I guess so, but if you want to be popular and intellectual looking and cool, you should acquire a taste for tea and know all about it. And you should go and buy yourself some glasses. Because, as amber and I were discussing earlier, it's cool to look - and if you're lucky, sound - smart. Maybe I should've used more syllables and said "intelligent" or "incredibly smart."


That's true. We are pretty different.

Amber and I both enjoy reading immensely. We talk about the books we've read and it's always a cause of excitement when we have time to read - especially when it's a good book.

Wait. I was getting at some point.

Oh yes, differences!

Books are a source of accomplishment to me. I love finishing a book. Amber tends to measure books by pages. When it comes to the entire length of a book, so do I. But, when it comes to a period of time in which I'm reading, I go by chapters. I can't say, "oh, I'm going to read this many pages and be done." It has to be, "I'm going to finish this many chapters before I'm done."
Amber goes by pages.


I think we both have pretty much the same idea about marriage, except that amber wants to have kids sooner than me.
It's ridiculous how much I would love to just get married in a couple of years, and some years after that have kids and be a young mom. I'd play piano while the kids nap, or while it's amber's day to have the kids play at her house. I won't say anything about what my husband will be like, but he will have to enjoy going on walks and having spontaneous plans. And it wouldn't hurt if he could play chopin.

Ah-ha, wishful thinking.


Why am I even writing about that? Look what you started amber!

I don't really have anything else to write about, and I don't think what I already have written about was very interesting anyway.

-becca

To the unfortunate person who staggared through the frustration expressed in the post that used to be here, I apologize.

To continue the "how to get along with your friends" lesson, I will comment more on the first point - tea...

Who says opposites attract? The only sense that works in is with genders. becca and I are friends not because of the sameness of our personalities (they are really quite different) nor the differencess in our personalities, but because we have things in common separate from our personalities.

becca mentioned tea. She forgot to mention that you should only drink tea with your friend if you both like tea. We (that is, becca and I) consider ourselves somethings like amateur tea connoisseurs; we don't have the money to be pros, but we both like tea and have virtually the same favorites.

If you are male, it does not follow that you should dislike tea, but it does follow that you should dislike holding "tea parties" with your male buddies in order to "bond." If you are male, you may enjoy playing rugby together or watching the baseball game together or seeing who can concoct the most disgusting mixture from kitchen ingredients and drink eight oz of it the fastest. You are male, and you are opposites (but don't forget - opposites attract when it comes to gender!). Substitute nearly anything for tea and it will work.

You may be female and you may dislike tea greatly. The same principle applies here. If you don't like tea, for heaven's sake don't force yourself to drink it and complain later that all your tea-hating friends now hate you. Go; turn tea-hating into an art. Be creative. Spend time with your friends making anti-tea posters and holding rallies. Discuss how much you hate tea. Hold board meetings. We (becca and I) don't care (more tea for us!) - it's your friendships that are at stake.

My public thanks to Tyrone and becca for sending me tea whilst I was away at college. My "college friends" will testify that I was very excited and happy indeed, for days. The poor college student would like to spend her Christmas money on more important things than tea (and make the money last all semester) so any further donations will be most welcome. becca knows my favorite kinds (because they are her favorite kinds as well!)

Ah, the joys of a perfect friendship. Sometimes I think the glue that sticks us together is simply the common love of tea (and the GREAT lattes her mother makes...)

On a different note...

I'm reading again! Now that I'm not on drugs and Christmas is over, I have time to read! I borrowed several books from my aunt last night and I'm reading the stuff I got in the "free book sale" that was at school a while ago where I just grabbed about ten in between the mass of a hundred other students swarming around the shelves and haven't had a chance to read them yet. Today, in fact, is my official reading day. Last night late I finished "Meeting God at Every Turn" by Catherine Marshall (I didn't know till now that she was the author of Christy, which used to be one of my favorite books.) It's basically her autobiography and I didn't think I'd like it very much but I figured I'd just read it and then either throw it away or give it away, since I hate to deliberately not finish any book.

Near the beginning of the book she mentioned something like "my readers often meet me and say 'I feel like I know you through your writing; I feel like you're already my friend.'" I read that and I was like "pfft, sentimental mush. You won't find me doing that - no, I can read with an objective eye. I am going to dislike this book immensely. Bo-ring." I actually thought it was like a "spiritual life self-help" book by the title. Then I read it, and found that it was interesting in parts. Eventually I was nearly laughing at loud at the little anecdotes she'd placed in this book, and at her particular writing style. I ended the book feeling very satisfied. I loved it. Just before I went to sleep I thought "if I ever get a chance to meet her, I will. We have so much in common, and she's been through so much, and she writes..." and then I thought "NO! I resolved to have no feelings of kindness toward the author at the beginning of the book!" But it's true, I feel like I know her after reading her autobiography! Wow!

One huge thing that made me like the book - the love stories. Ha! You're hearing this from me? Me, the official inventer of hating the sight of kissing?

The truth is, I think a great deal about marriage and how I want to be married. Of course, like nearly anyone else, I want to find "the right guy" which means right now I'm resigned to be an old maid forever because there seem to be none in the world. I won't bore you with my own thoughts though - I just want to tell of my interest in the fact of marriage, and how a sheltered Christian 17-year old who has barely been around men of her age in her life goes thinking about "eligible young men" and stuff. Anyway, I usually don't like love stories because they are super romanticized: "We met. He took me out to dinner. He took me home. He held open the door for me (such a gentleman) then he kissed me (good teeth) and then he said he'd call me later (commitment.) I'll say yes when he asks."

Catherine Marshall's two love stories (she remarried seven years after her first husband died) are really beautiful because she expresses all of her own thoughts - she thinks the guy is interested in her but she doesn't really want to think that because how could he be? Then she starts liking the guy back but he seems not to like her anymore so she thinks it was all in her head and decides to just forget it all, like she should have in the first place, then she finds she is still in love with him (but is it only infatuation? This can't be godly! God, take away the feelings!) then it turns out he's really in love with her, and they get married. Basically, the tale she told was with all the human doubts and silly thoughts and ridiculousness and "I'm-too-mature-for-crushes-so-is-this-true-love-and-this-couldn't-possibly-be-God's-will-for-me-so-I-should-just-give-him-up-now" silliness. And yet, God prevailed - and she makes it very clear that it was God who prevailed, not the guy she married or herself. It wasn't "Peter and Catherine winning over incredible odds" - it was "Catherine (possibly Peter) creating doubt and 'odds' and God winning over them both."

Anyway, I know this is an odd way for me to speak (odd as in, not the way I normally do) but the fact is, I do think about marriage, I want to get married and have a whole lot of kids and live in a big house somewhere and homeschool and have the smartest kids on the planet. I want to have the "perfect guy" who will enjoy turning out the lights and drinking tea and talking in the dark. (obviously that's not the only thing I want from a guy, but I'm just saying that I have dreams. Doesn't everyone?) I guess I'm just saying, this was a very human love story. Sometimes Christians tell their love stories like this: "God brought us together. The end." And it sounds all super-spiritual and you go "Okay, there go the two Saints." This is how two humans fell in love because God willed it. I don't know how to explain it.

The other thing I liked about the book was how she wrote about her love to write and how she got into the whole publishing thing. I think any autobiography about a writer will interest me, though, just because I like to write. The writing thing was a small part of the book - she wasn't writing this book to tell the story of her writing career, that's for sure. In fact, it seemed more about Peter Marshall (her first husband) than her. Anyway.

I liked the book.

Now I'm reading Taliesin. I asked Aunt Debbie to lend me some good books that I hadn't read and she lent me three. So I'm reading it now. I've never been much for fantasy style books but I've decided to finish this one just to see if I can "get into" it. I can't see it happening so far. I'm about fifty pages into it and there are almost 500 in the book, so maybe a real plot will develop soon instead of seemingly unrelated things happening one after the other.

My list of things to do:

Read some more
Eat lunch
Shower

Haha! I love the life on break! And no one cares what I do - I'm exempt because I spent the semester getting up earlier than the rest of my family.

Josh says becca's at work. I am definitely going to try to hang out with her later today. Maybe I'll go to worship practice tonight or something. Last I saw her was Sunday morning and I haven't so much as talked to her online or on the phone or seen her or ANYTHING since then! All I've done was read the post below! I MISS HER!

-Amber

Part of the reason Amber and I started this blog was so we could model our perfect friendship to those of you who long to have the same fulfillment in your life.

So, let me give you a few pointers on being good friends.

#1. Drink tea.
- tea makes everything better. Whenever one of us (when I say "us," I'll be refering to amber and I), are having a bad day, the other can say "would you like to come over and have some tea?" It is an instant cure. Just the invitation in itself makes the day end better, and there always seems to be the right selection of tea. Even on Christmas!

#2. Always have extra drawsting pajama pants and socks available.
- spontaneous "want to spend the night?" nights always end up happening. Drawstring is emphasised because they're adjustable. And I forget to put on socks all the time, so make sure you have some to offer.

#3. Have the same favorite movies.
- when amber and I first met, we found that we didn't like the same movies. She thought all the ones I told her were good, were stupid. I don't remember what I thought about some of the movies she spoke of. But now we both like a good deal of the same movies. Always important for when you have nothing better to do. And make sure you laugh a lot and make stupid jokes. I'll cover that in the next number.

#4. Tell stupid jokes.
- I don't know how many conversations amber and I have had on stupid jokes. We used to sit and make up these horribly contrived puns and just laugh our heads off about it. I know, so juvenile. I'm not ashamed of it! What's red and looks like a bucket? A red bucket! Although, that one there was more of Amber's jokes than mine. Be considerate of that. Don't steal your friend's joke. You can tell it to people outside of their circle of friends, but make sure that you don't go around telling it within.

#5. Crochet.
- Amber taught me how to crochet, and we crocheted hats until her closet was full. Actually, not everyone should crochet. OTherwise we'll never be able to get rid of those hats.


Amber, you'll have to write a few of these. This lesson is over.


Ah, I love mary poppins. You were just talking about it the other day, amber. I haven't seen it in so long. But kaitie is watching it. I don't really want to stay up much longer, but I do want to hear the tuppence song.

-becca

I haven't posted much lately.

At least, not in comparison to amber.

Hmm. Now, what do I have to say that's of any interest?

My books for winter quarter are going to be expensive. Not my french books. Well, one french book. The other ones I found for under two dollars.

Biology alone will be almost 150 dollars.

hum.

my mom is on a cleaning rampage. We got off of work and school for the holidays and just want to veg. She wants to clean.

Last night, we went caroling.

It was different than the last two years. I still had a fairly good time, but it was different.
I don't think we sounded as good. I know last year I didn't add anything to it, because my voice was gone. Maybe for the better. But we had hardly any women voices. It didn't sound very good to me at all. And it was really cold. We had a different group of people.

I think my family can be a little overwhelming at times. We had a friend over who I hadn't seen in a while. It's had to try and talk to everyone. I felt like I should be giving everyone all my attention, and there were only a few people over! Perhaps it feels like more with all of my siblings there as well. Because the last book I read was a Jane Austen novel, I'm going to refer to it. Evenings liket hat happen so often in Jane Austen. People are always calling on eachother and end up spending all night simply hanging out. But, as much as I enjoy being around people, I don't think I could handle doing something like that every other night.

On the upside, I did make two beautiful pies, and we did get free cookies and candy canes. And the mailbox was put up.

Oh the mailbox! For christmas, I bought my mom a new mailbox. Then Josh spent a few hours trying to put it up. ha.


I fell asleep to "I, robot." I had never heard of it before, and I don't know how it ends. I woke up at 2:30am, with kaitie leaning against my mom, and I leaning against kaitie. I got up and went to bed. I haven't slept that deep for a while. I woke up at 10:20 (8 hours isn't bad) thinking it would be like 8. I haven't even slept in until even 9 in a long time! It was great.

so I don't have anything else to say. I'm supposed to go take amber a few movies because she's bored and on pain killers, but I haven't left yet.

I don't have socks on.

-becca

Surprisingly, I think typing is going to be my best mode of communication since I can't really talk. Since I feel pretty good right now, I'll just tell about my morning.

I woke up at 3 and ate a cup a noodles,and two cups of raspberry tea. I went back to bed and dreamed a few weird dreams about going up a mountain in search of Uncle Ray's car, and he'd given me the key so I kept beeping the button to listen to the car beep and trying to follow the sound, and then these soldiers captured me.

I took a shower and we left. We picked up my medicine on the way there. We got there, Mom paid, I went back. Normal things happened. She hooked up the laughing gas and left. I started feeling weird. There was a little stuffed elf on the window sill and it looked like two and they were moving together, then away, then together again and I thought it was so funny because I didn't know if there was one or two! I thought it was funny too about the elves at the beginning of Series of Unfortunate Events and the whole Elfdom/Elfdumb thing. I resolved that when I woke up I would check and see if there was one elf or two.

Then the nurse came back in and every time she asked me to do something it took me forever. I felt like all the questions she asked me were outrageously stupid, like "do you feel heavy" and "how do you feel" and I just nodded to everything she said.

Then suddenly there were three people in the room and I kept trying not to close my eyes because I wanted to see what was happening, and a girl was holding my arm and saying "we're just going to strap down your arm so you don't turn over in the middle of surgery" and suddenly I just started laughing because it seemed really funny. She said "Oh, she thinks it's funny" like I was really cute or something. The next thing I knew, I saw someone putting a blue thing on a chair - I think it was the thing they just put over to catch extra blood or something. I thought it was a blanket and I got all mad at whoever took it away from me, and sat up and reached for it because I was freezing cold. Someone said something like "Oh no, we have a blanket for you over here, sweetie." and I was irritated at whoever was calling me "sweetie" and lying about a stupid blanket.

Then I woke up and I thought I was still waiting for the surgery to happen but it already had. There was the softest, warmest blue blanket on top of me and I was still so cold. I just kind of stared out the window dreamily until someone came and tried talking to me and I just nodded because I couldn't talk. Then she left.

Then I felt blood at the back of my throat and I started coughing, and I couldn't breathe and it seemed forever till someone walked by and noticed. I gagged for a long time. Then I was fine. I got to ride in a wheelchair! I went home. Now I'm really hungry but my left side isn't stopped bleeding yet. Oh well. I wish I felt more tired.

-Amber

Good day!

Last night was fun! Now we must document your dad's "Garden D'Lights annual corny jokes."

Last year (or was it the year before?) - "They'd get a shock out of watering those flowers!"
This year - "They don't water those flowers with water, you know. They water them with juice."
And don't forget the "Elf-dumb" thing!
I'm never wearing that insanely huge coat again. I bought a nice one today.

It's true, I'm getting my teeth pulled tomorrow - though I like to say "I'm having surgery" since it sounds more serious. I'll only be under for like half an hour. In all, I'll spend less time in preparation/surgery/recovery than I did today for just the consultation appointment. I'm posting because I likely won't be posting anymore until I feel like it, and that might be a while. Yes, I know all you blog readers will be sad.

I couldn't be more flippant about this whole thing. Really, I'm getting too much sympathy to have any reason to wallow in my own self-pity. The assistant was telling me today all about what the surgery would be like, and I was just nodding and I had a headache so I wasn't really paying attention and she kept saying "goodness, you don't look nervous at all." I think this is where my "Don't worry - it won't help anything and the Bible says not to anyway" philosophy comes in handy. My mom said she was wringing her hands while they went over all the possible risks. I'm at low risk for pretty much any complications, so there. I figure I'll be cool as a cucumber until about five minutes before, and then I'll just burst into tears. That would be very typical of me - I'm fine until the last minute. Then again, they'll be giving me all kinds of sedatives and pills and stuff before the actual anesthesia (I don't think I even know how to spell that! And I don't care! I said, I don't care!) so maybe I won't cry.

It's like when I sang a solo for church. I kept telling myself I wasn't nervous, and then I got up there and my knees started shaking and I butchered the song. People tell me I didn't, but pfft. I was never born to be a singer. I will never sing a solo again in front of people, never never again. That was a horrible experience. I am continually regretting it, even though it was a year ago.

I went to my cousin's birthday party tonight. My aunt asked me how I was spending my break and I told her I was getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. She got this look of horrendous pain on her face. I started laughing and told her it was fine - lots of people get their teeth out every day and after a week or so I'll be nearly fine. She just kept looking completely horrified and asked me how I could be so cool. I said I didn't really know. She kept the same look on her face every time she saw me the entire evening. Later she told me that she'd do my worrying for me. Good ol' Aunt Christine (who really isn't old at all.)

The only thing I was remotely worried about was the IV because I've never had one. I've gotten blood drawn and I'm fine with that ("Wow, look at my blood going through the long tube!" "Haha, it was so funny, they had to stick me three times before they could get a vein.") so I asked the surgeon about it. He said, "Have you ever had your blood drawn?" I nodded. He asked, "How did you do with that?" I said, "Fine." He said, "It's like having your blood drawn except the needle is a fourth as long and it's way easier." Then I felt better. I'm ready, I'm ready.

I went to Walmart today and I saw the BEST card! It had Spongebob jellyfishing on the front, and the words "I'm ready, I'm ready..." and on the inside of the card it said "for your birthday to start" or something dumb like that. The BEST part was that it had punch-out paper Spongebob parts (that's paRts, not paNts - though there were a set of pants.) that you were supposed to glue onto a sponge so you could make your own Spongebob! Oh, I wanted to get it. But it was like 2 50, and I had absolutely no money (my mom was buying me clothes, that was the only reason we were at Walmart). Anyway.

I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything 6 hours before surgery. My surgery is at 9:40 am, which means I will be setting my alarm for 3:30 in order to stuff my face. That's really the part I'm not looking forward to. I'm used to eating every two or three hours - I mean, not at night of course, but I have to eat breakfast. I'm sure it will be fine, but no water? What if I still have the headache I've had for the past two days?

They told me I"ll be able to eat stuff like an hour after the surgery is over. "Go to the Wendy's up the road and pick up a Frosty and you'll be fine," they said.

There has to be someone else in this world who can identify with me. There are three things you should never do unless you want to make yourself completely sick.

1. Skip breakfast.

2. Eat sugar in the morning.

3. Don't drink water.

Now, combine those things:

1,2&3: Skip a real breakfast and eat sugar without milk or any water based product.

That's really bad.

Now, add a minor SURGERY ON YOUR CHEWING DEVICES. What do you have?

The worst Christmas break ever!

There is NO WAY I would accept a BRIBE from ANYONE to PAY me to EAT A FROSTY after NOT EATING FOR SEVEN HOURS, ESPECIALLY after getting FOUR of my TEETH pulled.

Have you ever read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?" It's a great book. Read it every Christmas if you like stories about kids who smoke in church and steal the offering.

I'm sure I'll come away from this with great stories. I just really wish I could eat breakfast before the surgery. That's the one thing I wish. That's really the only reason I'm bitter.

That and the fact that I probably won't be able to go caroling tomorrow night, or to make gingerbread houses with Debbi Thursday night, or to celebrate Christmas with Dad's side of the family on Friday night, and maybe not to Grandma's on Saturday.

Now, a big long self pity cry for me:

WAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Now, to quote Wickham in Pride and Prejudice - "There it is. I absolutely forbid you to feel sorry for me."

-Amber

yep yep yep.

Now I don't have to write down anything.

I am exhausted.

What a day! And now, instead of doing the things I don't have much time to do, I'm using the computer.

I worked...11 hours today. 5am to 4pm. wow. Every time I tried to leave, I had five more things to do. Then I had to go home, pick up my dad's cell phone charger, and go back out to drop it off at his work.

When I finally got home, this big yellow truck parked in my parking lot. When I got out of the car, the driver gave me a big box. I dropped it though, because it was big, and I had a lot of stuff in my arms.

We have no food! I haven't eaten a bite all day, and we have nothing! nothing! Just loads of hard crusted bread. bleh. I need to go take a shower. My shirt is on backwards. That's how awake I was this morning.

I had fun at work though, I must admit. And, it's not like I can't use the hours. I'm just a bit worn out. But I'm not the one getting my teeth pulled, so I'm not going to complain.

My twelve year old molars, which are still coming in, are pushing against one of my previous molars, and it hurts.

This was incredibly uninteresting.

-becca

I'm home!

I pretty much spent Friday night, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday with becca and her family.

Friday night was especially fun. We put on extended Lord of the Rings and about halfway through, becca and I both had coffee. I got really jittery and wasn't in a dark enough mood to watch Lord of the Rings, and she was jittery too so we only really watched the first half. Four and a half hours is a little long for a movie straight through anyway. That's only half an hour shorter than all of Pride and Prejudice, and we'd never think of watching that in one shot! Then we watched Mulan.

I spent Friday night at their house, and Saturday morning we went to my house for biscuits and gravy. Then we were going to go on a walk but instead she had to go to the church to drop something else, so I took her, and we hung out there watching the kid's Christmas play rehearsal, and then we went to her house and watched Newsies. Then becca left for work and kaitie and heidi and I watched Secondhand Lions (it was my first time seeing it, and I didn't really like it - I mean, I didn't not like it, but it was just...I think part of it might have been watching it after seeing such a well put together movie like Newsies and then watching a movie that seemed kind of thrown together.) Then I went home for a couple hours and we were going to go see the Spongebob movie but there were no more showings so we were going to see Series of Unfortunate Events but the coupons for the tickets weren't good or something so I just went over to their house anyway and...I can't remember what we did. Oh yes, we did not watch a movie. I sat in becca's room, we drank tea.

Okay, finally I have something interesting to say. Being a starving college student, I rarely buy tea anymore. I have some cheap ungood stuff, but I ran out of the good stuff months ago. Anyway, becca had one packet of Stash blueberry which I happen to consider "good stuff" and since I'm on herbal and green till January 20, I got all excited and asked her if I could have it. She said I could. While the water was heating up, I was reading parts of Anne of Green Gables.

Then when the water was hot, I decided to have another kind of tea instead and have bluberry after that. But when the time came, I couldn't find my blueberry tea bag! becca and I looked everywhere. In fact, just to show you what a great friend she is, I'll tell you that when I left to go to the bathroom, I came back to her looking under her bed and saying "I can't believe it just disappeared! I looked in the garbage, I unfolded the stack of sweaters in my bed and shook them all out, I looked under everything in your five-foot vicinity - where is it?"

I told her it wasn't a big deal. She kept looking. She didn't find it. We gave up the search.

Much later, we were talking. The missing tea bag was hammering the back of my brain and I absentmindedly looked around once again to find a place I hadn't yet looked. I picked up the Anne of Green Gables book and thumbed through it one page at a time while listening to becca.

Suddenly, THERE IT WAS! We both started cracking up. I had my tea. The end.

I guess that wasn't very interesting, just a deviation from the normal.

Then I went home that Saturday night.

Sunday morning I wrote music for "Feliz Navidad" for chimes, since we would be geeting together as a chime group after church just like we used to all the time. Feliz Navidad was the chime joke - the song we were always trying to work out but the song that would sound awful attempted on chimes. So I wrote music to it so we could play it.

The purpose of me saying all this boring stuff is just so I can come back next year and have a host of memories. I am now going to nearly eliminate the word "I" from the following diary entries.

Went to church. Got coffee with becca. Reminisced about several inside jokes, such as the following:

She's not really talking about the guy - she's talking about herself.
...because "I"m going into the house" REALLY means "I'm going behind the tree."
Indian.
Sandwich.
Kaitie the cow.
Squirrels don't back down trees (probably the original inside joke)

The coffee was good. Thanks for paying, becca.

Children's play was all right. Didn't hear the sermon - went downstairs to watch the children's puppet show. Had chimes, it was great. Sang a few worship songs. Michael made me promise to have a "game/music" night sometime while I'm home. I can't wait.

Babysat with becca for Debbi in Issaquah. Weren't really expecting money - thought it was just a random "since you're in the neighborhood" favor. Got paid 30 dollars. Decided to use it to go see Series of Unfortunate Events that evening. Dropped becca off at work. Went home.

That night, Mason, Josh, becca, Kaitie, Heidi, Tiffany, and I all went to see Series of Unfortunate events. It was GREAT! I sure loved it. I mean, it's not something I'm going to use my last nine dollars to see again (I remember when evening shows were 6.50...bleah. That's sixty-three dollars that were spent on all of us last night, just to see a movie. I'm thinking of swearing off theater movies forever and just waiting till they come out on dvd.) But it was a good movie. I liked it. I liked the first book (that was all I read) too, so I thought I'd like the movie, and I did. Okay.

I went to bed at 2 am and this morning I woke up at 10. It is now 2 pm and I have had nothing to eat except three cookies. I'm waiting for my mom to come home from shopping - she's been out four hours - and I'm hoping she brings bagels. I have a headache, my stomach hurts, and I don't feel good overall. I want to eat a bagel and then I will go to the library.

Phew! Okay, now that my weekend is documented I don't have to worry about forgetting any of it.

-Amber

Okay, okay. I know you strongly disagree about me having the flu. But, I never had a fever, and I never had a runny nose, and it only lasted a day (sort of), so I really don't think it was the flu. I don't know if it was the chow mein. I really hope not, because I whenever I get food poisoning from something, I refuse to eat there again, and I REALLY like the chow mein at safeway. Although, I don't eat there very often anymore.

At any rate, I'm feeling much better. I woke up this morning, and I wasn't sore at all. I actually cleaned the bathroom. I couldn't eat anything though. Food just seemed disgusting to me. Later, my mom asked me if I would play music for the girls awana christmas party, so I went and did that around 6:30. Then, Kaitie, Mom, and I all went out for coffee. My dad met us at the quiznos next door for dinner. I ordered chicken noodle soup, but unfortunately, it had a lot of salt, and I didn't end up eating more than four bites. I always feel silly when I don't eat very much. I hate wasting that money simply because I didn't eat enough. Although, it wasn't my fault that it was really salty. And, it isn't my fault that I was brought up without eating much salt, and so I don't really like salt...at all.
In fact, I find that when people think that there should be more salt on a dish, I tend to think it already has too much.

My mom was reminding me that when I was younger, I used to get sick and throw-up so violently that she would have to take me to the hospital to get me to quick. Yesterday was horrible. I'm not going to talk about it.

Oh amber. I might as well put this blurb on here. Thank you for calling me last night! It was the greatest relief. I was so bored. And even though I was probably delirious from sitting around all day with naught more than switching the temperature settings on my heating pad to entertain me, it was very nice. Ha, I can't wait to watch movies with you! I really hope I don't have to work that much. Even though I could use to hours, after missing so many with being out of town, and now being sick...just the same. Swan princess is by the same people who did all those Jesus movies. The one song she sings is actually the same tune as one of the songs...uh, "The Miracle Of Love."

I think I've gotten a lot better about my mumbling in the past year though. Only recently have I been mumbling where more than one person (amber) notices. But, I read this thing on teh wall at starbucks tonight that said, "speak softly, people will listen, take your time, the world will wait." pfft, artsy coffee drinkers.

I just realized that I haven't had any tea in a while.

I think I'm done writing for now. Too many things are distracting me. We're figuring out how to stuff all of the fun christmasie things we love to do around christmas time into a matter of a few days.

-becca

Hey! It's me again, happy as I was yesterday, only slightly less so because it feels kind of late and I suddenly had a bunch of responsibility thrust upon me.

Not really responsibility, I guess...I'm the closest I've been to being stressed out this semester, and it's not because of academics, either!

So, I already mentioned that I'm moving in with Jessica next door, as soon as her current roommate, Tiffany, is gone. Tiffany plans to leave on Friday, which means I can't move in until Friday. Friday is also the day everyone leaves because the dorms close at 6 pm, and it's the last day of finals. So, I'm kind of running on Tiffany's schedule. I'm also kind of running on the school's schedule since the dorms close at 6.

However, since I'm getting a ride home from a girl named Kristy, I'm also running on her schedule since she's the one driving me and I owe it to her not to be difficult. She seems kind of flexible about when to leave, but I'll have to move all the stuff in my room next door (at least it's not too far away) before we leave. Which is fine. There's more to come.

Today the RD called me and told me who was moving into my room. It is not a new student - it is a girl from another dorm, who basically is in the same situation as me. She also has to move from her dorm to my room, and she also has to do it by Friday. For some reason, though, she's a little more frantic about it. She wanted to start moving in tonight, which is Wednesday! I mean, while I'm still in here! But realistically, she can't move in here until I move in next door, and I can't move in next door until Tiffany leaves, and I have to move in before Kristy decides to leave and before the dorms close.

I told Jocelyn (the girl moving into my room) that she can start moving some stuff in tomorrow, after I have a chance to study for my big test tomorrow morning and clean the room up somewhat - I mean, I thought I'd have till Friday to clean, pack, and move. This was kind of unexpected.

It's just a hassle, really, because instead of just packing up to go home and moving everything else over next door, I have to basically shove everything in my room into the smallest area so that Jocelyn can bring her stuff over and start moving in, and I have to live like that for the next two days until I can re-move it to next door!

I guess I have to give Jocelyn some grace in that the dorm she's coming from is a lot further away than next door. I mean, maybe 500 feet away. Which isn't a lot, but that's two flights of stairs to carry all of one's posessions, and it's still a lot further away than 1 foot, which is all I have to deal with.

At the same time, it's kind of exciting. I always like packing to go home and I always want to start doing it days earlier than I have to. This is kind of like packing to go home, except it's three in one - packing so Jocelyn can have space for her stuff, packing to move next door, and packing to go home. Goody.

I think I've been repeating myself a lot, but the purpose of the repetition was to give you a sense of how I feel right now. Not quite "stressed out" - as I tell my mom, I would be the last person to know if I was ever stresesd out. I'm just kind of excited and I view the situation as sort of ridiculous and silly and impossible. I'm laughing. Maybe it just seems funnier to me.

It's nice having something to do - pack, I mean. Finals week is so boring this semester. I mean, I have some hard ones, but it's like...write a paper, done. Write another paper, done. Study for a test, done. Present a project, done. Things are ending so fast. I'm not going to spend needless time studying or perfecting papers that are already as good as they're going to get. What do I do in my spare time? Play computer games! But now I can pack, and feel like I'm doing something useful instead of feeling guilty for wasting time.

Hey! I got my final essay back today. I got an A! I thought I might but I wasn't sure the prof would like my topic. I was looking at my grade and Christy asked me what I was looking at. I told her I'd just gotten an A on my essay. She said "that's great; who's your prof?" I told her "Schaak" and she looked at me like I was nuts - "You got an A on a Schaak essay? Even my smart friends don't get A's on Schaak essays!" Of course, that boosted my ego a lot more than is healthy for it.

I don't think I'm all that wonderful at writing papers - I am always just really careful to apply what I've learned, and to follow the instructions to the letter. It's always puzzling to me when someone submits a 1 page paper when the assignment was 3-5 pages, and then they can't believe they got a D. Dr. Schaak is very clear on exactly what we're supposed to write about, and how, and what he'll be looking for when he grades. Also, several times I've showed him a paper before it was done because I didn't know if it would work for the assignment. He told me what was wrong with it, and he offered suggestions - I didn't do his suggestions usually because it seemed to me he was coming from the wrong side to be offering suggestions. But I took to heart what was wrong with it, and I fixed it, and I never failed to receive a good grade.

I don't think there's much to writing papers! Just follow the instructions. If you don't know what to write about, just set a timer and write for ten minutes, and poof - you'll have the first few paragraphs! Worrying about a paper doesn't really help it.

I don't think I'm specifically "amazingly talented" in writing, or anything - I rarely finish any of the "bestseller novel" ideas I get! I just know the simple, easy way to write papers. As I laid out above.

I should write a book on writing papers! Or a booklet for college students. Or even high school students.

I remember a horrible writing class I took as part of a homeschool group. It was more like a "timed handwritten essay" class. We were given a sheet of paper and 40 minutes to write a standard five paragraph essay about whatever was on the sheet of paper. Once we got "compare and contrast nuclear and coal power plants." Ummm...? Hello, we're a bunch of homeschooled tenth grade geeks who are not particular experts in the field of energy.

We were graded on handwriting, so basically we'd write a super fast rough draft for half an hour and then copy it down on a nicer sheet of paper. Didn't finish fast enough? Too bad.

Class periods were spent on things like "how to use an internet search engine for research." "Now, remember, class, first it's 'www.google.com,' and in the bar where you can type things, you might put something like "franklin d. roosevelt.' The links that come up might look confusing at first, but just go from top to bottom until you find what you're looking for...are you writing this down?"

I haven't heard anything from becca since last night. I think she has the flu but she strongly disagrees (sorry, I've been doing class evaluations all week so I tend to say "strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree, and unavaliable" constantly.) She thinks she got chow mein food poisoning and the reason her mom didn't get the poisoning from eating the same chow mein was because she was on antibiotics or something. I didn't really hear everything she said over the phone - I NEVER hear everything she says over the phone because 1) she mumbles, 2) it's a cell phone that's already staticky, 3) she talks fast, 4) her family makes a lot of noise in the background, 5) she has a difficult to understand voice, 6) she says things that don't make sense anyway, and 7) she rarely repeats herself when I say "what?" because she figures what she had said wasn't really worth repeating. I wonder how many times she's insulted me without my knowing.

In any case, on Friday night I'm going over to her house to watch movies! What are we going to watch? Extended Return of the King? Are we going to see Spongebob or are we going to wait to see if I can make any more money babysitting so that I can actually pay for a ticket? Are we going to rent Better Off Dead? How about The Swan Princess? Or Mulan? I want to watch a Disney movie! Except, Swan Princess isn't Disney, as I recall...I remember Kaitie being like "NO AMBER YOU'RE WRONG IT ISN'T DISNEY" so I don't think it's Disney.

I even got my mom's permission! I was like "Mom, when I come home, after I eat dinner can I go over to becca's?" She started laughing her head off. Then she goes, "Uh, Amber, you're in college. You can do whatever you want." I told her I was afraid Dad would be mad because I 'wasn't spending time with the family' like he's always harping on. She said, "Oh." and paused for a while. In other words, she acknowledged this fact. But then she said, "He can't really stop you, and I want you to have all the fun you can while you're home. Please, go hang out with your friends! With my blessing!" And she started laughing again.

Oh, I love my mom. And I love Kaitie and becca and I CAN'T WAIT TO GO HOME! AAAAA!!!!!!

-Amber

Here's a bunch of reasons I'm having a good day!

1. All traces of my migraine are gone. It's so weird - the last one didn't fade away until like three days later, and I was starting to think I was only fooling myself - like, I had forgotten what it felt like to be normal so I thought maybe I was normal and I just didn't know? But then normality kicked in and suddenly I remember! And it's great! I'm normal again! It's like a fog has lifted from my brain, my eyes, my entire body. I am better!

2. My finals are going great! I feel sorry for everyone who's so tired from studying all the time, but I'm not! I thought this week would be superbly hard and it's not! I had one big test (Spanish) on Monday, and I have three papers due tomorrow. but! Against my procrastinating nature, I wrote one of the papers two weeks ago, one today, and I only have one more to write and it's the shortest of ALL of them! So I'm pretty much taken care of for tomorrow after that final paper. Thursday I have a project due but I've already done it! All I'll have to do is read my short story based on "The Telltale Heart" (ha, as if anyone could just go and mimic Poe's style and storyline. I don't claim it's good - I claim I did it and I deserve credit.) Thursday I also have a HUGE SCARY TEST but I'm not studying for it till Wednesday night because I'm studying with Ariel because she took better notes than me. And I have a big test on Friday but most of it is stuff done beforehand that you just check off...I have to memorize some stuff but it won't be too hard, and I already read all of Deuteronomy and the second half of Numbers, and I think there isn't much else to do for it!

3. I received in the mail a revised statement for Spring semester. I already paid tuition and board, but it said I owed an extra 130 dollars since I was going to be in a single room this semester. I explained that no, I was not planning on having a single room, and the RD tells me every time I see her that I'm on the top of a list for getting a roommate (since, poor me, my roommate never showed up for this fall semester.) So they changed it. But you know, I was still kind of worried about getting a completely new roommate. I mean, I tend to either get along with people or not get along with them. There's no in between. Usually if I start out not liking someone very much, I end up liking them. And if I start out with a great relationship with someone, I end up not liking them. Odd that it works that way.

So anyway, I was mentally reviewing all my faults in my head - envy, pride...well, I keep thinking, but those seem the most obvious at the moment. So, envy and pride. And I kept imagining the different ways God might have for me to learn the lessons of, well, not coveting and humility. I was just waiting for him to put someone in my room that I hated, just so I would learn to deal with people like that. I was just waiting for God to teach me a lesson, and frankly, I was scared.

Next door to me live Jessica and Tiffany. Tiffany's leaving next semester, meaning that Jessica needs to get a roommate to avoid paying the extra 130 dollars for a single room. She had offers from girls in other dorm sections to move in with them, but she didn't want to leave our dorm section. She spent the night in my room last night (we ate vanilla ice cream and string cheese and 2 am and stuck Q tips up our noses like he does in Better Off Dead. I haven't stayed up that late and done stupid things for...months and months, it seems. Wow. It reminded me of better times.) and she suddenly had an idea that she and I could just be roommates! And it's a PERFECT idea! I mean, she already spends so much time in my room, and I just love her. We talked to the RD and RA today and they were like "Uh, yeah, we were going to tell you guys that you should be roommates but we didn't want to make it sound like we were forcing it on you." Whatever. I'm so happy!

And to think that I expected God to test me. Like, if I'm afraid of getting a mean roommate, God will give me a mean roommate just to "show me." Just to teach me a lesson. Ha! You know, there are a lot of girls I get along with nicely at the school, but if I were to pick one girl in the whole school currently to be my roommate it would be Jessica, just because I already know her so well!

Hm, a bunch of girls just screamed loudly right below my window. My window's open. Ouch. Poor window.

I wonder if becca's feeling better. Becca, are you feeling better? I wonder if she'll call me right at 9 since that's when both our free minutes start. I should call her, actually. Or if she works in the morning she's probably already gone to bed.

I would just like to say here that I really love becca. She's like a best friend, except better. She's promised to sit with me right after I get my wisdom teeth pulled (this will be the most miserable Christmas break ever!) and record any weird things I say from my drug-induced state of mind, because I told her that as long as somebody's laughing it'll be worth it. What a friend.

-Amber

I cannot believe that such a small percentage of students pass the math portion of the COMPASS test. I think whoever told you that was mistaken. You know 96.8% of all statistics are made up. Except, it's not like you're bad at math or anything. You're probably better at it than the average highschool student. Hm. Still. Maybe it's different at Renton Technical College. I bet it's easier. Except that you can transfer your scores to other schools...so...okay. I don't know. That still seems weird to me though.


Last night, the power went out. All of renton was...OUT. Except for the driving home part and all the idiots who don't know when to stop or when to keep going with the lights out, it was sort of nice. Especially because I had no desire to do anything other than read by candle light or go to sleep. I ended up calling amber, though, because it was so dark, and it was only 7 or 8 PM, and I had a very real moment of boredom. I don't remember anything of our conversation. It seems like it was very tangential and very loud. Especially when kaitie came in. She would NOT stop tickling me. I don't get tickled very often, but I'm afraid that I am terribly ticklish. I always have been. Shame, shame.

I just finished reading "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen. I've never really commended Jane Austen for her brilliant plots. They are all rather monotonous. It's always about people being married off well, or married at all. There is always one gentlemen who seems quite amiable and almost wins the heart, or already has won the heart, of the object of his attentions, and then he goes and ruins it by eloping with some other girl. Generally with a relation of the girl he has professed his undying love to. In Pride and Prejudice, there is Mr. Wickham who works his way into Elizabeth's affection. But then his true character is revealed, he runs off with her youngest sister, and then she ends up marrying the man of true character, Mr. Darcy.

In Persuasion, pretty much the same thing. There's some history of this guy she loves, and this other guy is the heir to their property, and he seems great, but then the origional guy is the one who she ends up marrying because he ends up not doing something that ruins his credibility.

I could go on. Shall I? Same thing in Emma. Mr. Frank Churchhill ends up being in love with that other girl, and she marries Mr. Knightley who is far superior to him anyway.

It's always someone who has been there form the beginning of the novel as well. Sorry to spoil the ends to all of these stories if you have never read them, but the best part of Jane Austen's writing is the writing. The way the language flows and the use of so many, as it were, lost words.
I find even when I know the ending, I am anxious to get to the end. I've read Mansfield park once before, but still, I was so unwilling to put it down, that I read it in about two days.

However, Mansfield park is by far, my favorite of her work. At least, of what I have read. I believe there are a couple novels of hers I haven't read yet. But, mansfield park is the sweetest thus far. So much more happens in it than in the other books. The characters that surround the heroine are based off of a play, which they also perform in the story. It acts (no pun intended) as a sort of allegory, and if you are somewhat familiar with the play, it presages what is going to take place. Also, the heroine is much easier for me to like than Elizabeth Bennet or Emma was.

Ah. I am done.

It's a wonder that I don't try and major in english as well. But I can't write worth anything, so it's no good.

My foot is asleep, and I'm not wearing socks.

-becca

Hey, I'm going to start the amber countdown!

It's...well, it's 4 1/2 days until. amber is here. I'd be more exact but I don't know what time she's coming.

Hi! I'm feeling great right now. Tired, but otherwise fairly happy. I had a good Sunday morning in spite of messing up a few of the songs due to various miscommunications.

"Miscommunications," to me, means "communication to me that failed to take place, yet someone else insists it did, and as a result I made a mistake and thus it is my fault." When I use the word, I am subtly saying "This was not my fault." Instead of saying "Jane didn't tell me that we were going to light the advent candle between those two songs and it was her fault," I can simply say "there was a miscommunication." Now Jane thinks it's my fault, and I know it's Jane's fault, but Jane thinks I've admitted that I'm wrong but in reality I've cast the blame on her, because little does she know that when I use the term I mean blame on her. Haha!

Lately I can't get through a day without a nap, even if it's not a heavy day. Yesterday, Saturday. No school. I studied all day, except from noon to 3 pm - where I slept. Why? Who knows!

Now it's 1 pm. I'm TIRED! I don't know why! Hm.

I do, indeed, hate chemistry. Not because I was bad at it...I understood everything fine and I got everything right. But it was the last obstacle for me to graduate. And to my credit, might I add, I finished the whole book in like a month. I hated every minute of it, but I got it done. Sixteen chapters in the book, and I think I spent a day or two on each chapter. And then I was officially graduated.

However, becca is a math person - not only is she good at math, but I think she actually enjoys it.

Am I good at math or not? I know I hate it, but am I good at it? I didn't pass the math part of that test to get into the community college - but then, only 3 percent of the students did. I did, however, pass the math test for this college so I don't have to take 090. I remember having trouble in algebra when I was younger but then something clicked and I understood everything as much as I loathed it.

Eventually I have to take math here. I think the requirement for BA is five credits of math and science - either three math and two science or two math and three science. Or maybe it's seven math/science. I can't remember.

Okay, my fingers will hardly move to type. Goodnight!

-Amber

I HAVE A TITLE, woo!

The reason I deleted my former post is because someone told me my grammar was incorrect. I chose to just delete the post rather than fix it. I came to that conclusion after I had written a very long, rather directed, and rude comment in reply to the one who told me to change it from "you're" to "your." Supposedly, the very sight of the mistake made the reader sick. Ha, I take disapprobation so well.

The reason I haven't posted much lately is because SOMEONE (amber cough cough) talks too much.

No really, I used my posting time for playing with pictures and sound files. I know nothing of html, so you have to give me some credit for the maniacal (is that spelled right?) laugher at the opening of this page, and the festively adorable tree above. I figured out how to add that picture and the sound clip by trial and error (and stealing code from websites).

AND, we did NOT sing feliz navidad, we sang silent night! (el noche paz?) Only I didn't know it, so I didn't sing it. And I was too busy complaining about my voice being gone.

AND, if you remember correctly, I was terribly sick for the better half of winter break. I sat at home being cold and miserable and not being able to sing when we went caroling. I wasn't happy.

AND, you said that my first post was more of a title than a first post anyway, so that's why I titled the "third post" as the "second post," plus, you cannot deny that it was MY second post.

Did you know that the mass of an electron is 9.11 x 10 to the negative 31 power? That's like....
.0000000000000000000000000000000911

I decided to memorize that number today while I was learning about chemistry. That is a very small number to memorize. You should be proud of me.

I did a lot of chemistry today. I love chemistry. Everything about it interests me. I recall amber not liking chemistry very much, but then, maybe...maybe I'm mistaken! Could it be? Amber, you'll have to clear this up for me.

I don't like " Go tell it on the mountain" either. But, hmm, what christmas song do I really not like? Most christmas songs I like. There was one I heard today that I really disliked though. What is it!? hmm.

At the moment, I don't have very much else to say. I don't feel like going on about my past few days, or today, or tomorrow.

Tomorrow is church, I ought to go to bed!

goodnight!

-BECCA!

Hm, becca erased her last post. She's an odd one.

I'm so excited! Today is December 11 - in six days I get to go home for two weeks! Of course, I'll be getting my wisdom teeth pulled, which will extract some of the joy of being home on break.

I had a dream last night that I was home, and everything was perfect - friends, family, my own bed, etc. I was contemplating how happy I was, and then I thought "hey! There's something that makes this break different from the others! Not only is it way longer and including Christmas, but I have no homework." I mean, on my other breaks I usually brought back a book so I could get an assignment done or study in my spare time. But this time I won't even have to debate which books to bring home. I'll bring all of them home, and I won't bring any of them back to school! Unless, of course, my roommate (ha, I'm getting a roommate next semester!) wants to borrow some of them instead of paying.

The biggest thing I'm looking forward to when coming home is caroling with becca and her family, and random friends from church and elsewhere - caroling in the same neighborhood we always carol in, and nearly freezing to death. There's the house that always puts up Veggie Tales decorations and we sing the Veggie Tales theme song to that house (I actually babysat there years and years ago). We ought to sing the "Could that be Santa" song instead, I just had the thought. Since it's Veggie Tales and Christmas.

There's the house of Spanish speakers where we always attempt to sing "Feliz Navidad," but people tend to get stuck on the "Prospero año y felicidad."

Then there's the house where that elderly lady once said "Oh! Carolers! We were just taking some hot cookies out of the oven! Would you like some hot cookies?" It was perfect.

And somewhere along the way, Mrs. M talks about how she refuses to sing a certain song because it has the word "gay apparel" in it, and then we'll all join in with our non favorite Christmas songs. I think I have them all memorized: Mrs M hates "Deck the Halls" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (I think), Josh hates "The First Noel," I hate "Chesnuts Roasting" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain." What songs do you hate, becca? Do you hate any? Hm...

And then there's "While Shepherds Watched," which Mrs. M taught us the first Christmas they came. She was driving us to Hispanic church or something and she was like "Now girls, stop talking - I'm going to teach you a song." And we sang it over and over and over the whole fifteen minute ride there, and we never forgot it. Though the hymnbook says the first line of the song is "While by the sheep we watched at night," Mrs. M insists the hymnbook is (and I quote) "wrong," and it's actually "While shepherds watched their flocks by night."

Then we get sick of singing the same songs over and over.

Then we'll go back to the M's house and we'll drink hot chocolate and play a game (Balderdash, we did one year) and watch a movie (who knows what. Maybe Better Off Dead since that's the best movie ever and not a lot of people have seen it, but those who have love it without fail.)

I love it. I can even predict the night's happenings. Becca will lose her voice and complain about how she can't sing. Mrs. M finds completely random things to complain about, but it's really only cute when she does it. Kaitie will quote from movies. Matt and Melody will be cute together and we'll talk about what flirts they are and how they're going to get married someday.

Ah.

I just hope that my teeth getting pulled won't ruin it for me. If it does, I can just go back to the other times we've done it, when it was perfect. And if it's not perfect this year, it will be next year.

I can't wait!!!

I have a big Spanish final on Monday, no finals on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, two on Thursday, and one on Friday. Most of them aren't exceptional though. I mean, some of them are just big long papers I have to write and I wish we'd known a little earlier we'd have to write them. Some of them are short, relatively easy papers. One is presenting special projects and I've already done mine. Two are real, true, hard tests that I really really need to study for. One can be passed pretty easily as long as I do a lot of prep work. I think I'll be fine as long as I can stay migraine free this week.

Kaitie, becca and I are going to see the Spongebob movie when I get back. Yay!

I really would just like this week to be over so I can go home!

-Amber

I have a migraine.

Some people may say "I have a migraine" when they really mean "I have a painful headache."

However, the headache is only half of that.

Right now it feels like I'm looking at everything through a clear glass dish smeared with oil. It feels, really, like my eyeballs are covered with oil. Not only is this disorienting, but I feel downright weird. I'm not myself, and I won't be all day. I'll only be half here. Not like I'm on drugs, but just like I'm not myself. I'll be more irate and listless than usual. I won't feel like talking to anyone about anything because all I'll be able to think about is how I feel so weird.

The headache can be cured with Excedrin. However, even though the pain from the headache is gone, it feels...wrong. Like the pain is still there in my head but it's hiding behind a rock. So, it doesn't really hurt, but it feels like I should be feeling pain and thus I feel somehow "wrong." Does this make sense? It's almost better to be feeling the pain.

My head also gets really heavy. I mean, it feels like it weighs an extra pound and my neck can't support it and so every once in a while my head just kind of drops to my chest.

I always get migraines between 10 am and 12 pm. I used to only get them once or twice a month. In the last two weeks, this is my third one, and it's worse than the others because the vision problems are more widespread (usually it's just one side of my vision that's affected and it only lasts for half an hour).

I'm sorry to be complaining, I really am. I'm just so very very frustrated because I had my whole day planned out. I was going to be writing my paper for Fine Arts now but I just can't concentrate on anything. I can't! I feel so weird! Ugh, it's so hard to explain. It's like something has affected my brain. I'm not myself; therefore, I can't write my paper! Get it? After my Fine Arts class where I hopefully get my evaluation form to fill out and talk about how sucky the class is, I was going to visit the Art Museum with Allison since it's required and I haven't done it yet. Then I was going to come back, take a nap, and go to worship practice, having all my music typed out and printed beforehand so I wouldn't come unprepared. Then I was going to come back, write half of my response paper due tomorrow, drink tea, eat popcorn or soup, and go to bed.

My mom thinks it's "stress" that causes my migraines. So do other people. The thing is, I realized I would be the last person to know if I ever do get "stressed out." I'm so careful to get enough sleep - how can I be stressed out? And rarely do I feel overwhelmed by my class load. I only feel stressed out when I get a migraine, so how could my migraines be the result of stress? And yet, maybe there are times when I'm "stressed out" and I do n't know it. I always like to think of myself as tough - like, the world may fall around me but I wo n't get stressed out. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe God's trying to show me something.

The times I get migraines are always the times when I wake up full of resolve to get A, B, C, D, and E done today. Then I get a migraine and I wander about my room doing absolutely NOTHING all day. My schedule is disrupted and I end up having twice as much to do the next day. It really sucks! And I am a doer. Or something. I crave the feeling of satisfaction of having finished everything on a list. That's why I get so upset when I get a migraine. Again, maybe God's trying to show me something.

Haha, I can't even read what I'm typing. haha. Why am I typing, you ask? Because I can, and it's MORNING! I'm not going to go to bed, I'm not tired. Normally that's what you do when you get a migraine. Not now.

Sorry for ranting on and on about this. It's just like...the one thing I can think about right now. It's like a blanket over my head and I can't ignore it. It feels kind of like a blanket. Kind of stuffy and it's hard to see through and hard to breathe through.

But all my descriptions are inaccurate. It's so hard to explain! I hate it, I hate it. And then people think it's all in my head. "What happens when you get a migraine?" "I can't see, I get a headache, and I feel really really really weird." Uh, okay. Hypochondriac. Take these headache pills. Thanks, but the headache's not the worst part. It's the "weird" part that bugs me the most. Nothing you can do about that, and there's NO WAY to explain it so that someone understands! Can you tell I'm really frustrated? I keep ranting and the apologizing for ranting and then ranting some more...I really ough to just lay down. Bleah.

-Amber

I have a report to make. The fried ice cream didn't work.

I heated up the oil until it seemed hot enough. Then I dumped in a ball of ice cream rolled in crushed cornflakes and cinnamon.

The oil immediately exploded into froth, pouring down the sides of the pan. I pulled it off the burner right away, where it proceeded to spread all over the stove. Then the burner made that "woof" sound that things make when they burst into flame after you pour gasoline on them, and it proceeded to burst into flame. I turned it off and it was still on fire so I put a teakettle on top of it. Then I turned on the fan. One of my friends sat on the couch - she had been reading her Bible, and she just sat there gaping.

No, I didn't get in trouble. Shortly after, the RD came in because her room is right across from the kitchen, and she was like "Um, what happened here?" I told her and she thought it was so funny.

The unfunny part is that I now have a gallon of oil, a box of cornflakes, a thing of cinnamon, and half a gallon of ice cream to consume or do something with in the next week and a half, and I don't really want to deal with any of it (except maybe the ice cream.) I also do not have a project for Spanish tomorrow, nor a paper written in Spanish about it, nor my paper for English ready.

Tonight will be long.

I want some black tea.

I refuse to make titles in my posts. Let that be a distinguishing mark between us, or else our font size.

How can you title yours "the second post?" Do I not count? I was second, you're third, and I am fourth.

What was that joke about how fat you were? Oh yes, I had forgotten. B(ha!)ecca has what she calls a "natural" layer of fat. Yet another inside joke it is necessary to maintain.

I am making fried ice cream for my Spanish project tomorrow. I wasn't going to deign to respond to Becca's post, but I have extra time while the ice cream refreezes.

How was my day? You didn't ask me, so I'm asking myself.

My day was great for the first half.

I went off black tea about two weeks ago to see if it was causing my migraines. I thought I'd go off for two months. So, for the first two weeks the lack of morning caffeine didn't affect me. I even got a migraine but I thought it might be because I hadn't yet washed all of the tannins out of my system (tannins supposedly cause migraines so I'm avoiding them to see if that's what it is.) Well, when I drank black tea (I almost wrote "blank drack tea!") I was a morning person. Now I'm not. In fact, I got eight hours of sleep last night, and after my eight o'clock class, do you know what I did? I skipped my nine o'clock class to go back to sleep. I know, I'm so pathetic. And I've still been tired all day! I know it would be one cup of black tea and I could go a whole day on pure adrenaline, but I will break through this.

Except that finals week is coming up...how will I survive without black tea? Summer would be the best time to give it up - it's warm weather, and no school stress.

I wonder if that has something to do with why coffee doesn't affect me anymore...I didn't even think about the amount of black tea I started drinking as soon as the weather turned cold.

I should go clean up my mess in the kitchen. I think it'll be longer than a few minutes for the ice cream.

In case anyone wants to know, I figured out the password for the anti-Amber yahoo account becca set up for me. It's "beccaisaslimydumbhead."

-Amber

the second post

Ahem.

The page is infact pink just to spite you amber, because as we have a perfectly wholesome friendship, we also have many inside jokes to maintain.

However, just because I have total control over the template for this month, does not mean that it will be pink for the rest of December, because believe it or not, pink is not my favorite color.

I don't need to tell amber that though, because, being my best friend, she should know that green is my favorite color. And, I'm quite capable of saying that in a cute girly voice as well.

green!

One thing you can learn from our friendship, is that we do onto the other what we would have them do to us. So, I took the liberty to open an email account without amber's knowledge, for you to send all of your complaints about amber to. Add it to your address book (I'm sure you'll be using it often): amberduhhz@yahoo.com

We're always looking out for eachother.

-becca

(okay)

Whatever. That was more like a title than a first post.

Here begins the joint blog of amber and becca. The purpose of this blog is to provide a public display of the joys of a truly perfect model friendship in order to provide those less fortunate with an example to follow and apply to their own relationships.

The first lesson in friendship I would like to share with the reader distressed-in-friendship can be demonstrated by something that happened not ten minutes ago, when becca first set up this blog. After she had set it up, she said, and I quote, "You're going to hate it." I looked, and yes, I did. I hate pink. I hate the fact that she insists on saying the word "pink" in a cute girly voice like pink is a really cute color or something. I know she does it just to spite me, too.

And so, to solve our differences, I told her that this friendship wasn't worth living unless we took turns adopting the blog template. She agreed, which means that, for the whole of December, this blog will be pink. However, watch out January 1! I'll either put up something better than pink, or something worse than pink, like black on black so you'll have to highlight the page just to read it - just to get her back.

If you have questions about how to solve your own disputes with your own friends, feel free to contact us via the "comments" box.

If you have fan mail or complaints about becca, feel free to email me at becconingamberlance@yahoo.com. I just set it up and didn't tell becca the password. If you say anything particularly nasty about her in an email to me, I might call her up just to read it out loud and laugh in her face until she hangs up.

Again, let me stress that we are here to help you.

-Amber

(becca, I think we should make an effort to put whoever's saying the message at the end of the messages. We don't want to confuse people with our friendship.)

the first post

HA! YES! I got to post first!

(it's pink. bwaha.)