Feel Free to Tar and Feather Me.

Sorry, I totally promised that I wouldn't forget to post as soon as I started school, and what did I do? Forget. So, let me start where I left off.
The first day, I wore my favorite uniform outfit: Pink shirt and khaki capris. The bad thing? Every single freshman girl was wearing the same uniform. Fail.
(Feel free to skip this paragraph about classes): First period is algebra, and I don't understand it at all. In a normal school setting, it would be kind of alright that I didn't, becuase I could go in after school and get help, but not at Bird Watched High*. So, I'm kind of left to fend for myself and just do my homework. If I get it, that's fantastic, if not, sucks for you.
I love my history class. My teacher, Mr. Borton, is the coolest guy in the world. He's serious, layed back, but still manages to be a pretty strict teacher. Which I love, because he gives a lot of rules; and I like rules becuase I like to be told what I should do. Plus, history is a subject I could just inhale. I love it! Everything about it. It's so interesting.
My literature teacher is a world different than my English teacher last year. I'm not sure if I've told you about my psycho, pain-in-the-arse English Honors teacher, Mr. Golden. I think he wanted all of us to fail. He was mean, he didn't care about you, he was vague, and he looked like a caveman. But this year, Mrs. Zane is a sweet, old lady who speaks slowly and clearly; wanting you to understand and willing to take time for you.
My Spanish teacher, Mrs. Graving, is hilarious. She's like Tina Fey in person. Today she was making fun of the textbook becuase the situation in Spanish was like, Estudiante A said: "I don't really like our Spanish teacher", and Estudiante B sits up streight in his chair and looking down his nose in a British accent responds, "One must follow the rules."
Biology is boring, and I don't really understand it, but my book quotes scripture! How cool is that? Instead of trying to explain to me that human evolved from apes, it has an entire chapter explaining why that wouldn't work. Awesome? Awesome.
(You can be done skipping.)

Remember how I said I was worried I wouldn't fit in? I've made all kinds of friends! My class of 2013 has seven boys and five girls, including me, and I was the only new kid. The girls I met are Rachel, Rabekah, Alyssa, and Hannah (who loves Skillet almost as much as I do!). It's awesome, because by the end of the first day, Rabekah and Rachel were ready to give me a hug before they left school. By the second day, I'd had a good long discussion about music with Hannah at lunch, and Alyssa and I had hit it off really well. By the third day, a boy named Jake had started to repeat everything I do (exaggerated hand motions, occasional screeches, and mirroring my faces). Another boy named Aiden had started telling me about the things he does to small animals, (like blowing up frogs and prairie dogs and setting snakes on fire). Nathan even carried my textbook and binder bin to the car because it was too heavy for me! Boys hold doors open, too.
Do you remember the verse I put at the end of my testimony post? "For you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good; to accomplish what is now being done" (Genesis 50:20). For the longest time, I didn't ever recite the last part, "to accomplish what is now being done", because I thought it wasn't relevant to me. I was focusing on how I wanted to believe I hadn't been harmed by Michael, but it makes perfect sense now. For the first time in a long time, I can go home and tell my mom I had a fantastic day at school; because I have! I enjoy school now. I have friends. Now I can see how God has been faithful in the trials he put me through, because it has resulted in being put into this school. I can't think of a better place to have been placed.

" 'For I know the plans I have for you'," declares the LORD, "'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11).

An Ordinary Day.

Today I left my phone in my room and recieved no text messages. I checked my email, but had nothing new in my inbox. I checked Facebook and had no notifications. Then I checked my blog to see if I'd gotten any comments; I hadn't. It's kind of sad that we base our worth on the amount of interaction we have with others electronically. Maybe everyone else has a life and I just don't?

How Do You Make An Ordinary Situation Hilarious? Turn the Jazz Station On.

Thank you all for voting on my poll about pets. If you haven't, please feel welcome to do so! I would have never known that someone owned a saber-toothed tiger until a today had I not set that up. Wherever you live, mysterious cat-owner, remind me to keep a good three hundred yards away from your house whenever I pass by it. I'm in awe that you have managed to survive so long with such a ferocious animal as a beloved pet! Tell me, what is it that you feed it?

In other news, my best friend, Fang, who happens to be a poet, has this blog called Believe Your Voice Means Something. It's a collection of her work, and she also has nobody reading it to review her pieces. So, it would mean a lot to her if some of you could go and look at it! Thanks!

Yesterday, my brother started school and my sister had to help with freshmen orientation. Today, they are both in school while I am not because I got to private school. Kristen was done with her thing by twelve, so my beautiful mother and I joined for for a while. Know what's kind of sad? I walked around Forever 21, the most random clothing store I've ever crossed paths with, for fifteen minutes and didn't find anything to get. After Kristen the Pretty and Skinny got out of the dressing room with her six shirts that suited her perfectly, she and my mother were all over the store trying to find something for me to wear. The annoying part? They found something within two minutes. I think my problem is that I honestly have no fashion sense. But that doesn't mean that I don't look good in things that my sister and mother pick out for me, which means that I am now two shirts poorer than I was. I'll plunge into a fashionless oblivion once Kristen leaves for college. Thank God she's only a senior this year!
Kristen left after we shopped a little while, not finding anything, and so my mom decided she wanted to take me to the Cheesecake factory, which happens only in a blue moon. Partially because we have, like, no money. But, because we're in the family we are, we both know exceptionally well how to save money. Like to order basket of bread and only one slice of cheesecake to share, and one coffee instead of, say, a BLT with shrimp and garlic salt with a side of freshly-cut french fries. What we got only cost us eleven dollars. Skill? I think so. And we've managed to keep our little mother-daughter date secret from my siblings. (Know how kids spell "love"? T-I-M-E.)
The two of us then went to Target and I bought an additional two shirts and a pair of jeans. Ninety dollar paycheck well spent!

It rained yesterday, and I sat out on the front porch in the hammock to read a book. It's cool to watch how storms progress. First, it begins to get really dark; then it starts to sprinkle, then the downpour. I sat and shivered for a long time, but I loved it. My dog, Bo, came up and sat next to me in the chair I moved to after a while, and it just seemed so...peaceful. I haven't felt that way in a long time.
My mother called me in for dinner of spinach quiche, to which my twelve-year-old brother promptly began complaining about, piling cantaloupe high on his plate and refusing to eat anything else. I thought, is this seriously the kid that is the quarterback for his little football team? (He also cries whenever I accidentally hurt him and acts like he needs to be taken to the emergency room, but laughs it off whenever he's with his friends...) My mom resorted to feeding him like a baby.
"Heeere comes the airplaaane!" she crowed, making an engine noise with her mouth and trying to shove quiche in through his.
"We should turn some classical music on," Kristen suggested. "Everything's much more comical whenever there's a symphony playing."
"Like in movies!" I added.
Dad got up and turned the jazz station on.
Then we couldn't stop laughing at him. While he pulled a face while he was chewing, there were saxophones going, da dum ba-da bum...
"Stop giggling at me!" Daniel growled at me from across the wide table.
Which, of course, made me laugh harder. His glare hardened, and then a singer went, "I need to tell you I looove yooou!"
His eyes widened, and his frown quivered into a suppressed smile which continued to grow until he ended up laughing with the rest of us. I feel the need to videotape the rest of our family dinners.

Today, youth group was at my house because we always have it at our house at the end of the year. We're the people with the huge, huuuge thirty-six acre yard. Ashley (Fang) was there to entertain me, and my other friends that made it were Michael Anderson, Alex, and Mikayla (who is a freshman as of today :).
Towards the end of the night, Chris Johnson thought it would be a great idea to pay Michael and Alex ten dollars to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. They were all for it, especially because both Kristen and I were the ones running all about the house trying to find cinnamon for them to use. The results, however, were purely entertaining. I have never seen anyone blow any type of powder out their nose before. Michael is a weenie in disguise, so he quickly dashed off in a random direction and proceeded to puke, while Alex, the determined one, slowly managed to swallow the whole thing, and then puke. Everyone was laughing so hard they were crying! It was so comical. I kind of wish classical music could have been playing. Alex even won his ten bucks.

How to Cheer You Up a Bit:

• 1 Mug of water.
• 1 Tea bag of your favorite fruit tea (peach is especially good).
• 1/4 Cup 2% or whole milk, or even cream!
• 1 Tablespoon of honey (or more, if you prefer).

Place tea bag in water. Then put the mug in the microwave for about two to three minutes. Then, add milk/cream. Then add the honey and keep tasting it until it's sweet enough. Sip slowly while reading favorite book and feel much better.

Know What's Great? It's Story Time With Steph.

Today, I woke up and within thirty seconds, the doorbell rang. Let me remind you that I live out in the middle of freaking nowhere and this, like, never happens. The second thing that happened was a heard my pastor, Harlan, 's voice greeting my dad; which also never happens. (I feel like I use semi-colons far too often, do you agree?) My first thought was, Dang! Now I can't wear that shirt I bought yesterday with Kristen at Target! because I was planning on wearing it Sunday.
Life: 2,354. Steph: 0.

Also, if you have three hours to spare, like I so often do, you should read this. Particularly if you're a big Maximum Ride fan, and even if you're not. It's called Diary of a Lovesick Mutant and is the most brilliantly written fanfiction I've ever stumbled upon. It's not often that the word "bacon" is put into every single three thousand word chapter. But, it's really good, so even if you don't believe me, you should just read the first chapter anyway.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, my sister and I went out to go shopping because we'd both gotten our meager little half-paychecks on Saturday last week and hadn't spent any of it. Before we left, Kristen babbled on about how, according to this book she's reading written by some random gay guy, certain colors are your "romantic" color and are supposed to match the color of your index finger after you've pinched it. MIND BLOWN MUCH? (By the way, we still can't figure out what color my eyes are. I'll have to post a picture sometime and see what you all think, dear followers.)
So, anyway, the two of us climbed into our rickety old silver '88 Volvo Stationwagon and headed off to Target. Kristen ended up getting pissed off at me for psychologically analyzing her (because that's what I do) on the way over. Note that on a side-note that while I love Kristen I hate clothes shopping with her because she's tiny, skinny, and wears a size 1 jeans. Not only that, but she's, like, eleven times prettier than I am and looks good in everything.
She picked out at least five shirts for me to try on, including something that I thought was hideous and looked like something my mother would wear. But, as it turns out, I ended up buying it because it was cute on me and made me feel good inside - which doesn't happen all that often. So, I walked out of the store with said shirt and a bottle of shampoo as big as my face. Kristen didn't end up buying anything.
Then after that, because we're teenage girls and thoroughly enjoy shopping, we drove to Plato's Closet (teen consignment store) to look at clothing because I needed jeans. Badly. The sad thing was that neither of us found anything there, either, and so we went to McDonalds and ate our feelings because it made us feel better.
Kristen, suddenly in a better mood and feeling very courageous with a tummy full of a Ranch Stack-Wrap and medium fries, decided we were going to attempt shopping at Target once again. I said okay.
We walked in through the automatic entree doors (me with my fries at hand) and headed straight for the clothes section, where Kristen quickly located a shirt she'd tried on an hour ago (a cute, black, knitted Mexican-style V-neck). "Haha!" she exclaimed. "Wanna go see if we can find a Justin Beiber CD?"
I laughed a little. "Sure, why not?"
"Because how funny would that be if we just stuck that on your iTunes and Daniel synced his iPod to it unknowingly?"
I grinned.
"Then," she continued, "wouldn't that be fantastic if he put his iPod on shuffle and had a mental heart attack when a Justin Beiber song randomly popped up?"
"Let's go!" I said, and we quickly began making it over to the CD section.
But we stopped within a heartbeat when we saw the unthinkable: Michael Newman and his mom walking down the aisle with a cart. I let out a little shriek.
"We're going this way!" I whisper/yelled.
We did a 180, and began to scurry away as fast as we could. They began following us, and I was one hundred percent sure that they'd spotted us. Then a fantastic idea came up on my screen. "I suddenly feel the need to throw my McDonalds fry-holder away!" I exclaimed loud enough for him to hear me and darted through the register lines to find a trashcan.
When he'd passed and was a safe distance away from my sister and I, we made our way over to the Justin Beiber CDs anyway. But, not finding it in ourselves to actually buy anything, we turned away and looked at DVDs instead because I had mentioned earlier that morning I would like to rent a chick flick to watch that night. 10 Things I Hate About You, while tempting, was way out of our price range, so we settled on getting Get Smart and Sense and Sensibility instead.
So, to end our frivolous day, Kristen and I locked ourselves in her bedroom and watched the Jane Austen film huddled on her pink shag rug eating mugs full of chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream. What a great way to end a day!
In conclusion, shopping is not entirely bad when you're with the right person. And the next time I'm wearing fuzzy socks, I'm going to burst into my sister's room and yell, "Kristen! I'm getting fuzzical!". That would be such an epic win day.

Happy Monday, World.

So, my week is off to a great start. Not. I've been looking at my school and biting my lip about it. I'm not sure if I'm excited or not to go. Here's a list I've put together.

Cons (notice they're before the pros, because I'm a pessimist):

• There are only fifteen kids in each class.
• I'm probably one of the only kids at the school to transfer from private school. I hope they don't see me as a heathen.
• No snacking (which is a pro, also), but I'll get hungry.
• Only two days a week.
• Starts a week after my siblings go to school, so I'm home alone. Yaaay.
• Uniforms! Yikes! Khaki pants and polo shirts...tucked in!

Pros:

• Michael Newman, Sara, Ryan, and Christina do not go there! I don't have to worry about running into them!
• No orchestra.
• Two days a week.
• No gum.
• No snacks.
• Christian.

I'm nervous. Like, really, really nervous. What if the kids don't like me? What if I sit next to the wrong person on the first day? What if I wear my uniform wrong (or as wrong as khaki can go)? What if I have the wrong school supplies? What if someone has a cold and is sniffling? What if my backpack is too dorky? What if I go to the wrong class?
These are the questions that haunt me. Did I mention I have to wear khaki??
But, what was cool this week is that my family can't afford to go to Bird Watched High* for three thousand a year, and my grandparents called on Saturday and told my mom they wanted to pay one thousand a semester for it! How cool is that? And my mom got a job offer! Thank you God.
On Saturday also, I forgot to mention, I went to Heavenfest with my youth group. Basically the largest Christian event in Colorado that you can attend. It had seventy bands, seven stages, and went twenty-four hours. Crazy, right? So, I got a chance to watch Disciple, Kutless, BarlowGirl, Thousand Foot Krutch, Hawk Nelson, and The Devil Wears Prada (which was my first screamo band experience. It was surprisingly awesome). It was really hot most of the day, and even though there was free water, you had to stand in line for about twenty minutes in order to refill your water bottle. On the plus side, though, you got to listen to music anywhere you were; even in line. I mean, what more could I possibly want? It was a really fantastic day, although we were all sweaty, dirty, and tired by the end.
Yesterday, a band called The Ineloquent came to play at my church and lead worship. They have some really cool music! We bought one of their CDs, which unfortunately didn't have the song that I liked that they played called "Gravity". It talks about how we can't see God, we can't hear God, but we know he's there; just like we can't see gravity, but can feel its pull; or how we can't see wind, but can see it shake trees. I thought it was a really cool way to disprove the accusation that God isn't there because he doesn't have a face. Anyway, feel free to check them out or maybe even invite them to play at your church! They're a small band looking for places to play, and they're on tour.
Well, tomorrow I have another doctor's appointment with a doctor who goes to my church that I've know all my life to see what he can do for my back. I also have to shower and eat something, because I'm starving. I'm always starving, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. I think there's something wrong with me, which wouldn't surprise me the least bit. I'm a rolling ball of issues.