Lions and Tigers and... Ferocious Beasts?

Our pride and joy!

HE'S DONE!!!! Whew, he's finally done. It took us eleven days to do it, but we did. For ten days straight we stop with Spanish lessons and just spend the whole time working on our pinatas. But that's just our Spanish teacher being super optimistic. The Spanish 1 and 2 classes have to have theirs finished by 5 tonight. We have the rest of the week to finish. The seniors finished their pinata yesterday. They made Kevin from the movie Up. My friends Alex and Hailey are making  Otto from Rocket Power. They're almost done, so I'm going to help them tomorrow. My friend Rachel is making Baby Peach. I'm sooo excited to have it done, you can not believe. Except now we can't decide who gets to keep him. I think we'll probably just settle on the old names in a hat dealie.

 So you know how I had that one guy friend who wasn't talking to me any more? Well I guess he is now... I was walking to band and he tapped my shoulder. Yeah, I fell for the whole tap the other shoulder when the person's actually on the other side thing. I do every time, without fail. And then he just starts up a conversation. Like the fact that we haven't talked in almost a month didn't actually happen. So, I guess that's that. I'm never going to pretend to understand the way guy's brains work. But whatever, I'm just happy to have my friend back. Unless he still likes me... I'll deal with that one when it comes.

I think Clay Matthews has the biggest biceps I've ever seen

You may or may not have heard... But the PACKERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!! You can not believe how incredibly stoked I am. I AM SO EXCITED! My dad and I are huge Packers fans. It's also the day before my birthday. If the Packers won the Super Bowl I would be content with no presents for the next two years. So naturally we're going to have a big Super Bowl party. My cousin Michael is the only other Packers fan in the family, but whatevs. They'll come anyways, free food. (I completely understand that some could care less about football, but I love football so this addition was necessary.)(Also I live in Illinois, the land of the Bears, so this is a huge, huge deal.)


My cousin Michael is, I think twenty-eight, and he and his girlfriend Shannon are expecting a baby. The baby's not due until July so they don't know yet what the sex is. (I'm hoping for a girl, I was the last girl to be born on both sides of my family.) After they left on Sunday my parents got a call from Michael and he asked them to be the baby's godparents. I think my dad cried. He and Michael were really close when Michael was really young. He used to babysit for my aunt when she was going to college. Just thought I'd share that little bit of news with you. :)

Oh, and just for a laugh here's a video of my dad celebrating the Packer's win last Sunday. (My cousin Michael's the one yelling in the background.) (Oh, and sorry for it being sideways. I took it on my phone and I can't figure out how to flip it.)


Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Near Death Experiences

Ice-sickles on the back of my house

I think our school district's superintendent is insane. Either that or he wants his students to die. We got about two inches of snow last night, and then it continued to snow all day long. I'd say now we have four inches, give or take a little, and it's blowing. And it's supposed to all night tonight. Most school districts were out today. But nope, not our school. I left ten minutes earlier than I normally do, and it took me about half an hour to get to school. It usually only takes me ten to fifteen minutes.

My front yard and Jeep

Because of Mr. "I Don't Care If My Students Almost Die or Not" I almost died this morning. Okay, maybe not died, but got seriously injured. I have to turn off of a road onto the interstate by my house in order to get to school. And that intersection is ALWAYS really bad when it snows. And it's always REALLY busy in the morning because of everyone commuting to the city. I think I was at that stop sign for five minutes trying to get onto the interstate. It would get clear so I'd put my foot on the gas, but my car wouldn't go anywhere. My tires would just spin and spin. Then more cars would come so I'd press the break down. But THEN my tires would magically work again and I'd slide closer and closer into the interstate. It was bad. I almost started crying because I thought I was either going to a) Be at that stop sign for ever, or b) Slide out into the interstate and into my death. By the time I finally got my car out there there was about six or seven cars behind me. Beautiful.

All I'm sayin' is we better not have school tomorrow, or I'm going to get really, really angry. And skip! Hahah, okay maybe not. But still. I'd really rather not die a few weeks before I turn seventeen.

Steven Tyler. Gloriousness.

Did anyone watch American Idol last night? Usually I never really got behind all the Idol hype, but I mean come on. Stephen Tyler's a judge. Steven. Tyler. He is sooo funny! You never know what is going to come out of that beautiful mouth of his. He's probably one of the only reasons I watched and will keep watching. I liked JLo too, she was sooo sweet. But it kind of got annoying. Okay JLo, we know it sucks to eliminate someone. But you gotta do it, so just do it. I also felt like they let through a lot of sixteen-year-olds. Which okay, I think that's cool that there's so much talent out there. But it's not American Teen Idol. Seriously. My favorites from last night were the girl from Serbia (I think that's where she came from) and the the boy from the Bronx.

Mmmm, I think some frozen pizza is calling my name. Hope y'all are having a safe, non-near death experiences day! (Oh, and I'd like to thank those who gave me some advice on my last post. It really is quite helpful and relieving to know it's not just me freaking out as usual.)

Where do I go from here?

Is it possible to have multiple dreams? And if so, what happens when it's not really possible to do them all? I've reached a point in my life where I seriously have to ask myself the question: Where do you see yourself in five years? Which seems like a simple enough question. If I asked my classmates that I'd probably get answers like: Graduating college, starting my career, and getting married; or, Going on to medical/pharmacy/law school; or even, Working in a factory/farm/store/etc; or possibly a simple, I have no effing clue, why are you asking me? But I can't seem to find an answer. I feel like there's too many different things I could do and still be happy and successful.

For most of my childhood I aspired to be a veterinarian. I've had sooo many pets over the years: hamsters, dogs, fish, birds, frogs, and hermit crabs. I always loved it when we took my dogs to the veterinarian for a check-up. It seemed like the perfect job, getting to be with animals all day long. Then I started taking horse-back riding lessons, and I fell in love with horses. Then I knew that I wanted to be an equine/bovine veterinarian. I could work with horses (and cows, but mostly because that would make sense seeing how I live in the Midwest) all day and make a heap load of money doing it. And honestly I could still see myself doing this. I know I could do it, sure it's a lot of schooling, but so what? I mean we are talking about the rest of my life.

However, I've also always loved writing. When I was younger people would ask me what are you going to do when you grow up. I'd respond: I'm going to be a best-selling novelist! They'd all laugh and do that "Well isn't she the cutest" face. (This was on the off days when I didn't want to be a veterinarian, of course.) And now as a young adult (teenager, whatever) I could totally see myself living that lifestyle. Getting a job as a journalist for a magazine or newspaper, on the off-hours working on my future best-selling novel. I've also always wanted to live in a big city. Growing up in a small town, going to a school of three-hundred some students, it's been kind of hard to really get an urban experience. And a four-day trip to St. Louis or Chicago does NOT count, Mom.

Then there's the practical career option I've been considering. This one would probably make both my parents very happy. I'm kind of a nerd in the way I'm good at and like math. There's just something so satisfying in solving a problem, getting the right numbers, and getting only one right answer. My parents are both accountants so I got a view of that world pretty early. I know it's a career I'd be good at, and probably like. I could also do international business, I love foreign languages. So that way I could travel like I've always wanted.

Sigh, see the dilemma? There's too many choices. What happened to the days when your parents made them all for you? I know at sixteen, almost seventeen, it's not a terrible MAKE THIS DECISION NOW type of thing. But I'm the type of person who likes to have these things figured out. I turn them all over and over in my mind, trying to picture myself living each of these lives. Trying to figure out which one would be the most fulfilling, the one where I would be happiest. Because in the end isn't that what we're after? A long, happy, fulfilling life?

I just have to keep telling myself that I'm still growing and maturing. I know that if I give it time I'll know what I want to do with my life. It's just not easy for an over-analyzing, perfectionist like myself to keep working towards a future. When I don't even know what future it is I'm working towards. I guess until then I'll just keep taking online personality tests and career quizzes until the answer falls from the sky and hits me on the head.

TGIT

It's finally Thursday! My first thought when I woke up every morning this week was, "Is it Thursday?" Immediately followed by, "Surely we'll have a snow day today." The first thought because we have tomorrow and Monday off at school and I'm really looking forward to a four day weekend. (Which will, admittedly, be spent mostly working on my research paper.) The second because we've gotten like four inches of snow. Which isn't as much compared to the lower regions of the state. But it was bad enough that on Tuesday when I was driving to school on the interstate I couldn't even see the road. I've never seen the interstate that bad. I literally drove forty-miles-per-hour and right in the middle of the road the whole way to school. The speed limit's sixty-five. I'd like to know where our superintendent got his PhD. Well enough about the weather...

One of the funniest things I've heard happen to someone happened today. A friend of mine drove his Blazer to school today and someone who parks next to him heard what sounded like a cat meowing. Have you guessed it already? Well, she told our P.E. teacher Deana and she went out there. Apparently my friend's kitten had crawled up into the spare tire underneath his car during the night. And it got frozen there. Now before you start thinking I'm a horrible person, the kitten's perfectly fine now. Deana took the car to her dad's house because he has a heated garage. They cranked the heat up and she got a hair dryer and melted the ice to get the cat free. But he drove the whole way to school with a kitten frozen to his car. I have never in all my life ever heard of this happening. I laughed so hard I was crying. (I didn't find out until after the kitten was free, so I wasn't being cruel then either.)

Has anyone seen the series on TLC called My Strange Addiction? I started watching it and it's like my new TV obsession. One woman was addicted to eating Lysol and another was addicted to mannequins. I don't know what it is but I love that show. What is it about weird habits or addictions that so many people watch shows about them? I think it's kind of fascinating because usually it's something you would never dream of doing. Like who thinks about eating Lysol? I thought you would die if you did that. But the woman had been eating it for something like twenty years. It's really sad, too. The woman who ate Lysol went to a dentist and she was going to have to get all her top teeth replaced and most of the bottom ones. I can't even imagine what that must be like. To have someone tell you they're going to have to remove almost all of your teeth. The price was really insane to have it done, like $20,000. The woman was upset because she couldn't afford it. Then dentist goes, well I'm going to do it for free. That's so incredibly generous. It makes me happy to know that there's still genuinely nice people out there.

I'm sitting here trying to wrap my mind around what it would be like to have an addiction like that. Something so big that it comes your whole life. Every move you make, everything you do is directly affected by your addiction. You live your life for that addiction. I really can't even begin to understand. And honestly I hope I never do. Your every thought consumed by it, doing everything to feed that addiction. I know we all have mini-addictions, I mean that's normal. Yeah, I say I'm addicted to Mt. Dew. But I don't feel like I can't live without it.

#thoughtsthatkeepmeupatnight.

Speaking of twitter I have an account! (Although, honestly, I don't know how often I'll actually be using it.) I also have a tumblr, which I can confidently say I use a lot. The links are over in the side bar if ya wanna check 'em out!

I think my fortune cookie's trying to tell me something.

Great Googly Moogly!

I sincerely hope I don't have an ulcer before I graduate college, or even high school. My dad always calls me his "future ulcer candidate." And he's 100% right, I'm afraid. I always get so stressed out over school. Here's everything I have due in the middle of February: an English research paper, a U.S. history poster/oral report, a pinata for my Spanish class, WYSE practice tests to prepare for the preliminaries at the beginning of February, and I think sometime soon we're going to be assigned our Rube Goldberg projects in my Physics class. Phew! Now see why I'm stressed?

I know it's my fault I get so stressed. I always expect a lot out of myself. I've always done extremely well in school and I feel like I'll be a complete failure if I mess it all up. I tell myself that because I've made it this far I can't mess it up now. But it's also come to the point where I feel like I'll let everyone else down. Which I know is ridiculous. I know if I don't get a 4.0 they'll still be proud of me. It's just hard once you get in the habit of expecting so much out of yourself to just stop. I know it's not just me, though. One of my friends just went to see a doctor because of his anxiety. But he's got it really bad. Like it's not normal, especially for a seventeen-year-old boy. I think it's just because we've only got a year and a half left of high school and the pressure's on. Everyone (well almost everyone) wants to get a good ACT score, get good grades, and get into a good college. So everyone goes to the extremes (high or low) about everything. I just have to tell myself to stop, breathe, and relax. Usually if I just stop and listen to some music or something I'm fine.

The product of pain, sweat, and tears.

Actually, I'm pretty excited for the pinatas. It comes at the perfect time of year, too. It kind of helps to desress (all though, maybe not for our teacher). We have two and a half weeks to finish our pinatas. (It usually takes a month in the end.) If you're in Spanish 1 or 2 you have to make your own individual pinata. We could choose from Mario, Nemo, Oscar the Grouch, the Roadrunner, or Hello Kitty. I made Mario last year, he's actually still hanging in my room. It's kind of creepy though, I'll wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and see him staring at me... However, if you're in Spanish 3/4 (we don't have big enough class sizes for 3 and 4 so we have to combine them) you can choose whatever you want. You can do it in a group, make it small, medium, or large, or do it on your own. My friends Jana, Kayla, and I decided to do the Ferocious Beast from Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Have any of you seen it? It surprises me how many people have asked us what it is. I loooved that show when I was little. We started paper-maiching today, we have a small balloon for the head and a medium one for the body. I think it's gonna turn out pretty good. We make our own chinos, those frilly paper things on pinatas. Jana and I are pretty good chino makers, so Kayla will probably be doing body-building. I will definitely post a picture of the finished project.

Now do you remember?

We're supposed to be getting a huge snow storm tonight, so I'm hoping for a snow day tomorrow. That way I might have a chance at getting my mountain of school work done. Guess I'd better flush some ice cubes down the toliet, sleep with a spoon under my pillow, and wear my PJs inside out. (Anyone else heard of these superstitions?) Laterrr!

boys boys boys.

I'm having a crisis. Okay, that's dramatic. More of a mini-crisis. You see, last semester I had a P.E. class with one of my guy friends. I'll be completely honest, at one point, last year, I used to like him. You know, like like him. But notice I said last year. Now I have no clue how he felt about me last year. But this year we both suffered through P.E. together, so we sort of bonded over that. I mean we were really close. I'm pretty much confident that he liked me.

On the bus to bowling I was sitting in a seat with him and I heard his friends talking behind us. First I was like yeah, yeah whatever. But then I heard my name. They were talking about his poem that he wrote about someone with blue eyes. In my mind I was like, oh crap, I have blue eyes. And then they were like wait, Kate has blue eyes. Now this whole time I'm pretending that I can't hear a word they're saying and praying that he doesn't either. Which, who am I kidding? If I could hear them he most likely could, too. It didn't really come as a shock to me. I'd kind of been suspecting it all along. We'd hung out a few times and went to a play and stuff like that, but he's never openly said anything.

And that's basically how the semester ended. Which I'll admit, I probably should have brought it up. But I was kind of scared to. I used to like him, but I don't any more. I couldn't think of any way to bring it up to him without being like, "Oh hey, do you like me? Cool. I used to like you, but I don't anymore. Can we still be friends?" Laaame, and kind of bitchy. Which wouldn't have been surprising coming from me, but I still couldn't do that to him. Now we've been back at school for a month and I'm pretty sure he's avoiding me. Not pretty sure, really sure. We haven't said one word to each other. We only have band together, so it wouldn't be that weird, except for we were so close. I'm currently trying to think of a way to talk to him, but it would probably result in the aforementioned conversation.

And now that I've composed a blog completely about boy troubles...

My New Year's Resolutions! I know they're kind of cliche, but I love setting goals for myself. Can't help it.

• Be more regular in workout schedule. I know the typical resolution is to get fit! and exercise! and eat healthy! But I think it's important to do that anyways. I just get kind of lazy and don't run as often as I should.
• Blog more often. I tend to be in the state of mind, Oh I'll do that later. Tomorrow sounds good. I just got done doing a lot of homework! I really like to blog, I do. I just get lazy and forget how much I like to.
• Stay true to myself. Last year I ended up doing some things I'm not so proud of and compromising my values and beliefs. It's so easy to get caught up in the moment, but then you look back and fell like crap. I tend to blame it on the people I used to hang out with, but I know it all came down to me. I need to be stronger in my convictions and true to myself.

This video is so cool. My Physics teacher showed it to my class because we're going to be doing the Rube Goldberg project. Basically they give you a task to accomplish by making a machine.

And now I'm going to try to make a dent in the novel I have to write a research paper on. Oh joy.

Adios!