I drank half a ZipFizz so I could be awake enough to study for next week's aphasia test, but it backfired. I am so stoked {for no good reason other than LIFE} that I can't focus. For the past several hours I have been pacing around the front yard, trying to assemble a bunk bed {gave up because I don't even know how to use a screw driver}, and otherwise bouncing in my chair as I excitedly plan the next two years of my life. My poor mom has had to deal with me calling and texting her in an ecstatic flurry. In other words, caffeine has wild effects on me.

*Since today is the day Marty McFly time-traveled from the 1980's with Doc and Jennifer, click here to see the time in 2008 when we got to sit in the actual time machine.*
    A few weeks ago I was playing truth or dare with a group of kids.  Since I'd rather have to answer the question "how many boys have you kissed" than lick the mud off the bottom of a palm tree, I just kept taking truth.  One round, though, I was a little startled by the question, "What is your biggest regret?"  I seriously had a hard time with that, not because I was too shy, but because I genuinely had a hard time thinking of something.  Almost all of the bad things in my life paved the way for something better!
     Had I a little more time to think, sure, there are probably a few wiser words I would give to younger myself could I travel back in time.  And one thing that I would certainly change is me waiting until my senior year of high school to take a serious art class.  Although I drew probably every day as a child, I could have SERIOUSLY done myself a favor had I learned a few basic techniques early on.  It only means that I have a lot of catching up to do now!
     For my drawing course, we've had to do five sketches every single week as well as several big projects.  I'll admit it's a huge pain, but I've sure learned a lot.  While drawing yesterday, I accidentally fell into a 90's music loop on YouTube and boy did I just feel like an itty bitty kid again or what!  I found songs I hadn't even realized I knew: Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer, It's My Life by No Doubt, Torn by Natalie Imbruglia, Hit Me Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, She's So High by Tal Bachman, and countless others.  It was strange to have flashbacks of sitting in a carseat back when I lived in Boston.

mine is the hand with the hummingbird

mine is the bottom fourth from the right

the center is an imaginative portrayal of my protagonist-- not sure how to use watercolor for realistic renderings, but it's sure fun to play with those colors!

     On a different note {disclaimer: this is not me being depressed, just musing}, I have recently been wondering about what my calling in life is.  Do I even have one?  As the kind of person who seeks purpose in everything, it frightens me to think that there might not be something  special that makes my time important.  Yes, I enjoy writing and art and singing and acting and coming up with orchestral songs in my head and caring for animals and exploring both natural and man-made wonders, I have a good GPA and I have my own developed opinion... But what is my calling?  Are all of these things just fun little characteristics that will ultimately not matter, or will one of these carve the path of my future?  I guess that's why I get so excited when I daydream about being a mom someday-- the idea of being able to raise up a beautiful human being and teach them that they are important just gets me!

    Well yes, I supposed we could say that senioritis is in full throttle.  I claimed I had senioritis as a freshman, but that was before I did crap like this morning when both me and Rachel managed to sleep through our alarms and miss first hour.  I've done 20-minute research presentations in English, confusing packets in econ and watched over 50 review videos over the past few weeks in preparation for the AP Biology Test.  Luckily I've kept my mental sanity in check by seeing cheesy chick-flicks with my mom at the movies and hanging out {not late} with friends even on school nights.  In 9th grade I wouldn't have dared, but I guess in 9th grade I actually cared {JK, I still put forth every effort to keep up my GPA, but an accidental poor grade on an assignment won't leave me weeping}.
     On a good note: graduation is in 2 weeks, Photography I is over, the puppies like to cuddle, and THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE GOT THE DAVID O. MCKAY SCHOLARSHIP!  I wrote the essays more to humor my mother cause it was show week of Footloose and I figured there was no way I would be the special one to picked... but I was!  That's half-semester tuition right there, and since I saved all my money from working last year I could have the other half payed for no problem.  Then, BYUH also has a program where, after a semester of straight-A's, the next semester is payed for!
  In honor of surviving the long, rushed freeway trip to the community college twice a week after fifth hour {one time the Saab started hydoplaning in the rain and another time a shredded tire smashed into the front of it}, here are some amateur photos.  Interpret them as you please:

this image may appear totally bizarre, but it appears during a brief few pages of my book

It seems as though my right brain is experiencing a boom.  Suddenly everything I want to do has to do with creativity, so I spend my time drawing, creating totally amateur composite images in Photoshop, and most importantly developing new ideas for my book.
Why do I write?  I've written since I was a kid, and though I once dreamed about being a published child writer, obviously it's a little harder than that.  For me though, it's not even necessarily about writing something to make money.  I don't know if I have the capability to write something worthy of the market!  But it doesn't matter-- I write because it makes me use both my brain and my heart.  I have fallen in love with my characters whom I've worked for years to try to develop as realistically as possible.  I spend hours exercising my mental muscles as I try to weave ideas of a plot into something intricate, something original.  In the case of the novel I'm working on now, it's a fantasy, which means that I am not constrained by any means as I create my own world with its own histories and cultures.Writing forces me to contemplate the many factors that cause a person to be the way they are, and to meditate on how a regular person reacts when being thrown into an irregular situation.  The average human is simply that-- human--not as brave and selfless as they would like to think they are.  So what could cause a person to develop these heroic traits?  How might they learn to deal with {since most can't simply shrug off} the pains brought on by sudden trial?  How do they love?

  Yesterday, I decided that I'd made up my mind.  I've been completely torn over whether I want to go into nursing or design.  When I explained my dilemma to friends, they looked at me like I was crazy.  But I wasn't kidding.  I have always been fascinated by health facts and loved helping deliver my dogs' puppies.   I adore the idea of being someone's hero, being someone respected, someone important.  Yet from the time I was a toddler, I have found myself buried in my own artwork, whether it be doodles on my planner or homemade picture books or blog designs or works on a canvas.  I created a portfolio before I'd made it into the double-digit age, and even last night, I finished making chalkboard paint for my room before smothering my walls in chalk designs.  I knew I had to make a choice.  And I realized that, although I would love to help people in the medical field, my dislike of anything chemistry, physics, math related including anything biolically in need of a microscope to see...  my current frustrations with my anatomy class with the complicated terms used for pretty much everything you wouldn't even imagine existed in the body... my stress having to work under a tight, dependent schedule doing vitally specific things... Well, that would not go over well with the person I was trying to help, would it?   I like learning about nutrition and the best ways to live a healthy life and having a basic understanding of what the possible issues could be when someone isn't feeling their finest...  But I guess that's not what makes a nurse.  And I guess it's not for everyone.
  But design on the other hand... I have and always will adore using my creativity.  So should I not do something that I love?
  I created this pastel painting yesterday afternoon.  It was so fun to mix so many colors!  I had to laugh when I showed it to my siblings and Eric said, "How's she throwing so many leaves at once?"
  Of course, it'll take some learning.  I've never taken an art class other than those required in elementary school, so I'm excited to see how I can improve myself.  And guess what?  I have a whole life ahead of me.

  Sometimes my brain feels like it's about to explode.  All of a sudden all the creative juices start running at once, and then I'm off on this busy bee trek of quenching my thirst.  I start drawing and writing {among other things} till three in the morning, when it's not the time, but the fact that the next day's gonna kill me that finally forces me to halt.
  I've never felt more artistically inclined than I do now.  I've never taken really any art classes, but once that pencil is in my hand, I can't put it down.  And when I'm writing, I'll spend hours developing depth by taking personality tests for my characters and trying to come up with fancy plot events to make the story exciting.
  My latest project will be interesting to take on.  It has two narrators from two different settings, one modern times and one in a early AD Scandinavian times, switching off every chapter.  Right now I really have just come up with some character names, basic ideas, and written chapter 1 and 2 as expositions.  We'll see how this goes. 
  I know that my love of the fine arts will get me, uh, nowhere in life.  Just because I'm a singer, pianist, writer and artist in no way provides me with a way of, well, proving for myself.  So that's frustrating.  But till then I am going to search for ways to make this important in some way or another, if nothing else but to make me happy.

  How do I say this...? I got my Young Women's Medallion in April, but I just finished my last project...
  Don't worry, I didn't earn my Medallion dishonestly.  I had already spent at least thirteen hours on the project, and I only needed ten.  It was just a matter of spending another few extra hours finishing them completely...
  Anyway, I did my Integrity project by creating three pieces of artwork about Integrity. Although it took forever, I am pleased with them.

   Purple is the color that represents Integrity, so here I used oil pastels to show a young woman taking in the beauty of some purple flowers.
  This is done with colored pencil.  Pretty self-explanatory- an integritable young woman staying storng against the temptations of the world. I apologize for the cut-off words and the folds in  the paper.