I'm double-blogging tonight because why not.
As anyone who's reading this blog knows, I really love the movie Frozen. It has a lot of great messages in it and the soundtrack is freaking awesome.
One song in particular has a line that I've been thinking a lot about lately. It's the scene where Anna returns to find Elsa, and a song between them ensues where Anna tries to get Elsa to return to Arendelle. When Anna tells Elsa that the kingdom is buried in snow as a result of Elsa's leaving, Elsa proceeds to go into a sort of "snow rage" as Anna continues to try and convince her sister to return:
"I'm such a fool, I can't be free!
No escape from the storm inside of me...
I can't control the curse!
Anna, please, you'll only make it worse!
There's so much fear!
You're not safe here..."
And then Elsa breaks down and accidentally attacks her sister with her cryogenic ice powers.
"There's so much fear."
That line keeps coming back to me. Elsa, who has the stress of a frozen kingdom added to her, proceeds to unintentionally put ice in her sister's heart.
Fear.
So much fear.
Elsa's fear of what people will think of her and the fear of having to deal with a frozen Arendelle ended up nearly killing her sister.
There's so much fear.
Fear does crazy things to us. It makes us think irrationally and sometimes hurt people that we would never want to hurt, just like Elsa accidentally hurts Anna.
That's my philosophical thought for the night...
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Attitudes
About a week ago I was telling myself that I would hate going up to State FFA Convention. I forced myself to believe that, and so I spent the entire week dreading it.
However, when I went up that Sunday night, I told myself that I would make the most of it even though I had no friends up there to talk to. And... for the most part, I had a good time! I met a few new people and listened to a lot of good speakers. We ate at Culver's twice (yum!!!), Hickory Park (YUMMMMM!) and had an intense ride on I-80; the pouring rain was so hard that we couldn't see a thing. And I got my Iowa FFA Degree, which is kind of a neat accomplishment.
I admittedly was longing my hometown for most of the time, though. I just miss being around people that I really care about.
My attitude when I got home went from relaxation to super-max-stress mode in about ten minutes. I got on my laptop and saw that I had numerous e-mails. A few of them were from a scholarship lady who can't open a thank-you video that I sent her. So now I have to deal with that. The housing people at Iowa still haven't e-mailed me back about my issue, so that's one more thing I have to figure out. To be honest, I would feel so much better about the upcoming year if I just had the housing stuff settled, and as of right now I don't. And that completely drives me insane.
Add on the make-up work and the graduation speech that I have two and a half weeks to write, and I was fuming. I even did a major rant to my mother.
But then I realized... what good is any of this stressing doing? I need to just take one thing at a time. I have a few days to figure out the housing stuff before the deadline hits. The lady who e-mailed me was very nice and I'm sure that she's not going to be mad if I don't get the scholarship video in on time. I can think of something to write for my speech; my FFA advisor even offered to help me out.
It's all about my attitude. If I keep stressing over every little thing, then I'm going to have no time to enjoy my last two and a half weeks of high school.
I changed my attitude towards state convention, and it ended up being fun! Now I just need to do the same with everything else.
However, when I went up that Sunday night, I told myself that I would make the most of it even though I had no friends up there to talk to. And... for the most part, I had a good time! I met a few new people and listened to a lot of good speakers. We ate at Culver's twice (yum!!!), Hickory Park (YUMMMMM!) and had an intense ride on I-80; the pouring rain was so hard that we couldn't see a thing. And I got my Iowa FFA Degree, which is kind of a neat accomplishment.
I admittedly was longing my hometown for most of the time, though. I just miss being around people that I really care about.
My attitude when I got home went from relaxation to super-max-stress mode in about ten minutes. I got on my laptop and saw that I had numerous e-mails. A few of them were from a scholarship lady who can't open a thank-you video that I sent her. So now I have to deal with that. The housing people at Iowa still haven't e-mailed me back about my issue, so that's one more thing I have to figure out. To be honest, I would feel so much better about the upcoming year if I just had the housing stuff settled, and as of right now I don't. And that completely drives me insane.
Add on the make-up work and the graduation speech that I have two and a half weeks to write, and I was fuming. I even did a major rant to my mother.
But then I realized... what good is any of this stressing doing? I need to just take one thing at a time. I have a few days to figure out the housing stuff before the deadline hits. The lady who e-mailed me was very nice and I'm sure that she's not going to be mad if I don't get the scholarship video in on time. I can think of something to write for my speech; my FFA advisor even offered to help me out.
It's all about my attitude. If I keep stressing over every little thing, then I'm going to have no time to enjoy my last two and a half weeks of high school.
I changed my attitude towards state convention, and it ended up being fun! Now I just need to do the same with everything else.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
The after after-prom
It is currently 5:25 a.m. in the morning, and even though I've been up for a full 22 hours, for some odd reason I don't feel like going to sleep just yet so instead I'm going to blog.
The Pros and Cons of Prom 2014:
Pros:
+ I realized that a girl who I've taken little opportunity to speak to within the past eight months is actually really fun! I'm so glad that I asked my prom date to go with me back in February, and I know that she had a great time.
+ I have $70 to spend on stuff! Yay!
+ They played Let it Go at the banquet AND during the dance!!!!
+ HILARIOUS hypnotist show.
+ Lots of reminiscing and good memories with some of my best senior friends. :-)
+ I finally had an excuse to wash my truck and clean out the inside. :-P
Cons:
- They announced that the entire after-prom costed $16,000. Sixteen. Thousand. DOLLARS. W-... what? That is absolutely insane! The things that could be done with $16,000 for a homeless shelter or a community in a third-world country are enormous, and here we are blowing it off on TV's, giant blow-up thingies and whatever.
- Dinner was kind of awkward but that's pretty normal...
- My head hurts for some reason. Maybe lack of sleep?
Hmm... that's all I've got folks. It's likely I won't see any of you until this Wednesday, so have a good few days everyone! :-) Also, please pray for Katy Goemaat. She had an accident in P.E. the other day, as many of you know, and it hurts me to see her older sister - one of my best friends throughout my life - having to go through this ordeal. I don't know Katy personally but I want to pray for her recovery.
Anyway, good night!
(Or good morning...?)
The Pros and Cons of Prom 2014:
Pros:
+ I realized that a girl who I've taken little opportunity to speak to within the past eight months is actually really fun! I'm so glad that I asked my prom date to go with me back in February, and I know that she had a great time.
+ I have $70 to spend on stuff! Yay!
+ They played Let it Go at the banquet AND during the dance!!!!
+ HILARIOUS hypnotist show.
+ Lots of reminiscing and good memories with some of my best senior friends. :-)
+ I finally had an excuse to wash my truck and clean out the inside. :-P
Cons:
- They announced that the entire after-prom costed $16,000. Sixteen. Thousand. DOLLARS. W-... what? That is absolutely insane! The things that could be done with $16,000 for a homeless shelter or a community in a third-world country are enormous, and here we are blowing it off on TV's, giant blow-up thingies and whatever.
- Dinner was kind of awkward but that's pretty normal...
- My head hurts for some reason. Maybe lack of sleep?
Hmm... that's all I've got folks. It's likely I won't see any of you until this Wednesday, so have a good few days everyone! :-) Also, please pray for Katy Goemaat. She had an accident in P.E. the other day, as many of you know, and it hurts me to see her older sister - one of my best friends throughout my life - having to go through this ordeal. I don't know Katy personally but I want to pray for her recovery.
Anyway, good night!
(Or good morning...?)
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Crunch time
Once Saturday hits, the next three weeks are pretty much going to spiral into one big event after another. In order: Prom, State FFA Convention, Spring Concert, Senior Class Trip, Pella Corp Banquet, my graduation party, other graduation parties, Senior Showcase, semester tests, more graduation parties, and... Graduation Day!
It makes me a little overwhelmed just looking at that list...
However, I'm excited. We finally got our graduation invites tonight and got them all sealed up to be passed out at school or sent via mail. I realized today that I have three and a half weeks to write a graduation speech. That sort of lit a fire under my butt and now I'm going to be working on that in my spare time. I also have to start focusing on college stuff like choosing a dorm room and other things.
Despite my negative comments about Prom a few days ago, I talked to my prom date today and I can tell that she's super excited for Saturday... and that made me much more excited too. While I'm glad I'll get a better chance to know her, I am admittedly a bit nervous since I'm not used to going to Prom with someone whom I know little about.
Everything's coming down to the wire...
It's coming down
I'M YELLING TIMBER!!!!
:-)
It makes me a little overwhelmed just looking at that list...
However, I'm excited. We finally got our graduation invites tonight and got them all sealed up to be passed out at school or sent via mail. I realized today that I have three and a half weeks to write a graduation speech. That sort of lit a fire under my butt and now I'm going to be working on that in my spare time. I also have to start focusing on college stuff like choosing a dorm room and other things.
Despite my negative comments about Prom a few days ago, I talked to my prom date today and I can tell that she's super excited for Saturday... and that made me much more excited too. While I'm glad I'll get a better chance to know her, I am admittedly a bit nervous since I'm not used to going to Prom with someone whom I know little about.
Everything's coming down to the wire...
It's coming down
I'M YELLING TIMBER!!!!
:-)
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Mixed feelings
I'm sort of past the phase of worrying about college (on the contrary, I'm kind of looking forward to finally getting settled next August) and more worried about the next three to four weeks.
For starters, Prom is this weekend. I have to admit that I'm not as excited for Prom as the other 99% of the school is. I just don't like the general premise of the night. It feels like nothing more than a glorified popularity contest where we spend way too much money that could be going towards charities and communities in deprived countries. Last year we spent over $12,000 on after-prom alone. TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. And that doesn't include money for the actual Prom activities! Think about this: the community comes together to earn that much money for a dance with high-schoolers, yet we rarely see those kinds of donations for people who actually NEED help.
That being said... I'll make the most of it.
Of course, I think my excitement for Prom would be higher if I didn't have to attend State FFA Convention for the next three days afterwards. That just kind of throws a wrench in the entire week. And unlike Prom, I won't have any good friends up there to talk to. *sigh*
Then I have two days next week to go to school before the senior class trip. Ah... senior trip! This is more like what I've been looking forward to. Just me and my amigos favoritos taking on the Windy City. I'm super excited. Six Flags, Blue Man Group, zoos, bike rides (I NEVER thought I'd be excited for that!!!), Medieval Times, and lots of good food! :-)
In the following days I can kind of take a breather. Well, not really, because my graduation party will be that Friday night and my parents are going to be super on-edge all week.
And graduation is the following weekend.
I'm not sure how I feel about that yet...
For starters, Prom is this weekend. I have to admit that I'm not as excited for Prom as the other 99% of the school is. I just don't like the general premise of the night. It feels like nothing more than a glorified popularity contest where we spend way too much money that could be going towards charities and communities in deprived countries. Last year we spent over $12,000 on after-prom alone. TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. And that doesn't include money for the actual Prom activities! Think about this: the community comes together to earn that much money for a dance with high-schoolers, yet we rarely see those kinds of donations for people who actually NEED help.
That being said... I'll make the most of it.
Of course, I think my excitement for Prom would be higher if I didn't have to attend State FFA Convention for the next three days afterwards. That just kind of throws a wrench in the entire week. And unlike Prom, I won't have any good friends up there to talk to. *sigh*
Then I have two days next week to go to school before the senior class trip. Ah... senior trip! This is more like what I've been looking forward to. Just me and my amigos favoritos taking on the Windy City. I'm super excited. Six Flags, Blue Man Group, zoos, bike rides (I NEVER thought I'd be excited for that!!!), Medieval Times, and lots of good food! :-)
In the following days I can kind of take a breather. Well, not really, because my graduation party will be that Friday night and my parents are going to be super on-edge all week.
And graduation is the following weekend.
I'm not sure how I feel about that yet...
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Random acts of texting
Tonight something happened spontaneously that totally made my night.
I was texting a friend who happened to be watching Frozen, and out of nowhere we just started bursting into random quotes and lyrics from songs of the movie.
A few excerpts from our dialogue: (we didn't start until around 1/3 of the way through the movie so we missed a lot of the good songs at the beginning, unfortunately)
"It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and make through." "Reindeer are better than people, Sven don't ya think I'm riiiiiiight." "What if you don't like the way he picks his nose? EWWWW. And EATS it. Excuse me sir, he is a PRINCE! All men do it..." "Knock. Just knock. Why isn't she knocking? Do you think she knows how to knock?" "No escape from the storm inside of me... don't panic. There's so much fear..." "IT IS NOT NICE TO THROW PEOPLE!!!" "He brought a GIRL!" "Is it the clumpy way he walks? Or the grumpy way he talks?" "Let's go kiss Hans!... Who is this Hans?!" "Queen Elsa don't be the monster they fear you are..." "Some people are worth melting for. :-)" "KRIIIIIIIISTOOOOOOOFFFFF :-(" "Elsa! You can't run from this..." (We both sent that text at the same time!) "Love will thaw" "Nanana heya noonana nananananana heya heya noonanana" "The only frozen heart around here is yours!" "Let it go!!!"
:-)
So much fun in simple text messages.
I was texting a friend who happened to be watching Frozen, and out of nowhere we just started bursting into random quotes and lyrics from songs of the movie.
A few excerpts from our dialogue: (we didn't start until around 1/3 of the way through the movie so we missed a lot of the good songs at the beginning, unfortunately)
"It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and make through." "Reindeer are better than people, Sven don't ya think I'm riiiiiiight." "What if you don't like the way he picks his nose? EWWWW. And EATS it. Excuse me sir, he is a PRINCE! All men do it..." "Knock. Just knock. Why isn't she knocking? Do you think she knows how to knock?" "No escape from the storm inside of me... don't panic. There's so much fear..." "IT IS NOT NICE TO THROW PEOPLE!!!" "He brought a GIRL!" "Is it the clumpy way he walks? Or the grumpy way he talks?" "Let's go kiss Hans!... Who is this Hans?!" "Queen Elsa don't be the monster they fear you are..." "Some people are worth melting for. :-)" "KRIIIIIIIISTOOOOOOOFFFFF :-(" "Elsa! You can't run from this..." (We both sent that text at the same time!) "Love will thaw" "Nanana heya noonana nananananana heya heya noonanana" "The only frozen heart around here is yours!" "Let it go!!!"
:-)
So much fun in simple text messages.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Who... not where
Tonight I shared a glorious four hours with my two closest friends. We see eachother all of the time, but most of the time it's in scenarios where we can't actually open up due to time restraints or things like that.
We didn't really do anything particularly fancy. We drove to Pella, ate at Culver's, went out to Lake Red Rock, and just walked around the trails for a bit before we sat down at a picnic bench in the darkness.
Four hours of nothing extravagant... yet it was one of the best nights I've had in a long time.
One of my two friends made a comment that struck me hard in particular: "It's not about where you're at, but who you're with."
With the three of us so uncertain about our futures, our lives, and what paths God is taking us down, we're all so concerned about the where that we've almost forgotten the who.
And I finally realized why I'm so sad about leaving next year. It's not the setting of New Sharon that I'm going to miss, but the relationships that I've built with some people around here. Why have the past four months been the best period of my life? It's not because of where I live, but who I live with. I have no doubts that living in Iowa City will be a breath of fresh air. In fact, I'm already looking forward to the more liberal atmosphere of that city. But... I have already accepted the fact that I am going to have a rough time adjusting to college life for the simple reason that I will not be seeing the five or six people that I can turn to for anything on a regular basis.
I'm not really sure where this blog post is going since I didn't have a particular agenda or a message to get across, but that's what has been on my mind.
We didn't really do anything particularly fancy. We drove to Pella, ate at Culver's, went out to Lake Red Rock, and just walked around the trails for a bit before we sat down at a picnic bench in the darkness.
Four hours of nothing extravagant... yet it was one of the best nights I've had in a long time.
One of my two friends made a comment that struck me hard in particular: "It's not about where you're at, but who you're with."
With the three of us so uncertain about our futures, our lives, and what paths God is taking us down, we're all so concerned about the where that we've almost forgotten the who.
And I finally realized why I'm so sad about leaving next year. It's not the setting of New Sharon that I'm going to miss, but the relationships that I've built with some people around here. Why have the past four months been the best period of my life? It's not because of where I live, but who I live with. I have no doubts that living in Iowa City will be a breath of fresh air. In fact, I'm already looking forward to the more liberal atmosphere of that city. But... I have already accepted the fact that I am going to have a rough time adjusting to college life for the simple reason that I will not be seeing the five or six people that I can turn to for anything on a regular basis.
I'm not really sure where this blog post is going since I didn't have a particular agenda or a message to get across, but that's what has been on my mind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)