I am exhausted.
The boys I'm babysitting are being awful.
And I am exhausted.

I'm so pleased with how today turned out.
I filmed three scenes of my music video (with great success), had a painless journalism class, picked up my new sweater from the mall, bought some fun new tea accessories (and tea), drank said tea, knitted a cozy for my jar-turned-mug with keshy, and yeah.
It was great.  And now I am TIRED.
Super super tired.
Also I'm currently feeling strangely sentimental towards my stuffed panda, Panda.
He's just really squishy and soft.  I can't get enough.

Time for bed, goodnight!

Missing my family!

Splash Mountain!

Homie and his sister, Aunt June!

notice Homie's earring.

Love them, miss them.

I had a really emotional evening.
Not bad emotional, just...emotions.
Very descriptive, I know.
What happened was this evening I had an hour before work so I decided to go to the mall and try to return some jeans.  On the way I called my dad, because I hadn't talked to him since I was home.  So I called him and told him about my classes and we chatted for about a half hour and it was really great.  We talked about how fun disney was and how successful of a family vacation it was and when I told him I was gonna get going he stopped me and started apologizing for not making an effort to call me more often since I've moved to school (two years ago), and was explaining why he hasn't and started explaining how much I mean to him.  And it killed me.
To begin to understand the weight of his statements, you have to know that I've had a lot of anger towards my dad for most of my life because he's very closed off and doesn't express emotion or show interest in many things.  So for him to not only acknowledge and apologize for those things, and then to tell me how much he adores me, I was floored.  It was one of those moments when you're just so overcome with emotion you don't even have time to think before your eyes just start flooding.  I don't have those moments often at all.
And then-this is going to sound way less significant compared to the first example- I was on stumbleupon and there was this page called  21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity.
And they were just really cute.  There's one picture of a guy giving a girl his shoes, and the girl has her face in her hands and that made me cry.
Goodness, it's like I'm pregnant.  I'm not one to cry often (ever, really) and I've been hit twice in one day!  Hormones?  Let's hope.
But for now, I'm just really thankful for random acts of kindness that shed a little light on the world. And for feeling the love I've always wanted from my Dad.
God is good.

You know those times when you just need someone on your side?  You just need your friend to be there for you for a while because everything sucks and you can't handle anything?
Well, my question is, what happens when your friend can't be on your side because everything sucks right now for them too?
What do you do?

Still feverish, but alas, the world doesn't stop for sickness.
I'm in a super good mood anyways.
Got my first interview for an article I'm writing, had a really good steamer, having a good hair day, and some other top secret good stuff.
But unfortunately, I have this stupid character bio hanging over my head.
I have to create two characters with clear goals and motivations, and write interviews for them, answering them as characters.
Not super difficult, but super time consuming and shoot my head hurts already.
Some day I'll stop being sick, and the world will be a happier place.
As for now, I'm going to power through and go to sleeeep.

So I have the flu.
Went into church with cold symptoms.
Came out with a fever.
I haven't left my bed in the last five hours, I'm freezing and everything hurts.
Naturally, I've exhausted a long list of Disney movies to pass the time.
-Peter Pan
- Tuck Everlasting
- Lady and the Tramp
- Pocahontas II
- Peter Pan II
And now I'm watching Finding Nemo.
Being sick sucks.
I'm not really an affectionate person, but when I'm sick I get really affectionate and needy to no avail, because everyone runs from you like you have the plague.
I don't blame them, but it makes sick being that much more annoying.
But my friends really are the best because they did get me some bottles of juice.
Yeah.  I think that's all I have to say.  For some reason everything I go to type comes out in hash tags.
Because of this, I am done.
Off to sleep, happy Sunday friends!


p.s. Church was soooooo worth being sick during today.
Worship was incredible, message was great.  God is good.

Holy Crap.
The Fray's new cd, Scars and Stories was written for me.
Every song is getting to me.  So good.

So I realized I haven't really gone into detail on a lot of things from the past month or so (Disney, Jersey &such) and I was thinking today about my favorite disney moments from last month.

So my family and I went with my aunt June and cousins Salvatore and Francesca.  I was a little nervous because my parents, Heather, and I are all disney freaks and love all the rides and cheesy story lines and characters and the whole sha-bang.  My cousins were less than excited.  They're not a huge fan of rides and have never really been into Disney movies.  So there was one day we went to Animal Kingdom, and my aunt had been talking about this one ride that she would be interested in, which was a big deal because of her aversion to rides.  So we go, and it's one of those little roller coasters that jerk you around the corner super fast so it seems like you're going to fly off the edge.  But it's not super high or fast or anything, just jerky and jumpy with a few drops and such.  So I go in a little cart with Francesca and Heather, and we begin.  So we click up the the top and start flying around corners and decide that we are not a fan of being flung around and are fairly certain we aren't going to survive.  And after deciding this we click to the top of the highest drop, and Francesca starts singing to calm herself.  However it's not really singing at all, it's rapping.  And all of a sudden Heather joins in on the rapping and we're on this little animal kingdom ride with Heather and Francesca rapping this ridiculous song so loudly.

So after that, every time we went on a ride that we were nervous about/that scared Cesca, we would start rapping this song.  And I have this great memory of Cesca, Heather, Sal, and I sitting on a bed in the resort listening to the song on Cesca's laptop and Heather rapping it so dramatically and it was just really great.  The four of us are all super super different and it was just kinda cool to be all getting along and laughing and enjoying each other.  Even if it was over a dirty rap song.

Since I know you're wondering, this is the song.

There was another time in Disney when there was 'extra magic hours' in MGM, which is the park where Tower of Terror&Rockin Roller Coaster are.  If you're not following, google it, but basically it's the best ride at Disney.  And extra magic hours means the park is open later than usual, so on this particular night the park was closing at ten pm I think.  So we had gone out for dinner in a different park and during dinner Sal had said he wanted to try Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller coaster.  Homie, Heather, and I are huge fans in particular of these rides and Sal had previously not been interested in trying them so we were all super pumped.  So at like 9pm we're running to the bus to take it to MGM to try to get on the rides before they close.  We get to the park at 9:20 and Heather, Homie, Sal, and I run all the way to Tower of Terror.  So we're booking across the parks and run onto the ride, get off, and run to Rockin Roller coaster.  We get off at 10:05 and leave.  Success.

It was super funny because we were all dressed nicely from dinner and we were running in our dresses and cute shoes. 

Disney was great.  Makes me miss my family.

But as for current life, it's going great.

Tibbs and Kesh are being kind of precious because they've recently started reading Les Miserables out loud to each other each night in preparation for the movie coming out in October.  They're getting super into it.

But I'm beginning Homeless Ministry in the morning, so I shall be off to bed.

Enjoy your weekend, friends!

Rent is consuming me.  The musical, I mean, since I don't actually pay rent.
Sometimes I get a little embarrassed by the variety of music (or lack thereof) shown on my Spotify and the fact that everyone can see it.
Because I listen to things in loops.  For example, I discover a new musical and listen to it nonstop for a week or two.  Last week it was Newsies, this week it's Rent.  And it's consuming.
I got pulled over yesterday coming back from an interview (they really need to have more speed limit signs in my area, how can I be at fault when I'm not informed?) and the minute I pull over all I can think is I'm not gonna pay, I'm not gonna pay...
(Reference 4:15)

Luckily, the police officer was super super sweet and gave me a warning.  So there was no issue there.

But shoot, it's just so good.  So sad, and so good.

Also, there's been this project that I've been stressing about.  My digital video class & screenwriting classes have been dealing out projects every week and it's turning out to be quite a bit of work.  This week I have to find a song recorded before 1990 and write a music video for it for my digital video class.  I've been stressing about this project in particular because I think it's really easy to make a music video cheesy and I wanted the video to be independent of the song but still mesh well and I have a hard time forcing myself to be creative.  But I just came to the library, sat down, and hammered it out in thirty minutes and I actually really like it.  So I'm feeling kind of awesome right now.  And now for screenwriting I have to write two outlines for separate short films.  I've written one already, so I'm hoping the second doesn't take too long.

To Do List For Today/Tonight:

Write 1 Short Film Outline

Read 77 pages in Film Text

Christian Theology Blog

Not too bed, but the text might kill me.  I still have about eight hours left to complete this.  Do-able.

Better get started.

Love to those who died in the tragedy eleven years ago, to those mourning, and to those still recovering.

Oh man, here we are in week three of classes and everything is in full swing.
I watched Rent for the first time (loved it), got a job (babysitting, as if you had to ask), auditioned for the musical (I'll keep you posted) and have already slept through a class.
Not ideal, but hey the rest is going pretty well.
I feel like I have it all.  My closest friends, my adventure camp friends, classes I'm excited about, and fall weather.
Life is good, friends.

We haven't even been here a full week and I'm EXHAUSTED.
Seriously people, this is day six.  I have no motivation for my mountain of reading that needs to be done!
Ugh.
I'm literally procrastinating by googling how to focus.
Irony.
Okay time to get down to business, for real this time.

I had the best summer.

This is the moment that I feel my childhood is officially over.