Busy Summer.

Six more days. I swear these last six days will feel like an eternity. I'm sure my excitement for summer is not helping. This summer is going to be one of my busiest yet. The week after school I will be heading to "Mission Physician" camp in Grand Forks. I will get to follow around a doctor in a field of my choice and see what they do throughout the day! I hope it is a great learning experience for me, but if not at least I get to go with my best friend, Bryanna. After that I have my first volleyball camp! I think it is a team camp, and those are always so fun. Anytime I get to spend with my team is a great time. After that I have a big project going on in my room. The north wall of my room and the downstairs bathroom is caving in. We are starting to tear down dry wall tomorrow and then in June people are coming in to rebuild it. It's going to be crazy! Plus my sister will be living at home, so we will be very crammed for space! Then come July. I will be working at Bob's Fireworks again during firework season, mostly because I found it so fun last year! Then at the end of July I am going on a missions trip to New Jersey to help with Hurricane Sandy relief. On our way home we will be stopping in New York for a Yankees game and to do some sight seeing! I am the most excited for that trip this summer. I truly think I will grow from that experience and I can't wait to do some traveling. Throughout all these busy months I also have a couple of weddings, even more volleyball camps, and I have to find time to do my senior pictures! I am going to be so busy this summer, but I can't wait!

Spring At Last!

October, November, December, January, February, March, and even April all have had snow, but this past weekend was a glimpse of a little hope for spring. This past weekend was heaven for me. My parents were gone, and I was off of work! So I had the weekend all to myself, and I took advantage of it! I tanned on the deck, went out to eat, and jammed to music as loud as I could. I also had two bonfires with my friends! I had so much fun, and wish my parents left town more often. They should be willing to leave because I'm a good kid! I even cleaned the basement before they got home! I think I was willing to do that just because the weather put me in such a great mood! I wish it could be spring all year!

Growing Older.

In two short weeks my big sister will be graduating college. I literally can't believe she is done already. I can remember going on visits with her and people always asking me, "what are you planning on majoring in?" and then I would have to politely tell them that I was a 7th grader and that the cute (small) girl next to me was the senior. I can remember moving her in to her dorm the first year, and having to leave her all alone with a stranger. This was hard, but what was even harder was thinking about being home alone for the rest of my life. I learned to appreciate my sister more and more the longer she has been gone. Now she is all grown up and is going to find a real job and live in a real home and start her real life. I can't imagine how she is feeling right now! In August she will be leaving on a missions trip to either Malaysia or Jerusalem with the program Young Adults in Global Missions (YAGM) for a year. I am so excited for the new experiences she will have from this! Plus my parents are even talking about going to visit her over Christmas which is an awesome excuse to take a spectacular family vacation! Unfortunately, I am actually quite sad to see her leave! I'm really bummed she won't be around for my senior year! I really wish she could be around to watch my play my last season of volleyball and even to see my graduation! It's crazy to think about how far my sister and mine's relationship has grown throughout the years. I am so grateful for having her in my life and extremely excited to see where life takes her! I can't wait to see what life has in store for the rest of our lives and the cool things we will get to do together!

Stress.

What stresses a person out? School, work, home-life, personal appearance, money, or even just something as simple as a dirty room? Well for me it's most of the above. Here's another question… How do most people handle stress? Some people eat, cry, get angry, hide themselves, become depressed, turn to alcohol or drugs, or even resort to self harm. For me I just get completely and totally worn out. I push myself to my limits when I'm stressed, thinking I can take on more and more, even when I can't. I don't get more than 6 hours of sleep every night, I start to eat very unhealthy, and I even sometimes see my grades start to slip. Right now I am stressed. As you can tell I am writing this blog one hour before it's due, which is probably not the best scholarly habit to be practicing, but I have had a lot on my plate lately. I feel as if I always have these reoccurring three week periods where I am busy from school to 11 every night. I am in one of those periods right now. With my new job, my sisters upcoming graduation, starting to think about college, pushing hard to keep my grades up, and all of the regular end of the year craziness, I haven't had time to think about anything. So I'm very sorry to anyone that reads this post, because even I know its lacking in my normal creative or opinion filled blog posts. But when I was thinking about what I should write my blog on, the first thing that came to my mind was to be honest. So here I am telling you, my fellow classmates, that I am stressed. I am just worn out right now and I can't wait to finally be able to crash. I am ready for summer anytime now, and I think it's only about 29 school days away! That is awesome. So as I lay on my bed contemplating whether or not I should submit this blog I can't stop thinking about summer, friends, family, and a time of peace that is just around the corner. I'm sure you all can agree that the end of school is near, and you are losing most of your motivation. I sure hope that I am not the only one that feels this way! But I guess the main point of this post is to warn you all not to become susceptible to the crazy things stress can do to you! I am not doctor nor do I even know much about anything, but I think stress can ruin a person everyday and can definitely hold a person back from doing the things they want to! So don't forget to take a break, pamper yourself, and just take a breather from all the stresses in your life. :)

Opinions, Opinions, Opinions

Everyday I hear people expressing what they like or don't like, what they veiw as right or wrong, and even political or religious views. When I was younger none of these dicussions bothered me, because frankly I had no opinions of my own! But now that I am older, I have become my own person with my own views, beliefs, and opinions, and I hate it. I used to like to argue and I thought being a lawyer was definitely the job for me, but now that I understand how people will never get along I can't stand stating my own views.

With the new anti-abortion bill that was recently passed in North Dakota, I have been presented with many different disscussion with people from all different points of views. Now I am not quite sure my exact opinion on this situation, because I truly believe that until a person is in that predicament they can't say what they would choose. I think that everyone knows what they would hope to do, but every circumstance can present many different options. Now trust me, I do not support the killing of anyone, especially babies, but I don't think it's anyone's decision to force someone to have a baby. In some circumstances I think that the birthing of a child can be traumatic and even deathly. Their are certain times when the birth of a child will kill its mother. If the point of banning abortion is to save babies, what about those mothers faced with death themselves. They should be granted with the right to live just as much as their children. They have life behind them and families established. There should be no reason they have to worry about loosing that all. This whole subject just confuses me, because I have not idea what I truly believe would be a good solution to this conflict. I just wish there was a way to get people on the same page.

That brings me to my next topic-- opinions on social networking. These past few days have been miserable with drama. With the ND anti-abortion law, and the federal court system dealing with the gay marriage bill, I have not been able to escape everyone's points of view. Not only do I hate the fact that people can and will never be able to agree on something, I hate that they feel the need to fight on social networking. Please everyone keep your arguments face to face. People say rude things on the internet because they can't see the other person, and that is no way to communicate properly. If you want to discuss something over the internet please take it private messaging.

Just no matter what, always remember: pounding your opinions on others does not make them want to consider your side of the argument any more.

HANDS!

HANDS! HANDS! HANDS!
This past week I have been subjected to more than I thought I could ever handle. I had four days to become the best waitress I could be, and never would I have thought I would be able to do it. I have never had a waitressing job before in my life! Now yes, I may have been a barista or even a sandwich artist, but I have never had to deal with the ins and outs of the whole restaurant.

Last Monday was the first day of my training up at the new restaurant, Fanatics. The first day I was presented with strict rules, regulations, and details of how to provide the best service possible. I went home completely overwhelmed with all of this information, and even in a slight panic that I would be horrible at my job! So I had my mom help me study the menu and go through the notes I took. I even put this studying before my homework! I was so stressed and nervous that I was going to get fired or demoted to dish washer before the opening day!

I was also very skeptical about my workplace because it was all so new to me! Everyone I've ever worked for I have been close friends with, and never had to worry about making myself seem presentable. I've always already had a good reputation with all of my bosses, and this was a brand new experience for me! I was so worried my boss wouldn't like me!

Now we have worked waiting on people for the past five days, and I already feel comfortable! I love the people I work with, the way things are handled in the workplace, and even working itself! I really enjoy the new experience I am having with applying for this job, and I'm so happy that I did so!

One of my favorite things about this job is the people I work with! I work with a lot of people from all around the world. Some are part of a foreign work exchange program and some just happened to end up in town! I think it's very cool that I have a chance to communicate with these people and learn about their culture. They are very open with talking about their culture which I find so interesting, and they are all very excited when we tell them things about the U.S.

I've also learned many new things about the operating of a restaurant, which I find very interesting considering I want to do some type of Business Management in the future! It's very cool to learn what it really takes to teach people how to operate under certain conditions! I also really enjoy how creative and different everyday would be if I had a job like that!

I am so glad that I work at Fanatics, because I think that it is going to be a big thing in our community! So to my fellow classmates: if you have not went and eaten there, do it! It has the best food in town and the service is superb….:) (when I'm working… HAHAH just kidding) But seriously, make sure to come up and check it out!

Cirque Du Soleil: Koozå

People dream every night, right? Many dreams consist of goals, made up stories, and even what a person is going to do the next day. I know for me, dreams are colorful, wonderful, even fantasy like experiences. I always thought bringing a dream to reality would be the most captivating experiences of a lifetime. When I was a sixth grader, we went to San Antonio. My family went to a Cirque Du Soleil performance, and it was the most exciting experience of a lifetime. I felt as if I really got to make one of my dreams reality.The performance including tight rope walkers, contortionist, muscle men, trapeze artists, and the wheel of death. The storyline, props, and costumes were straight out of a creative genius's head. I had never seen anything like it. Unlike a normal circus, the whole act consisted of a story. This story was based around a poor loner who was searching around for his place in the world. He traveled along, coming across all the different performers. I really enjoyed that aspect of the show. Not only did the acts entertain me, but now it was almost like a live movie that kept me on my feet, making me try and guess what happened next. There were many different characters, and they all had a special quality about them. There was a bad dog, a trickster, a pickpocketer, an innocent man, and even a king! I couldn't imagine the amount of work they all have to put in to make this performance a real life experience. They even had audience participation, which made me laugh a lot because no one ever knew who would get chosen! I really had hoped my father would be picked from the audience to go out in the ring and do something totally jaw dropping!

If I could go back and watch it again, I would! We bought the dvd of the performance, and I actually have watched it from time to time! Although it is not as satisfying as being there in person, the video does a beautiful job of portraying what it would be like to be there. After watching this, I really wished I had some type of odd talent that could land me an awesome job like that! I honestly think they all have some of the coolest jobs around.

This was one of the best performances I've ever been to. It entertained me for hours, and I would watch it all again in a heartbeat. I recommend this show to everyone.