YIPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can't believe it!  And you probably won't either.  But, in spite of that, last night I beat Brittany G, 5 to 4.  Yea!  Now, I must admit that she hasn't been fighting much for about the past two months, but it is still quite an feat to have beaten her.  To say the least I am extremely, extremely thrilled. 

 

BonnieJean is coming home on Friday!  I can't wait!  She was supposed to be home last Sunday, but they have really managed to mess up her ticket situation.  That means she'll only be home for five weeks instead of six.  Rats.  I'm trying to maintain a Christian attitude towards those people. 

 

Did I tell y'all that I'm now working at Microtel?  I'm working behind the front desk.  It's a pretty cool job.  Oh, yea, I just remembered...I did tell y'all. Anyway, I'm enjoying it.  Today we had training for our new computer system...as soon as I figured out the old one we're getting a new one!  Debra, the manager, is awesome. 

 

Here's something I wrote about a week and a half ago. 

 

-------------------------

Hello there. I'm going to see how much I can get written in 12 minutes.
Monday I tested for my blue belt. It went very well. I messed up on one of the self defenses (front bear hug, arms pinned). And I had trouble with my 180 back spin crescent kick. And my three on one and four on one plural fights didn't go so well. But other than that it was pretty good. Breaking went very good. I broke four boards in three seconds! Yea! It's supposed to be in under five seconds, but few people actually do it that quick. So I was pretty happy with that.
Before the test I told Anna that I wanted to fight Mr. Murry, Steven and Brittany for my three one on one fights. Well, instead I got to fight Philip, Steven and Mr. Murry, which was just about as good. I did fairly good against Philip (he's been out of karate for a few months due to his wedding, but is still a much better fighter than me). I did ok against Steven (he wiped the ground with me, of course). He did kick me in the face pretty hard one time, and cut up my mouth a little bit, but it wasn't bad enough to stop the fight. I did pretty poorly fighting Mr. Murry. It was my third fight and I was started to get kinda tired and I had trouble closing the gap and being fast with my hands. Still, it went ok. Then I did my two on one plural fight: Josh and Brittany (both black belts) fought me for that. They beat me, 5 to 3. Three on one and four on one didn't go very good at all. I made one point in each fight and was hammered pretty good. Oh well. Mr. Murry said I passed though! Which is very cool!
After class I showed Jason some of the trick breaks I've been working on. I'm not sure if I told y'all, but I asked him about me being on the demo team a few weeks ago and he said I should work on trick breaks. So anyway I showed him the unsupported high round knife hand, half supported hammerfist and half supported palm heal. I'll be showing him the other breaks next Monday. He didn't give any indication of what he thought, so I guess I'll just wait and see.

 

---------------

 

We've only got two more days of summer camps left at Gymnastics City.  I can't believe it's over so soon.  Ethan is taking the trampoline mini-camp this week and learning quite a bit.  Jamie (Miss Tucker's daughter) is teaching it and she is awesome.  Ethan's almost got his back drop into punch front.  He also started working on his back hand spring on trampoline and for the first time actually made some progress with it. 

 

Man, the little guys (read everybody but Anna and Naomi actually) have behaved very poorly tonight.  I've had to send them all to bed already!  When Mom get's home I'm going to have quite a report to give!  (Mom is at a mom's meeting with our home school group).  

 

Ok, I've got to get off now.  I'll try to update again soon.  Bye! 

Hello my rabid fans. I am here to satisfy your craving for that wonderful, charming, awesome presence known as Samuel.

Recently that awesome presence has had some cool stuff happen to him (which he, of course, deserved by nature of his wonderful, charming and awesome presence).

Ok, ok, anyway, a few weeks ago I was reading Prov. 3 and thinking about how it seems like my life is going nowhere at about nine-hundred forty-six mile an hour. And I read verse 6. Now it seems I've read that verse about eighty-million times "In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." But this time it jumped out at me. "Direct thy paths." That's exactly what I need! I really, really, REALLY need to have my paths directed! So I started looking for ways to acknowledge God in all my ways...and came up pretty blank. How do you go about acknowledging God as you say "Crawl off the trampoline backwards"? How do you acknowledge God as you ask Ethan if he's seen your polo shirt? It sounds so easy until you start getting specific and practical. But I tried whatever I could think of...asking God for his protection and guidance whenever I went somewhere, spending more time meditating on Scripture rather than just reading it. That Sunday a girl at church mentioned a job opening at a hotel not far from here. I went in on Monday and talked to the lady about: it turns out she is VERY good friends with the girl who refered me and I got the job that night! She said that she had a whole stack of applications on her desk, but she hired me anyway! So I started training last week and I'm working tonight, tomorrow and fourty hours next week! God is so awesome!

Last night we watched Freaky Friday. It was ok. Not awesome, but ok.

I'm testing for my blue belt on Monday night! YEA! I'm so excited! Last Monday I was fighting Mr. Foster (purple belt of the killer backfist) and I wasn't wearing my mouthgaurd. I HATE mouthgaurds. You can't talk and you spend half your time taking it out and putting it back in. So anyway, I throw a reverse punch, and he deflects it and comes right back with a ridge hand...to my mouth. My upper lip got caught on my braces, so I went into the bathroom to get it untangled. Well, it was so mashed and mangled up that I couldn't get it loose, so I had to tear it off, which wasn't very fun. Now I've got a piece of skin hanging from my lip that's driving me nuts. I'm thinking we'll probably end up going to the Dr. to have it taken off.

Summer camps at Gymnastics have been a blast so far. Monday I got kicked in the jaw while spotting a back hand spring. It wasn't any big deal (getting kicked is just part of teaching back hand springs) but later that day it started to swell and really hurt. Mom sent me to the chiroprator (sp?) and he helped some, but it's still sore. Oh well, I'll live.

Got to go now! Bye, my rabid fans!

I wrote the following on Wednesday:

Well hello, it sure has been awhile since I last posted a real update. I'd like to say that I've been too busy to update, but in reality, I simply haven't made the time. I have been busy (very much so!) but not so busy that I couldn't update. I just didn't. Sorry.

Goodness, where to start? On the 5th we had a reception to celebrate my graduation. That was a blast. We did the whole living room in a tie-dye theme. I tie-dyed a sheet and some pillow cases the day before and we had the sheet over Mom's desk (like a table cloth) and the pillow cases on pillows on the couch. We put the tie-dyed towel on the dresser and put my juggling stuff on that. Everybody wore their tie-dye shirts: even Dad, who is embarrassed to wear tie-dye. (Man, after posting those last couple of sentences, what do you want to be that I get a bunch of tie-dye adds up top?)

We had a pretty good crowd come too. It was a little slow at the start, but as soon as a wedding that lots of our friends were going to let out, we had a huge bunch of people show up. Anna and Gunner, two of my very first gymnastics students, each colored a card for me. That was really touching. Several people from church showed up, my boss came, several people from karate, from the home school group and from our old church. It was supposed to be come and go from 2-6, but several families stayed until 8:30 and we had a blast.

After the reception I spent time getting ready for the ACT. I took it on the 12th. I think I did better in math, but I'm not sure how I did in Science Reasoning. Hopefully I raised my score. ACT finished about 11:40 and I rushed home and we (Anna, Ethan, Joshua and I) rushed into Tulsa to watch what was left of the black belt testing. As fate would have it, we got lost and so we were REALLY late, but we still got to see some cool stuff. But we missed watching the board breaking, which I was really wanting to see. Oh well, you can't have everything. We only had one person from our dojo testing: Alicia. We got there in time to see about the last thirty seconds of her twenty minutes of fighting, but from what I hear she fought very well, in spite of having a mild asthma attack in the middle of it! She always does well under pressure. She won her three on one plural fight and almost won her four on one fight (four points to five). There was a guy there testing for his second degree black belt who actually did win his four on one fight. That was very impressive! We also got to see Mr. H fight for the first time...WOW! His speed and control are just amazing. Totally, completely amazing.

Monday night I finally got up the nerve to ask Jason Murry if I could be on WanKan, our dojo's demonstration team. I was as nervous as all get out. He said that he'd pray about it, and also said that I would need to work on breaking. I asked him what kind (power, speed, trick, etc.) and he said mostly speed and trick breaks, since Mr. Garza already does power breaks. So Tuesday afternoon I went to the hardware store and bought twenty feet of board. I done some cool breaks so far: half supported hammerfist, unsupported high round knife hand (!!), unsupported punch (!!), half supported descending knife hand and half supported palm heal. I've also been working on an unsupported side kick (not making much progress) and an unsupported rising elbow simultaneous with a rear elbow. Hopefully that will be enough to impress him. He's going to Canada and so won't be at class next Monday, so I've got two weeks to try and come up with some more stuff that he might like. After yesterday my right hand is feeling pretty stiff and somewhat tender (I broke 10 boards yesterday!), but once it starts feeling good again I'm going to try and to two boards with a half supported palm heal. Yes, I know it's silly to even think of, but I'm going to try it.

Last Friday I started washing dishes at a restaurant here in town. It's not a fun job, but it's not bad either. It's a job, at least. But it's only two days a week. But they did seem happy with me, so maybe they'll consider giving me more hours.

Monday we started doing summer camps at work. I love summer camps. Most of our upper level team girls are in AR doing some sort of camp thing there, so we've only got one level four and several level 3's this week, plus class kids. The cool thing is that means I get to work with Tammy some, and have learned some interesting things already. It always amazes me how Tammy can pick up on the smallest little things in an instant.

Last week we watched Unbreakable. It was very interesting. I liked it right up to the very end...then it got bad. Samuel Jackson lends an amazing aura of coolness to any character he plays. And the scene with the boy and the pistol was very well done. It was also interesting to see the Biblical name theme...Joseph, the dreamer. David, the great hero of his nation. Elijah...I can't remember the correlation...have to ask Anna. The shots in the opening scene were interesting at first, but after a few minutes you got tired of looking between the seats...they should have cut to a different camera. It was interesting that they managed to have a sky scraper burn to the ground, a plane explode and a train wreck without any big budget effects.

Saturday the greatest leader of our life time went to be with the Lord. Our nation has suffered a great loss. I pray that we prove ourselves worthy of having had such a leader.

Urgent Prayer Request!

Please pray for Susie M, a 11 year old home school girl who fell into a pool today, hit her head (I'm guessing on the concrete edge) and is now bleeding in the brian. She has been air lifted into Tulsa and the doctors say they don't know if she'll make it. Please prayer for her!

UPDATE: She's out of surgery and in UCI. Keep praying!

Update 5-31-04 morning: They've put her in a 48 hour coma. The Dr. says she could go either way during that time, but he is hopeful. They removed "1 1/2 inches" of blood from her brain, which means the blood had put enough pressure on her brain to compress it an inch and a half.

My goodness, it's been a while since I updated. I've actually been wanting to update for a week, but have been so busy that I simply didn't have the time. But I do have some big news: I is a graduate!

Ok, ok, not actually yet. I still have one thing left to do: I have to recite Matt. 7 to Dad. But I've got it memorized and so it's only kinda a technicality that I haven't graduated...so I'm hoping to graduate this afternoon.

And I STILL don't have a job! I was trying to get a hold of a lady on Friday about a job I want, but she was already gone for the weekend. I'm going to be calling her again early Tuesday morning. Please pray that I get this job.

May 23rd was the last day of our winter classes at Gym. Now we have a three week break and then we start the summer camps. I love summer camps. During a normal class I only have about twenty minutes per rotation to teach the kids. And for most of the events we only get to do them every other week. So they get only twenty minutes on bar (for example) every two weeks. So sure they learn some stuff, but not really that much. During summer camps I have a full 45 minutes for each event, four days in a row! It's a blast. You really get a chance to work on things, improve old skills and learn new ones. In fact, if I had my way, we'd do nothing but camps all year long.

Sunday we had our ATI family coordinator and her sister for dinner. And since she wanted to meet some of the other ATI families from around here, we invited the H. family to come too. It was a blast. The H.'s are a blast. So we had a real good time.

Last Monday was the "fight night" at karate to raise money for a mission trip. It was a blast. First we did line sparring (which I love, 'cause you get to fight so many people, most of which you don't have a chance to fight very often) and then we broke off by belt rank and age and fought for "king of the ring". I fought about three fights and tied for king with a purple belt from another dojo. I did fight him, but it was a very even match and the black belt at our ring declared it a tie after a few minutes. So that was cool. Then we headed over to the brown belt ring to challenge their top two fighters. The purple belt fought a guy from another dojo and lost. Then I fought Alicia and lost (4 to 5...I was so close!) After that we all sat down and watched as various people fought. I got a chance to fight Christina G., who is the only black belt from our dojo that I hadn't had a chance to fight yet. And here's the really cool news: I beat her! Yea! After we bowed out I got another chance to fight Alicia and did pretty good. It was a more relaxed fight without judges or anything, but I do think I may have made more points than she did.

Dad and another guy from church have decided to take the College and Career Sunday school class. Next week is promotion Sunday. I'll miss being in the youth class, but it will be cool to have Dad for a teacher too.

Oh, something cool happened at karate two weeks ago. After class some of the black belts were playing around with boards, doing some various "trick breaks", as they call them. I was standing to the side, watching them, when Mr. G. held out a board and asked me if I wanted to break it. So I tried an unsupported rising elbow (the same break I posted pictures of a while ago). Well, the first time I hit it with my entire fore-arm, instead of my elbow and sent it flying, but still intact, across the room. I picked it up again real fast and tried again, this time hitting it exactly in the middle with my elbow. It was the best I've ever done with that break: the board broke in two and landed on either side of me, rather than flying across the room in two pieces. But the very coolest part was that Mr. G. told me he had never seen that break before and that he was impressed! Now, Mr. G is himself a very good breaker and to impress him is, well, impressive! So I am very happy with myself.

Man, I've been thinking lately about all the cool people that God has put in my life. It's really amazing when you start to list their names...there's a ton! So here's a list of AWESOME PEOPLE in my life.

BonnieJean: BJ is one of the most awesome-ist people around. She smart, spiritually minded, kind, productive, focused and just all round a blast. She's great to be serious with, and great to be silly with.

Mama: Mom probably shares the number one spot with BJ. It's hard to discribe how awesome Mom is. I love talking to her, on any subject. You'd think that after almost nineteen years, we'd run out of new things to say...no way! Mom has got interesting thoughts on just about everything.

David C: David is amazing. An amazing juggler, an amazing performer, an amazing mentor...just generally amazing. He's been a huge blessing.

JC: Wow, were do you start with JC? My first really good friend outside of my family, JC and I learned a ton together. He'll always listen to you when you have problems, but he doesn't always side with you...which can be good.

Mr. Murry: When you look up "humility" in the dictionary, there is a picture of Mr. Murry. I'm telling you, they don't come any cooler than him. An amazing instructor, an amazing Christian, an amazing martial artist, he's just awesome. Let me tell you a short story. Last year Mr. Murry was promoted from 3rd degree black belt to 5th degree. Now, if I was promoted to 5th degree, I would have jumped into my car right then and driven at highly illegal speeds to the hardware store and purchased the tape for putting those stripes on my belt. I would have run up and down the store, yelling at the top of my voice "I'm a 5th degree! YEA! I'm a 5th degree!" What did Mr. Murry do? Nothing. He didn't even get around to putting those extra stripes on his belt for two weeks!

Mrs. Murry: Man, hate to think how our dojo would run without Mrs. Murry. She is the lady behind the man. She's creative, fun and just generally cool.

Jen: I don't really know Jen all that well (a great loss for me, I know) but she still makes my awesome people list just because she's so cool. She's wacky and crazy and spiritual and thoughtful and a blast and I love her blogger.

Alicia: Another person I don't really know all that well, but she's awesome too. She's fun to hang around with, always ready to help you learn and a good teacher. And girls who enjoy sparring are always cool.

Chera: Another super cool person who I don't know all that well. Chera has an awesome blog and she's a dear.

Sneff: Sneff has got to be one of the coolest people I've ever known. In the last couple years she's really back slidden in her faith and I don't have much contact with her anymore, but I still treasure all those whacky times we had together.

Tammy: Tammy is the lady who trained me at work. She's so cool it's hard to describe. She's been through alot and has an amazing testimony of God giving you the power to forgive. She's an amazing teacher, both gymnastics and how to teach gymnastics. BTW, her daughter, Erin, is also really cool: she's the junior high level 9 gymnastics champion. Just watching her practice is amazing.

Samantha: One of my students, I call her my "Smilely Girl", 'cause she's always got such a huge grin on her face. She's a blast to teach.

Shelby: Another student, Shelby is my tumbler...she loves to tumble and stays a few minutes after each class so I can work with her on something. I love students who love learning!

Alison: Probably the cutest little student I have. She's 7 years old and the tinyist little thing around. She doesn't do gymnastics: she attacks it! Whenever she comes to the bar (which is were I end up working with her, most of the time) she has a hungry look in her eye: she's just waiting to get on that thing and show it who's boss. She's a blast!

Here's an some interesting things y'all might enjoy.



He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature prime English beef.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. (gross!)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. (that's a bad metaphor?)

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can'tBelieve It's Not Butter."

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a trash truck in reverse.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

Well, hello there. And how are you doing on this fine Tuesday afternoon?

I'm doing very well. I had poison ivy on my right arm, but I got so sick of it that Saturday night I took a rag and just scrubbed the skin off. Yes, I know that sounds gross, but seriously, it feels much better. Pain, to a certain extent, can be ignored and lived with. Itching cannot. I would much rather have a moderate pain than a moderate itch.

Saturday we went to the G's for Brittany's graduation reception (the same Brittany of the previous post). We had a real good time and ended up staying a good deal longer than planned.

This Saturday is going to be very busy. First is the CHEF graduation at ORU (I've got four friends who will be graduating there...no wait...five or six). Then we'll be going to a wedding that afternoon. And then we'll be going to a graduation reception for another friend that night. So it will be an interesting day for us.

I'll probably be getting my driving licence in early June. That will be really cool. I'm still looking for work. It's supprising how many people are not hiring for the summer. As soon as I graduate (sometime in the next couple weeks) I'll be able to re-apply at Centralift, were I would REALLY like to work.

I'm not going to be able to go to college this fall. I simply don't have the money for it. So I'll be spending the next year working as much as I can re-apply for some of the academic scholarship that I didn't get this time. I'll probably start taking some CLEP test as well, so hopefully I can get a few hours of my general credits out of the way.

When I first came to that discision (put off college for at least a year) I was feeling pretty despressed about it. Until I realized that I'm not actually behind the curve: I'm simply taking the curve backwards! Most people go to college and then work to pay for it. I'm going to be working to pay for it and then going to college. So I'm not such a total failure after all! :)

In fact I'm starting to really look forward to this next year. I'll get to do a bunch of stuff that I've been wanting to do. I'll be able to make some of those short films I've been wanting to do for years. I'll be able to spend a lot of time working on my karate. Hopefully I'll start going into to Mr. Burnets class on Tuesday, in addition to the Monday night class. I'll probably be able to work at Gymnastics City for another year, something I'm really happy about, 'cause I've got several students who I feel are going to go far, and I want to be there to help them. I'm also really looking forward to summer camps this year, 'cause I've got several level 3's that I'm wanting to bring up to level 4 for next year.

I wrote the following to give to all my friend who are graduating, along with three butterfingers. I thought y'all might enjoy it.

Dear Friends,
So you�re graduating. You�ve probably had lots of people talk about how great that is, and you may even be somewhat excited. Don�t you believe them for a minute. It�s only downhill from here.
First off, graduation is a sign of your growing age. Face it: it�s only a few years until you�ll be needing that walker. While you were in high school you could ignore it, but now you must realize that you�re almost half-way to Over The Hill.
With your age come the health problems. And rest assured that the prices for your drugs will only go up. I recommend that you begin laying plans to rob a bank sometime soon, before you�re too decrepit to do it.
Of course you couldn�t be graduating at a worse time, either. Any job you try to get has either been outsourced, or already taken by an illegal alien. You might want to go ahead and get some of those unemployment forms and start filling them out.
With this step toward independence (and don�t even get me started on independence!) comes the pressure towards marriage. Everyone expects it of you, and they will bug you about it until you give in. I suggest that you just resign yourself to the inevitable and pick a random name out of the phone book.
Lots of you will be going to college soon. Man, it�s really going to get bad for you guys. You might as well start practicing for it now. Eat only one small meal a day. Stay up until 3:00 am every night staring at something written in Greek (that�s about how much sense your textbooks are going to make). Now write a 400 page essay on it. Or maybe it�d be faster if you just went ahead and shot yourself in the head.
The 21st century is probably the worst one you could be alive in. It won�t be long before the ice caps melt, leaving only 40 square feet of ground above water for the Earth�s 6 billion people. Of course if you want to look at the bright side, at least your job won�t be outsourced anymore.
In recognition of your achievement I�ve given you three Butterfingers in a plastic sack. This is highly symbolic. Butterfingers represent the fact that you will be fighting cavities for the rest of your unhappy life. The plastic bag represents the fact that everything is now bio-degradable, except for things you want to go away, like liberals. They�re here to stay. And the number three represents the fact that I am too cheap to buy you four.
Dejectedly yours,
Samuel

Ok, so I'm in the back room at the dojo last night, stretching. There's several other people in the room, doing kata or stretching. I'm talking quietly to Ricky and Josiah. Everything is in every way totally normal. The atmosphere is calm and almost subdued, like the quiet before a storm (good heavens, now I'm waxing poetic!) Then in walks Brittany G (one of our black belts). Now normally, when she walks in I look at her and smile and she smiles back. Maybe somebody says something to her as she puts her gear down by the wall. Like I said, everything is calm and before the stormish (so much so that you might even find yourself waxing poetic writing about it...) Well, this time, Brittany walks in the room, I turn and smile, fulling expecting a smile and maybe a nod back. But instead, she gives me a rather odd looks, cocks her head slightly to the side and declares in a simi-incredulous voice:

"You are SO weird!"

Now, as you guys know full well, I have never made a secret of my weirdness (I love my lips, anyone?) In fact I am quite proud of it. But I must admit that this loud declaration of the obvious took me rather by supprise. So in response I waxed eloquent.

"And in what particular way has my wierdness manifested itself this time?" I was pretty pleased with myself at coming up with that reply. In spite of my countinued supprise at her exclamations, I still managed to place a small, self satisfied grin on my face. Brittany, obviously stunned by the brillance of my razor sharp mind, replied:

"What?" This came as a rather crushing blow. You know how there's times that call for a witty comeback and your brain totally freezes? It's like there's a mental block there (just a random note...when I wrote "mental block", I started thinkig about ice burgs...why's that?) Well, this was one of those rare times when I actually came up with a response and without any warning I had shown forth my astounding brilliance. And what does she do in response to my amazingness? "What?" Isn't life just a bumer sometimes?

But back to my story. Seeing that she was not understanding my brilliance, I decided to say it in a simpler way (she is, after all, home schooled). "In what way was I wierd this time?"

"Well, I was on the web and I found this site, "Random Ramblings". You are so wierd!"

Now everything became clear. Of course! My mind went to the quiz results I had posted, declaring that I was TECSOL A-2 Solvent, Anhydrous. But seemingly she was most (shocked? impressed? What word should I put here?) by the story of Fredrickk with the two k's.

Anyway, I thought that was a rather humorous happening.

And now you've been waiting for. My recounting of the tournament! I didn't do well in kata. I got 7.0, 7.0 and 8.0 Rats. Most of the people in my division were pathetic. Absolutly horrible kata. It was sad. But there were probably about 6 or 7 who did really, really good. Anna won fourth with her kata! Out of about 30 people! That's so cool! Joshua won first in kata! WOW-WHO! YEA! Ethan didn't place. I fought very poorly and lost my first fight. Rats again. Anna got third in fighting...although it wasn't actually earned...there were only six fighters in her division and she lost her only fight...but by a quirk of fate she was beat by the girl who won first, so she got third. Ethan didn't place in fighting. Joshua got third (very cool).

Man I'm telling you, BattleCreek advanced girls rocked that night. Alica (one of our brown belts) won fighting in her division. Christina G. (black belt) won first in her division. Brittany G. (black) won first in her division. So we had nothing but BattleCreek people competing for womans grand champion! How cool is that? Brittany won (which was not a big supprise).

Mr. Murry won first in his division (totally no supprise) and competed for men's grand champion, but he was beat out by the guy who ended up winning. This guy was fighting extremely hard, doing take downs alot and slamming them really hard on the floor. In fact he was fighting a bit too hard, IMHO. Oh well, Mr. Murry fought well anyway.

Wan-Kan, our demo team, did their demo in the middle of the finals and then the gospel was presented. Several people accepted Christ! How cool is that?

Ok, Mom is making me get off now. I'll talk to y'all later! God bless!

Ok, ok, I guess it's time I posted a real, honest to goodness update...not a quiz or test results or something...

I'm up to my eyeballs in math. I hate Albegra. WHO CARES what 4N(3-4.86)-P is equal to? I'll (supposedly) be graduating on the 29th of next month. That's not nearlly enough time to finish my math...or actually it is...if I can just make myself do it. It's just really hard to do 3 lessons a day when you have to wait for Dad to come home to help you with half of it. Man, do I miss BonnieJean!

Speaking of which, I got to talk to her yesterday. That was real fun. She is considering staying over there for fully a year longer than she had first planned (for a grand total of 1 and a half years!) Needless to say I'm about to go nuts at the thought, but I guess as on long as she's in God's will she'll be fine.

Tomorrow is the ABKA National Karate Tournament. I haven't been this nervous since piano recitals when I was a kid. Normally performing doesn't bother me: in fact I love being in front of a croud. But this isn't going to be fooling a bunch of non-jugglers into thinking I'm cool: I'll be performing for black belts: there will be no fooling them. Monday night I worked on my kata a lot with one of the black belts after class. He seemed pretty pleased with it, but I'm still very nervous. It'd be cool if I did well in fighting (hey, it'd be cool if I won!) but what I'm really, really, REALLY wanting is to take first in kata.

Anna is going to do really well in kata. In fact I would not be at all surprised if she won. Her stances are looking really good and her transitions are awesome. Sometimes she has trouble putting power into her punches, but I'm really excited about how she'll do.

And on the other end of the scale, we have Ethan. Ethan will probably do very poorly in kata. Anna and I have both started working on our compitition kata 4 months ago. Ethan started only about 4 weeks ago. He simply doesn't know the kata well enough, nor has he had the time work over all the little details with a black belt. And to top it off with, he won't listen to Anna or I. Some of the simplist things, like chambering high for a kick, he tries to argue with us about. "It's high enough: my kick is getting up there!" Well, so? They're stilling going to see a low chamber and they won't like it! You've been learning that since you were a white belt! ARGG!!!

Joshua will probably do ok. I was watching his kata earlier today and while not great, it's not horrible either. I've been trying to get him to keep his hands tight lately: he's trying to punch or backfist with a totally loose hand and it looks really bad. I'm afraid he won't do very well in fighting: he fought a guy about his size and level on Monday and was beaten really bad. Oh well. I'm sure he'll have a good time. Joshua is a really good sport, which I gues is more important.

And now I need to get off. Good bye, and farewell, my adoring fans!

TECSOL A-2 Solvent, Anhydrous: You are an industrial solvent marketed as TECSOL Special Industrial Solvent by Eastman Chemical Company. You are available as both 95% and anhydrous. You are denatured with methyl alcohol and methyl isobutyl ketone. Find out what kind of industrial solvent you are

And on top of that....

You copy other people's HTML and blindly paste it into your own pages with no concern for the consequences. What kind of Hummel figurine are you?

This one is strange...

You are Fresh Step Scoopable With Baking Soda What brand of scooping cat litter are you?

*walks in, looking confused* Something about this place seems so familier, like I've been here before...long long ago. Maybe in another life...or at least a different month.

Ok, I'm back! For how long I don't know, but I am.

I'm keeping busy with school work, tax stuff (it's driving me nuts) and looking for a job. I'm really hoping to get in at centralift (bakerhughes.com) or QuikTrip (quiktrip.com). I've talked to people at both: Centralift told me I had to graduate first, QuikTrip said they'd call the district hiring manager. I'm hoping something happens there.

May 1st is the ABKA tournament. I can't beleive it's going to be so soon. I'll be doing Wansi-Sho for the kata compitition and will be doing Wansi-hope-to-live-through-it for the fighting. Sure, it would be nice to win a fight or two: hey, it would be nice to win first place! But I doubt that will happen. So I'm spending a lot of time working on the kata, because I would really, REALLY like to win in kata.

Sunday I was feeling like writing something which would have no real value to the world, and so I came up with this. Please forgive the spelling.
----------------------------------
One doesn't like to wake up in the morning only to find a dead body has come into your home, made a pot of coffee, poured himself a cup (and made use of your best creamer) and is happily awaiting your waking so he may eat you for breakfast.
Fortunately for me, on the morning in question, such a thing had not occured. In fact, to my limited knowledge, something of that sort has never occured, but you must admit that it sure did a lot to grab your attention right at the start.
However, on the morning in question, there was somebody waiting for me, and indeed someone almost as bad as the aformentioned zombie. It was my cousin Fredrickk, who had several annoying habits (not least of which was insisting on placing two k's at the end of his name), and probably the most annoying of these was his amazing ability to totally ruin your breakfast. He did this through a combination of snide remarks about the cooking, loud chewing noises, and his own unique hair style. But the worst of it was that you knew there would be no getting rid of him until you had given ("loaned" was the word he liked) him the amount he was asking you for every three and a half minutes.
In fact, when I had first made my fortune in the commimorative rubber band industry, I had taken several steps to see to it that he would never be able to find me. First I had changed my legal name and then hired a local gang to burn the building holding the records of the change. Moving to the most obscure part of the nation I could find, I settled in a small town in eastern Washington. I then had all the citizens placed under hypmotizim so that none of them knew I lived there. Plastic sergery gave me another face, I had my finger prints altered, my voice box changed and my iris pattern redone. Next I placed a moat around my house, a thorny hedge, a poison ivy hedge, machine gun bobby traps and razor wire. I released large dogs, bulls and poisonis snakes onto the property, and then placed thirty-two seperate kinds of locks on every door.
Apparently however, my efforts had not been enough, for when I came down to breakfast on that morning, Fredrickk was already sitting at the table, louding eating my toast. His hair style (too horrindous to describe) was even more annoying than usual.
"Why dear old Thomas!" he cried around the food in his mouth, "This food is absolutly horrible! Do you want to join me for breakfast?"
"YOU are inviting ME to breakfast at MY HOUSE?" I thundered.
"Yes I am!" he replied, helping himself to my eggs, "Downright generous of me, isn't it? By the way, can you loan me a million dollars?"
"Why should I do that?"
"Because if you don't, then I'll stay here and eat a lot more than a million dollars worth of this awful food. I can take a cheque if you don't have cash on hand."
"Never!" I cried, determined that this time he wouldn't get a red cent out of me.
He looked hurt. "Hey, now that's really mean of you. You know most guys would demand cash, but here I am, willing to put myself through all sorts of trouble for you and all you do is yell at me. It's things like this that wound a man for life, you know."
"Well, maybe it will wound you to death!" I ranted.
"Oh, no fear of that! I'll just keep eating this deplorible food until you see reason."

---------------------------------

Crazy, no?

Last week I did a round-off, backhandsrping, back tuck all by myself! It was really cool. Last night I did it several times, although I messed up a lot (actually, I messed back a lot: if I had gone up there wouldn't have been a problem!)

I need to get off now. God bless, talk to y'all later!

Take my Quiz on QuizYourFriends.com!

2-6-04

Well, howdy, howdy, howdy! I just sat down to write BonnieJean and then realized that I don't have anywhere to send an email, so I guess I'll post this on my blogger and make it a letter/blog entry.

That's so cool about your class going so well during karate class! Everybody was very interested in hearing about you. I can't wait to tell Mr. Murry about what you said!

Speaking of karate, it was pretty fun. I did the first class with Isaac and actually learned something really interesting. Remember how when y'all learned the backfist Anna and I were in Memphis? So I never was actually taught the backfist. What I was doing was holding my hand as though I had just finished a descending hammerfist and swinging from my elbow to strike (if that makes any sense). Then Mr. Murry taught us the backfist in first class and it turns you that you're supposed to throw it like a hammerfish, turning it over into a backfist at the last moment to get that "snap". So I've had to totally re-learn my backfist, but it feels much better now.

In second class we worked on basics all together and then partnered up and worked on sparring componets: in close, hands only, kicks only, body shots only, etc. Mr. Garza took several of us aside and had us do slightly different stuff. It was pretty fun. I had hoped to grab Mr. Davis after class and fight a little bit, but wasn't able to. However, Rachel Baker said she'd fight me next week, which should be pretty fun: she's a good fighter.

Monday afternoon I had my follow-up with Mr. Brown, the guy at the ORU career guidance office. He sure is a character! what a blast! He said I'm very much the business starter type. At one point when we were talking about film directing he actually got out of his chair and started pacing! After my meeting with him I went by the Fin-Aid office and got the verification forms for us.

Anna and I sparred some today. She's getting much better at being consistently aggrasive when fighting me. She's got about a forty percent chance of hitting me when she charges, while when she lets me come to her she only has about a ten percent chance. I have a lot of trouble when we fight no-break, because we're in such a small space and I can't block forever. So I just keep on leaning backwards and end up falling down on the couch. I guess I'm going to have to learn to keep my feet under me and to take a few, rather than trying to block everything (which isn't working anyway!) Then Ethan and I sparred a good deal as well. He's starting to develop a really solid round house that he doesn't telegraph nearly as much as he used to. I've starting using a combination that Mr. Murry showed us last week and I'm really, really liking it. When you are in an opposite stance from the other fighter, throw a ridge hand with your back hand. For example, if your in a left stance, you throw a right ridge hand to chudan, stepping forward into a right stance as you do so. From there you transfer into a right backfist. It's been working extremely well and I can't wait to try it on some different fighters at class.

I got behind in math at the end of last week and have been working like crazy ever since then to catch up. I did four lessons on Wednesday, four on Thrusday, four today and if I do four tomorrow I'll be caught up. I'm not having much trouble with going that fast, because they're focusing on a couple concepts right now and introducing new stuff very slowly.

So far nobody has given us an answer on going to TeenPact with us. Josh Garza said his parents are talking about it and Sarah However-You-Spell-Her-Last-Name (the one related to the Sova's) said they might possibly go. I know Jordan Baker is going, but I'm not sure which one he's going to.

So, BonnieJean, why haven't you posted on your blogger any? If you want me to, I can set up comments for you (I finally figured it out! Which is a good thing, 'cause I didn't want to risk losing the favor of Hannah by asking her to help me once again with comments.) Oh, did you know that Kelly Holliday and fam. have started karate? Don't you think Kelly would be just a total blast to do karate with?

Tuesday night at tumbling class I did five back hand springs in a row! They weren't the best I've ever done, but I did it! I also did round-off four back hand springs for Mom, which was cool. I'm starting to think I may quit class in a couple months: I have access to Tammy every Wednesday and Josh every Wednesday and Thursday. Josh can teach and spot just as well as Kevin, and Tammy is much better than Kevin. I have plenty of time to practice when the floor is free.

BonnieJean, as for posting on your blogger. Log in and blick on "BJ's Babblings" on the right hand side. This should take you to a page that has two parts: the top part is a blank for for you to write in and the bottom shows you your previous post. (If it doesn't, look at the very top: you'll see three links ("Posts", "Settings" and "Template") make sure it's on the "post" one.) Enter your blogger entry in the top part of that page. Then CC your entry, because sometimes it can get lost if there is some sort of problem. Now on the upper right hand corner click "Post and Publish" (Not the post button). And that should post it to your blogger! If you want to edit a post, look in the bottom of the two parts of your screen. Click "edit" on the post you want to edit. It will appear in the top. Edit it, then click "Post and Publish" once again! And that's all it takes! *grins*

PS How do y'all like the new text color? lol

1-30-04

Well hello to my adoring fans. It's been a little while since I updated, but I have good reason. Sunday BonnieJean headed off for Taiwan, so all of last week was spent getting everything ready for her to leave. Then after she left everybody got sick. Anna and Naomi were throwing up last night, Isaac and Joshua two nights before that. I'm feeling really bad right now. I suppose the good thing is that I started feeling bad after the juggling show I had this afternoon.

Speaking of which, it went pretty well. It was actually a home school co-op clowning class that I performed for (no, I have not become a clown!) I did about twenty minutes of Christian juggling and then about twenty minutes of talking about Christian ministry and juggling ministry in partiular.

Monday we got a snow storm, which prevented us going to karate. So instead we cleared out the living room and had our own mini class. We worked mostly on the basic katas, trying to get them exactly perfect.

2-1-04

Can you beleive it's already the second month of the year? Amazing.

BonnieJean called us yesterday. She talked for an hour and a half. It was a blast. Except the cell phone she was on kept fading out, which made it kinda hard to talk to her.

The stuff written on the 30th was written when I was feeling really, really sick. I had been laying in bed for several hours and about 10:30 PM I couldn't lay still anymore. So I came into the kitchen and wrote some.

Last night we watched Pirates of the Carribean with Dad. I didn't except he would like it that much, but he actually did. Every time I see that movie I enjoy it more. And it has some of the best lines!

"I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know. If I see any, I shall inform you immediatly."

"You're off the map. Here there be monsters!"

"Aye, the compass doesn't point North, but we aren't trying to find North, are we?"

"You'd best start beleiving in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!"

"I always liked you."

"That was for the smell."

"Jack, you should know better than to wake a man when he's sleeping! It's bad luck!"

"'Must have been terrible for you Jack...' WELL IT BLOODY IS NOW!"

"But why is the rum gone?"

"No surviours? Then were do the stories come from?"

"Dambed be whoever came up with the word 'parley'!" "That would be the French."


"Hmm?" "HUUmm..." "hhuUUMM?" "HuMMMM. Hmm-UUUmmmMM..." "The kid?" (only makes sense if you've seen it).

"Aye, sea turtles!" "What did he use for rope?"

"So we're all men of our word! Except of course Elizibeth, who is in fact a woman."

"That's interesting."

"You're supposed to be dead!" "Am I not?"

*ahem* Anyway.

BonnieJean says she's going to be getting a blogger. That will be cool.

Tomorrow I'm going to a meeting with the ORU career counsler to talk about my major and my career plans. BonnieJean went about a week and a half ago and said it was a really interesting meeting. I've seen the guy guy before a couple times and he seems like a real character.

I can't think of anything to write. Please forgive the horrible spelling. Farewell!

Life is crazy.

Maybe I can tell you about it later.

Alright, I'm updating, finally. It's amazing how time get's away with you and you look at your blog and say "Wow! I need to update!"

Friday afternoon I did an unsupported rising elbow break. Anna got it on the video camera and I took the still off of it.

That's pretty cool, huh?

Last week I learned about a scholarship worth between $60,000 and $4,000 over four years. Of course the idea of $60,000 was really cool, so I decided to apply. Only problem was the deadline was three days away. Ok I figure, I'll have to hurry. Well, because of the stupid website for the scholarship and because of stupid Y! mail, I wasn't able to get the application until a day and a half before the deadline! So Mom and I ran around like chickens with our heads cut off and finally managed to get it on time, just barely!

Saturday Mom dropped Anna, Joshua and I off at the dojo to watch the black belt testing. There is a testing every six months and this time our dojo was hosting it, which was cool. We didn't have anybody testing for black, but one of our instructors was testing for his third degree black. He did some very cool kata in spite of the fact that he was coughing and sniffing through the whole thing. He got his belt. Two of our brown belts tested for their first degree brown (the belt just below black). All the other people were from other dojo's: about 8 or 10 people testing for black and one other fellow testing for third degree. The whole thing was all very cool: we watched some really neat breaks and some very good fights. It was also interesting to see people from other dojo's do kata and compare it to how we do it.

One of the little girls I worked with in Memphis asked me to write her a poem. I couldn't think of what to write, so I wrote about not know what to write. I thought y'all might find it amusing.

So you want a poem? An artistic arrangement of words?
Something that rhymes, and maybe mentions birds?
I suppose I'll have to oblige you and wrack my little brain
For some lines that are witty and avoid those that are lame.

Well, here goes, and please do wish me luck,
For I feel rather unable, like when trying to back a truck.
But just for you I shall do my best and hope that no one laughs
As I stumble around on my poetic legs, like an unsteady newborn calf.

But what to write my poem on? What shall the topic be?
Should I write of a sunset? a pretty thing, we all agree,
Or of a piece of old newspaper, floating in the wind,
Carrying the headline "Brits manufacture tin"?

This is indeed a big question, one that requires great thought
Perhaps I should form a committee, before whom it would be brought.
Or of course I could flip a coin, much like Jonah's shipmates,
But maybe not, because then Jonah was almost fish bait.

What method then should I use? Oh, how shall I decide?
Is there no answer to this question, will it forever with me abide?
Surely there is some way, a clearly marked path
Whereby a poet may write, and his head not have to bash.

But now an idea is upon me. Oh, what a glorious thought!
What of our friend Webster, and the countless times help he has brought?
Why, I am sure he can help, the man who wrote that giant book
The one I used to sit on, so over the table I could look.

Now a dictionary, you see, is to be used with care
Only by those who are qualified: none others should dare.
For it can be so heavy, that if by accident it is dropped
Someone could be quite splattered, and from the floor have to be mopped.

I open to a random page, 1416 it happens to be,
And select a word that sound interesting, adventurous and free.
Ok, it doesn't actually sound adventurous, this word of which I write
For "parvis" sounds more like an illness, maybe caused by a dog's bite.

But as I examine this word, it turns out to be nothing of the sort.
It speaks of a church before which lies an enclosed court.
A word very rarely used, "parvis" speaks of architecture
Of the way something is built, of it's overall structure.


So now my poem has a topic, something of which it speaks
And a tremendously cool topic too, one that all others beats.
I must say I am really thrilled to have produced this work of art
Which will probably live on longer than that thing we call the cart!

I wrote what is below last week and forgot to post it.

12-16-03

Well, hello, hello and how are you? I'm doing GREAT because as of last night I am a

GREEN BELT!

Yes, yipee and yahoo! Yay, wow, and wonderful! *super big huge grin* I guess the reason I'm so thrilled is that green has always been the color of a real martial artist, in my mind anyway. Anybody can make it to orange belt: it's when testing for green that you do your first really hard board breaks, your first back to back fighting and your first plural fights.

Well, I guess I'll tell you about the test. Last Monday night we tested on kata, techniques and Bible verse. I did real well on kata and techniques and only messed up a little on the verse. I don't know why I did, but my mind went just completely and totally blank. I know that verse so well I could say it in my sleep, but I still couldn't remember the first few words. I got it after a minute though. Our group finished our stuff before the other groups, so they asked if anybody had brought their boards to break. I had thought something like that might happen so I had brought ours and we all did our breaks. I had four breaks: a ridge hand, a hammer fist, jumping front kick and spinning back kick. All had to be done with two, 1 by 12 by 12 boards. The ridge hand was the one that worried me the most: the striking area is the side of the first nuckle of your pointer finger. But I managed to go through on the first try with very little pain. All my other breaks were pretty easy to do: I did them all left sided because I knew that I could do them with my right hand or foot: I wanted to know if I could do it with my left. BonnieJean had to break four baords: one each with a punch, a knife hand, a front kick and a side kick. She had broken boards quite easily before with her feet, but had never been able to break with her hands. A few days before the test she finally managed to break a board with a descending palm strike, but she was still pretty worried. Well, she went to do her knife hand break and BAM! went right through it, like a hot knife through butter. Punch, BANG! Perfect. Side kick. WACK! No more board. Front kick: dull THUD. No break. She tried again. THUD. Again. THUD. The dumb board just wouldn't break. Finally she tried it on a differant board and went right through. Anna, Ethan and Joshua got through their breaks with no problem, but poor Naomi really had trouble. She had to try multiple times on all of her breaks and really bruised her hand up good. But she didn't quit and broke them all herself! I was so proud!

Then last night we did all of our fighting and those who hadn't broken boards last week did theirs'. I had three, two minute fights back to back with no rest. It was actually really fun. My second fight was against a guy I had fought a few weeks ago and not done very well against, but I did much better last night. I even got him with a very good hook kick, which is really cool, 'cause I hardly ever score with that. On my last fight our head Sensie came in and fought, which of course was really cool. I scored on him a few times. But of course he wasn't really fighting with me, toying with me would be more like it. I won two of my three plural fights: one of the two on one fights and the three on one fight. BonnieJean and Ethan fought very well. Anna did ok: she really been having trouble gaurding herself lately. I didn't get to see Joshua fight much (he was in a differant group) or Naomi. But I did see Naomi do her last plural (3 on 1) fight. She had trouble picking which person to fight and instead tried to fight all three at once, so she got hit a good deal. A couple landed pretty hard in her gut but she kept on fighting!

12-23-03

Good heavens, I had totally forgotten about this post I'd started to write! Sorry about that!

I worked yesterday. We are on Christmas break, but since we were snowed out a few weeks ago we had to do a make-up day. I was there 8:30 to 2:30, teaching most of the time. The last half hour or so there were very few people left at the gym and several of the upper level gymnast and teachers did tumbling. I tried a couple new things and I think I'm finally starting to get a handle on two standing back hand springs.

Saturday I took the ACT. I need to get a 31 or higher in order to apply for a full tuition scholarship at ORU. Last time I got a 28. I'm pretty confident I managed to raise it the needed three points, but I'm not certain. Guess there's no use worrying about it now. After the test, while waiting for Mom to pick me up, I went to a nearby Denny's and ordered a milk shake. Stupidly I didn't ask what the price was: that silly milk shake cost me $3.50! I could have bought a whole gallon of ice cream for that much! It was highly annoying.

Mom, Anna, BonnieJean and I pooled our money and bought the soundtracks for Pirates of the Caribbean, Attack of the Clones, The Two Towers and The Four Feathers. Pirates and Attack of the Clones have arrived and we are enjoying them alot. In fact I'm listening to Pirates of the Caribbean right now: man, that is a cool soundtrack! I need to see that movie again. The problem is that it's not a movie we want the little guys to see, what with all the walking skeletons and all, so I'm not sure when we'll get a chance to see it.

I can't beleive it's only two days until Christmas. It doesn't seem like it. Maybe because the weather is so warm: yesterday I went running in sweat pants and a T-shirt. Anyway, I hope you all have a merry, wonderful Christmas and a great new year! God bless y'all!

Well, hello there. I'll be you weren't expecting to see another update for at least a month! Ha! I fooled you!

BonnieJean is in Tulsa taking the CLA exam right now. It's today and tomorrow. She's not too stressed out about it, but she's still worried.

Ethan and I will be spending most of the afternoon helping get things set up for the chess tournament tomorrow. Ethan and Joshua will be competing. I'm going to do some strolling in the morning and then do a twenty-minute Christian show during lunch. It should be fun.

Monday is karate testing. I just finished getting our boards cut. I'm not so worried about my ridge hand break anymore (I have to go through two boards with the side of my hand). The boards I got a very good breaking boards...so it shouldn't be too hard to break them.

Next Saturday is the ACT. I've got to raise my score to 31 (from 28) in order to apply for the full tuition grant at ORU. I'm about to pull my hair out. I simply don't think I'm ready for the math part...there's so much of it I simply don't know. AHHH!

Interesting debate about online dating on the RI...personally, I think the whole thing is silly. Even if you're being totally honest with the person, they still don't really get to know you. You don't get to see each other in real life situations. How does he treat his mom? How does she react when her car doesn't start? These are things you just can't learn through instant messsenger.

I'm getting excited about bringing a group of people to TeenPact next year. We've got a 15 passenger van and as long as we're going, why not get a bunch of people, right?

Well, I can't think of anything else to say. So bye!

One day short of two months...wow, that's a pretty good record! *dodges rotten fruit*

Well, Memphis was a blast. They kept us extremely busy (I could never manage to live there for a full year like some of the Character Choaches do) but I think it was worth it. BonnieJean did really well in the schools and working with the kids. She had some problems with some of the other Character Choaches at first, but things got better towards the end.

A couple weeks ago BonnieJean and I went to ORU's college weekend. I'm looking at taking their Multi-Media major and BonnieJean is thinking about something math based, possibly teaching math. We've sent in our application and should be finding out yea or nay soon. I'm taking the ACT again in December in the hopes of getting a 31 or higher so I have a chance at a full scholarship. With my current score (28) I'd get $5,500 a year and with one more point it would be $6,000 a year.

Well, I'm not going to be testing for my green belt until December (the 8th to be exact). I just didn't have enough time before going to Memphis to learn what I needed so I could work on it there. I'm thinking I might possibly test for blue half-way through this next period and then test for purple at the next all-school testing date (in other words, advancing two belts in three months...hard, but not impossible).

BonnieJean is going to be working in Taiwan from late January to mid August of next year. In fact she'll be getting back home one week after classes start at ORU, but they said that would be fine. It's going to be hard for her to be gone for so long, but I guess we'll live.

Work is going well. Naomi almost has her back hand spring by herself (I just have to apply a little bit of upward pressure on the small of her back to give her an extra half second to her hands down). Tumbling classes are a blast. I've got a round-off back hand spring by myself and a standing back tuck by myself (although I only land it about half the time...) I can also do a punch front (front flip) and front hand spring by myself.

Dad has this week off and is working hard on the remodel. He's going to be buying the sheet rock today and we'll start putting it up in the next few days. He's hoping to get the brick work done this weekend. It's actually starting to look like a real room.

Well, I have to get off now. Bye, God bless y'all!