on Monday that I remembered I had to have 6 math assignments done for Tuesday morning, our Ning discussion finished up by 7 a.m. the following morning, and Kairos makeup work completed. This is when reality hit. This is when the stress kicked back in and I wanted to crawl into a ball and die. I thought it was summer already!!

The only thing keeping me going right now is the thought of prom being in two weeks. I am so excited about that..but other than that, if it wasn’t for prom, I’d probably just be depressed about school. I have a bad case of early senioritis…I can’t even imagine how I will be next year.

Before I forget, I wanted to share some stuff about Kairos. Not the dirty details, just what my experience was like..NO WORRIES. I don’t want to give anything away to the people who have yet to go on it, but may I just say that everyone should go and experience it. No matter your faith, opinions about retreats, rumors you’ve heard about it…GO. Go on it and you will absolutely love it. I got so much out of the retreat. It is said that you get out of it what you put into it, and I took that into consideration when I was sharing with my small group. REP G5, (G-FLY)….I don’t know if any of them are reading this…I hope so! Or my posts just go to waste, but thank you to whoever is reading this! =) Anyways, yeah..I really enjoyed it and that’s all I can say I think. AH JUST GO everyone.

I also wanted to give a shoutout to Mr. Aron Theising, one of my best friends since 2 years old baby…is going to USC next year. (If anyone didn’t already know.) Although I’m sad that I won’t get to spend senior year with him, I know I will for sure be making many visits, and sending millions of letters to him as he already ordered me to. Love you broth.

Well it’s 11:50 at night and I really haven’t done much homework. I got some of my hero journey pictures tonight which got me really excited, but I’m just now realizing that it’s going to be a lot of work so I’m probably going to devote my weekend to it……….hopefully. This weekend isn’t supposed to be AS nice weather-wise so maybe it’ll happen. It’s possible.

Well much love to everyone and let’s stick it out for 15 more days. Then..we’re seniors! And even better..IT’S SUMMA 09.

COOLEST SONG EVA!–>(doesn’t really start up until 1 min 10 seconds…so wait a bit)

LINK to the coolest song eva

P.S. Kairos tomorrow!!!

I’m supposed to be studying for chemistry right now…and I’m supposed to get all of my math homework finished by some time tonight…most likely a very late hour. But guess what? I’m not. Because I can’t. I cannot concentrate for the life of me I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I have a case of senioritis as a junior? But who doesn’t. It’s so close to summer and I literally want to scream! I just have way too much to do! Missing a week of school put me so behind and so last week catching up on everything was brutal.

However, all will fall into place and be fine after I go on Kairos, at least I hope so! We have next Monday off as well so that will be nice. I don’t really know what to expect for Kairos, so I’m just going in with no expectations. I am soo excited though, I’ve been looking forward to going since freshman year when my brother went. He came home and gave me the first hug he had given me in about three years, so it’s gotta have SOME affect on me if it can get to him you know? 

Well I better go!!! I got this to-do list to finish tonight/in the next few days..

1. Clean my room

2. Clean the trunk of my car and wash all the clothing that’s gathered in there over the past few months!

3. Study for Chemistry

4. Finish all of my math homework

5. Find something to wear for Convo tomorrow!

6. Pack for Kairos tonight or tomorrow

7. Wash off LOSER from my car window (Thanks Ben Fisha)

8….There’s just gotta be more.

HAVE A WONDERFUL SUNDAY! HERE’S A GOOD SONG I THOUGHT YOU WOULD ALL LIKE. Cheers you up!

Matt White-Best Days

I did it…I just finished my first two tutor sessions for SAT prep. The first hour consisted of review over some wonderful geometry along with algebra that I SHOULD remember, but of course did not. (And therefore probably looked like a complete idiot because before starting I told my tutor that between the two algebra was my forte…) The second hour, I switched to my english tutor who was so sweet. She was cool, and I think I enjoyed that session more because I enjoy english and writing a lot more than I care for math. So I really did it, I started with all of this ‘college business.’ The other day I signed up to take my first SAT and ACT in May and June. I haven’t been able to take the SAT yet because every day that it was scheduled for students to take, I had a dance competition. EVERY SINGLE SATURDAY. Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still love dance, but it really got me behind on all of this stuff. It scares me to be prepping for senior year already. Soon all these “easy” years will be in our past. Graduation will come waaaay too soon. 

When we were first given this assignment, I was a bit confused at how it was supposed to work. I was excited at the sound of a scavenger hunt, but I didn’t know how it was going to tie in to our hero journey. However, the scavenger hunt was not exactly the main assignment, it was the reflection over it. Which gems we chose to find, which ones we found most important; which ones we felt vital to possess in our own lives. After finding my gems and analyzing which I found most important to me, I came up with five. These include Courage, Compassion, Humor, Joy and Strength.

I believe that courage is one of the most important qualities everybody must have. With it, you feel powerful and can get through anything. I think that it’s significant to my needs because as I get older, I’m going to need the courage to dive into new things, take chances, start a new life in college and even beyond. Without courage comes doubt and with doubt a person becomes skeptical. I don’t want to be doubting myself in anything I do, I want to have the courage and confidence to make it through anything. Compassion is the next important quality. I think that I am a relatively compassionate person, but you can never have too much. I’d like to branch out to others more in a helpful and loving way. Humor, on the other hand, I think keeps us all sane. When things become too serious or tough in life, humor never fails to put a smile on someone’s face. My dad used to tell me that humor keeps him young, it’s the only thing that can make people laugh no matter what age. I feel like if I have a good sense of humor, I can make others happy. Joy is always important in a person’s life. People strive for happiness; they find it in marriages, having a child, buying something, accomplishing a goal, many different ways. Joy is contagious though, if I spread it around, the more joy there will be. My last gem was Strength. I feel like I need the strength to get through tough times in my life; I believe that I have already hit the Belly of the Whale in my life so far, and I still need strength to get through that obstacle in my life to this day. I know that there will be other little ‘divets’ in my life as I grow older, so I would like to prepare myself for them in advance. Strength helps me recover, and I find that important in anyone’s life.

I really enjoyed this activity. It was very enlightening to me and I liked the creativeness of it as well. 

WELL, it’s Friday…middle of the school day. Last day of school before spring break. I feel like the last thing I should be feeling is stressed, but that has been the story of my life the past two weeks. New York was soo much fun, but I missed three days of school which really got me behind. I had to make up so many different tests, and pretty much all in the same two days. Then OF COURSE teachers are out to get us, so they decided to assign every single test the last two days before spring break. Yesterday I had 3 tests, and today I have four tests. It’s fourth period, and I’ve already taken 3 tests! My next test is in french during 6s. Over SB I’m going on the exchange trip to France for two weeks! I’m very anxious, but excited to go. I’m worried about this whole communicating thing–pretty important. But we’ll see if I can get by with the french I have.

I hope everyone has a great Spring Break! I’ll try to write a post in Toulouse if my host, Margaux, let’s me use her computer!! OTAY peace

Just keeping everybody posted. Who’s goin’ to what?!

_____

Dance season is officially over. It’s wierd; I have been going to practice every day after school since August. I have had a competition every Saturday since January. I have never had this kind of time on my hands! I just feel like I had a set schedule, everything was in order and my work load somehow didn’t disrupt my attendance at practice (not like it’d be able to because I’m not allowed to skip), and vise versa. Now, I feel like I have TOO MUCH time on my hands. I feel like I’m more efficient when I have a lot on my plate. What to do now is the question. Right now, I’m sitting outside. It is an absolutely beautiful day..65 degrees I think they said. It’s so nice out here, but I feel antsy like I have so many other things to do because that’s usually the case. Now, I have all this time on my hands to get my homework done, relax, actually FOLLOW a TV series, hang out with friends and get a healthy amount of sleep at night. It just doesn’t feel right!!

I’ve been looking forward to this week for a while. On Wednesday morning, I’m leaving to go to New York. There is a large journalism convention taking place at Columbia University, and I thought it’d be a neat experience to sit in on some classes because I’m interested in studying journalism in college. Mr. Burgun, my etymology and yearbook/journalism teacher came up with the idea, and he asked if anybody would be interested in going. Holly, Aly Raynor and I decided to go, and we’ll be chaperoned by Mr. Burgun and Ms. Johnson from the college counseling office. We plan to go to the conference for 3 days straight, go see a Broadway show one night and go shopping in our spare time. I cannot wait, but it will be a bummer going back to cold weather. I don’t really care though because the fact that it’s New York pretty much cancels out all negatives. 

Another thing I’d like to share is that my family MAY…….MAYYYYYY be getting a new puppy! We’re trying to convince my stepmom, so we’ll see. Of course it’s not for sure, but I would go absolutely crazy if we got one. The best part…..she is interested in a siberian husky! Take a look….potentially the cutest little cupcakes EVER?!

I really enjoy the Lent season for numerous reasons. I look at it as a time to challenge myself away from things I habitually use or do and as a time to focus more on the truly important things in life. Some dramatics may look at it as a time of complete suffering, like giving something up is a nuisance in the small 40 days and 40 nights we are asked to do so. Some of the common things people give up are sweets/junk food/soda, Facebook, talking on the phone as much, video games, etc. But during mass today, Father’s homily really got me thinking. Yes, these things are important in our lives. We are striving to pick things that will be difficult for us to continue on without during the 40 days, but by not having these specific things, does it make us a better person? The homily today for Ash Wednesday was about how we must concentrate more on things that will better us as a human being and affect those around us. For example, this Lent season, one could give up judging people, bad mouthing others, being negative, etc. It made me see the Lent season in a new light. 

For Lent, I’m like the common teenage Catholic. I gave up junk food and Facebook. Sure, it’s going to be a challenge for me but only for the first week I feel like. I’m sure I’ll be able to adjust. I felt like giving up Facebook would be helpful to me because I spend so much of my time on it that I never have that extra hour to chat with my family, do a paper due a week later, etc. I’m sure it will better me not only as a person but a student, as well. After the homily, however, I decided to also give up being so negative. I’ve always been a pretty positive person but this past semester I began getting negative out of stress in school. I was worried about my junior year grades that I just started getting in a bad mood every now and then and that tended to lead to making my friends’ days bad because of my snappy attitude. I feel like I need to try to be more positive and to better each of my friends’ days whenever I see them. I think that is very important. 

What is everyone else giving up for Lent?

Well, my four day weekend was not all I had hoped it would be. Thursday night, I came home very tired and went to bed at 6:00 p.m. The entire rest of the weekend I was worn down with a stuffy nose, sore throat, discusting cough and huge tonsils. I visited the doctor a few times and didn’t really see anybody. I guess my sickness was perfect timing though. Normally I don’t enjoy missing school especially lately because missing one day really costs you. You have too much to catch up on and so much that you’ve already missed. And, in geometry and chemistry, you fall way behind after one day of not being in class. So, instead of missing four days of school, the four day weekend was planned at the right time!