It was interesting, at least. I found I’ve never been more nervous to start a new school, but I was thrilled with the junior high.

Unlike the middle school, which I went to last year, the junior high has a good, organized numbering system. Any single or double digit room number is in the basement, any with a 1 in the front are on the first floor, and any with a 2 in front are on the second floor.

It was nice; I couldn’t get lost. I can even find my way from Spanish (room seven) to Today’s Business (room 221), a feat which anyone would have thought impossible for a new 8^th grader in the four minutes allotted as passing time.

Sure, the junior high has no air conditioning, but that’s not as big of a deal as I originally thought it was. This is Wisconsin, it gets chilly in around October, so that’s less than a month of sweaty teenagers in a confined building. Besides, if we all wear deodorant and drink water, there’s no issue.

I guess I just really liked the school. There’s more freedom in the dress code—reasonable tank tops are actually allowed, and as long as your shorts aren’t revealing your all right. The school supply list also wasn’t very extensive; a nice change from the past.

In my first period class, I have English with possibly the loudest and most obnoxious-yet-completely-amazing group of people ever. Yesterday our teacher did the following with us:
Welcomed us
Played a cookie monster video (link)
Handed us out cookies
Played awesome dance music as we got into our seating chart
Took song requests for the rest of the period and played our (clean lyric) choices on YouTube.

And then half of the class convinced her that a kid named Henry really likes to be called H-dog. I didn’t quite agree with that, but it was funny nevertheless. I have a feeling English is going to be very interesting this year, and I feel rather bad for our teacher.

The rest of the day was uneventful, except for in Spanish, where my teacher has an odd habit of saying “perfecto, correcto!” She’s a bit too enthusiastic, if you know what I mean.

Now share your own first-day-of-school experiences. Or those times when you’ve encountered doorknobs at your school? Trust me, we’ve all had our fair slice of those.

It was utterly pointless. First off, it doesn’t have air conditioning; I’m not going to whine about something I can’t change, but it still made it a pain. I never thought I’d get so tired just from walking up and down stairs!

Secondly, they didn’t even let us go through our classes or anything. We just got handed a schedule, were told to find our lockers, and then shove all of our crap inside them.

After the locker stuff was done, they took us into the gym and started talking about how this is YOUR school and YOU don’t have to tolerate bullying! Our assistant principal shouted the word “your” like a game show host. I guess it was a good general message, but trust me, I know my classmates—it’s not going to change anything.

Next they took us into the lunchroom, presumably to show us how we buy our lunches and such, right? Wrong. Instead of teaching us the lunch line process, they took us outside and taught us how to line up single file after the lunch hour is done.
I didn’t understand this, since you don’t even have to go outside during the hour if you don’t want to, and you can’t go outside until you finish eating, anyways. The whole thing just ticked me off.

And finally, they took us on a tour of the school. I suppose this was the nicest part; there’s three floors and a million classrooms to navigate, unlike our old school, which only had one floor and maybe 100 rooms or so.

The tour wasn’t that well lead; we had to strain our ears to hear anything and by the time it was done we were all so hungry and tired that I doubt many of us registered anything that was said. It was a nice gesture, at the least.

I feel like I’ve just been complaining, but there’s a lot to complain about. I hate being a whiner, but we all know the feeling when we just have to vent.

On a brighter note, I’m just about done returning comments for the last few entries, and despite the orientation fiasco am rather excited to start 8^th grade.

I didn’t need to get much, considering I have plenty of things now. Basically I followed my sister around throughout stores (the most annoying of which involved the word “Hollister” and was blaring “California Girls” by Katy Perry). I did manage to get a few shirts there, but not before my head threatened to explode from sounds, perfumes, and the fact that the whole store has dimmed lighting.

From there we went to a few other shops, bought a million eight dollar tank tops, and finally finished out the day with subs from the food court.

We both had a lot of trouble finding school appropriate shorts—pretty much all of the bottoms that we found were really inappropriate, and I wouldn’t be caught wearing them even if my school allowed them.

Eventually I found some longer plaid shorts that I can roll up once or twice so that they’re actually decent looking. I pretty much live in basketball shorts and rolled up jeans in the school year anyways, so it doesn’t matter much.

I actually did really good money wise, too—I spent under a hundred dollars for quite a few items that I know I’ll wear a lot. (Clearance shopper!) Pretty much all of the things my sister and I bought were under fifteen dollars.

When I got home and looked through all of my purchases, I realized that nearly everything I got was either striped or plaid. I guess that’s just me.

I enjoyed the day, but something about going school clothes shopping, and seeing all of those giant “Back to school!” signs in the mall made me feel a bit resentful towards these last few days of summer. I start school in six days, next Wednesday, and it seems that nothing I do can make this last week last.

I guess now that it’s just about over I feel like I wasted my summer—on my website, on graphics, on reading, on drawing—instead of spending every second outside or constantly being with my friends. I’ve had a lot of fun this summer, though, and that’s for sure. I’m just sad it’s pretty much over.

I’m moving to the junior high next year, as well—which has no air conditioning, is the oldest building in our district, and makes me feel no less depressed about the close of summer.

It’s sort of like that I know I have flaws and problems, but hate admitting that things I am fond of share the same issues. I’ll tell you in a heartbeat all the things wrong with me, but I’ll struggle to tell you anything wrong with, say, dogs.

I find myself defending my likes and interests as though everyone who doesn’t enjoy them is making a personal attack on me. It’s probably not something I should do, and like I said, I’m working on it. It’s just not easy.

I went to see Vampires Suck last night with my friend. Being a complete anti-Twilight and total pro-Harry-Potter person, I enjoyed every bit of it. I was also really impressed with how many of my other friends I saw there—many of them being complete Stephanie Meyer minions. They weren’t offended by the fact that Vampires Suck insults everything to do with Twilight; they just laughed it off and left the theater in good moods.

I try to do that myself, but don’t think I’d manage quite as well as they did. (Then again, if there was ever a “Wizards Suck” Harry Potter spoof, I probably wouldn’t even go, but still).

It’s a bad habit to be in, this whole taking things personally. I understand that just because someone doesn’t like dogs doesn’t mean that they don’t like me, or that just because a person despises Harry Potter doesn’t mean that they detest me. And yet I still defend everything I love, up to the point of a pretty big argument.

It drives me nuts that I can’t find the self control to hold my tongue when someone says they hate, for existence, web design. I’m just a person that needs to get my opinion across, I guess—I hate letting other people speculate by themselves about things that I have strong feelings on (mostly if I’m certainly aware that the person insulting web design has never tried to code in their life).

I get that people aren’t making attacks on me when they attack something I love, but sometimes it can feel like that. If you have a passion for something, and someone else dislikes it, you can really feel insulted yourself.

And as a side note here, thank you for all of the wonderful and supportive comments about my friend. Her results from the kidney biopsy came back, and they’re pretty good. (If you’re wondering, look at this.)

As for the title—Harry Potter For The Win.
Or should I say J. K. Rowling?

She’ll be having a biopsy on Thursday, and the results will come three or four days after that. There’s a couple of things it could be, but I don’t even want to hear anything until everyone is certain.

I think I’m almost as scared as she is. This whole situation isn’t fun for anybody; I know it’s really hard on her physically and mentally, what with worrying and fretting and swelling and pain. I just hate it. I want everything to be okay so badly, it’s like a constant stomachache.

I don’t know if this friend knows exactly what she means to me. I drifted from her a bit in the past year; it was my fault, not hers, and I regret and admit that now. It was just a middle school phase—trying out new things, making new friends. But I realized: no one else I met could stand up to her.

She’s amazing, that’s just it. Like my best friend Sam, who moved to Texas two summers ago… she’s just great.

I know I can trust her with anything. Absolutely anything. And I know she’ll always be there for me. One of her other friends is a person that I sort of clash with, so to speak. Somehow, she’s managed to stay good friends with both of us, and I love it.

I’m not afraid of loosing her; I know she’ll never leave. The thought of her betraying me is so strange, it’s like imagining a poor Bill Gates or a dumb Einstein. The point is: she’s the best friend anyone could ever want, and I haven’t told her that. I want to apologize for drifting from her last year, and I want to tell her how much I love her.

And most importantly, right now, I want my prayers to be answered with yes, and for everything to turn out okay with her.

Alligator of Doom ♥, if you’re reading this… you’re strong. You’re beautiful. You’re amazing. Hang in there, I love you. :’)

I’ve waited a long time to actually purchase a design program—I’ve stuck with free things like GIMP and paint.NET for years. I think that was important, because I learned a lot of new things and really recognized that just because you pay for something, doesn’t mean it’s better.

There’s always those people you find on the internet—whether they’re bloggers, business people, those who offer services—that think that just because you have a domain your website is better than others, or that just because they use Photoshop and someone else doesn’t, they are ultimately superior. It’s one of the most flawed bits of logic out there.

I’ve learned that a lot of people who don’t have the funds to pay for things, or just decide not to, actually have a lot of talent. Working with a program that’s a little more mediocre, or doesn’t have a ton of features, actually teaches you patience, improvisation, and a lot of techniques that can be incorporated into other things.

I improved so much when I was on a free subdomain for my website; the fact that my URL was longer didn’t mean a thing in terms of the quality of my work. I’ve seen domains that have just horrible content—filled with glittering objects, random animations, and cluttered text. And I’ve seen subdomains that make me jealous because the owner has so much talent.

It’s just one of the most bothersome things on the internet for me—people who discriminate those who spend no money on their website. Money and talent are two different things, and it needs to be realized.

In all honesty, this is like the racism of the WWW.

This will be short, since I’m presently failing at life and trying to convert to using folders on Clompish, instead of having messy random links placed everywhere.

It’s going all right I suppose, I just have to change up a few things with the PHP includes and copy files—simple, simple stuff. The only thing is then I have to change every single link on Clompish.

And gawd, after just looking around a bit—there’s going to be a lot of broken links to fix. During the next few hours, if you find a broken link, disregard it please, and wait a while. I’ll post another update when I’m done with everything, and if the link is still broken then, please contact me.

Thank you everyone, and I appreciate your patience

Someone keeps stealing my ideas.

Well, to be precise, not stealing exactly. But copying. If I have a layout, she has to change hers to something that looks a lot like mine, to the point where people would even comment and say, “I like the new Clompish-like layout!”

Honestly, this is one of those things that makes me a bit sluggish with updating. I’m actually afraid that if I come up with something really original, that this person will take it. And then it won’t be unique to me anymore, and I’ll have to keep changing things.

It kills me inside, especially when I went to this person’s website and their past layouts page. One of their layouts that looked a lot like mine had a description that made me want to hurt someone. This isn’t word for word, but it was something along the lines of “this layout had no inspiration or anything” and talked about how it was completely hers.

I remember my friend Georgia had this issue a while ago, and it was a contributor to a fairly long hiatus that she went on. I felt angry about the whole situation with her, and now it just seems like déjà vu with me.

Sure, I’m honored that someone thinks my things are good enough to steal, or be “inspired” from. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. I work hard to be as unique as I can, and when someone compromises that, I want to scream.

I won’t say who this person is or go about and tell bad things about them—besides, they know who they are. Heck, I bet they’re reading this right now—as they seem to look at everything on Clompish and try to copy it.

All I have to say is:
“Stop. Taking. My. Ideas. And stop taking my work. Stop taking everything. Is it so hard to be original on your own?”

I was up north at my grandma’s for a while; sorry for the lack of updates! I have a really big and great surprise coming up though, so don’t get too discouraged.

I’m actually really excited about it, myself. <3

I’ll be on the chatbox, my email, twitter, etc., etc., so feel free to contact me there. I will also be returning all of my comments within the next few days.

Have a good night everyone!

Yesterday and last night were actually okay, and we had a really good waterskiing practice. Everyone on my team did really good, and they even took some people (me being one of them) farther out into the lake to teach us all how to barefoot. :3 I had waited for that day for four years, and it was a really good time. When you’re trying to barefoot, though, you can’t see or hear anything. It’s just spray, numbness, and possibly pain if you hit the water hard.

But now today, we are supposed to have a waterskiing show, and it’s thunder storming. It seems like for every bright, sunny day, we have to pay in more and more rain. It reminds me of the nursery rhyme that everyone knew when they were little.
Rain, rain, go way… come again another day…

Except this time, the storms really are coming again on other days.

I remember I used to have the biggest fear of thunderstorms and tornadoes a few years ago. If we even got a little bit of rain, I’d run to the basement, carrying everything I thought I’d need if I became stranded. I just hated storms so much—I became so caught up in worry and fear, that I didn’t even notice the beauty that’s in them.

Sure, they can be destructive and devastating, but plain rain and thunderstorms really won’t hurt anything that bad. And if you just watch out of a window before they get too severe… it’s breathtaking. I can’t believe how gorgeous I think storms are now, compared to how afraid I was of them just a year or two ago. You can change a lot in a short period of time.

This seemingly endless chain of storms is annoying the heck out of me, and I’m sure a lot of other people. It’s easier to sleep in and waste time when it’s gloomy; you can’t go outside and mess around when it’s like this… there’s so many cons to the whole thing. But we all deal with what comes our way…
and hope the rain stops in time for waterskiing.

I’d like to point out a couple of the new additions/changes with the site.

First of all—the new layout! I’m actually pretty proud of it, especially the header image. It took a while to figure out how to get that effect with the text in paint.NET, but I think it turned out well.
The coding was another story, though. I’m still working on fixing it up exactly—the colors and certain things gave me some grief.
But either way; it’s done and looks good.

I’ve added quite a few new graphics—meaning new banners, avatars, and new neopets petpages.
I also created an animation section, and added a few of those.

I fixed up a lot of the tutorials and articles, and redid the visitor section to make it more user friendly and easy to navigate.

Now, I was going to convert to WordPress, and actually started the process of it (I know my way around the program now, at least). I realized at some point, however, that I’m sort of… addicted to FanUpdate. Sure, it isn’t the best blogging system in the world, and sure, it has plenty of issues, but I’m just attached emotionally.

It sounds very pathetic, I know. But when I got to thinking, FanUpdate and I have had our fair share of times together.
I used it to blog about how I had gotten my first 5/5 website review.
I used it to blog about how much I hated it.
I used it to blog when I missed my friends;
I used it to blog so many great memories of last summer.
I’ve used FanUpdate so much. It’s hard to part with it!

Don’t think this means I won’t convert to WordPress—I will. Within the next week or so, for sure. I just want to take some time to read through all of my past blogs with FanUpdate, and save them all.
I want to make sure I don’t forget any of the great memories that this messed up program and I share together.

I haven’t talked to you as much as I’d like to since you moved to Texas. I still think you belong in Wisconsin—nothing feels right with you gone.

You were my best friend since second grade, and then you just left. I love that we still connect though, even if it isn’t that often. It’s better than forgetting about each other (although how could anyone forget you?)

The last day of my school felt so weird today. I wish you could have been there. There are so many people who I’ve met since you left that I know you’d love. And so many experiences that throughout them all, I just think, “I wish she was here!”

You like bowling, I know. And pizza. Both made me think of you today, as I bowled with our old friends (remember Bre and Paris?)

And while taking over one hundred pictures, it felt horrible that you weren’t in any of them. You couldn’t be in any of them. That was the worst part.

I can’t wait for you to come and visit on the 12^th. We’ll have so much fun, like always, and at least for a few days things can be like they used to be.

I can’t say that I haven’t had fun since you moved; it would be a lie. I realize also, that Clompish might not even exist if you hadn’t moved! And yes, I did have fun today on the last day of school—bowling and talking and hanging out. And preparing for summer.

But I would have had much more enjoyable times the past two years if you could have shared them with me. You’ll always be my best friend. It can’t change. Relationships like ours are far too strong.

I’ve missed you so much, but I can’t let myself drown in that. It’s not like you’re dead or something, and I hope you’re at least somewhat happy in Texas (although I doubt it could ever replace Wisconsin ).

I’ve been busy lately, what with the water ski season starting and school (although the school part isn’t a factor anymore, as of 2:30 PM today ). I haven’t even been on Clompish in a while, and I know I haven’t talked to you either (aside from a text message here and there).

I just had to tell you how much you still mean to me, and how much I wish I could say that every day. No number of miles can separate us—maybe you being gone has even strengthened our relationship.

Forever your friend, and always here,

Anyways, there’s only 6 days of school left for me! I’m so psyched for summer. School’s getting old—not that I don’t support getting an education. Just the fact that day after day… it gets annoying. Besides, I get to go to a new school next year, and sort of start anew.

My school district organizes things very strangely—when you’re in K-5 grade you’re at one of the various elementary schools, 6-7 grade is at the middle school, 8-9 is at the junior high, and 10-12 is at the senior high.

I’ve never understood it—when you’re a freshman in high school, you go to the junior high.

My school’s issues aside, I’ve been waterskiing almost constantly lately. Many of you know that I am on a waterskiing team in the summer. Since it’s nearly summer, which means time for our ski shows, and it’s warm enough, we’ve been having water practice a lot.

Just about every night we drive down to the lake that has become a distinct part of my life, and I put my swim suit and flomo (life jacket that’s more… compact) on. I then rush down to the dock, jumping on the creaky boards as I go, and end up talking to one of my teammates about random things until it’s time to go out for a run.

I do quite a few things on the team—slalom, climb to the top of pyramids, do conventionals (going off on a guy’s shoulders), strap (also on a guy’s shoulders—you need flexibility here!), pre-fab pyramids (pyramid built on the dock, and takes off of the dock like that), and of course, build my character by wrapping the ropes that we ski with.

Wednesday night I left practice feeling so good about myself, because I got in a lot of runs and tried with just about everything I had. Even after falling off of a pre-fab and hitting my back on some skis, I kept at it. I wish everyone could try that hard, because once you’re done, it feels great.

“Pain is only temporary, but victory is forever.“
I’ve always loved that quote. It’s so true. You get out of something what you put in, and when you put in amazing effort, you get out something that’s just as amazing. Sometimes it’s a solution, or an award—sometimes it’s merely pride.

Either way, it feels good. I just loved that feeling, being bubbly in the car on the way home and rambling about how I’m trying a hop dock (literally going off on one ski while standing on the dock, above the water) next Monday.

I could be proud of myself; I had a right to be. It was that night that I really saw just what effort does for you. It improves your self-image, your esteem, and gives others a good opinion of you too.

Effort. That’s what it’s about.

Why am I thinking of you now,
Forever on my mind and singing in my eyes,
However unlike me that is, but
Should I abandon this disguise?

Should I send you a rose petal,
To say that I’m in love,
Or should I send you golden rod,
Warning, I’ve had enough.

I can’t look at something so beautiful,
And not want it to stay near,
But I want to send you a way; a part of me,
Knows that I am inferior.

My mind wanders now,
But every flower explored has to do with you,
Sort of wondering if I ever really thought this through.

I can’t take time to smell the sky,
Or taste the clouds,
Might as well be talking to the deaf,
Cause I have to scream so loud.

Drowning in your victories,
And hating my cover of innocence,
Just don’t know what else to be,
Anything but a reverence.

Conflicted and cold,
Things I’ve already done,
Should I let go of the old,
Admit you as the one?

I hate you, I hate you,
Because it wasn’t you I fell in love with.
I grew to love your shadow,
And the man you could have been.

- 8:54 AM May 19^th 2009, from the point of view of one of the characters in my novel.

I love those days, when the sky is pure blue and you can’t even find a cloud for your life. Maybe that’s why I’m such a huge fan of summers here—my favorite color is blue?

And the sunsets are something else, when you have fireflies and a campfire going on, with the smell of grass fresh in your brain.

I think it’s so strange that not a month ago we had snow here in Wisconsin, and now the average temperatures are in the high seventies and often over eighty. It just proves what I always say: Wisconsin is simply unpredictable.

I sort of like that, though. I’ve always been fond of surprises, and I think they make life interesting and a bit more enjoyable.

Now, the whole “snow-in-may” surprise that my dear state gave to us a while ago was not appreciated, but not everything can’t always work out.

I remember once when I was little that my father, sister, and I planned a surprise birthday party for my mother. I guess my dad did most of the work, but being barely five and three, you can’t complain about the contributions that my sister and I gave.

We were in the car, on the way to the party, when my dad (inconspicuously, I should add) asked, “I wonder where we’re going?”

Being so young, I nearly screamed, “I thought we were going to mom’s surprise party?!”

The rest is sort of obvious. I remember being told that story, with my dad’s commentary, “God, I sort of wanted to hurt you.” (Not that he ever would, of course).

My mom didn’t care—I think she pretty much knew what we were planning the whole time, just played along for my sister and I.

Surprises are nice… just not when you’re three and ruining them.

I stepped out of the car, and kicked off my shoes right there (I always forget them at practice and figured I can’t forget them if they’re by the car). I could tell I hadn’t been skiing for a while—my feet weren’t calloused and the gravel and rocks were foreign.

I made my way down to the dock, inhaling deeply the whole way. There’s a certain smell that Lake DuBay has—something I’ll never be able to describe fully. It’s old wood and pine, and cold water and nature. It smells a bit like the sky, too, and there’s a hint of rubber in the mix.

I was careful to stay on the rubber mats we laid down on the gravel; they form a path to the dock, which helps keep your feet pain free until you can reach the wooden boards.

It may not be the best ski site—there’s driftwood and rocks and pollen—but it works, and it’s sort of become a home for me in the summer. And not only me, my whole ski team family.

One of the things I remember most about this ski site is the treeline. The whole lake is surrounded by trees, with no real beach. When you take off of the dock, you can see a windmill just above the treeline right in front of you.

I was told once, when I was going off to climb my first pyramid (I’m the smallest on the team; climber by nature) that I was told to find the windmill and keep my eyes on it, and I wouldn’t fall.

See, if you look down at all while skiing, you’re toast. It was a way to keep my eyes in the sky.

Now everyone on my team knows about the piece of a windmill that you can see, and it’s become our thing. You look at it when you go off, and if you fall, it’s the boat’s fault (of course this isn’t always true).

I guess I’ve just fallen in love a bit with Lake DuBay, and the water skiing sport itself. There’s so many possibilies and new things to learn when you ski, and I can’t get enough in in the short summers we have.

I’d love to hear if any of you water ski, or are thinking about water skiing. And anyways, what other sports do you do that not many people really know about?

The service was wonderful—I’ve always loved my church.

They had a “church cop” video, which is something one of the youth pastors does and it’s humorous while it also has a good message.

There was a really good sermon and a gospel reading, some contemporary songs, and then, finally, the part where everyone got confirmed.

We were called up one by one, and they announced our confirmation verse (we all had to pick a bible verse with special meaning) and then we received our certificates and… it was over. I was confirmed!

I imagined it as being a lot harder and more nerve wracking—my church was being so amazing that they just made it incredibly easy on us.

After that the service was almost done—we all just had to take first communion. I’m a Lutheran, so we don’t get first communion until when we are confirmed; I understand many Catholics get it in about the second grade.

The wine tasted horrible by my standards, but the bread was okay, and either way—it was for Jesus, so I’d have drunken or eaten anything.

Following the service there was a party at my house with some of my relatives. I received a few presents, one of them being a beautiful silver hoop necklace with my date of confirmation and the word “believe” engraved on it, along with quite a bit of money.

Later that day I went over to a friend’s house (one who was also confirmed with me) and spent the night.

We stayed up until 2 AM with a bonfire and didn’t get up until 10 or so the next day. I left her house at 7:30 and returned home just in time to finish homework before school in the morning.

After school yesterday, I was overloaded with homework and just barely finished it before water skiing practice.

I’m on a water skiing team in the summer, and we practice nearly every night when it gets warm enough. Yesterday was our first practice of the season, and I swear the water was like 40 degrees. At least the air was warm.

Thank you all for supporting me and Clompish,

My writing portfolio is getting a bit big and I sort of think it’d be nice to have it all on a real subsite. Of course, it’d still be off of Clompish, and there would still be a link in the main navigation to it. I just think it’d be better to have my portfolio a little more… established? I can’t find the right word.

Well, I’m more than thinking of it, to be honest. I’ve pretty much decided.

If I do move my portfolio to a subsite, I have narrowed it down to four name choices. I’d love it if you’d all give me your opinions—I’m pretty indecisive.
The four are:
Tramonto.clompish.com (tramonto is sunset in Italian)
Mattina.clompish.com (mattina is morning in Italian)
Resistencia.clompish.com (resilience in Spanish)
Resilienza.clompish.com (resilience in Italian).

Yes, I do like Italian translations.

And thank you if you do tell me which name you think I should choose.

Anyways, one of my best friends is getting baptized tonight. She’s also getting confirmed with me on Saturday, and we’re both excited (along with the rest of my youth group).

It all started when I brought her to church with me one Sunday in early 6^th grade. She had slept over the night before and ended up coming with us to the service. Her family didn’t really go to church ever, and she hadn’t been baptized, so it was a new experience.

When we dropped her off, she said that we should do it again, which thrilled me. It was great to have one of my closest friends interested in my religion!

She came with us nearly every Sunday after that, and she enjoyed it—it was obvious. Eventually my mom talked to her mom, and she enrolled in confirmation with me for our first year of study.

I never realized just how much impact taking her to church with me one Sunday had—not until now, at least. We’ve both finished our second and final year of confirmation and are getting confirmed tomorrow, and the time just flew by.

She’s getting baptized tonight because in order to be confirmed, you must be baptized, and her parents never baptized her as a baby. I think it’s great that she’s come this far in her search and growth with God, and it makes me feel very good about myself to know that I helped change her life, as well.

And… there’s something even more amazing about this whole thing, as well.

My parents are going to be her godparents.

It feels weird to be using FanUpdate at school. I still don’t understand why my school’s filter blocks my cPanel but not my FanUpdate. Hopefully I don’t get in trouble for updating my blog here. If I do though, there isn’t much the IMC staff can do, really.

My school staff is so picky like that—it drives me nuts. One of the rules here is that you can not have a cell phone during school. Reasonable, right? But, if it’s the morning and you get to school early, classes haven’t started yet and not even the warning bell has sounded, you can still get your phone confiscated. Unreasonable, correct?

Or after school. I mean, after the bell to dismiss has rung and most kids are on the buses, if you go into the IMC to use a computer, you have to use it for homework (obviously I don’t take this rule very seriously). If you don’t use it for homework or they catch you doing something non-school related, you get scolded and in trouble. There isn’t really that much they can do—a few people have lost their computer privileges but that’s about it—so it’s sort of pointless.

And anyways, after the bell rings, students don’t have to listen to the staff, do they?

I don’t. I suppose I’ve gotten good at breaking this rule, but don’t get the wrong impression—I’m not a bad student or a bad kid—I usually do listen. Especially during the school day. It’s just that I question authority.

If I’m at school, not during school hours, then I believe that it is my time. As long as I’m not doing anything illegal or inappropriate, why can’t I be on my website or reading through other blogs? The staff can’t dictate what I can and can’t do before the morning bell and after the dismiss bell. They think they can, but they just can’t.

I mean, I’m not so upset over the computer thing—they ARE the school’s computers. But still—you should be allowed to do things that aren’t strictly homework, so long as they are educational. I’m teaching myself website coding when I work on my website. Isn’t that education?

I’m always going to question authority. I’ve been told it’ll bite me in the butt sometime later on, and maybe I sound immature in saying this—but why can’t I control myself?

Sure, my parents can tell me what to do anytime. But the teachers and staff at my school? Only during that seven hour period of the actual school day… not in my own free time.

I’m wondering if it’s not best to stay with FanUpdate for a while? Until summer, perhaps, when I can devote more time to tackling Wordpress. I guess one of the things I don’t understand is what if I want to use PHP includes still? Is that even possible? I’ll admit I haven’t looked into detail about all of this WP jazz, so that’s most likely why I’m just about clueless.

Anyways, reading through PHP tutorials and more detailed PHP information, I’m realizing just how much I never knew. I guess I didn’t think much more of PHP besides using it to change the layout on all of my pages at once. Now I’ve learned so much more; it’s pretty exciting.

Later today I have a confirmation rehearsal. I get confirmed this Saturday—only three days away ! I’m way excited, as I’ve been in confirmation for two years now and can’t wait for the actual event.

Great—my mom’s making me get off of the computer for the rehearsal. I’ll finish this blog later, maybe?