Age

I'm not sure whether to think this is depressing or not, but lately when people have asked me how old I am I have to stop and think. Never in life have I truly felt my age, nor really appreciated people my age. I've always tended to connect with people significantly older than me or who are extrmely mature for their age.
I have absolutely no idea what's different, I'm actually quiet insterested in finding out if their is something unique about my brain. I know my sisters were all kinda like that, so it must be genetic.
So far in life I've always been able to decide what age I felt like, when I was 8 it was 12, when I was 14 it was 17. But I recently realized that I don't feel like an age anymore, hence the forgetfullness. It dawned on me a while ago that my age doesn't matter because I've never really truly been my age, so why should I be stereotyped under it? Shortly after my realization I stopped caring about my age and the only significance it has in my life anymore is how far away from graduation I am.
Lately it's sounded so weird to me when people tell me I'm 16. It's like growing two feet and people still making eye contact with where your eyes used to be. I have to remember that they don't see my inner change, but it still just feels so weird. I've decided that the bounds of age no longer apply to me, so it's odd to know that other people are still classifying me under a two digit number.

On a completely different note, I've discovered that I cannot play ping-pong. I can play tennis and badminton, but shrink it down and put it on a table and I'm hopeless.
AEvery day at our seminary building at lunch a bunch of guys hang out and from what I've heard all they ever do is play ping pong (yeah... I know).
Once a month the seminary building also hosts a little mini-party for everybody who's had their birthday in that month. Neither I nor my friend have March birthdays, but there was cake so we kind of had to go.
And yeah, my friends insisted that I try playing ping pong and uh... yeah. I ended up stopping because the guy I was playing against was trying to let me win and it took all my strength not to chuck my paddle at him because of it.

Also on a different note from the first thought and the title of this post, there was a dance tonight. There were a lot of awkward moments. I don't think I've mentioned this yet but I'm a magnet for awkward situations. Name pretty much any awkward thing you've ever experienced and I bet I'll have gone through it before.
Kay, the first one is that my friend's younger brother brought his cousin to the dance. He was my age but you wouldn't be able to tell. He was probably about two feet shorter than me and he could fit a glowstick around his waist.
Apparently it was his first dance and he was too shy to ask anybody to dance, so the guys convinced me to ask him. They said it had to be me because I was probably the only one who could get him to talk, he was oober shy.
So I asked him to dance and it's starts off pretty good, other than that he switched around the hands. The guy's supposed to take the girls right hand with his left hand and he did the opposite. I figured I wouldn't mention it since the whole things was awkward enough, but he quickly noticed that everybody else was doing it the other way around and then I corrected him.
Then I ask him what his name was, he answers, then I tell him my name and he responds by saying "I know". Apparently the guys told him I was gunna ask him and he got really nervous so they calmed him down by telling him all about me. I found that part out afterwards from one of the guys. My favourite thing they said to him was "Dude she's not gunna bite you her name's Christi, that means follower of Christ,"
And I am typically very outgoing, but this kid was SHY. At first I only managed to find out that his favourite colour is red and that his toothbrush is white and dark blue. Yeah, I had to resort to the krappy conversation starters I learned from a skit at EFY done by the councillors called 'How to avoid awkward mormon dance moments'. It didn't really work that well... Then I started talking about sports and it was okay.
And there were several other awkward moments too, but I'll only tell you one.
Okay, so there's this guy in my ward that goes to another school and who never comes to activities, so I've never seen him in anything but Sunday clothes. So at the dance he was wearing normal clothes and I go up to him and say "Spencer, you're wearing a shirt!" Then the girl beside him (and guess what? She's his freaking girlfriend) gives us both a look and says "And last time you saw each other you weren't?"
She took it quite seriously and I started clumbsily explaining what I had meant. I figured Spencer would back me up on it, but he seemed to think it was funny and didn't say a word.
I have to wonder why these things always happen to me... Whatever, I don't mind. Once you get used to them, awkward moments can be really funny.

Just all the random stuff that's been going on in my life.

I've been having difficulty writing stuff. This is a mixture of nothing interesting happening and being busy with school and such.
I'm considering teaching myself latin. I've tried to learn spanish and french before, and neither worked out. I'm just not good with languages, but I think it's msotly the way they teach it. The only way I'm gaurenteed to remember something is if it's connected to something else. So when the teacher throws a bunch of random words and phrase at me without explaining how they're connected I just can't remember them. To prevent this from happening once again, I'm going to learn the grammer first, then learn the words.
I'm really sad right now because my only Mormon friend I ever get to see is going to Japan for four months. She's one of those people you just get along with really well and quite frankly I don't know how I'm going to live without her. She's promised me she's going to be spending her life on Facebook, so I'll still talk to her, but Im still gunna miss her hugely.
The whole bass clarinet thing has been going well. Since we've been having a lot of concerts and stuff lately I've had to concentrate on my flute, but I think I'm getting close to the point where I'll be able to make the switch and only play the bass clarinet.
I've been trying to come up with a shortened version of bass clarinet. It's kind of hard to fit it on my arm (which it where I write my homework and other things I wish to remember). Nothing so far, if you have any suggestions post them or I'll punch you in the face.

Drivers License!

I got my drivers license! Yay me!
Just thought you'd like to know.
It's also pie day today. Or maybe it's pi. I'm not entirely sure which one, but either way that's pretty cool.
It's also my Mom's birthday today and my oldest nephews birthday tomorrow.

Talent show and The brute.

So I just got back from the talent show. Our act made everybody laugh since our Young Womens is known for being extrmely spiritual. I'm not kidding, I swear we all cry ever other week because our lessons are so intense.
And I absolutely have to tell you this, it's SO funny. Our sunday school teachers are married to each other and they're really new to the ward. The girl's really pretty and the guy's kind of a nerd, but all of the guys in our class have huge crushes on the wife. It's hilarious.
One of them is especially in love. Let's call him Bob to avoid confusion. He's one of those guys who never shows any emotion. Dead serious, it weirds me out ever time I see him smiling just 'cause it's so out of character. He's really shy. Apparently he's only like that in front of girls... but I wouldn't know, he stops talking every time I'm around. He almost never laughs. In fact I'm the only girl in our ward who can pull it off and I have to be talking about foot ball, video games or Star Wars. But every time this girl does something he laughs, and he thinks he's being nice but it's just kind of awkward and hard to keep a straight face whenever it happens. Not to mention he compliments her on everything.
So the girl sang a song for the show(she has an amazing voice) and the entire time me and the girl I was sitting with were watching Bob's face. It was SO funny! He was trying not to look at her by pretending to be looking at something in his hands under the table, but he snuck a look every ten seconds or so. The funniest part though was that he was trying SO hard not to smile, but he wasn't suceeding and he was blushing really badly. Then he gave her a standing ovation when she was finished and his friends joined in with him to save him some embarassment.
The next person on was her husband and some other guys and they were really good. Then, near the end I had an awesome idea. I told the girls around me that we should give him a standing ovation. So we did and you should have seen the look on Bob's face. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, but his face was extremely red.
So I decided that I'm gunna make fun of Bob (I'm hoping he'll take it well) by pretending to have a crush on the guy teacher. I started this off by telling him I thought it was "neat" that he "went up there and... like sang like that".
And at every table they had a bunch of pages from colouring books and some crayons, so I coloured a picture of a pirate for him and wrote "To Travis from Christi" on the back in kindergardten style writing.
This is going to be very entertaining, and I hope this guys catches on and doesn't think I actually have a crush on him 'cause that'd be really awkward.

I have no idea whether you've ever heard of Antone Chekov, but he was a Russian play writer who wrote a lot of one act plays. Our class re-enacted "The Brute" and for a project me and two of my friends re-did the play in front of the class. I wrote it and the teacher wanted to keep it because she liked it so much. She's the evil one who drew a smiley face on my poem. I find that kind of weird because she REALLY hates me. I think she's given me three detentions for very unreasonable things, like being a few minutes late one time. Most teachers give you a detention if you're late twice a week or three times in a reporting period.
So I think the re-written version that I did is pretty good, so here it is.

www.thewritings.piczo.com

Sorry, I tried to do a link, but it didn't work. If you don't believe me here you go.
The Brute

Spiritual Thought

Well, the day that I got to give a spiritual thought, I showed up late. I told myself that I didn't need to put on eye liner to have a good day, but my eyes just looke naked without it.
So I get there just in time to ask somebody to pray and to give my spiritual thought. I did end up just going with my favourite scripture. I just summarized what was going on in the chapter, then read a couple of verses.

So the scripture I read was Moses 1: 13 & 14
What's happened so far is that God has appeared to Moses, but Moses says that he doesn't see God with his "natural eye" because if he had then he would have "withered and died" because his glory is so exceedingly great. Then Satan comes and basically tries ot convince Moses to come to the dark side (as I explained it to my seminary class). Then I read Moses 1:13 & 14.

13. And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee?
14. For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so, surely?

And yeah, I just like that because it says that the glory of God is so brilliant that even the most righteous of men are overwhelmed to look at him, but Satan can appear almost as if a normal man.
I like it when he says "Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God...". He's saying that even though he is merely a child of God, he has the potential for a much greater glory than Satan could ever wish for.

I always repeat this scripture to myself when I'm being tmepted. If somebody offers me drugs or something, I just think "who are they?" and then "who am I?" and it becomes pretty clear who I'd rather be.
I'd strongly suggest that you read the first chapter of Moses, or at least Moses 1: 11-16 and possibly verse 18 too.

Also, on a side note, the talent show is tomorrow. It's gunna be so funny. And I invited my friend to come too. She said she wanted to go, but that she hasn't asked if she can go yet, so it's not garaunteed. Quite frankly I'm relieved that she definitely still wants to go.

I just spent three hours writing two short stories and a letter to my future self. I'd post them but they really suck. They're good for my age and I'll probably get high marks on them but for my standards they're not very good.

Alas, Eden

I wrote this poem for a Language Arts(A.K.A english) assignment in response to the book Alas, Babylon.
In case you've never read it or heard of it, it's basically about a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. This leads to an almost post-apocolyptic life lived by the few survivors. I didn't really like the book much. It was pretty cool, but it wasn't much of a story as for description and having an interesting plot.
So I wrote this myself and I liked it. My teacher gave me a 10/10 and drew a smiley face next to my mark. From what I've been told this rarely ever happens as this teacher is kind of evil.
My favourite part personally is the last two lines. Whenever I'm having one of those moments (you know, the ones you get when you're on the peak of a mountain overlooking a lake at sunset) I always repeat them to myself.

Alas, Eden

Through Adams transgression all men are bound
To this new world of pain and of ground
Once we had a paradise as wide as the world
But the banner of war we alone have unfurled
The Garden of Eden has been ripped away
By our repeated history of men gone astray
Again and again we regret our actions
But yet we get worse fraction by fraction
None seem to know few figure it out
An unfortunate fate this is not about
Some ask what stops us from reaching perfection
Few seem to see it is our own transgression
Our race is prone to fighting each other
We strive for peace but really who bothers?
The peace keepers way is seen as weak
Fighting and strength the only path to the peak
Only one can be right they always insist
The only solution must be using our fists
The fear and the hurt we bring on ourselves
We become proud of and place it on our shelves
When men go to battle they do not see
They only know their forced enemy
They do not remember
They don’t understand
Across their fingers they’ve put their own bands
If they could just stop and close their eyes
They’d see right through their own disguise
They would see the flowers, the cool green grass
The lack of pain that can never last
The peace that used to be is in the past
Gone forever what used to shine
Few claim this gift to define
But if you could just stop and simply listen
You’d hear the long lost sounds of heaven

Spiritual Thought

This week for seminary, I'm conducting. This basically means I welcome everybody, announce the song and choose who gets to say the prayer. Tomorrow I also have to give a spiritual thought. Last time I really liked my spiritual thought, and this time, I dont' want to just get up there and read my favourite scripture like everyone else. I think I'm going to end up doing something like that though.

Last time, I told the class a story about a soilder that I heard when on Seal Island. Seal Island is basically a tiny island off the southern shore of Nova Scotia. My family used to own all of it, but my Great Aunt Mary sold part of it because she couldn't afford the mortage or something like that. The island is still considered (not legally) to be pretty much ours though, and I'm probably going to inherit some of it. Enough to build a summer house anyways.
Since there are so few people who are on the island at one time, there's only one church. It's "Seal Island's Church of all faiths", even though it's sporting a nice, white cross on top of a steeple on the roof. It really is a Christian church, and that's not a problem, I don't think anybody's ever had a need for anything but a Christian church on the island.
So this lady told this story on a Sunday we were there and I really liked it, this is basically how it went.

There was a group of soilders traveling by foot through a small area of enemy territory. Their intentions were merely to get to their outpost some miles ahead and they had no intention of hurting anybody. In fact they had lost all but a few guns because of certain incidents. John was not one of the soilders lucky enough to be holding a gun.
They knew they were getting close to their destination soon, so they were letting themselves relax a bit, which of course was the perfect queue for an ambush, and guess what happened? Armed enemy soilders came streaming out of the mountains beside them.
Before any of the tired soilders could even begin to break into a sprint they were overwhelmed by the force of the opposition. John was the only one to get away.
He didn't even know why he was bothering to run. Where was he going? The outpost was out of sight and he was exhausted, unlike the enemy soilders. He was outnumbered and everybody but him had a gun. The only thing he could think to do was run into the cover of the surrounding trees and search for a place to hide.
After a moment of frantic searching he came upon a small cave, barely big enough for him to fit into. He worked hard to steady his breathing and waited for the enemy to pass by. There was no way they'd miss him. They had probably seen almost exactly where he had gone and they knew he wouldn't have been able to go far. Without anything left for him to do, John prayed silently. He prayed that somehow the soilders wouldn't find him, which he knew would involve the involvement of a miracle.
He waited, and as he waited her heard the muffled commands of the enemy soilders. Phrases like "No prisoners" and "He'll wish he'd never been born" added to his anxiety. All he could do was wait for that miracle from God.
The answer to his prayers came in the form of a little spider. The spider crawled from outside the cave and began to weave a web in over the openeing of the cave, inches in front of John's face. Although the spider was going at an impossible speed, John worried it would not be able to finish in time. He silently urged it to hurry, then realized how stupid he was being.
"I don't need a spider web, I need a brick wall!" He thought impatiently.
He thought it was a joke. Maybe God was mocking him, or trying to get him to laugh one last time before he died. Whatever was going through his head immediately stopped as the spider finished just in time for a booted foot to stomp down in front of the cave.
John held his breath as he heard a voice.
"Jackson, check that cave!"
"There's no need Sir, there's a spider web covering it. If anybody had gone in there they would have broken it,"
"Very well then, look elsewhere,"
For a moment John laid there, in complete shock. He had been too much of a fool not to realize that through the power of God, a spider web can be stronger than a brick wall.

So yeah, I liked that story a lot, just kinda clarifies the moral that people often think gOd is being cruel when really he's testing our faith and/or saving us.