Thunderstorms

(I LOVE STORMS! I especially love sitting on the porch and watching and smelling them while still staying dry! They are amazing.)

Completely ready to leave again! All I have left to do is pack the things that I need up until I move out (aka laptop, clothes, and bathroom items). GO GREEN!

The last couple of days have been jam-packed with spending time with friends. I've never seen my friends for this many consecutive days, and I'm even chilling with "acquaintances" whom I have never been with outside of school. I think everyone is holding on to every last bit of high school that they can.

I'm happy to say that my friend, "Davidson", is back with us. He worked things out, with A LOT of help from me. I am quite seriously considering getting a marriage counseling license now, actually. I know that I have a unique ability in that I see both sides to every situation and limit the extent to which I judge, and I also like to give advice, which I'm good at doing. Each of my friends whose relationship I fixed has pointed this out. I'm not sure if I'd make it my staple career, but I do think I'd enjoy it, so who knows?

The rest of the week is filled with more friend visits (nearly everyone leaves this week, and I still have twelve more days! I feel like I'm being left behind!), a high school football game, work, and cleaning up the pigsty that is my room (I'm putting it off as long as possible until I leave so I don't have to do it twice, nevermind the fact that I have to clear a path to my bed...). Ok, maybe not that last one.

Spontaneous get-togethers with friends.

(I love them. They are always interesting, from a double-dose of Chinese fire drills on the busiest highway in the area to breaking into abandoned [or not?] houses, and have a way of helping me forget any negative energy in my life. My friends are great.)

The anxiety of leaving for school hit me yesterday. I've been all gung-ho to go since the beginning of the summer, but yesterday, completely out of the blue, I had what I consider to be a "mini-anxiety attack". I still am excited to go, of course, just a little more apprehensive, and bewilderingly, a bit more reluctant to leave my parents.

And now, a little shoutout to one of my friends... We'll call him Davidson. I love you, even when you are being an ass, which you are now. Snap out of it so that I can have my best guy friend back!

Living sixteen miles away from any civilization and enjoying only the [deafening] sounds of nature.

(Backpacking for four days in Glacier National Park [Park Creek/Coal Creek/Walton area] was an awesome experience, and even though I thought I didn't like it at first, it taught me the importance of living without material things and enjoying only nature and the company of others whom you depend on for survival.)

So, there are two things that I'm looking forward to beyond all others right now: the Green Day concert on August 23 and leaving for MSU on August 29! I've been a GD fan for somewhere in the neighborhood of seven years, and even though I like their older stuff, I think their new album, 21st Century Breakdown is the best so far, and I love what the lyrics in both this album and in American Idiot mean. As for leaving for college...the excitement their is self-explanatory. I know it's time to go, because lately, every little thing that my parents do annoys the hell out of me. Oh well, such is life. (And I do love them.)

Similarly, as of late I've been putting together a bucket list of sorts (one of my mom's ideas that somehow didn't manage to annoy me). So far, I've come up with this:

Before I leave for school (the plans are already in motion, don't worry!):
Go bridge jumping
Ride the mechanical bull at the local pub

Within 5 years:
Ride a racehorse
Go to Spain
Go on a road trip with friends and no known destination
Work on a cattle ranch out west
Spend time down South- big and small towns.
Get a team together for, and compete in, Dances with Dirt (Hell, MI)

10 years:
Chase a storm with someone who knows what they're doing
Travel Europe for at least three months w/ a companion and no itinerary

Of course, if anyone can offer me assistance in completing any of these goals (I'm especially foreseeing trouble with the racehorse and storm chasing ones), please let me know!

Off to dog-sit and then practice for a Euchre tournament (did I mention that I'm from Michigan?)!

Why the blog?

I'm not sure how most blogs start out, so maybe this is normal, and maybe it's not. I am writing for me. I figure most people who stumble upon it won't be interested, and while it would be nice if they were, my interest in blogging is purely self-motivated. I have always toyed with the idea of writing as a career, and while I don't think that I'm quite good enough for that, with my current intention of becoming an editor and translator, I think that some writing experience will be good for me, and I am really hoping that I learn to like it and perhaps more importantly, discover that I'm decent at it. In addition, I believe that having a place to record all my thoughts will be helpful, as I have so many ideas I want to remember that even I can't keep them straight (I like to think at least a few of them are profound... or have the potential to be so), and I'd like to be able to look back on them in the future.

In case I ever [miraculously] develop a following, I'd like to explain the way that I title my entries. I get tired of the typical "this is what my post is going to be about" titles, and combined with the fact that my favorite songs titles have nothing to do with the songs themself (see Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, and Green Day), I've decided to format mine in a different way. Each title from this point forward will be a description of something that has impacted me, something that I enjoy, or something that "strikes my fancy", if you will.