Vacation time

Just wanted to let everyone know that we're leaving for my grandparents house tomorrow afternoon, and won't get back till the 8th or 9th. (I'm not sure exactly which one). So, as I say every time, I won't be blogging till we get back as doing anything involving my grandfather's computer can get extremely tiresome. ;) hehe. If you could keep us in your prayers as we're traveling, I'd really appreciate it. Now we just have to hope I can survive a car ride packed with brothers, luggage, and an annoying talking parrot (just don't even ask). Over and out.

Another great Christmas

I have to say this Christmas has been one of the best ones yet (for me at least) ;). I hope everyone else had a great one as well. I thought I'd just mention a few of the things I received.

*One of the main things I got was a new bike, which I have been enjoying immensly. Previously I had to ride my brother's bike, which was so low it made me feel like a midget (I probably looked pretty ridiculous riding the thing). This bike is much bigger, and even happens to be my favorite color which is red (you should know that you know). ;) Besides the bike, I've also enjoyed riding my brother's electric scooter (I probably ride it about as much as he does. haha). That thing can really take off I'll say that.

*As last thing, I ended up getting some tycoon computer games which are extremely addicting. The first one, Lemonade Stand Tycoon, is very fast-paced,and fun as you get to tweak your lemonade recipe, your location, the price, etc. The customers are a little odd as they are really to walk around town and buy lemonade in the pouring rain, but hey, more power to them. ;) I also got Railroad Tycoon which is pretty tough, but a lot of fun (except it has a very annoying narrator). I got Airport Tycoon as well, but unfortunately the disc simply would not work (after many extremely frustrated attempts on my part), so I'll just have to put off controlling the airport industry for a while. ;)

*Novel wise, I received a three-part series on the love between a vampire and a normal girl. Verry interesting, and quite hard to put down. I'm already through the second one, as I am hopelessly horrible at savoring any book I have interest in. ;) The books are really well written, the details are great, and there is a great balance between reality and fantasy.

That's all for now.

Longest Day of the Year

Well the longest day of the year has finally arrived. (If you haven't guessed why that is, then you might need some help or something. ;) haha). Anyway, since I'm about bored stiff, I thought I'd let you know how our program went last night.

Let me just say the program went wayy better than I had originally thought. We all managed to remember most of the words to the songs, (though I did miss a few now and then), and we managed (once again) not to burn the church down with our candles. (though I did keep getting hit with hot wax). I even got to sing one solo, which surprisingly I was not a whole lot nervous about. (That is really wierd for me since I normally get freaked out at about everything that has to do with performing). Maybe it was a fluke. ;)

The "fun" part of the program, (which was us peforming skits for everyone at the christmas party, basically everyone acting like nuts), went pretty well too. The reindeer skit was pretty hilarious (my brother had the honor of being one of those), and we even pulled off "Nuttin for Christmas", which we had never rehearsed on the stage before. Let's just say we totally winged that one. But it all turned out okay, and luckily I didn't die of embarrassment. ;)

Now that the program's out of the way, all that's left standing between me and Christmas is good ole' Christmas Eve. So far, all my parents have planned for this morning is cleaning (not my idea of relaxation). Oh well. At least it gives us something to do. ;)

Christmas time

So once again I am finally back, and this time I don't plan to stay away from posting for so long ;). Things have been pretty insane, but now that school's out I should have a lot more time to post.

School wise, the year ended well. I finally got through my science semester test (which I had been studying my head off for), but history wise I'm not sure I ever want to hear WWII mentioned again (I studied my head off on this subject as well ;) ). Overall, school is a great experience, but it's always nice to get a break. We don't have to go back till Jan. 14th, so I guess I should stop complaining about school now. Don't want mom hearing this. ;)

As usual I am (very) impatiently waiting for Christmas, but first have to get through our church's annual youth christmas program tomorrow night. If you read my blog about our program last christmas, you'll remember we all had to carry candles while wearing thick, easy to trip over robes. Well this year we're doing that again (with different music of course), so if you hear about a church catching fire from a clusmy maneuver by a robed figure, it's probably ours. ;) Then after the sanctuary part of the service, we go to the FLC for the "secular" part of the program. Let's just say this part involves us acting out the song "I'm Getting Nuttin for Christmas," and a skit based on the song "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Thank heavens I don't have to be a reindeer. If I did, I probably would have changed my name and moved to Siberia.....Ok just kidding. ;) It should be interesting how all this turns out though. I'll let you know.

Video

Great video from GodTube.com Very inspiring.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

My Life

Well I'm finally back. Sorry it's been so long. ;) I guess I should update you on what's been going on so here goes....

*Driving wise, I only have two days left of driver's ed. *Hallejuah Chorus begins* haha. It's definitely not what I'd call fun (it can get kind of boring when the other kid is driving, unless you count holding on to your seat for dear life) but it's going a lot better than I thought. Driving on the highway was a bit of a culture shock, but now I actually find it easier driving there than in city limits. I still don't particularly like changing lanes, and a few of my turns have not been the best (haha), but I feel like I'm doing pretty well considering I haven't run over or into people, buildings, or mailboxes (thought I did hit a hedgehog the first day) ;) My bday being a week from Thursday, I'm planning to be at the DMV a week from Thursday getting my permit. ;) Unless I fail of course....*dun dun dun* ;)

*My first voice recital which was Monday Oct. 29 was very nerve wracking, but like the driving better than I thought. ;) I have to admit it was a bit intimidating singing in front of a bunch of college voice majors (who are at least 10 times better than me), but it is a good experience. ;) I'm dearly afraid that I'll have to do one next monday though.... Well I guessbetter just get used to them. *sigh*

*School has been going pretty well. It's been very hard (some of my papers have been extremely tedious) and science and math are more complicated than ever (hehe), but I feel like I'm getting something out of it which is a good sign I suppose. ;) Just a week and a half till Thanksgiving break. *Hallejuah Chorus starts again* haha Can you believe Christmas is just around the corner? ;)

*On a final note I just want to thank those who have been praying for our family over the past month. This situation defnitely still needs some prayer, but I think some good is coming out of it. Thanks again!!

Busy Month

Sorry it's been a while (again). We have extremely busy around here lately, but it's a good kind of busy. :) My grandma is here visiting with us at the moment, and my other grandparents are coming in next week. Next Friday I get to start the driving part of driver's ed (which I'm pretty nervous about) and I found out at voice last week that a dreaded voice recital (lol) is approaching the 29th, so I'm really nervous about that. ;) I'm sure everything will go fine. It's just a lot of stuff for one month. I'll be sure to let you know how everything goes. If I survive it all...haha jk That's it for now.

Prayers

I would appreciate prayers for my aunt and uncle as well as my grandma at this time (who are 600 miles away). I'm not going to go into details at the moment, so I'm going to let this one go as an unspoken. ;) Thanks very much!

Well not much has been going on lately. Today was an especially loong day in school, (we didn't get done till about 3:40.) And we have church tonight as well. *sigh* Not that I don't enjoy those things, it's just that they can get pretty tiring. :) Plus the weather is extremely sacking. It's in the 80's and it's October. I mean come on!! haha. They say it's supposed to cool off, but I'm not believing that till I see it. ;) Well I've got to run. I'll let you know how tonight goes sometime later this week. (We've been having a group of college students come and do our Bible study since our youth minister resigned two months ago.) It's been going pretty well so far, so hopefully it will stay that way. ;)

I'm Back

Goodness it's been quite a while since I posted here. ;) I hate going that long, but from me being sick last week (thanks to this girl at church who decided to get right in my face), to the horrors of geometry, to my dad's sudden interest in grading my papers (which can result in a lot of redos), I have been very busy as of late. :) I hope everyone is looking forward to a somewhat relaxing weekend. I most certainly am, (well I have choir at 9:00 AM tomorrow, but I'll still enjoy it I suppose. ;) ) Since I don't have much else to say, I thought I'd post one of my school papers. This one is a comparison of the book The Metamorphosis , ( a very odd and disturbing book to say the least) and the current debate on euthanasia. It's not one of my best papers, but it will do for now I suppose. :)


Relating The Metamorphosis to the Current Debate on Euthanasia

In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting The Metamorphosis with the current debate on euthanasia.

In the case of The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, the main character, wakes up one morning to discover that he has become a giant insect. He becomes a great burden on his parents and sister, (who must clean his room and feed him daily), seeing as how he can do nothing for himself. His sister soon becomes very upset with this situation. "‘We must try to get rid of it," his sister now said exclusively to her father, since her mother was coughing too hard to hear anything. "It will be the death of you two, I can see it coming. People who already have to work as hard as we do can’t put up with this constant torture at home, too. I can’t stand it anymore either.’ And she broke off crying so bitterly that her tears poured down onto her mother’s face, which she wiped off with mechanical movements of her hand." (The Metamorphosis page 49 second para.) Just as Gregor became a burden to his family, a person in a coma or with an incurable illness might become a burden to their family. It might become very time consuming to have to feed them, visit them at the hospital, etc. every day. It might even become tempting after a while to go ahead and kill them if they’re not going to get better in the first place.

Gregor’s parents first began considering ending his life when they realized that he had no further purpose in his life. He had originally been responsible for supporting the family, but of course now he can’t do anything to help further society. The families of some "doomed to death" patients tend to think along the same lines as Gregor’s parents. The patient can’t do anything in life anymore, and thus seems to have no purpose. Some families wonder why they should continue to let someone live on who has no purpose anymore.

As the story progresses, Gregor’s family begins to view him not as Gregor anymore, but simply as an insect. Gregor’s room begins to gather dust, as his sister barely cleans it anymore. She also doesn’t even notice whether Gregor likes the food she brings him, but simply collects it every day and sends more in whether he likes it or not. Since he can’t communicate with his family anymore, Gregor becomes nothing to them. This might be the case in real life situations. Sometimes an ill patient might enter into a state when they can’t communicate with the world around them, and thus might become already "dead" to the people around them. It might seem much simpler just to go ahead and kill them.

Just as euthanasia patient’s families contribute to their death by allowing them to be killed, Gregor’s family contributed to his death as well. Gregor basically starved to death because his sister brought him no food he could eat, but the main reason that he died seems to be because he had no will to live. After he heard his family talking about possibly ending his life and how he was nothing but an "it" to them, it seems as if Gregor believed it was his duty to his parents to end his life.

I stand against euthanasia. People shouldn’t try to play God, which is actually what they’re doing when they actively kill someone in that manner. Just because others don’t think a person doesn’t have a purpose anymore doesn’t mean that God’s done with that person. Euthanasia is nothing but murder.

Finally!!

I finally finished driver's ed last friday, and let me tell you there's no better feeling. :) haha. I still have to do the driving part of course, but at least the class part is over. I was getting very tired of taking test after test and of drawing street signs. :) There was a tad mix-up last Thursday when the teacher thought I hadn't been there Tuesday...let me tell you I quickly assured him otherwise seeing as how I would never have to go back for a make-up class as much as I could help it. :) And it was really annoying since I had been there in the first place! Oh well.

Sorry I haven't been writing here much lately. Now that driver's ed is over, I will probably have more time during the week than I had before. Farewell until then...

One down, one to go

Well I finished my first week of driver's ed last Friday. The class wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but that doesn't make it the most interesting thing I've ever been to either. :) On the first day the first 45 minutes were spent calling names so everyone could sit in alphabetical order. Then you spend the next several days hearing the most boring lectures possible in chapters in the most boring textbook possible (haha) and you get to watch videdos which demonstrate things that are common sense to most people. (At least I hope. :) ) I mean doesn't everyone know that you're not supposed to drive while drunk, talking on a cell phone, etc.? *sigh* I guess driver's ed does have its place. I have to admit though that drawing out street signs on a sheet of paper is extremely tedious and annoying (that was one of our assignments). But hey it'll be all over before I know it. (Hopefully) Then I have the driving part to look foward to. Oh joy.

Church Jokes

Seeing as how today's Sunday, I thought I'd post a few church jokes from a book I have chocked full with them. :) Enjoy.

First a few bulletin bloopers:

*"The sermon this morning is 'Jesus Walks on the Water.' Tonight's sermon is 'Searching for Jesus.' "

*"Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I Will Not Pass This Way Again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

*"The sermon topic for tonight is 'What is Hell?' Come early and listen to the choir warm up."


Here's one about a pastor and music minister:

"There was a church where the preacher and the minister of music were not getting along. As time went by, this spirit began to spill over into the worship service.
The first week the preacher preached on commitment and how we should all dedicate ourselves to God. The music director led the song, 'I Shall Not Be Moved.'
The second week the preacher preached on tithing and how we should all gladly give to the work of the Lord. The director led the song, 'Jesus Paid It All.'
The third week the preacher preached on gossiping and how we should all watch our tongues. The music director led, 'I Love to Tell the Story.'
With all this going on, the preacher became totally disgusted over the situation, and the following Sunday told the congregation that he was considering resigning. The music director led, 'Oh, Why Not Tonight.'
As it came to pass, the preacher did resign. The next week he informed the church that it was Jesus who led him there and it was Jesus who was taking him away. The music lieader led the song,' What a Friend We Have in Jesus.' "

That's it for now. :)

Labor Day

Well hope everybody has a great labor-free day tomorrow. (I've always wondered why we call it labor day. Why not anti-labor day? :) ) I will be spending my day laboring. That's right I still have to do school tomorrow. I admit that can get pretty darn annoying, but hey at least we get done pretty early in the year and I always get my birthday off. :)

Driver's ed is looming near (a week from tomorrow) and to tell you the truth I'm pretty nervous about it. :) It lasts from about 3:00 to 6:00 every day five days a week for two weeks. ugh We have to have 30 hours of classroom time (which from what I've heard is worse than watching paint dry), and at some point I guess I'll have to be driving on the highway. Man I'm going to be nervous about that. If you hear about any wrecks in that area, you'll know why. :) haha just kidding. I'm sure I'll be pretty confident by then. Hopefully.

Busy with School

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted here. I've been extremely busy with school and all that, which is going pretty well. The biology is great (well at least it is before the dissection kicks in :) ) but right now I'm bogged down in Heart of Darkness. It's a good story, but let's just say that it takes me about 45 minutes to get through one section. (That is a big deal considering how I'm a pretty fast reader. :) ) But I'll get through it eventually I suppose. If I don't die getting through the literature questions first. haha. Since school's back in,I might be posting some of my creative writing stuff on here sometime, so watch out for it. Or avoid it. :)

Well that's it for now. Except for the fact that is overly hot here. (Really that shouldn't be a surprise to me by now. ) I guess if I die of heat stroke you'll know soon enough. ;) haha

Back in School

The first day of school was yesterday, and I actually have a pretty good attitude about this year. :) I'm doing 20th century World History off a computer program which is very different to say the least. haha. In science I'm doing biology which I absolutely love (I'm actually thinking about majoring in biology when I get to college) and I get to read two books at one time this year, so as you can guess I'm loving that too. :) haha. I'll let you know how good they are after I finish them. Some of the questions for history are kind of tedious, and let's just say analogies and language arts are no picnic, but other than that it's all good. :)

Well that's about it. I'm starting driver's ed at the public school in about three weeks, so I'm pretty nervous about that. Well not too nervous, but who knows what'll happen when I try to park the car or when I'm riding in a car with a bunch of other kids. :) haha. I'll be sure to let you know what happens with that.

Evangelism Linebacker

Another funny video for you called "Evangelism Linebacker." I got this one from Godtube. Haha enjoy.
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7d102c52231bf62b8a67

Nancy Drew Game Review

Here is my review for the 15th Nancy Drew computer game entitled "The Creature of Kapu Cave." In this installment you play as both Nancy and the Hardy boys as you attempt to discover the reason behind strange happenings on the peaceful island of Hawaii. Nancy spends half her time helping an insect researcher with her frass charts (that got extremely tedious) and trying to find out more about the strange Hilihili Research Center. The Hardy Boys stay on the mainland and try to discover more about the tourist guide "Big Island Mike" and his daughter Puma, as they believe they are involved in something illegal.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It was really fun getting to play as both Nancy and the Hardy Boys, and the puzzles were still challenging, but not overly difficult to make you want to pull your hair out. :) However the game was extremely short, and the ending was quite a let down. At the end you might be left with the impression, "This is it? There's no more?" So overall I liked the game, but it was too short, some of the puzzles were a tad bit too easy, and the plot got a little bit tedious at times. :) So I give this game 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

A Surprise Party and Other Things

Last night our youth group had a surprise party for our youth minister who is leaving after this week. We actually managed to pull off the surprise (at least that's what we think haha). It was a tad bit complicated as all the youth told our minister that we were going to the coffee shop, when really we all drove over to another youth group member's house. Then we stayed there for about three seconds, and then we all headed over to another member's house where the party was going to be held, and snuck around to the back door and surprised him in the basment. So yes it was pretty complicated. And lets say that when I was riding with one of my friends to the house, I had to hang on pretty tighly to the car door. :) Don't worry she wasn't really a dangerous driver. Just a little excited I guess. haha

Well school starts back one week from today. I'm actually pretty excited about it as opposed to nearly every other kid in America. :) I'm going to have soo much work though and I'm a bit worried about doing geomotry. (Math has never been my strong point.) I am looking forward to most everything else. Especially biology. Well I'm not really looking foward to the dissection part of it now that I think about it. :) Don't worry though I'll try to spare you from long gross descriptions of it on here. :) Can't make any promises though. haha.

Eight Reasons

Check out this hilarious video I found on YouTube called "Eight Reasons Why I Don't Share My Faith". Besides being pretty funny, it does have some interesting points.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5EAFj5WTVt4

Really Tired

Well the busyness of this week has finally come to an end. (Thank goodness.) Not that I didn't have fun, but I'm just really tired. I've been waking up every morning to the sound of my cell phone going off. (Every time I put a calendar event on my phone, it beeps to warn you about it until you click OK.) It can be quite annoying to say the least. :) Anyways, the rest of VBS went pretty well. Some of the kids got extremely annoying at times, and I neared exhaustion just sitting around in the foyer waiting for them to get done with music. (haha)

The rest of the business course went well. Wendesday we had a health speaker who almost no one agreed with. I agree that we should try to eat healthy, but she was basically saying that the Bible says we shouldn't eat meat, dairy, wheat, or anything else. (Supposedly she lives off of fruit and vegetables.) To prove her point she only used verses from the Old Testament, and never any verses from the New. Jesus, Himself, said not to pronunce anything God made unclean. So basically this woman is consistently following Old Testament rules that Jesus said aren't necessary anymore. Well each to his or her own. Not sure what that speech had to do with business in the first place anyways. Ah well. :)

That's all for now. Hope everybody is having a great week, and is managing to stay cool. Right now it is 100 degrees here at 8:16 in the evening. Sad huh? My mom is even allowing our pet cat to stay in the house at night time since it's so hot. It must be pretty darn hot for my mom to allow an animal in the house. :)

Pretty Busy

This is a pretty busy week for me as 1: I'm helping out with my church's VBS which started last night (it runs till Wednesday), and 2: I'm taking a business course for high schoolers at my local college. (It started today and runs through Thursday.) The first night of VBS got off to a rambunctious start when my mom found out that instead of teaching one grade like she had thought, she nwo had to teach three. (Luckily she ended up only doing two because they had to move one of the grades into another group.) I ended up helping her, and the kids were pretty good I suppose. Most of the boys probably wouldn't listen if their lives depended on it though, since all they seemed to want to do was play games. Hello. That's what recreation is for. *sigh* lol. But at least I don't have to help out by getting on the stage with some of the other youth and going through the songs and motions during the beginning rally. Now that's something I wouldn't do if my life depended on it. :)

The first day of the business course went pretty well. I was pretty nervous at first cause I didn't know a soul there, but I ended up making several friends so I was pleased about that. :) The speakers were pretty interesting, and one of our projects is to make jewelrey and sell it on Thursday during the final lunch. Hopefully we'll be making some good money off that (like that's going to happen. :) I really enjoyed it though, and the main message was very motivational. It basically said that as long as you study hard and have a good attitude about education and think, you can have any job you want. Makes you feel kind of guilty after having a whole summer doing almost nothing with the brain though. haha.

Pictures

Here are a few picture that me and my brothers took while on vacation. Enjoy.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g74/drpreach/IMG_2554.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g74/drpreach/IMG_2559.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g74/drpreach/IMG_2564.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g74/drpreach/IMG_2572.jpg

Well I've got to go get ready for youth now. We're playing Ultimate Frisbee which I stink at (as a result I don't get passed too very often. :) but it's not too bad. At least we're going out to eat afterwards. That better make up for it. :) haha

The Deathly Hallows

Here's my review for the final Harry Potter book. Warning: There are SPOILERS in this review. If you haven't read the book and are planning on it, I suggest you don't read this. If you have or don't care about reading the book, then continue on. :)

In this book, Harry, Ron and Hermione, have all left Hogwarts in order to search for Horcruxes- different items that Voldemort put parts of his soul into- and destroy them. The book certainly should not bore the average reader, as every page is action packed. However, the book is very dark, and there are many many deaths. For example, Mad Eye, Lupin and Tonks, Fred Weasly, Dobby, and even poor old Hedwig are all killed off in this one. Towards the end of the book, Harry discovers that he, himself, is an actual horcrux. Thus, he willingly lets Voldemort kill him, so as to destroy that bit of Voldemort's soul living in him. However, Harry's mother's love protects him, and allows him to return. He then defeats Voldemort by using the Elder Wand (you'll have to read the book to find out more about that) in a very thrilling scene in the last chapter.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The writing was excellent, and I really enjoyed the ending. I do not see how Christians can believe this book is evil. Harry is obviously a Christ figure in this book. I mean think about it. He sacrifices himself, and comes back from the dead. Remind you of anyone? The book was very dark, however, and quite depressing at times. Overall, I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. It was definitely one of my favorite HP books.

Driving

Yesterday I got to have my first ever driving lesson. And by the fact that I'm still alive to post this, you can assume that I didn't do too bad. :) We did it in our church's parking lot, and my brothers (who for some reason decided to tag along) decided it would be funny to poke their heads out the door of the church and make loud noises which sounded like boos for the first few minutes. They got bored with that after a little while though. :) haha. I started off driving a little shakily, which resulted in me running into a flower bed. But once I warmed up I think I did pretty good. And I managed to avoid the one car parked in the parking lot. :)

Believe it or not I'm still working on the Nancy Drew computer game "The Secret of the Old Clock". If you remember back in my very first blog in December, I mentioned how I was about to start that game. It has to be the most frustrating ND game out there. :) First of all I got stuck on this sewing machine part. Neither me or my friend could beat it, but believe it or not my brother managed to. And now I'm stuck on rearranging this wierd picture that looks like it's completely right to me. *sigh* And on the other extreme I bought another one of those games last week, started it Wednesday, and beat it the next day. It was a bit too short in my opinion. That just shows you how different those games can be. haha

Back

Well we made it back from vacation yesterday after a great trip. The first two days of vacation we spent in a city about halfway to our destination, and during that time we swam some, and my dad endlessly shopped at used bookstores. :) Then on Friday we arrived in Pennsylvania, and that night there was a square dance in honor of the wedding. And let me tell you square dancing is not at all like ballet, (which I used to take.) haha. The next day we got the last Harry Potter book (we just couldn't make it to midnight the night before), and I had the book finished by the next day. I just couldn't put it down. :) Probably later on I'll post a review for it.

The wedding was on Saturday, and then the rest of the days we just spent relaxing. On Sunday we went to Longwood Gardens which was very nice, but extremely expensive. (My dad kept bringing up the fact that it cost 1oo dollars just to get in and eat lunch.) Anyways thanks very much for praying for safe travel, and it's good to be back on here. :) Hope everybody had a great week.

Vacation

Just wanted to let everyone know that me and my family are leaving for Pennsylvania tomorrow due to the fact that my cousin is getting married. We won't be back till Wednesday July 25th, so I won't be blogging here for a while. Have a great week, and try not to miss me too much. :) Hopefully I can survive long nights in hotel rooms with my brothers yelling their heads off. haha. ttyl

Random

Time for another one of those posts where I post on a few totally random topics. :)

*Well I'll be 15 this fall, so hopefully after we get back from vacation my dad will start teaching me how to drive. Also hopefully I won't have to take driver's ed at the public school. I mean I probably wouldn't mind too much, but I was talking to one of my friends about it, and it doesn't sound very pleasant. From what she said it sounded like there were about 200 students being taught at one time with several kids per car. For one thing I'm really not used to a huge class setting like that. I could handle a normal size class of course, but 200 is a bit much. Also I'm afraid I might get assigned to a car with a wierd maniac person who doesn't know a thing about driving. Well I guess most people who come to driver's ed don't know much about driving, but still. hehe. I'll let you know what happens with all that.

*If you asked me what the most important thing I learned from church camp was, I would say that I learned several new card games. Haha just kidding, but I did learn some pretty good ones. For example there's this rather interesting game called Moffia (which could be considered by some as quite violent :) ). Each person is given a card that they must keep secret from the rest of the group. If you get the ace, then you're the Moffia. If you get the queen you're the nurse, the jack you're the sherriff, and a normal card you're just a townsperson. The narrator knows who everybody is, and it's good to have a narrator who can tell pretty funny stories. The narrator tells everyone to go to sleep (close their eyes) and the Moffia points at a person they want to kill off. Then the nurse wakes up and points at somebody she wants to heal, etc. Then everybody wakes up, the narrator tells who died and how (unless the nurse managed to heal them), and all the other players (including the Moffia) vote on who they think the Moffia is. There are quite a few more details, but that's the main jist of it. And let me tell you it is hilarious. :)

Well that's all I have to say. Till later.

Order of the Phoenix

Today I got to see the 5th Harry Potter installment, and I quite enjoyed it. Warning. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie and would like to in the future, don't read any further or a suprise might be ruined. So don't say I didn't warn you. :) The move overall was very well done. A lot of scenes that were main in the book had to be left out of course, seeing as how the book was 800 something pages long. I thought the director did a very good job compressing everything together though, even though some parts were a tad bit confusing. For example for those who hadn't read the book, the part about the prophecy might have been a bit confusing. Also my dad was particularly irked at how short the ending fight between Dumbeldore and Voldemort was. I agree it could have been a bit longer, and also the ending could have been a little bit better if they had followed the ending in the book. Other than those few things though, the screenplay was really quite good. The move also really brought out how all the good guys (like Harry) had what Voldemort didn't have, love. So I really don't understand how Christians can think that Harry Potter is completely evil and has no Christian themes, etc. But more on this later. I don't want to cause a riot. :)

The actors did a very good job, and the graphics were of course excellent. I thought the actress who played Luna Lovegood did a very good job (her voice was perfect), and the actress who did Dolores Umbridge was excellent as well. (She made you want to wring her neck.) Also the movie was pretty fast paced compared to the earlier ones, and I really like that. So all in all I give the movie 4 1/2 stars out of 5. Watching the movie has gotten me particularly excited about next Saturday when the final book comes out. I can assure you I will be reading it next weekend. :)

Sickness and Other Random Stuff

About two days after I got back from camp I came down with the cold that's been going around in my family. Just my luck huh? Luckily I don't have it too severe, but I was sure that this time I wasn't going to get it. After all my family had come down with while I was away, and I assumed it would have been too late for me to get it. Think again, Hannah. *sigh* But I am determined to get better before tomorrow because I have a voice lesson and choir tomorrow which are things I really don't want to miss just because I have some dumb cold. I'm so determined in fact that this morning I drank a glass filled to the brim with orange juice (not my favorite drink in the world.) If it hadn't been watered down some I think it would have killed me. :) So we'll just have to see about tomorrow then.

On to more pleasant topics, this summer I've been doing a lot of reading for two reasons: 1: I absolutely loove to read; and 2: Each summer I keep a log of all the books I read, and at the start of school my dad gives me one buck for every book I read. So far I've chalked up about 18 bucks. Sorry there, Dad. :) Recently I read Troubling a Star by Madeline L'Engle which was so good I could hardly put it down. Some of the details about Antartica got a bit tedious at times, but it was still a great read. I also recently read two National Park mysteries entitled Wolf Stalker and Rage of Fire. They were overall very well written and had some pretty neat facts in them. Sure I read them all very quickly (there wasn't a whole lot too them) but they were still pretty dang good. :)

Well hopefully this week I'll be able to convince my dad to take us to see the new Harry Potter movie that's coming out Wednesday. I'll be sure to let you know my opinion of it after I see it. (If I see it that is.) That's it for now.

Look Who's Back

Well I made it back from camp a few hours ago. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience, but of course there are always a few downers to these things. :) For example my voice is pretty darn tired due to the fact that every day we had three-four singing rehearsals all leading up to a concert Friday night. We also found out we had to memorize the two pieces the day before we were due to sing them. Miraculously enough all 50 something members (or however many were in the choir) managed to pull it off without making any serious errors. Yes the rehearsals did get extremely tedious at times and I had to mouth a lot of the words as I felt like I had plaster on my throat toward the end of the week, but it all paid off in the end. :)

During our free time we played a game called Bacci (I think that's how it's spelled), got ice cream, enjoyed the gorgeous ocean (which I had never seen before in person), and did other random things. It's nice to be home though where I can get on the internet, take a shower when I want to, not have to worry about my stuff being thrown around, etc. But it was still a great week and sometimes it's good to get a break from the electronics and stuff like that and just focus on God. Well I think I'm going to bed early tonight as I'm thorougly exhausted. I went to bed at 11:30 last night and had to get up at 5:20. *sigh* Well that's it for now. Great to be back on here!

Leaving for Camp

Well just wanted to let everybody know that I'm leaving for church camp tomorrow so I won't be blogging here for a little while. We're leaving tomorrow at 6:30 AM (ugh) and we're getting back sometime Saturday afternoon. I might be too tired to blog again Saturday, but I'll definitely try to blog again Sunday to let you know how it went. We're going to music week so it will be a tonn of singing. Hopefully I'll still have my voice when I get back. :) So if you all could pray that we have a safe trip there and back it would be much appreciated. :) Well hope everybody has a great week, and I'll talk to you when I get back.

Misunderstanding

This past Wednesday my mom (who doesn't normally sing with our church's choir) had been told that at the end of the rehearsal the choir would be going over the Messiah, the one thing my mom would be doing with the choir. So my mom told me (who was staying for the whole practice) that she would come at around 8:30. 8:30 came and went, and soon it was 8:50 and still no mom. So in the middle of practice I ducked out in the hallway and phoned home. My dad picked up, and I asked him why mom hadn't showed up yet. He replied, "Hannah, your mom left ages ago." So we both started to freak out. My dad said he was leaving the house to search, and I hung up and hurried through the sanctuary towards the front of the church, intending to meet my dad there. My horrible visions of my mom's car flipping over into a ditch or her being in a terrible accident were confirmed false, however, when as I dashed into the foyer I noticed one person standing there. Mom. Turns out she had been standing back there forever but just hadn't popped her head into the sanctuary because she had been waiting to go in when the Messiah started. She was in a pretty irritable mood by this time since she had wasted her time sitting in the foyer for a Messiah rehearsal that never came. Anyways, she called my dad before he had left the house, and everybody realized it had been a false alarm. Next time before I panic, I'll be sure to check the foyer. :)

Well besides that interesting experience, which prompted me to unload the dishwasher without complaining two times in a row, the rest of this week has been pretty normal. Now I'm just ready for a relaxing weekend free from Wednesday nights, spanish practice, piano practice, and the like. Also tomorrow night is our church's annual father-daughter banquet, so I'm hoping my dad will decide to take me. :) haha. I'll wrap this up by saying what I've said several times before, thank goodness it's Friday.

My Kitty

Well I just got back from an hour and a half choir rehearsal at church and from babysitting a few kids while their parents were in a bible study. Let's just say I'm officially pooped. Having two kids blabber their heads off to you at once plus having to sing for a verry long period is no picnic. :) Well I don't really have anything else to say right now so I thought I'd post a few pictures of our family's cat Charli. Enjoy!

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Horrible Heat

I am literally about to burn up. This heat down here is making me long for winter again. :) I've just been out riding my bike and after about 15 minutes gave up trying to pretend it wasn't hot, came in and started glugging water. Luckily I haven't had to spend too much of my day outside so far, though, cause this morning I was asked to take pictures for a local children's reading program. (If you don't know this about me already I looove taking pictures.) Unfortunately there were only nine shots on the camera, so I had to spread out the shots over the whole morning. (Luckily the thing only lasted about two hours.) The irking thing about being a photographer, however, is that lots of people simply refuse to get their pictures taken. For instance, my brother warned me that if I took any pictures of him at this thing he would never forgive me as long as I lived, and one woman remarked , "You can take all the pictures you want, but you better not dare to take any pictures of my backside." :) So yes that's the kind of people us photographers have to deal with. haha

Well I am getting more and more excited about next month for several reasons: 1: Church camp is in about a week and a half (more on this later), 2: The next Harry Potter movie and the final Harry Potter book come out, and 3: We get to travel a ways up north for my cousin's wedding. So yes I am very excited about all of these things and I will tell you more about them in due time. :) I'm also excited about going up north and getting away from this heat. It'll be just my luck though if it's as hot up there as it is down here. *sigh*

Cat Fights and Other Stuff

Yesterday morning while I was lazing around eating breakfast, I noticed a strange gray cat in our yard. This cat is our cat Charli's sworn enemy seeing as how it's always coming over to our garage to steal our cat's food. Normally Charli will just sit in the yard and stare at the gray cat for a while, and then the gray cat will saunter off and go its merry way. This time was different. Charli's tale got about the size of a spiked club first of all, and then she suddenly jumped on the gray cat. They scuffled for a little while during which my mom raced outside to try to put an end to it while my brothers ran to grab their water guns. (My mom won't admit it but she really does like our cat. :) ) After a few minutes the cats stopped fighting all of sudden and stared at each other nose to nose for a little while. Then they went right back to fighting again. When my mom raced forward to try to break up the fight, the gray cat took off with Charli chasing right after it. Obviously Charli was a bit tired of the gray cat stealing her food all the time. :) A few minutes later Charli showed up back at the garage fur all rumpled, and favoring her left paw. Luckily her paw looked a little better than it did yesterday, so there's probably nothing seriously wrong with it. There's been no sign of the gray cat since, and assuming that it survived the fight I don't think it'll come around here anytime soon. :)

Well tonight is our homeschool group's teen social thing that I was telling you about earlier, so I'm pretty excited about that at the moment. We finally found me a dress at about the tenth shop we looked at (okay more like the fourth but still. ) and I'm actually pretty satisfied with it. I had to end up getting a kid size but oh well. It doesn't even look like a kids dress anyway so who cares? :)

Dermatology and Sickness

Today I had to go to the dermatologist's office to have a rather large annoying mole cut off my back. I was a little bit worried at first about the whole thing, but the procedure itself involved the doctor numbing it in some way and then just digging it out. (It couldn't have taken more than about 10 minutes.) I was rather interested in going to the office as 1: I've never been to a dermatology place before and 2: I'm considering being a dermatologist when I grow up, so I thought it would be interesting to see what they really do in person. :) When I was younger I had orginially wanted to be a doctor who delivers babies, but I decicded against that since I'd probably be a tad bit squeamish when it comes to that kind of stuff. :) I'll just stick to skin.

Well this past weekend hasn't been the most pleasurable as I've been sick with some kind of bug. All Friday afternoon I felt thorougly exhausted for no apparent reason and my limbs felt kind of achy. Then I developed a temperature and just barely managed to have the strength to crawl into bed that night. haha. Don't worry I wasn't quite that weak. Then the next day I developed a sore throat that I'm still getting over right now and is quite annoying to say the least. :) One of my friends was supposed to have come over to spend the night Friday, but she never showed up which worked out for the best seeing as how I was sick and all. I never exactly figured out why she couldn't come...but oh well. :)

Random Topics

*Well today's my younger brother's birthday, so of course he forced me to wake up at about 8:00 AM (which is very early for summer) just so he could open presents. *sigh* I shouldn't really be talking though. :) Anyways, since a local pharmacy is about the only place that us kids can do shopping of any kind, I ended up getting him a bag of candy and a chocolate bar. He seemed pretty pleased with it (I mean who wouldn't). As long as he doesn't eat all of it at one time we'll all be good. :)

*About my grandma, as far as I know she seems to be doing a lot better. She'll be going into rehab for several weeks I believe, so hopefully that will do her a lot of good. I'll be sure to let you know if anything else happens with that.

*Recently I read the fantasy book "The Mantle of Abbadon" and its sequel "The Thorns of Tulumar" both by G.T. Hesse. Though the books had a few similarities to the Chronicles of Narnia, (the High King was a Lion), I still throughly enjoyed them and for the most part they were very different from most fantasy books. I thought it was neat how both of the books were obviously Christian allegories. For example, the characters Efenlo and Dymar represented Jesus and the Devil, while the mantle and the thorn,which imprisoned many of the common people, obviously represented sin. I could find a lot more symbolism to mention here, but I don't want to ruin the story for you. :)

Prayers Please

I would appreciate it greatly if everyone could keep my grandma in your prayers. Over the past week and a half she has fainted three times, and is now in the hospital. Fortunately, the doctors think that she's been fainting only because her potassium levels are really low. Hopefully it's nothing more than that and not anything serious like a blood clot or anything like that. I'll be sure to keep you updated.

On a lighter note, nothing else is going on with me except two weeks from today our homeschool group is having a formal end of year social for the teens that I'm really looking forward to. Unfortunately, I simply can not find a dress that fits me at all. I'm a tad bit on the skinny side so when something fits me height wise the waist is too big and when something actually fits me in the waist the length is always too short. Plus, half the dresses stores sell today are completely ridiculous looking and wayy too revealing if you ask me. *sigh* Maybe I'll find one eventually. :)

Well I'm going to stop writing now as I'm going to go outside and ride my bike a little bit. Hopefully I won't die of heat stroke considering that it has been ridiculously hot down here. :) It has been in the 90's for a whole week. If this is how the weater is at the end of May/early June, I'm going to hate to see what it will be like in mid-July.

Allergies and Other Stuff

Well this past Saturday I got the results back from my allergy blood test. The day before I had been completely freaking out cause the doctor had called and said for me to avoid all nuts, and I was guessing that meant peanuts. (If you don't already know I absolutely loooove peanut butter. It is one of the best foods ever. Okay I can stop now :) Anyway, the next day I got the actual results back. Cashews, of course, were off the chart, and I also found out I am highly allergic to almonds as well. But I am not allergic at all to pecans, walnuts, or peanuts. You can guess I was pretty ecsatic when I found out that peanuts were okay. The only problem is that my bro is highly allergic to peanuts, so we can never keep it in the house. I was pretty sad about this since right after I found out I wasn't allergic to peanuts I really felt like getting into some peanut butter. Turns out, the next day our church had a Memorial luncheon and some wonderful angel brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (I have not had one of those for a year or more probably.) I'll be forever in that person's debt. haha.

Well I hope everyone is having a great very relaxing Memorial Day. We aren't doing anything special, but relaxing doing nothing is okay with me anytime. :) Unfortunately, I have to do a tad bit of math this afternoon (I have to work through some kind of algebra 1 honors program we never got done in the regular year.) But hey at least we only have to do it twice a week. If it was more than that I might have to rebel. :)

Time Flies

Well my grandparents left this morning after spending almost an entire week with us while our parents were gone on a retreat. (Time really does fly. This week just sped by) We had a great time just relaxing, playing awesome games like Connect Four (which I can sometimes stink at), and last night we bought Night at the Museum on paperview. It was a hilarious movie and if you haven't seen it you should. It is really really good. Also during this week I've gotten a lot of reading done, and since I don't really have anything else to say about my life I thought I'd mention some of these books.

First I read a quaint book from the early 1900's (I think) entitled What Katy Did Next which was about a girl traveling to England with a woman and her daughter. I admit it got a bit boring at times due to the very loong descriptions, (it described almost every little detail about every place that they went) but it was still pretty good. Then I read a murder mystery called Angel's Gate which is about a miner who was murdered and the mystery surrounding his death and his two children who supposedly run wild around the countryside. It was very interesting, but a bit odd at times. Currently I'm reading a book called Annie which is based on the true story of the Rowlands family who sailed from England to America immediately following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The book moves a little bit slow at times, but is still very entertaining and enjoyable.

Well I am greatly looking forward to next week due to the fact that there is absolutely nothing coming up. Hopefully I won't get too lazy over this summer. :) That's it for now.

Book Review

Here is a review for the novel "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart.

This book centers around an orphan, Reynie Muldoon, who takes a number of special tests for gifted children. After just managing to pass three puzzling and extremely complicated tests, Reynie meets Kate Wetherall, and George "Sticky" Washington (two other children who passed.) Later on, they travel to a strange old house to meet Mr. Benedict, a very intelligent gentleman who send the children along with a fourth child, Constance Contraire, on a very dangerous mission. Strange and dangerous messages have been transmitted by children throughout the world, and Reynie and his friends must travel to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened; the school where the dangerous messages seem to be coming from. They must pose as students to attempt to thwart the scheme of the evil genius in charge of the school, before the messages begin to overpower the world.

This story surprised me as it had a very interesting plot and the characters were very endearing. The whole message concept, however, was a bit confusing at times and some of the finer points of the story weren't exactly the clearest. Still, I personally enjoyed it and I had it read in three days cause I simply couldn't put it down at times! I'm giving this book 3 3/4 stars out of five.

Random Things

Here are a few random things that have happened lately around here:

*Yesterday was the day I have been waiting for for two years and three months. I got my braces off. *screams exuberantly* I have to say it is one of the best feelings in the world being able to rub your tongue over your teeth again. Never take that for granted folks. :) For a few hours I enjoyed the freedom of having absolutely nothing on my teeth. Then I had to go get the retainers that I have to wear for one year. They're a bit uncomfortable, but I do get to take them off to eat and brush and all that. They're kind of a hassle, but hey at least the braces are gone.

*Yesterday was also the day that I finished my freshman year of high school. It's hard to believe another school year has come and gone. I had to take one very stressful math exam yesterday plus a big science test. I'm done now, however, and am completely free! We are getting out wayy earlier than we usually do. (The schools here aren't getting out till June 8th.) But hey you don't see me complaining. :) Also my grandparents are coming in on Saturday, so I'm very excited about that as well.

Well that's all for now.

Tests, Tests, Tests

Unfortunately yesterday I had to go to the allergist due to my horrible reaction I had last month. (If you didn't read my blog about that I reacted to half a cashew sometime last month.) It took us over an hour to get there and when we finally did get there I discovered I had to take two allergy tests. What fun. The first one was a skin test where they put different samples of things I might be allergic to on my back. I didn't see it myself, but my brothers were tempted to play a game of tic-tac-toe on my back. Obviously it must have looked a tad bit strange. (They didn't test nuts on that test though cause they thought it might be too dangerous to do that.) So anyways I found out I'm pretty allergic to dust and to certain types of fish. I can live with that (I despise most kinds of fish with a passion). I'm just glad I didn't turn up allergic to chocolate or milk or I might not have been able to go on living. :) just kidding but it would have been pretty tough.

Then I had to go the lab for the *dun dun dun* blood test which is extremely not fun. (This test was for the nuts) For one thing the lady that was doing me could simply not find a vein on me to draw blood from (I must have really small veins.) She kept asing me, "Do you drink a lot of water?" and I'm thinking "Well yesterday I drank two and a half bottles of the stuff. Is that enough for you?" :) So anyways she finally found one and boy when she pricked it in it sure hurt. But luckily I didn't pass out or anything like that and it actually wasn't half as bad as I thought. So the results will be back in a few days and if it turns out I'm allergic to peanut butter....you don't want to know how I'm going to feel about that. :)

Well I had to take a massive history test today. It was somewhere around five pages long and was pretty darn tough if I say so myself. :) It also had an essay question on it which I didn't particularly enjoy, but I got through the whole test in about an hour which was pretty good I guess. :) I'm just waiting for my mom to grade it, and hopefully I won't see a big F- or something like that. Now that would be some kind of nightmare. :)

Thank Goodness It's Friday

Well the last few days have been a bit on the busy side for me, so I'm definitly looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Yesterday I was forced to take the standardized tests (even though we're homeschooled I still have to take them.) The vocabulary test was a bit harder than I thought it would be. In fact, about 30 minutes after I had taken the test I realized that I had for sure missed one ,because a word I had to give a definition for on the test, turned up in a book I was reading. It was then that I realized its true meaning. *sigh* Oh well. Hopefully that was the only one I missed on that one. :) The reading comprehension test wasn't too bad, but extremely boring in every possible way. There was a very ridiculous poem about some kind of plant that I had to answer questions about, and trust me it was no piece of fun. (I'm not a big poetry fan if you haven't already guessed.) After I got through the rest of the language test, I had to face the math section which I had been dreading for a good while. Two years ago when I took the math part I completely panicked and instead of thinking through things, I got freaked out whenever I saw a problem I couldn't figure out almost instantly. Luckily this year the math section was much much easier. In fact, I feel more confident about that one than the language part, (and for me that's saying something. :) The only problem is one of the choices for each math problem (it's a multiple choice test) is "none of the above". Cruel huh? *sigh* I got through it though, and now we're just waiting for the results.

This afternoon I helped out with a food distrubution process at our church. (Our church gets together boxes of food and sells them to the community at a cheap price.) Right now my fingertips are freezing from touching all those refrigerated foods, and my arms and legs are pretty dang exhausted from running back and forth and packing all those boxes. But hey I still enjoyed it and I was able to eat a doughnut which I only get about once a millenium. Okay more like once or twice a year, but still. It was the Krispy Kreme type with sprinkles, moist bread, chocolate frosting that melts in your mouth...Okay I'll stop there. :) Anyways, hope you've had a great week and hope you have a nice mother's day weekend. All I have left to say is... Thank goodness it's Friday.

Church Stuff

Well it was pretty nice getting to go back to our regular church yesterday after being gone for two weeks. In Sunday School we got in the van and drove by some of our members' homes who don't come to church that often and prayed for them. It was a nice experience, and our group was about the quietest I've ever heard them (except for when the teacher asks who would like to pray aloud) :) I didn't really know many of the people we were praying for, so I just had to come up with a good vision of what they might look like in my head. :)

That evening we had bells, and we had so few people show up that we had what our director calls a "polishing party". Let me tell you it's certainly not what the average person would call a "party". It consists of polishing bells with a special odd smelling polish until the rubber gloves you're wearing turn a greenish-blackish color. (My friend's actually turned yellow which was quite a bit odd looking. :) And we had to go through many many octaves, (I kind of lost count towards the end.) So after all that we had choir, which was a bit more pleasant. We only had six people but I have to say we sounded pretty good for having such few people. Unfortunately next year we're losing three of our key members, so I'm not so sure we'll sound that great next year. :) Oh well. I'm sure we'll make it. After that I think some people were going to stick around to play volleyball, but I can assure you that I wasn't one of them.

The Thing

Here's another one of my many creative writing assignments entitled "The Thing." The assignment was to tell a story from the perspective of a person from the 19th century coming across a piece of modern technology. Hopefully from the story you can figure out what the piece of modern technology is. :) Enjoy.


I gasped in shock as I stared at the "thing" ahead of me. What could this be? How could this be real? Was I dreaming? Ah I must start at the beginning. On a cold winter day in 1800, I happened to be enjoying an early morning stroll around the small town in which I lived. As I reached Burke Street, eccentric Mrs. Peterson poked her head out of her small home and invited me in for some early morning tea.
"Come right in, Miss Harrison!" she had called in a loud voice. "I haven’t seen you in the longest time!"
Not wanting to be rude, I accepted the invitation. It was when the old woman was in the kitchen, getting ready to serve the tea, that I saw the thing. I, Annie Harrison, love to explore, so I was looking casually around the home by Mrs. Peterson’s own invitation. I saw the thing in a small back bedroom. At first I thought it was merely nothing. It was a small square shaped thing that look almost like a box, except it wasn’t. For one thing the center of it was glass almost, and it seemed at a distance as if one could see right through it. I ventured forward for a closer look and tapped on the glass. I then stepped back in shock. I could see my own reflection! As I continued to stare, I noticed a small row of buttons on the lower half of the "box". Feeling adventuresome, I reached down and pushed the button down as hard as I could. It was then that I had the worst shock I’ve ever had in all of my 17 years.
As soon as I pressed the button, it was as if the little box came alive. A strange picture popped up on the screen. It was a man talking! Can you believe it! My first thought was that a man was trapped in the box but then I realized how ridiculous that assumption was. I jumped back and continued staring. Then a more frightening idea popped into my head. Could this be some form of witchcraft? I mean what else but pure magic could cause a man to be trapped in this thing? Was Mrs. Peterson a witch? It made perfect sense. She was, after all, a very queer sort of lady who nobody knew to well. Someone needed to put a stop to this! Someone needed to help that man! I began yelling in the direction of the box, "Don’t worry, sir! Stay put! I’m going for help!" The man made no indication that he had heard me, however, and went right on talking. I gulped in surprise. Why could I see him and hear him but he apparently couldn’t see or hear me? I’d never thought of that until just now. Something awfully strange was going on, and I was sure it was the work of dark magic.
I became even more surprised when the man started talking about a war that was going on in the year 2002. 2002? That was way in the future. Obviously, some witch had been fooling with this man’s mind. Just as I was about to run out of the room in a fit of terror, I noticed a long thing right behind the box. It was extremely long and looked almost like a snake with a very odd kind of skin on. It also seemed to be connected to some kind of weird place in the wall that had tiny holes in it. Curious, I grabbed the long wire thing and pulled. To my shock, it came out of the wall, and as it did so the man in the box suddenly hushed his talking. Puzzled, I peered down at the strange snake like thing. It had two weird metal like things at the end of it. Suddenly, I noticed a little bit of the skin like stuff was starting to come off. As I began to curiously investigate, I suddenly heard a loud voice yell, "Annie! Stop! Drop it!"
In shock I dropped the thing and saw Mrs. Peterson race in the room and grab the cord. "Mrs. Peterson!" I stammered. "What in the world is this...thing??"
Mrs. Peterson sighed. "I didn’t mean you to find this, Annie."
"Well listen here, Mrs. Peterson. If you really are a witch..."
Mrs. Peterson threw her hands up in the air at mock horror. "Of course I’m not! Come right in my room, Annie, and I’ll tell you the whole story. At least I’ll tell you what that thing is. I can’t tell you how I got it and all. Too complicated if you ask me." She paused uncertainly. "Annie, could we possibly keep this a secret?"
"Of course," I answered readily. And I kept her secret about the strange "television" and am still keeping it today. It’s not like anyone would believe me. They would just laugh and say I was addled in the head. All I know is what I saw was really there, and maybe someday other people besides me will see it too.

Back

Well we made it back safely yesterday, so thanks to all who prayed for a safe trip. The driving part was extremely tiring I can tell you that, and it did get a bit tedious and cramped. But hey, at least I didn't get car sick or anything like that. :) We had a great time at my grandma's just relaxing and doing random fun things, (like reading my Dad's old Richie Rich comic books from the 70's for instance)but it's always good to get back. I was dreading today because I had to go to the orthodontist, but after hearing at my ortho appointment today that I will be getting my braces off in two weeks I wondered why I ever hated that office in the first place. hehe. So yes I'm quite happy about that right now and am also happy that school ends in just a few weeks. Now here's hoping I can do well on the standarized test as well as my big end of year history test plus several more math and science tests. *sigh* It never ends does it? :)

Spring Break

Just wanted to let everyone know I won't be blogging here for a little while due to the fact we're going out of town tomorrow. We're going to my grandma's house which is, unfortunately, 10 hours away. That means we'll probably be leaving before 7:00 AM, which isn't exactly the most enjoyable time to leave in my opinion. :) I know there's a computer there, but I really don't think the internet works too well there so blogging is really out of the question. (This computer's worse than my grandpa's dial up and that's saying something.) We'll be back about April 29th, so I'll try to get on here soon after that. If you could just pray that our family has a safe trip there and back and that we have a productive trip, that would be great. Well I just heard from my brother that we're leaving at 6:30. If that means we have to get up at 5:30....you don't want to know my reaction to that. :) So that's it for now. Over and out.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Well I haven't posted a movie review in a while so I think I'll post one now. This one's on "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."


This movie takes place in England during World War II and is based on the classic novel by C.S. Lewis.Four children are sent away from their home in London to be away from the horrible bombings occuring there, to an old eccentric professor's home in the English countryside. While there, they discover a strange wardrobe that transports them to magical world known as Narnia which is controlled by the evil White Witch. With the help of the great king Aslan, it's up to the four children to defeat the White Witch and become the four rulers of Narnia.

When I first saw this film it completely amazed me. The scenery and special effects are absolutely breathtaking, and the acting is great too. (If you've ever watched the BBC version of Narnia then you'll definitly appreciate the good special effects used in this version.) The thing I enjoyed the most, however, was the amazing story which had me in tears quite a few times. Christian symbolism is evident throughout the story (Aslan represents Christ while the White Witch represents Satan) and the courage and valor shown by the good side during the ending battle is truly inspiring. This movie has great moral value (something that is truly hard to find in movies these days) and there are no gross or disturbing scenes. This movie was a tad bit on the lengthy side, but is still pretty fast paced. I recommend this movie to anyone and give it 4 3/4 stars out of 5.

Random Happenings

Well I have a few random things to mention

*My dad had an MRI done yesterday on his brain, and everything looks great! (For those of you who don't know my dad has a slow growing non-cancerous brain tumor.) Anyways, it has not changed any or gotten any bigger and it is not affecting him at all. So we are all very happy and thankful for that!

*I am growing more and more impatient for summer and I am very very glad the weekend is coming up. It will be very nice to get a break from algebra. I mean who wants to tackle word problems in which you have to know how many square miles are in your state? Crazy huh? Luckily I don't have really anything planned for this weekend except I have a ton of stuff to do on Sunday. Right after Sunday School I have to sit in the nursery during the service. Not that I particularly mind that, but it stinks I have to miss the service and all. Then right after that I have to say for a youth council meeting to plan out all the youth activities for the summer. (Yes that does take several hours) Not the most fun thing in the world, but someone has to do it.

*Well spring break starts next week, but more on that later.

That's it for now. :)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone (a little late.) I hope you all had a very enjoyable one. I sure did. Going to church is always a very special experience for me on Easter, and doing absolutely nothing but relaxing yesterday afternoon was not exactly unfun to say the least. :) My day started early (a good deal earlier than I wished) as our church had a sunrise service at 7:00. in the graveyard.My mom roused me out of bed at 6:15 (thank goodness she didn't wake me up with that bird alarm clock of hers) and we left at about 6:45. When we got there it was absolutely freezing (it was about 21 degrees.) As the service progressed, I reprimanded myself for not bringing gloves. My hands were about to go numb, and my poor friend was only wearing flip-flops. (About an hour later she happily announced she could feel her toes again.) Anyways, besides the horrible chill in the air the service was very enjoyable and I'm glad I was able to make it that early. I'm still a bit surprised that my brothers managed to get up. If you're acquainted with them you know what I mean. :) They're not exactly morning people. But hey I'm not either so I shouldn't be talking.

The rest of the morning went fine and I was more than happy that we would be having none of our youth activities that afternoon. Don't get me wrong, I love doing bells and choir and all that, but it is extremely nice to take a break now and again. Bell ringing can really get on one's nerves at times :) Well I have nothing else eventful to say so I'll end this. Hope you all had a great Easter, and remember Easter is about a bit more than just the Easter bunny. :)

Allergy Attack

Well last night I ended up in the emergency room. Now don't panic. I'm fine now. (And I guess if I wasn't fine I wouldn't be writing this. :) Here's what happened. It was about an hour till dinner and I was starving, so I decided to try something I'd never had before- a cashew. I got down about half of it, but I didn't like it so well and decided not to have anymore. Well about two minutes later my throat started feeling really really funny. It became scratchy, my tongue starting feeling puffy, and I could hardly swallow cause all of a sudden I had this huge lump in my throat. I immediately got really panicky, (which certainly didn't help the situation any), so my parents just thought I was having a panic attack. It started to get better, but when dinner time finally came I discovered I had lost my ravenous appetite. I got the worst stomach ache I have ever had in my whole life. No joke. Even chocolate ice cream didn't sound good. (When chocolate ice cream doesn't sound good to me you know something's wrong. :) Well I lay around on the couch with my stomach ache for about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden it went away. But as soon as the stomach ache left I started breaking out in hives all over my body. I have never been that itchy in my whole life. By this time my mom was worried enough to give me some Benadryl. A few minutes later, however, my hives were getting worse and I started wheezing. That did the breaking point. My mom called my doctor and he said to get to the emergency room. I was having a major allergy reaction, and we were pretty sure the cashew was to blame.

20 minutes later we finally made it to the emergency room. By this time my wheezing was almost gone, (thank goodness), and I was already feeling a lot better. After awhile we finally saw the doctor. By this time my hives were almost gone and I was feeling tons better. I was starting to get seriously sleepy, however, from the effects of the Benadryl so it was quite remarkable that I didn't nod off. Anyhow to make a long story short, the doctor gave me a dose of steriods (not the muscle growing type), told me never to touch a cashew again, and sent me home. I'm feeling much better now but I'm still marveling over the fact that I've eaten peanut butter my whole life and now one half of a cashew completely sets me off. *sigh* oh well. Anyone want the other half of that cashew?

Random Thoughts

Well here are a few random things I've been thinking about lately.


*I am finding it very very difficult to wait for this summer. Well I can wait on the hot weather part, but that's beside the point. :) Nothing really going on in June or August, but in July our family is going to be attending my cousin's wedding, (which means getting to go somewhere I've never been before), I might get to visit some of my old friends on the way back, (not sure about that yet though), and *drumroll* the 7th Harry Potter book comes out. I've been waiting on that one for two years now. So let's just say I'm on the impatient side right now for all these things to happen. Another good thing about this summer, I don't have to take swim lessons again. That was a nightmare. But more on that one another time :)


*Basketball wise, Kentucky's coach recently left them so now they have to find another one. I'm personally hoping (along with many other wishful thinkers) that they'll hire the Florida coach, Billy Donovan, who is trying to win his second national championship. He probably won't come (who would want to step into the Kentucky mess anyhow?) but there's always hope in my opinion. :)

*Well I have a voice lesson today and I am horribly afraid the teacher will mention the dreaded word "recital." Okay I'm exaggerating. I do like being in recitals, but they are a very nervewracking experience. I can just imagine forgetting the words, starting in the wrong key, going completely dry in the mouth area, and worst of all blacking out from all the pressure. As you can see, I don't necessarily enjoy being under the spotlight at any given time. :) I'll let you know what happens with that.

Screwtape Letters

Well here is another one of my many school assignments for you. :) The assignment this time was to write a letter posing as Michael the Archangel giving advice to a novice angel down on earth ,assigned to help a human in their Christian life. The assignment was inspired by the novel The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, which is a collection of letters written by a head demon, (Screwtape), to a novice demon down on earth, giving him advice on how to turn a human away from God. Very interesting book and interesting assignment. This is one of my shorter papers so I'm only using one blog to share it with you. Here is the letter I came up with.


Dear Trojus,
As your angel mentor, I was delighted to hear that you have been given a human on earth to watch over and lead to the good side which we are serving. You have been given a particularly difficult case, if my discernment is correct, and hopefully I will be able to give you some sound advice as to what to do from here. This young man is not a Christian, but seeing as to his young years you will have a better chance of converting him than if he was well advanced in years. The longer humans go without knowing the Father, the harder it is for them to be converted and the older they become the more they hate change in any form.
This young man grew up in church and in a Christian atmosphere, but when he left home to attend college he got into bad company and slowly began to turn away from his already weak Christian faith. Obviously the demon assigned to this young man has been working hard to use these friends to drag him away from the Father. This young man is easily swayed by his friends, and his demon obviously took great advantage of this fact. My advice to you is allow him to come into contact with a good Christian young man at the college who he already looks up to and admires in a way. Make sure that the young men at first become friends, and that your human looks up to him as a role model. Then have the Christian man slowly begin to influence your man towards the Christian faith. Make sure this is gradual, however. If the Christian man rushes into this too fast, then your man will simply think he is too "pushy" and will tend to start avoiding him. The demons will take advantage of this and try to make this Christian young man come off as "pushy" in anyway they can. Make sure you guard carefully against this, or things might go dreadfully wrong.
Another thing you might want to correct is this young man’s obsession with the future or things to come. The demon in charge of him is always taking advantage of this, making this young man very difficult to get along with. He never enjoys himself or the present and is always worrying about what will come next. The demon is trying to strengthen this by making this man worry all the more, thus weakening his faith in the Father. It’s your job to strengthen that faith again. Make sure he starts attending a solid church again, and plant the idea in his head that since there is nothing he can do about the future at the moment, why should he worry about it? Help him to realize that since the Father is the only one who knows anything about the future, this man needs to place his faith in him so he won’t have to be frightened of the future any longer. Obviously the demon will try his hardest to counteract this, so you must be on your best guard. Make sure that this young man is not overwhelmed by this demon’s advances, plant the right ideas in his head, and this man will be on the road back to the Father if all goes well. Do write me back and let me know how things are going so I can possibly be of further assistance to you.
Sincerely yours,
Michael

Bell Festival

This past weekend (Friday-Saturday) I was on our youth group choir's annual handbell festival. It was very similiar to the choir festival I went on last month except it was handbell playing instead of singing. There were about 24 choirs there. Bell tables, bells, people, chairs, everything all packed into one church's Family Life Center. Oh and before you ask, yes it was a just tiny bit on the claustraphobic side at times :) On Friday evening we had to play bells from 7:00 (not AM) to 10:00 After that session I began to wish I had never seen a handbell in my life. Don't get me wrong, I love playing, but three hours is enough for a handbell fanatic to wish they could get out of there. (And fast.) That evening back at the hotel, I had the pleasure of watching Kentucky win a tournament game (which would cheer anyone up fast in my opnion) :) I was thoroughly exhausted by the time 11:30 rolled around, but of course the two friends I was rooming with had had enough sugar to keep them going for awhile longer. They didn't calm down till about 12:15-12:30, and I just couldn't nod off now matter how hard I tried. Then when I was in the middle of a particularly enjoying dream, rock music blared into my thoughts. Turns out, my friend had set her ipod to go off at 5:30 so she could take a shower. Since we didn't have to be ready to leave for the next bell session till 9:45, I wondered what shower she was taking that would last for hours.

After all that and another morning of ringing, ringing, and I repeat, ringing, it was finally time for the concert which went very well. Finally, the minute the festival ended chaos erupted. Picture this: Notebooks and pencils flying the air, chairs being thrown, tables being taken down and accidentally landing on unfortunate people's heads; okay I'm exaggerated but it is pretty chaotic when 24 bell choirs attempt to pack up all their bells and leave all at the same time. We made it though without no one having to make a trip to the hospital, and now I am so tired I think I'll crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

Why?

Many times in life we find ourselves asking "Why, God? Why did this happen? Why didn't you step in?" I find myself guilty of that many times. This past week a 60 year old woman in our church died from strep pneumonia. The infection was just too much for her to handle. It was odd because the doctors were saying she was going to be fine, and so many people were praying for her. Then all of a sudden she just took a turn for the worse. She was a devout Christian and she is with the Lord now, but I still wonder why the Lord didn't heal her.

Earlier this week a five-year-old boy was killed on a motorcycle track in our community. Apparently an older boy was doing tricks in the air and accidentally fell straight on the little boy. I didn't know him but it's still a shock that God would allow something like that to happen. Why a child? Why didn't God step in and do something?

Incidents like this can really get us questioning God and wondering if God really cares about what is going on here on earth. This past Sunday,however, my dad (who happens to be a minister) gave a great illustration concerning these things. (Hope you don't mind me posting it here, Dad :) You remember when you were a young child and adults would never answer your questions because they realized you wouldn't understand even if they told you? That's a bit like it is with us and God. We're just children to God and He realizes that if He took the time to explain to us why bad things happen, we still wouldn't understand.

Also last Sunday my dad brought up a Scripture from Luke in which people were questioning Jesus about why bad things happened to their friends. They wanted to know if God was punishing their friends for doing something wrong. The answer was of course not. But Jesus never explains why bad things happen. Instead He says repent before your time is up. That's a good way to look at things. Instead of wondering why things happen and why God doesn't step in we should value the time we have here on earth and get right with God. We're still going to wonder why things happen, but just remember we are living in an evil world. Listen to this scripture from John 16:33., In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus Himself says we're going to have troubles in this world. But this world isn't going to last forever.

Hole in the Ozone Layer

Besides Global Warming and all that jazz, many people are starting to panic about the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Why? Well if you didn't already know this the ozone layer that covers the earth protects us from deadly ultriviolet rays that head towards the earth from the sun. The ozone layer shields us from these rays which explains why we're not all dead right now. :) However, many environmentalists are beginning to freak out because there is a small hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Many people are afraid this hole has been caused by the production of CFC's. What are CFC's you might ask? They are very useful chemicals that are responsible for air conditioning, refrigeration, proper fire fighting equipment, proper sterlization procedures for surgery, etc. They travel up to the hole through the Polar Vortex (a wind phemonona that occurs for about three months out of the year) and make the hole a little bit bigger than it was. So the government has banned the production of CFC's. They are still being used today because we still have a lot of them left from former production of them. However, eventually we are going to run out and that will not be a good thing.

Now where was I? Ahh yes the hole in the ozone layer. Well first of all this hole isn't even a threat to any of us at all. Listen to these quotes from Dr. Jay Wile's Exploring Creatin with Physical Science p. 73.

"First of all, it is important to realize that back when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole,’ CFC’s were not being widely used. Thus the ‘ozone hole’ itself cannot be traced completely back to CFC’s. It seems to be, in part, a natural phenomenon. It is also important to note, however, that over the years, the ‘hole’ has gotten deeper and deeper. In other words, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the months of August to November is significantly lower today than it was when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole.’ ....At the same time, however, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the rest of the year (November to August) has not changed. In other words, even though the ‘ozone hole’ is deeper than it used to be, it is only deeper for about 3 and a half months out of the year. Once November passes, the ozone concentration returns to essentially the same level it has been since ozone levels have been measured."

So what is all of this saying? It's saying that this hole is no threat to anyone whatsoever. The hole only really exists for about four months out of the year! The Polar Vortex which is responsible for carrying CFC's up to the hole only occurs for about three months out of the year. So basically the government has banned CFC production to protect the few people living in Antarctica from a hole that only exists for about four months. There is not even proof that people in Antarctica are being harmed from the ozone layer whatsoever.

Why is the government doing all of this? Because they are ignorant to it. They don't diligently study science so they won't know that what they are doing is wrong scientifically. It's up to us to learn the truth about issues like this and do something about it. I am seriously thinking about writing a letter to the president telling him about all of this. So what if he might not even read it. Nobody said trying was against the law.

Bridge to Terabithia Review

Here is a review for the Disney movie "Bridge to Terabithia" which I got to see today.

The story revolves around Jess Aaorns (a lonely country boy) and Leslie Burke (the new rich girl at Jess' school.) Since both of them have ultimately no friends in the school, they befriend each other and help each other face the bullies at their school. Later on they venture into the woods and discover the land of Terabithia, a land created by their imaginations. They must face creature versions of problems in their real lives in Terabithia and learn how to deal with these problems in the real world.

This movie was completely opposite from what I expected. From the trailer I expected the movie to be a true fantasy adventure story like The Chronicles of Narnia. The trailer is exceedingly misleading, however. There is some fantasy involved of course, but not very much. The story mainly revolves around the powerful friendship of Jess and Leslie. The acting was excellent and the graphics good, but the movie was a little boring at times towards the beginning and middle of the film. Also the last few minutes were extremely bittersweet and the middle just plain sad. So the bottom line is if you are looking for a fantasy adventure film like Narnia don't go see this movie. The film was overall pretty good in my opnion. It just wasn't what I expected. Overall I give this movie 2 1/2-3 stars out of 5.

The Greenhouse Effect/Global Warming

"The earth is becoming a greenhouse!" "The world is ending!" "Stop the production of CFC’s! They are feeding the hole in the earth’s ozone layer!" These tend to be comments voiced by the media about global warming and the ozone layer; two of their favorite subjects to discuss and frighten people with. My beliefs? There is no such thing as global warming and the greenhouse effect and the hole in the ozone layer is simply no threat to us whatsoever. But I’d better slow down and tackle one thing at a time :)

First of all I’ll discuss global warming. What is this you may ask and why is it known as the greenhouse effect? First of all the earth is kept warm by greenhouse gases which are trapped in the earth’s atmosphere thus warming it up (carbon dioxide is one of these gases.) Greenhouse gases are very handy (unless you want to freeze to death) but environmentalists are afraid that too many of them are being released into the air by factories and things like that. They compare different years and claim that the earth’s temperatures are getting higher and higher as the years go by because of an over excess of greenhouse gases. Many people are afraid that eventually the earth will have so many trapped gases that it will become a "greenhouse" and everyone will be suffocated to death. Sounds harsh doesn’t it? Before you start running down your street screaming in panic take a deep breath and listen up. The media is just trying to scare you. Do they actually look at the facts? NO. First of all it’s perfectly natural for the earth to go through stages where it starts warming up. It will eventually start cooling off, however, and no one on earth is suffocated as a result of the heat spell. Also real scientists have compared the different temperature’s of the earth over a period of time and the supposed rise in temperatures is almost too insignificant to be mentioned.

Where I got all this information? Dr. Jay Wile’s Exploring Creation with Physical Science which is a great book I highly suggest you read. It has lots of great information in it and is an all around great science course from a Christian perspective.

So if you’re still determined to run outside your house screaming at the top of your lungs in terror, go ahead but know that there’s really nothing to worry about. I still haven’t tackled the whole "hole in the ozone layer" subject yet, but that’s for another blog.

Newspaper Part Two

Here's some more of my 19th century newspaper.


Weather Almanac Predicts Tough Storms Ahead
Sir Ben Roberts announced the official weather prediction from Martin’s Weather Almanac this morning at 6 o’clock AM. Today and tomorrow are to be sunny and pleasurable, but the rest of the week is to be filled with horrific storms including rain, thunderstorms, and perhaps even a tropical storm. If you reside near the coast you may want to travel inland for a while if a tropical storm has been reported for your area. For more information concerning this week’s weather we request that you spend some time at our office talking to Sir Roberts. We are precisely certain he will be able to assist you further.

Local Gentleman Acquires a Fortune!

When Mr. George Peterson was interviewed for this article yesterday evening he was simply speechless with shock. "I can hardly say a word," he stammered out. "I have never been so genuinely happy or so surprised."
Mr. Peterson’s great uncle Mr. Thomas A. Peterson had passed away about two weeks ago, and at the time of his going Mr. George Peterson knew nothing about his uncle’s inheritance. "I simply assumed that my uncle had left nothing for me though I was a bit surprised that he hadn’t. After all I was his only grand nephew and Uncle Thomas had no children. He never married."
As Mr. George Peterson was going about his daily doings yesterday morning he received a telegram to commence traveling immediately to River Oak Heights, the home in which his uncle had resided. When he arrived there he was informed that he was the heir of Mr. Thomas A. Peterson’s grand inheritance which totals to 1,000,230 dollars. Imagine the genuine shock Mr. Peterson experienced when he received this message. As Mr. Peterson is the local doctor in town many of his esteemed customers have feared that he is to resign the practice since he certainly does not need the money. Mr. Peterson has graciously assured them otherwise. "I simply could not leave my dear patients no matter how much money I received from my uncle. I assure you that I will reside as doctor in this town for a good while longer."

Political Editorial Written by the Esteemed Mr. Roger Collins
A week ago yesterday I wrote a column about our esteemed president Mr. James Madison and how worthwhile it was that he recommended the War of 1812 back in 1812. After all, I reasoned, Britain has no right to control the seas in such a ruthless manner and take over our fine American ships. I received a great number of responses to this particular column many being negative and some being positive. I will share two responses to this column with you today. First of all I will share the negative comment sent to me by Mr. James Howland.

Dear Mr. Collins,
I simply must beg to disagree with you on your points listed on your last column about Mr. James Madison. I do not believe Mr. Madison is a good president for our fine country, and I believe his recommending the War of 1812 was a very grave mistake on his part. We have lost many men over this silly skirmish with the British, and I don’t see why we had to go to war in the first place. Why couldn’t we have settled this whole thing in a peaceful God fearing manner? I do not understand the president’s reasoning. Not many years have passed since the Revolution. Why did we have to get involved in another war so suddenly like this? I dearly hope I have not offended you in any way, Mr. Collins. I am merely stating my humble opinion on this great mess we are in.
Sincerely,
Mr. James Howland

Dear Mr. Collins,
Thank you very much for that inspiring column you posted in last week’s paper. I agree with you entirely on nearly every point and you discussed the matter in an educational intelligible way. I wholeheartedly agree with you on the fact that Mr. Madison is an excellent president for our esteemed country and on the fact that the War of 1812 is necessary. This war is the only logical way we can show Britain that we are not to be toyed with. Thank you again dear, sir, and good day.
Sincerely,
Mr. Clark Rochester

I hope you have enjoyed reading these comments from these two different gentlemen. If you would ever like to submit a comment on one of my columns at any given time you may do so by writing out your comment, sealing it in an envelope, addressing to Mr. Roger Collins, and leaving it at the newspaper office here in town. Thank you very much my fine readers for being ever faithful to my column, and good day.


Interview with Ms. Jane Austen
We are very happy to be able to hold an interview here today with the wonderful authoress Ms. Jane Austen. One of Ms. Austen’s most recent work of fiction Pride and Prejudice was published last year and took the reading world by storm. Many copies were sold and this novel is probably one of Ms. Austen’s best works yet. Here is what passed between Ms. Austen and ourselves yesterday afternoon.

Sunbeam: Tell us, Ms. Austen, what were your feelings when you realized how successful your book was becoming with the common people?

Ms. Austen: I must admit I was extremely surprised. I never dreamed this humble writing would do so well with the people. The plot line is a very common one, so I shall admit I was very surprised.

Sunbeam: What do you think was the main factor that attracted so many people to this story?

Ms. Austen: Most certainly the strange characters in this story. First and foremost there’s Mr. Darcy and his very strange aloofness which certainly does not impress the main young lady in the story, Elizabeth. Then of course there is Mr. Collins, Elizabeth’s cousin, Charlotte, Elizabeth’s friend with the oddest ideas surrounding marriage, and the incorrigible Mrs. Bennett.

Sunbeam: Which character in this story are you most drawn to?

Ms. Austen: Probably Elizabeth or perhaps even Mr. Bennett. Elizabeth is the heroine of the story and is very confident and sure of herself in many affairs. Mr. Bennett should be admired greatly for not letting Mrs. Bennett having her way in all affairs and certainly is a very likeable sensible character in more ways than one.

Sunbeam: Which of your novels thus far have the most difficult to write?

Ms. Austen: After most careful thinking I have come to the conclusion that Pride and Prejudice was. The characters were quite difficult to form and sometimes I wasn’t sure where I wanted the story to go. It all came together in the end, however.

Sunbeam: What do you want your fine readers to learn from this story?

Ms. Austen: One should not judge someone merely for their looks or appearances. You should get to know them first and not be prejudiced against them and certainly don’t let your pride get in the way of your relationship with another.

Sunbeam: Thank you very much for this fine interview, Ms. Austen. I certainly wish you a very pleasant day.


Well that is all I'm going to post on this assignment. Hope you enjoyed.

Newspaper

Well since nothing too thrilling is going on with me right now I thought I'd share a part of another creative writing assignment I finished up last week for school. Since I'm reading the 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice (which is not the most exciting book in the world) I had to write my own version of a 19th century newspaper. Let me tell you it was no piece of cake. I would often sit staring blankly at the computer screen for hours at a time trying desperately to think of something, anything, newsworthy to share. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. :) It was quite a challenge though. Since it's rather long I'm not going to post the whole thing. I'll probably post some today and then some tomorrow. Enjoy (maybe).


The Terrycott Sunbeam
Volume 22, Issue 15, 12th of September, 1814
.10 cents per issue
British Fleet Surrenders! American wins at Lake Champlain!

Yesterday when General George Provost sent the British fleet out into the ocean, he had little idea that it would be the last time he would ever do so for a long time indeed. American Master Commander Thomas Macdonugh commanded the American fleet of precisely four ships which took the British fleet by surprise and thus won another battle in the dreadful War of 1812 which has been raging for quite some time. Macdonugh arranged his ships in a precise and orderly way so the British would have to approach them head on. After a small skirmish the entire British fleet surrendered thanks to Macdonugh’s careful planning and precision. Macdonugh could not be reached for comment at this point.

Obituaries

We are extremley sorry to report that Mr. Jonathon Duncan passed away last night at precisely 11:01 PM at his home on the outskirts of town. At the age of 101 Mr. Duncan passed away from nothing short of old age and he will be commemorated always for the way he spent his long life. He was a steadfast member of Terrycott Methodist Church and contributed greatly to the community with his excessive wealth. A very generous and kind man Mr. Duncan will always be remembered for his kind and thoughtful deeds here in this community. He is survived by his eight children, 10 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. His funeral will be held at Terrycott Methodist Church on the 14th of September, 1814 at approximately six o’clock PM. Rev. Douglas Peters will be the speaker. If anyone would wish to extend their condolences to the family they may do so tomorrow evening from 6 o’clock to 8 o’clock at the family’s home.

Miss May Winston passed away yesterday morning at precisely 10:09 AM at her home due to recent injuries from a stagecoach accident. Miss Winston was a proud member of the Ladies’ Sewing Society and will be greatly missed by all. She was a Sunday School teacher at Terrycott Methodist Church and is survived by her two sisters, three brothers, and her mother Millie Winston. Funeral services will be held tomorrow evening at 4 o’clock PM at the Terrycott Methodist Church. Rev. Douglas Winston (Miss Winston’s brother) will be the speaker for the evening. If anyone would wish to extend their condolences to Miss Winston’s family, they may do so this very evening from 5 o’clock to 7 o’clock PM at the family’s home.

Town Bakery Robbed
On the morning of the 11th of September the Terrycott Baker was broken into and robbed. $30.00 dollars was taken from the store as well as a small assortment of pies and other baked goods. Fortunately no one was in the store at the time of the crime due to the fact that it probably took place in the early morning. Police are still investigating and hope to have some answers soon. Anyone with any information concerning this crime is requested to stop by the Terrycott Police Station on 441Taylor Street to reveal any tidbits or information concerning this.


More tomorrow.