takin' some time off

i'm leaving for Alex's house on the 2nd. i'm really excited, i get to stay out there for two whole weeks. one of those weeks will be spent with Alex and Kaui, i'll probably hang out with Katkins, who is just starting school at Sarah Lawrence, the other week will just be me and the dogs, Maggie and Bazzle. i'm psyched to see everyone but it's also going to be really nice to just be alone and do whatever i want for a week. i've been working so much that i'm definitely in need of a break from all of the drama (pun intended) that comes with all of those teenagers in the same place for so long...

This one's tough.

Sue's nephew was found today.

Pray.

The goings-on

the SOS Gala went very well and thanks to all who came to see the show. It was Taylor's first show and he did extremely well. Usually newbies don't get to do any shows until late September so yay for Taylor! Everyone in the show had a lot of fun. We got to debut Jenna's new skit on Diversity and one of the skits that Bernstrom has recently written on Date Rape.

Right now since the Gala is done we are starting to put the new kids into full out runs of the show, we should have been doing this for a week so we're a little behind but i'm sure that our new kids can do it. The staff is also starting to rewrite our Choices show, which is the show we do for upper elementary, it's a big task and a lot of work but i'm excited to see the finished product.

Koutabi is still in it's beginning stages, i sold a couple of coupons at the silent auction and i'm trying to schedule a ribbon cutting with the Chamber of Commerce downtown. I'm not doing much with it until school starts because i'm a little overwhelmed right now. I've taken to doing nothing on the weekends and enjoying it becuase i'm so busy all week.

Please keep praying for Sue, two more people were found on Thursday and her nephew is still missing. His name is Scott, he is one of only two people missing right now and Sue and her family are still having a really tough time with the whole thing. Thank God for the divers who are risking their lives every day going down and searching blind in the water with pieces of the rubble from the bridge falling on their heads. They are doing fantastic work and Sue is so thankful for them.
Here's an excerp from one of Sue's e-mails:

I thank you all for the kind words of support, e-mails and notes as we wait for the news on my nephew. We know that the divers are working very hard in some very dangerous conditions but the waiting is very difficult. We pray that they find him and at the same time we pray that they don't. Each day is more difficult for his family. Those in charge seem a little better in getting news to the families.
Again, thank you and take care,

Sue S. Oberg

That's all that i can really think of right now. School's starting soon so i'll have more time to relax and do things that i want to do, wich will be extremely nice indeed.

the bridge

I would like everyone out there to pray for my boss Sue. Her nephew was on the 35E bridge when it collapsed and he still hasn't been found, even his car hasn't been found. Sue and her family are havnig a hard time greiving right now because they can't have a funeral or any kind of closure.

Sometimes I can't see where God is. In times like this when this young man has been married for less than a year and he had such a good life ahead of him. I have a friend with an abusive husband and four children and she just puts up with it because she loves God and she has to keep her life together.

where is he?

300

i just bought 300. it's so good, i never saw it in theaters but i wish i would have. it's very well done, the cinematography is amazing. i was suprised by the symbolism in the movie though. all of the men in sparta are examined at birth and if they have any defects or are weak they are instantly killed. everything evil and amoral in this movie is physycally deformed. it was fascinating. if you can stomach the violence i strongly suggest the movie based on it's artistic value, the book and the movie are strikingly simaler, zach snyder did a really good job of keeping most of the book's dialogue and visual aspects. good flick.

Chamber+Member=Me

I became a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Hudson today thanks to Brandy. And i have a kickin site, again thanks to Brandy.

I cannot thank her enough, she's done so much for me with this business thing.

THANK YOU JESUS FOR A FAMILY THAT LOVES ME AND IS WILLING TO HELP ME WITH EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY HELP WITH.

so... Go check it out, you know you want to:
www.koutabipetsitting.com
You can make an appointment online and look up prices and lots of fun stuff like that!

love you all.

Music Music EVERYWHERE!!

SOS is revamping our music. we are redoing every song in the show as well as all of the songs that we play before shows. i was so happy to have my input in a few of the songs that got into the show music. they include (fyi all of these are phenomenal and you should look them up...)
"Don't Take My Baby to War" -Roma di Luna
"We're Gonna Make It" -DeVotchKa
"Lay Down Your Weapons" -Scissors for Lefty
"Bullets" "David" -Gazillion
"Mad World" -Gary Jules

i also was the one to suggest "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, "Oh Yeah" by Yello, and "Love is a Battlefeild" by Pat Bennetar. All three will be used in the show. It was so much fun choosing songs for after comedic skits! :) My pre-show suggestions are also awesome. they include Dropkick Murphys and Amy Weinhouse. hehe it's so fun!

The Grudge

The move to Brandy's house is going well. I have yet to get some of my smaller stuff and my books over here but it'll happen. I keep feeling bad about leaving the fam and home and stuff but i have to move out sometime. I know that mom was having a hard time with it for a while and i'm sorry but it'll all work out eventually. love you mommers :)

The other night i watched the grudge, friggen terrifying movie... one of the images in that movie if you haven't seen it is black hair floating like it's underwater. I walked into my bathroom the morning after i watched the movie and brandy had moved this candle holder thing that has branches that look like floating hair in the dark. i screamed a little in my head. i have a semi-unhealthy love/hate relationship with really good horror flicks.

Microsoft Office 2007

Office 2007 rocks the house! you should get it because it is sooooo worth it!

this is the day...

I got a call during rehearsal today from my friend Hope. Hope and i have never really been close friends but since we roomed together on the tennessee band trip we've gotten a lot closer. she called me to ask if i wanted to go to willow river state park and go swimming with her. considering that it is keep-a-swimsuit-in-your-car season i said that i'd love to go.

we had so much fun rooting for the fisherman and sitting behind the waterfall and jumping from the ledge into the water that we didn't even realize that we had stayed there for 3 hours! i got a small pebble stuck in my foot because i didn't jump in the right spot off of the ledge and it hurt a lot, buuut i'm over it.

I think that i'm going to buy a sticker tomorrow, that was so much fun and i would love to go there and pray or just sit and love the world that my God has made for me!

yesssssssss!

i gots me a laptop i do i do
and it's pretty!

new computer i hope

i bought a laptop today with my graduation money, but the catch is that when you buy a new awesomely spectacular computer that you were really happy about because it was a good deal and the service people at best buy were awesome and didn't work on commission so they told you the truth you apparently get one that the battery doesn't fit in. then after you have tried unsuccessfully to force the battery into the slot you will be extremely disappointed and you have to type your blog that night on the slow family computer that makes you want to scream and cry and throw it out the window when you try to open an internet explorer window. it's okay though because your awesome sister with whom you and your brother in law went to find the aforementioned computer is going to bring it back to best buy for a new one while you are at work tomorrow and everything will be okay... right?

I'M A GRADUATE!

that's right, it was a little shaky at the end there but i actually graduated :)

i got all As and A-s on my finals (i got 100% on my psych final woo hoo!) and that helped all of my grades a lot.
my final grades are B, C-, B-, A, B, A.
pretty dece considering my grades before my finals were B, F, B-, B+, C, A.
I love being able to write papers and test well, and good thing too because i suck at daily work.

just wanted to share that with y'all cause i'm really happy about it.

apology

Sorry i haven't blogged in so long. i'm lame.

Okay, i have a problem, nobody i've ever known besides my sister can understand and most people tell me to just get over it. i have an intense fear of groups of people. i don't know what it is but when i'm around a lot of people and they're all doing their thing i can't deal. i feel like crying all day in the hallways at school but i just put on a happy face and suck it up. usually i can do that and nobody notices that i'm a freak, but the other day i had a really bad time.

i was at nate szyman's graduation party and there were so many people and every one was talking at the same time and people were moving around me in opposite directions (weird, i know, but it freaks me out to the max), eventually i just escaped to the van and i hyperventillated for about ten minutes and then i cried for a while. i humbly ask the acception of my apology from the szymans, my mother, my father, and everyone else i may have offended that day.

i'm starting to freak out a little from thinking about that so i'm going to stop.

one more day of school left! you're all invited to my grad party if my mother hasn't already gotten to you

June 16th at 1pm until whenever mom says you have to leave
there's a dead roasted pig (ironic i know), a johnfire, and music. if you play you should come and jam! it's fun!! exclamaition points!!!

i have my first intern job today. it's auditions, and i'm a little nervous but excited at the same time. i'm feeling a little stupid about it though just because the kids in hudson suck. every time someone asks me what school i'm going to i say "actually i'm interning at sos next year" and they look at me with an expression eminating severe pity and say "oh, that's... really cool..." it feels like i'm wasting my life when i talk to them but i know that i'm not and that it's something really good for me and for all of the kids that we touch with the show.

so that's how i'm feeling right now, but you never know, it could get better right? i guess that i just need encouragement right now. i feel really small and insignificant and i'm wondering if i made a mistake by choosing to intern for a year instead of going straight to school.

GOD PLEASE HELP ME TO BE GRACEFUL TONIGHT AND TO BE EXCITED FOR ALL OF THE NEW POTENTIAL ACTORS. GRANT ME PEACEFULNESS AND UNDERSTANDING. CAST OUT ALL OF MY DOUBTFUL THOUGHTS SO THAT I CAN BE HELPFUL AND KIND TO ALL OF THE PEOPLE I SEE TONIGHT, TOMORROW NIGHT, AND ON SATURDAY.

by the way, if anyone knows anyone that's going to be in 9th-12th grade next year who lives within an hour of hudson and who wants to be a part of a theater company, have them come by the fourth street playhouse at four today or tomorrow and they can try out for sos. the tryouts are really fun and so is being in the group. i highly suggest that they at least come and see what it's all about :)

verse to repeat over and over today:
Psalm 119: 143-144 (NLT)
"As pressure and stress bear down on me, i find joy in your commands. Your laws are always right; help me to understand them so i may live."

i'd like to teach the world to chill...

term paper

my term paper got 390 out of 500 and i lost a lot of points because i didn't cite things correctly:
instead of
"quote" (citation).
i wrote
"quote (citation)."

and i lost a lot of points because i used "too much borrowed info! not enough of your own opinion." but i thought that because it was a term paper i had to have a lot of facts and that thought was reinforced by my teacher requiring 50 pages of highlighted sources and 50 quote cards, all of which had to be in my paper. i didn't even use all 100 required citations and my 10-page paper was 11 pages long. if i had put in all of my "own opininon" i wouldn't have had room for all of the citations and my paper would have been a gazillion (great band, look them up ♥) pages long.

bah.

beauty

i googled the word "beauty" today and these were the first three images that i saw.

sex and suduction has become beauty. i am sad for my generation's daughters.

makes me homesick for humanity

i am in a government class right now and every friday we have round table debates on political issues such as homosexual mairrage, illegal immigration, censorship, etc. I am a pretty moderate person. in fact i'm almost completely on the line between liberal and conservative.

a couple of weeks ago we had a discussion on the death penalty and i got really mad because there were people in my class that were saying stupid stuff like "we should just shoot them all..."

i don't care (i mean obviously i care but... just keep reading) if a person rapes my mother, kills my father and brother, and beats me until i am barely alive, they do not deserve to die. yeah i know that anyone can bring up the "eye for an eye" thing but i don't think that we as imperfect humans can draw a line to say who is bad enough to be killed by the almighty government. people are so bent on revenge in this world that they fail to see, through their rage, that the person that they are about to kill is someone's brother, sister, son, daughter, husband or wife. even if they are evil they are a life and no person is perfect enough to determine who deserves to live and who deserves to die.

so after i ranted on and on about that to the stupid "shoot them all" girl, someone asked me, "can you be against abortion and for the death penalty, or visa versa?"

hey, here's some worms and a can opener...

i said that i don't think that anyone can be for one and against the other even though both sides of the happy little political fence pick and choose on those issues. i don't understand how someone can fight for one person's life and totally disregard another. if you fight for an unborn child's life, would you deny that same child life if they did something wrong? if you deny an unborn child's life then how can you fight for someone else's life if the only difference between the two is that one has been alive longer?

and on and on it goes...

mistakes

today one of my friends said that she never believes anyone who says that they don't regret anything in their life. i told her that i don't regret anything i've ever done. she asked me how that was possible, and here's what i said...

i believe that everything happens because it is supposed to happen, even if something seems like a gross misjudgement at the time it will effect everything that happens after that. i believe that i am where i am today because of what i have done in my life. one little thing that i 'regret' could be a big part of where i am in my life and if i changed it yeah, i might be somewhere with my life that i would like more but i could also be somewhere worse. everything i have said, everything i have done, every 'mistake' that i have lived through is a part of what makes me, me. i like myself, i like who i am and what i have done and what i will do because it is me.

besides, everything that happens is God's will. how do i know that? because it happened.