I haven’t been on in awhile. Unfortunately this is not due to my very busy life and me doing the very necessary things. Part of it was family time due to Thanksgiving weekend, which I have only recently discovered the amazingness of pumpkin pie so that was good to get a large intake. But I have ‘wasted’ countless hours on that unnecessary evil, Hulu. I was doing pretty good at just watching a few shows and keeping up with only those, but got myself addicted to two more shows which included over 3 hours of Better Off Ted and some time on Community. I think I have made progress but I still seem stuck in the same ol’ rut.

Yesterday I was making sure to actually listen to the songs I was singing, because sometimes it is easy to get caught in the motions and the repetitiveness and I really related to the song, “Today Is The Day.” The main part of the song is:

I’m reaching my hand to Yours
Believing there’s so much more
Knowing that all You have in store for me is good
Is good

Chorus:
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
And I won’t worry about tomorrow
I’m trusting in what You say
Today is the day

A few parts of this really hit me and served as a kind of goal and reminder of how I was supposed to live my life. First, I do know that “all [God] has in store for me is good,” so through the painful application processes to colleges and the myriad of scholarships and worrying about the future, I can gain peace in knowing that whatever will happen, whether I go to Northwestern or PVCC, God will be with me and has an ultimate plan. Second, the repeated phrase of “today is the day” gave me the reminder that every minute I have I need to be giving to God, that now is the time for salvation, now is the time to make sure I am sharing Jesus with the world because we don’t know God’s calendar. The final part relates to my first point in that I need not “worry about tomorrow” because I can trust in what God has said in his Word and in his plans for my life.
Side note - I sometimes hear that God wants us to live a “happy life”, which bothers me because it gives me the idea of a more carefree troublesome life, but that isn’t what God promises. In fact, he promises troubles and temptations, but he equips us with the tools to live right.
Side note #2 - I recently turned my iPod to the Newsboys on their older album, ‘Shine the Hits,’ which I totally forgot about for quite a few years and have gained a new appreciation for their songs. I haven’t listened to the newer Newsboys as much after they changed up their members, but I love their older stuff so much, especially “I Got Your Number” which is interesting musically, but the lyrics/theme is something so important, however basic, that many Christians may have forgotten. http://popup.lala.com/popup/576742231879459039

How to perfectly memorize a 4 minute speech

1. Get off the computer


2. Practice


3. Just do it


4. Stop procrastinating


5. Seriously, get off


6. NOW!!

Mini Vacation

Just glad to a have a half day followed by a day off. My mother is glad too; she shows it by giving me a big list of chores to do.

kenleigh:

This song is fantastic.

And Michael Buble isn’t bad himself. ;)

Well I didn’t even listen to the whole song, but I did notice that he is wearing Adidas Sambas (1:09), so in my book, he cannot be too bad.

Friday

Today was pretty amazing. Didn’t have to go to school because of Regionals for Cross Country. Left at 8 and came back at 1:20, but we were called out of school so I arrived late and left early. Had lunch at Chick-Fil-A with brother and dad. Love their milkshakes. Went to great memorial service. And finished off with Homecoming football game where I got to see a bunch of graduates, mostly from band. Got to see Kendra after so long even though we are often within 800m as she drives to and fro. Said bye to Kendra and others and left to home. =D

Bold what you've read, more than 6 you're good according to the BBC

mackenzieyourfriendzie:

teawithhoneydear:

onceuponathought:kerrieharlow:paulavaleria:littlejosephine:open-up-some-happiness:
lifeinfastmotion: hermajestyxx:sixtyfour: rockandroses:
longlivethequeen: littlenoirgirl: mylifeinabox: sunflowerbasler:
milochronicles: n8kelly:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.
48 The Handmaiden’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I like this whole list idea. Now I know which books to pick up at the bookstore!
By the way, the italicized books are the ones I’m currently working on.

Oh and I don’t know why the heck The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne isn’t on here because it’s one of the greatest novels in the whole world.

I thought this was fitting because I finished The Life of Pi today, which is on the list. It was a really good book. I also realized how much I have read today. Really? We should have read 6? Out of 100?

yeah, I thought 6 was quite a small number. A few of these books I started and never finished, but not due to lack of interest, so now I want to go back and read them.

Responsibility

Well I found out today that I apparently have some very high expectations set of me. I hope I don’t come off pompous here, but a few people mentioned that I was ‘the smartest person they’ve met in high school’ and they expected me to go to a high prestige college or something like that. Though the people who know me a bit better know how much I slack and how stupid I can be. But I almost felt like I would be letting people down if I didn’t go to some crazy smart school and didn’t land a big job. I have never had high expectations from parents or family and a few teachers may have had them, but I crushed them quite quickly sophomore and junior year. On the other hand, I know that I don’t measure my success by going to a prestigious school or having a high paying job, but by how close I follow the Lord. Regardless, it was a good reminder that I have talents and gifts God has given me and I shouldn’t waste them. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” -1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)