A bulletin from the couch

where I have pretty much taken up permanent residence. :)

Everyone but Dad and BonnieJean went down to the Bowie tournament over the weekend.  Samuel placed third in black belt weapons after deciding on the spur of the moment to compete.  Dillian Ramey and Crista Bailey took first and second, respectively, so he's hanging with the big dogs, for sure.  He also placed third in the super fight, coming in behind Greg Partridge and Luke Rosebure.  Ethan didn't fight because it was only a week from his black belt test, but he placed first in adult underbelt weapons and adult brown kata.  He got a nine from Mr. Holzbauer on his weapons kata!  Naomi came to help coach and decided suddenly to compete in kata!  She didn't place, but I'm so proud of her!  And after we all saw the flying pigs, she decided to do fight a 13 year old who didn't have anyone else in her division to fight.  Naomi won!  Joshua placed third in kata and second in fighting.  Isaac placed second in kata.  He lost his first fight by one point to the boy who went on to win the whole division.  Irony.  At the last tournament, Caleb forgot his kata and had to make it up.  This time he remembered it perfectly!

  Before the tournament, Scott and Theresa tested for fourth degree and passed.  I'm so excited for them!  I'm kinda disappointed they didn't do any board breaking, but that's just because I so enjoy watching them do it so well!  I can't believe they managed to test and run a tournament in the same day.

  After the tournament, little Alexis hit my right foot while I was standing in the hallway.  When I unwrapped my foot to take a shower Sunday night it was swollen really bad and black all down the right side and top of it with pooled blood under the skin.  It totally freaked me out.  Dad prayed over it right then and we called Orjala first thing Monday morning.  I didn't go to work or karate.  We unwrapped it Monday afternoon out of pure curiousity and it looked tons better.  I don't think a bruise on a normal, active person would go down that quickly.  It was just an answer to prayer!

  While I was home resting Monday night, Caleb passed his yellow belt test, Dad passed his orange belt test, and Isaac did all of his blue belt test with the exception of fighting and board breaking.  He'll do those Monday night.  I'm so excited for all of them!

  In other fantastic-answers-to-prayer news, I found out today that I passed the Comp II test out!  This means I get to graduate this May!  I am so wildly excited!

Gypsy Lady

  My traveling itch is getting worse.  I drove to the NE campus of TCC today to take the U.S. History II CLEP (passed!) and almost didn't come home.  When I was leaving TCC I got onto Highway 11 East like a good girl, but I wanted to take it West through Sand Springs where it gets smaller and more country like and follows the Arkansas river.  And then on the Will Rogers Turnpike I wanted to keep going into Missouri, but I got off at Claremore like a good girl.  *sigh*  My family doesn't travel much since Dad doesn't like driving (and if he reads this he's going to assume that I don't like being home--not true!)  I don't mind driving by myself but it would be kinda rude to take off with my parents' car.  I'm saving up for a car (I know I'll need one by May if not sooner), and until then I'm kinda stuck here.  If I really begged they would probably loan me a car, but they'll worry about me the whole time.  Maybe I could talk them into letting me and some boys drive to the Brown's this weekend.

  I think I'll go finish my filing.

Another late night post

  Why are most of my blog posts written late at night?  I do tend to be more contemplative in the evenings.  I think that's a good thing.

  Punyou had two seizures this evening.  The first one was about a mintue and a half and the second was a little less than a minute.  They were about thirty minutes apart.  His whole head would shake, back and forth not up and down, and his eyes wouldn't blink.  We'll call the vet in the morning.

  I think I'll go take the computer and U.S. history II CLEPs tomorrow.  Yeah for CLEP tests!  Everybody pray for me.

  Mama found my old violin shoulder rest--hallelujah!  I haven't been too happy with my new one.  It pops off whenever I really start hugging the violin to me.

  Hillcat basketball is having a great season!  The men are 6-0 in conference play, 12-0 overall.  The ladies just won their 6th game in a row last night and are 4-2 in conference play, 10-4 overall.  They both play St. Gregory's tomorrow.  I'll have to leave right in the middle to go to band practice at church, but I'm hoping to catch most of it.  I sat with Ethan, Mae, and her boyfriend Aaron at the last home game.  Mae played basketball in high school, so she was able to explain all the ref's calls, which was awesome because they're totally incomprehensible to me.

  I had a very productive day today.  I applied for 6 different jobs, filed the quarterly report for the Rogers County Republicans with the State Ethics Commission, renewed the club's registration (with the $52.50 fee) with said Commission, took the sample U.S. history CLEP, cleaned my room (some), worked out, and stretched.  I should have cleaned my desk, but I didn't.  Oh, well, tomorrow.

  I now have three of my textbooks in: Orientalism and Comparative Politics for my Comparative Politics class, and an Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry for my Poetry Writing class.

  I'm really enjoying a book Julie lent me called Stealing Elections by John Fund.  It's challenging my some of my views on absentee ballots and extremely interesting.

  I try to remember to ask this something-resembling-annually: who all reads my blog?

Random Late Night Thoughts

I had no school Friday and will have no school next week, except for Monday. I thought about skipping Monday, but a couple different teachers seem to be expecting that, so have scheduled important things for Monday. I pretty much have them (things scheduled) done, so I'm only working on biology this week so I can take the CLEP Monday or Tuesday.

I'm at Stirling's right now. We went to Dickens on the Boulevard and had a blast. Stirling had never been before. Mama made Naomi a 1890s skirt that she wore with a hat with matching band, a matching necktie and one of my blouses. Mama is making a jacket that matches but didn't have time to finish it in time for tonight.

I was really tickled with how much I got done this weekend, before coming to Stirling's. I read everything I need read for Monday, wrote my persuasive speech outline, put away laundry, cleaned my desk, turned in a research paper, did some heavy duty research for the Perspectives group project, went to the doctor, worked out, packed up and came here with a real load off my mind. The only things I need to do school wise before Monday are writing a wrap-up of some of the reading and typing the speech outline I already wrote.

I'm really hoping to do some visiting during my break. Emily Bethea is in town and I've really missed her. There are several gals that I pass in the halls at school all the time but we never really get to visit so it would be fun to get together with them, too. That list would be Katie and Amy Sova, Sarah Lovin, and Sarah Hanback.

On the subject of friends, I really need to email Haley Williams, Charity Reed, Leslie Branson, and Lucy, and write Uncle Fred, Mercy Cepeda, and Matthew Sutherland.

And of course, I need to call Chera dear.

I got to see Ratatouille this week. It wasn't a Pixar masterpiece, like Monsters or Nemo, but it was very entertaining. Everything Pixar makes is good.

Mr. Orwig gave us some handouts from a different Hebrew text book that really cleared up some grammar questions we had. Mr. Orwig is not terribly happy with the curriculum for this class and will probably change it the next time round. Don't you love being the guinea pig?

I need to start thinking about books for next semester, a job (starting sometime in January), Christmas presents, and about not having to do anything during Christmas break.

I was really discouraged earlier this week with how much I have to do, particularly with how few CLEPs I've taken this semester. I just took a deep breath, looked at what I had done and what I needed to do and found out that it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I'm feeling very confident about this biology CLEP, which I'll take sometime next week. After that is the Comp II test, which ought to be not-quite-a-breeze-but-definitely-easy. Also, I got several large projects for current classes turned in, went to the Missions tournament, and got a couple nights of good sleep and all of a sudden life looked a lot more manageable. Then, of course, it struck me that I should quit worrying so much about managing life when God can do a lot better job of it.

I have so many wonderful friends, close and far. I love you guys!

Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed with how lost some people are. You always have proof of lostness generally, but some people are just so desperate to get away from God. It's not like they're looking for God and got lost, but like they're buffalo stampeding off cliffs in order not to find God. Nothing seems to even dent the shell they've built around their souls. God's been working on my faith with this. Do I really believe that God can save anyone? Am I trying to reach people in my own strength? There's a convicting aspect, too. Is there anything in my life, visible or not to people around me, that quenches the Spirit or damages my witness?

OK, this has gotten a lot longer than I had planned. Bravo for reading it all the way to the end.

"Peazs are loyal to ze end!"

"There they are, officer!"

"Ze end." *walks off*

I need a hug

You need a score of 50 to pass a CLEP test. I took the College Algebra CLEP this afternoon and made a 48. *sniff*

On this day in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. I'm still amazed that it's actually possible but I don't think I would ever want to go there myself.

My hair turned out a lot redder than I had wanted it. It's magenta, at best. My worry is that it will fade to pink and my hope is that it will fade to purple. :) I'm getting lots of long stares and good reactions. And I'm not posting pictures yet until I get the chance to shock a few more people.

The 7th Harry Potter comes out TOMORROW! *jumps up and down* Y'all are all forbidden to tell me anything.

I'm going to go google a lot of things for the chemistry CLEP. Love y'all!

I can't wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to come out!

I can't wait for Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End to come to the sanwhy theater.

I can't wait to pass the algebra CLEP and be done with all this stinkin' algebra.

I can't make Samuel wait any longer for me. We're both going to Lucy's to study.

Love y'all!

So Tuesday it was 82. Tonight it's snowing. I heard it's cold all over the Eastern 2/3rds of the country. I feel like Pooh. Is it snowing in there? It's snowing out here, too.

Poor Chera's sick. Everyone blow get-well kisses her way.

I got to see Night at the Museum! It was wonderful! Ethan looks a lot like Dick Van Dyke and the Teddy Roosevelt character was my favorite!

I also saw Pursuit of Happyness. It was a great idea with great acting (Will Smith can RUN!) but too much like Dumbo-2 hours of sadness and angst for 5 minutes of happy ending. And they could have covered a lot more successes (selling bone scanners, financial plans, paying bills, making it to the shelter on time, etc.) that would have brightened it up but they just glossed over them.

I passed the Government CLEP today! This only leaves Biology, Chemistry, and Algebra. Hmmm... the three hardest for last. Is that good or bad?

I have so much to do by the end of this month!!! Buy cool clothes for the unairconditioned Kinmen, formal gi for nationals, boards for test, bo for test, take biology CLEP, buy used books for classes, go to the Republican State Convention, iron out my last class with my advisor, write my COMMIT girls, get music on mine and Mama's MP3 players, back up my picture files, get a kata ready for nationals, my fighting has slumped terribly and I need to practice a ton so I don't embarras myself at nationals, all this on top of working, church, housework, karate, maintaining some sort of organization in my room and on my desk, and practicing personal hygiene and rest. Bonuses are music practice, exercise, Isaac's lessons, reading, and movies. *pants* Right now I think I'll go to bed.

Since I last posted I have...

been a team leader at the COMMIT conference and learned tons and was very much encouraged and hopefully helped the girls, too. I also canoed, paddleboated, and rappeled (50 ft!)

Passed the World Civilization I CLEP.

Signed up for Speech, Intro to Sociology, Foundations of World Language, and Perspectives on Human Behavior. I want to take another junior level course but the advisor asked me to wait to sign up for until I passed more CLEPs. He seemed afraid that I wouldn't actually pass them and then it would be too late to sign up for the gen eds. So I'll pass some more and show him, although I can see his concerns since he doens't know me or much about CLEPs. So far they're all MWF classes which means I could work Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Had a brother go and come back from the Phillipines where God did all kind of awesome things that Samuel will post on his blog (hint, hint.)

Played a violin special at church which was very well recieved.

Did nursing homes with Dad.

Saw great progress in the younger white belts' blocks.

Started planning an Easter package for Chera and almost immediatley after received a cd for me and BJ which we are enjoying immensely. Thank you!

Got way behind and then caught up on friends' blogs.

Cut back on sweets.

Managed to miss stretching a couple of times and got very stiff.

Worked alot.

Had my desk and room go through several cycles of messy and clean. Right now it's messy.

And now I'm going to go watch The Pursuit of Happyness. See y'all!