Cai's Daily Rant

Naps

2012-01-29T20:31:00.002-06:00

I'm learning to dislike naps. Isn't that terrible?
But honestly, I have no control over myself. I saved my APUSH chapter to do today, but after church and working out with Maddie, I was ridiculously sleepy.
So.. I told myself-- 45 minute nap, and I'll be fine.
-_- No.
I slept for over 2 hours, and I know that I won't be able to fall asleep tonight.
(We'll ignore the fact that it was a very nice nap, to emphasize my point.)

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about the future at this point.
Alex and I are gonna get hot, just saying.

More to follow later, when it actually starts happening. ;)

:D

2012-01-28T23:43:00.003-06:00

I love Saturdays. So nice. :)

I woke up at 6:30, went for a mile time trial (that part sucked) and then ran 5 miles (that part was nice). It actually made me dread track.. I've been loving long runs lately, but track workouts are killing me slowly. (Seriously. Feet and Achilles, not holding up so well.)

Afterwards, I came and did a buttload of cleaning, vacuuming, etc etc.

My room is so nice. :D I also watched Lilo and Stitch with 2 little boys that came to my house; the kids of a guy from my church who was helping my mom do some retexturing thing, I dunno. THEY'RE ADORABLE. And Lilo and Stitch is such a sad movie, by the way. :(

All Disney movies have a sad twist; I just don't think people realize it until they're older.

AFTER that, I went over to my pappy's to catch up on this week's Jeopardy and we went to my piano recital. A huge thank you to Alex who came and recorded it for me. :) The video's on Facebook now. :D I played my Rachmaninoff, and therefore accomplished one of my New Year's goals. Whoohoo!

My dad was very proud of me, so he took me out to dinner. :D (Thanks papai.)

I went to the dance afterwards to hang out with Maddie and friends, which was a lot of fun..surprisingly. It wasn't a combined dance but there was a pretty good turnout.

This rant is so rambly, I apologize. Need sleep.

Aaaaand now, I just found out that my brother got arrested for throwing a towel at a basketball game. He can't go to anymore games this season, and I think he has to pay a fine or something. :( Poor kid. He camped out to get tickets, too.

Failbook Love

2012-01-27T19:37:00.002-06:00

I love Friday nights when I don't have anything planned.
Chances are, neither of my parents are around, so I goof off all night--walk around in my undies, play piano loudly, watch game shows, whatever.

Tonight I decided to visit Failbook, which I hadn't done in awhile.
I'm crying, I'm laughing so hard.

"Who is feat he is in every song.''
Pahahahahaaa.
A picture of a girl with ''STOP SOAP'' written on her hands. Somebody commented saying ''Now that's a bit unhygenic..'' and she replied, ''If you think that's what I'm talking about go watch the freaking news." Heheheheheh.

:) Happy days.
Today at school, me and another girl painted the set for the musical. :D I feel very accomplished.
To celebrate (or acknowledge the fact that I don't have much to say),
here's a survey.

Who was the last attractive person you saw?
In person? Errrr... this guy from Colombia that goes to my school. Don't know his name, but you know how I like foreigners. ;D

Have you smoked a cigarette in the last 24 hours?

No. If I wanted to die, I would throw myself into shark infested waters.
That's a cool way to die. :D Haha.

What emotions are you feeling right now?

Contentment. Excitement because it's Friday. And I'm somewhat dreading this superrr long run me and Ashwee are going on tomorrow.

What are you currently doing?

This survey, duhhh.

Do you miss anybody?

Yesssir.
But, in the words of the Beatles, ''It won't be long, yeah YEAH yeah YEAH yeah YEAH, it won't be long, yeah YEAH yeah YEAH yeah YEAH.." Heheh.

Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?

Shothang.

How has this week been?

Surprisingly fast. And very productive on my part.

Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

It really depends on the situation. Honestly, not everyone does.

What do you want most right now?
Honestly,
to lose 5 more pounds.
Do you remember your dreams?

This week, I totally have.
They've been quite entertaining really. Last night, Maddie, Caio, and Ashwee showed up. :D

What will you name your son?

Benjamin Toronto. Winston Lennon. João. Tiago (pronounced chee-AH-go)

What will you name your daughter?

If I live in Brazil, Jade. (Pronounced Jshad-gee).. Or Prudence.

What is your favorite number?
13 :D

What time did you go to sleep last night?

Too late.
I was reading some magazines, yo.

Are you afraid of falling in love?

Hecks naw. When the time comes, it'll come. I imagine that love is a wonderful feeling; there is nothing to fear.

Do you have a weird little sister?

..is Rusty a girl?

Are you one of those people that always answer their phones?

Haha. No. Some kid who bugs the crap out of everyone because he's a huge cheater tried calling me last night. Did not answer.

Where would you like to be right now?
BRAZIL. :D
That's where I'd always like to be. Heheh. I also really really really want to take a hot shower, but since I've already showered today, and I'm running in the morning, AND it'd be a waste of water, I'm not going to. :(

Are you in a good mood?

Yes I am. :D

Are you currently looking forward to tomorrow?

Eh. So so. Running and piano recital.

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow?

Nope. Buttcrack of dawn, I tell you.

What do you hear right now?

''O sapo não lava o pé. Não lava porque não quer. Ele mora na lá lagua, não lava o pé porque não quer, mas QUE CHULÉ!" Haha. It's a kid's song.

If you died today would your life be complete?

Not really. There's a lot of stuff I haven't done yet, like college, marriage, family, meeting John O'Hurley..

If you are being extremely quiet, what does that mean?
I
I'm so tired that I'm probably not listening.

Do you know what high school your dad went to?

Some Ensino Medio in Brazil.. and while he was in the States, Spanish Fork High School.

What time will you be getting up tomorrow morning?

Probably 6:30.

How are things between you and the person you like?

Honestly, I don't know who I like.
It seems like life is full of trivial crushes right now.

Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?
Driving over this dip on Dirks Road. It's like going on a little roller coaster. :D

What were you doing at 7:45AM this morning?

Runningggg.

Where would you rather live, England or Italy?

Italy, so I could learn the language and accomplish my goal. :D

Do you have any pets?

Rusty, Flash and lil'Arnaldo. :D

What’s your favorite color?

Sigh. I dunno. Mint? Sparkly? Blues? Indecisive?

When was the last time you cried?

...I think 2 days ago. Mildly. I saw this picture of a dog whose had been forced to put a firecracker in its mouth. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO TERRIBLE?!!??!?!

Happy Friday everyone. :D

TGIAF. (Thank Goodness it's ALMOST Friday..)

2012-01-26T19:35:00.001-06:00

The week went by sooooo fast.
Thank goodness. :D I can't believe it's Thursday already.

Today was a great day. We ran a 4 mile tempo for track (ON the track..) and it wasn't too bad.. the worst part was mentally. 16 laps is a long time.
BUT. Spanish was excellent (my favorite class--I look forward to it, even though it's a lot of work and whatnot), English was bearable and History..so so so great. We had a debate, and didn't have time to take a quiz over the most BORING chapter ever, so she gave us all a 100. :)))))) Although history is definitely not my best subject, we have the coolest teacher ever.

I had piano today; I finished my theory and did more practice stuff with my teacher. She's so great; I almost look forward to piano sometimes. :) (I think I'll like it more now that I'm not expected to have a certain number of theory pages done..)

A wave of sleepiness just hit me, though.. Really wanting just to go to bed now, even though it's only 7:33. Ha.
I think I'm going to give in.

Brrrrrr...

2012-01-25T20:48:00.001-06:00

It's chilllllyyyyyy. It's been raining since yesterday, and I'm 99% sure our furnace is broken again. Brr.
Hence my title.

Today, I FINALLY finished my theory book..well, with the exception of the last page, but I'm too tired. Hah. I've done enough to (hopefully) appease my teacher. The test is NEXT WEEK. :O Eek. I'm ridiculously nervous--theory got 234098203948 times harder this year. (Pretty sure I've already complained about it before, haha.) The day before is the master class in Stephenville, which I'm pretty excited about..it'll be long and somewhat boring, but I'm happy that I made it. :D
And Saturday is a recital; then there's the Federation competition (where I'm trying to get into state), a duet competition (where I'm playing a piece with another girl and trying to win something, I think), a solo competition (3 pieces, no real purpose behind this except I think there are places and if you're in the top 3 you can play in the master's recital), aaaaand then state, if Federation goes well.
D:
SO MUCH PIANO STUFF. I stayed home from church tonight. -_-
It's stressful that this falls during track season. So much to do, not too much time to do it. Meh.

Anyway, on the plus side, I've been really good about doing my homework the day it's be assigned. Seriously. Which means technically, since I've finished all my homework for Friday, I don't have to do anything the day it's assigned for the rest of the week. :D (Tomorrow is the last B day of the week, so all the homework will be due Monday--Friday's hw is for Tuesday.) I love AB schedule, so much. I can't imagine having every class, every day. Even if it does mean that our class periods are an hour and a half.

So to celebrate such nice homework scheduling,
enjoy this funny picture I saw yesterday. It's SO TRUE. What's up with Ron's hair in this picture? (I will say Malfoy is a definite 2nd.)

Productivity Overload.

2012-01-24T21:25:00.002-06:00

I have done so much stuff today.
Seriously.

Seminary (where we just watched a movie, and I kind of wish I had slept in since we didn't even crack the scriptures..), cross country, school, of course.
Then I came home, did some SAT practice, looked through colleges, and found a Brazil program through Princeton. A very small amount of students get to do it, but from what I understand, it's somewhat of a Brazilian sister school--you're actually going to college, not just doing an exchange.
:D :D :D :D
Totally added that to my list of places I'm going to apply. I also found a blog of a girl who actually did it--she goes to Princeton but she lives in Rio, and she got hired to write for a magazine there.
Now I'm super excited for college. I think about it every day. BYU is definitely high up on my list; it's in my comfort zone (which my mom says I should go for, because it'll be hard enough living away from home) and it has the whole Foreign Language Housing AND lots of eligible Mormon bachelors..I mean..err. ;)
But also, it'd be cool to go to an Ivy League and still get to do what I love.
Or to go anywhere really; there are sooooo many options, and it'd be cool to be the only one in my immediate family who DIDN'T go to BYU..

Anyway, afterwards taught piano, filled my mom's car with gas, deposited some moooola, did my Spanish grammar homework, did alllll my English homework, and a good chunk of history.
Sounds like it's time for bed. :)

Random, but I've also been obsessed with the most delicious drink ever.
Coconut La Croix. La Croix is just some sparkling water (which I've been obsessed with forever, much to the disgust of some of the cross country kids..), but with coconut..it's spectacular. Mmmmm. :)
And Fage yogurt. So. Good.

Now please enjoy this picture:

Anti-Procrastination! :D

2012-01-23T19:46:00.002-06:00

Wow. I did ALL of my homework today.
ALL of it.
(Let's not talk about piano theory, ha.)
But I dunno, I felt like it was all very manageable, thank goodness. :)

So, here's a funny snip to celebrate, from none other than..well, this is pretty obvious.

Heheh..silly.

What a nice Monday. :) We went for a five-and-a-half miler this morning and the weather felt really great. It was at a steady 8 minute mile pace too, which was good. But..due to the fact that my mom brought home pizza and Brazil is less than 2 months away, I think I might hit the gym again.

Random fact:
I continually bang my head on this cabinet that juts out over one of the counters.. I've probably ranted about it before. But I hit my head again yesterday, and it left a nice little bump on the corner of my forehead. Ouch. But my reaction makes me laugh every time; without thinking, I always jump back as if it were offensive..heheheh.

Another fact: one of my Brazilian friends has a crush on Alex. (He's seen loads of pictures of us together..) It gets quite funny.
:D

Another random point: The Song of Solomon in the Old Testament is ridiculous, especially in the King James version. To a point where it's almost silly. The Old Testament is definitely interesting.

Aaaaand lastly,
I haven't broken my scripture reading streak yet. :D

Happy birthday Alex :D

2012-01-22T21:48:00.000-06:00

HEY GURR, IT'S CHO BURFDAY!
That calls for some birthday-rantin'. :)

SO. Alex. Where to begin.
You've been one of my best friends since I was in 7th grade--which is saying a lot, because I was kind of a turd in middle school. I like how we discovered our love of pooping, farting, and other immature things that year, through a run. (YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. Haha.) ;D I like that even if we disagree on something, we end up laughing or doing something ridiculous.

You're a super talented person and have a ridiculously good sense of style. Seriously. One thing I've always thought is how classy you are. (Disregarding the above paragraph, haha.) You read fancy pantsy blogs (and mine, ha), drink out of a fancy water bottle, have a short haircut, wear blazers to school, and are super organized. (I'm glad that this has slightly started to rub off on me.) And you're an American-born European.

I remember when we were biking down the Trinity (14 miles gurr!) and talking about how we have a cool friendship. We don't need to go out to the movies all the time or go to parties like popular kids do. We can just ride bikes in the summa'time, go rollerblading, get a drink, make something, set goals for something, whatever. I THINK WE'RE COOL. ;D

I hope this year is filled with a lot of happiness, adventures, Italian (;D), sleepovers, silly games that we always play, Starbucks, victories, and sleep. Love you gurr, and I'm so glad we're best friends. :)

^^Beautiful way to end things. Haha.

PS. My arms hurt from yesterday.

What a Great Day :)

2012-01-21T22:38:00.000-06:00

Day before Alex's birthday. Filled with fun. :)
Starting last night--me and Ashwee went to buy presents (the Black Keys album and Vogue in French). We hung out at Barnes and Noble for awhile, drinking deliciousness and reading celebrity magazines.. which apparently was the place to be because we both saw quite a few people we knew.

Then this morning, we got up at the buttcrack of dawn (well, not really--but before 7 on a Saturday might as well be) and ran six miles. It was..well.. long. Good but long.

Afterwards, I made $35 for babysitting one ADORABLE child for 3 and a half hours.
Then I went over to Alex's to go rock climbing. :D Not that there is a rock climbing wall in Alex's house--we drove to Arlington to do that.. and it happened to be on the same day that all the boy scouts decided to go. Heheh. It was a lot of fun though--and quite the arm workout.

Then we met up at Mellow Mushroom with Ashwee (who suffered the rest of the day in musical practice) and Josh (Alex's boyyyfrann) to eat delicious pizza..the wait was an hour. -_- But it was well worth the wait; the pizza there is the best in town (plus the atmosphere is awesome). AND the 2 minutes I was in the bathroom was when the staff decided to bring Alex's free dessert and sing happy birthday to her. Heh. I missed it. It was a lot of fun though--we spent majority of our time (while waiting) staring at strangers until we awkwardly made eye contact.

Great day. :)
HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY ALEX GURR

It's Friday, Friday

2012-01-20T23:26:00.002-06:00

I still like that song.
Well, I never legitimately liked it. But I still find it very catchy and I can never resist the urge to post some quote from it as my title.

Anyway.
What a day.
We ran some dumb mile tempos for track this morning. I felt like death. -_-

Afterwards was quite nice. Spanish was excellent (como siempre!), and our English teacher didn't make us want to kill him today..so that's good.

Ashwee and I shopped for Alex's burfffday presents too :D
And I practiced Portuguese for an hour today.
Aaaaaaand I'm so sleepy that this is definitely not a cohesive rant.
I re-read through all my Caio messages. Heehee. I don't know why I find so much pleasure in that. But I do.

Funny snip of the day:

Heheh. Truth.

Tomorrow shall be a most excellent day! I'm waking up superrr early to go running with Ashley (6 miler, let's go!), then babysitting at 8:30, and then going rock climbing for Alex's birthday. :) Can't wait.

Oh.

So also, there's all this dramatic crap happening.

Some idiot broke up one of my good friend's relationships by making a stupid RUMOR that she was flirting with him. So. Not. True. And then he told Angelique that he wanted to take my V-card; that he's going to "wear me down".

Yeah, that doesn't fly by me.

I called him out on it (with the help of Alex's text messaging skills) and he basically denied everything. Guys are idiots, never forget it.

It's 5 o'clock in the morning,

2012-01-19T20:52:00.002-06:00

Haha.
Who knows that song?

Be proud of me.
This morning, me and my papsters got up at 5am to go for a lovely 4 miler down Bel-Air bike trail. :) And I felt surprisingly good afterwards, and didn't bite anyone's head off due to lack of sleep.

It was a great day really.
NO homework from pre-cal. It's a miracle. So pleasant. And since it's a Thursday, we won't have that class again until Monday. :)))
Aaaaaand I actually went to seminary and paid attention.
And.. I finished enough of my theory to assuage my piano teacher.

OH.
Did I mention how terrible theory is this year? I've never liked it..I'm pretty good at it, but it's torture.
This year got ridiculously hard. But I've had a near perfect score streak on the tests, and I found out that if I keep it up just 2 more times (the test coming up in like, 2 weeks, and my senior year test), I can get scholarships and whatnot. So..
I've agreed to suffer through it for the time being. -_-

Random, but I posted the picture of my Across the Universe wall to pinterest..and a lady repinned it as "Stenciled Wall Lyrics" or something like that.
And although she was incorrect, I was flattered. :D STENCILED. Tee hee. :)

TOMORROW'S FRIDAY. :D

That's how I'm feeling, even though it was a 3 day week. :)

Happy Birthday Mom Der :D

2012-01-18T04:00:00.000-06:00

I'm scheduling this rant extra early, because I know my mom loves to wake up early and read it. (Seriously guys, not just being conceited about my blog here.)

ANYWAY.
Happy birthday, Mom! You are an amazing woman...you find something you want to do and you go out and do it; whether it's teaching aerobics, being a WW instructor, racing on an actual bike team, going back to school to get your masters--whatever. You're amazing.

I remember a long time ago (well, only a few years) when I was crying because you had left the church. And I remember you, also crying, told me that you did it FOR me, to be an example to live what you believe (and to not live what you don't). I'm really thankful for that. Seriously. Although I have stuck with my faith, I know that I will have your support no matter what I decide to do in my life.

And I'm also glad you let me paint stuff on my walls yesterday. ;D
I like that we have a pretty good relationship--especially now that Dane doesn't live here. ;D It's fun to play with Rust and eat veggie foods and not hear "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" constantly.
I'm glad we have a close relationship. I also remember you telling me that your parents would never let you just come jump on the bed to talk--but that's where we talk the most.

I LOVE YOU.
I hope you have a wonderful day, filled with cake, love, more cake, candy, love, and sleep. :)

Across the Universe

2012-01-17T20:25:00.001-06:00

No, I'm not referring to the movie filled with lame Beatles covers. Have I mentioned that I strongly dislike Beatles covers?! Seriously. I never even saw it.

I'm referring to the beautiful lyrics, written by my favorite musical artist ever--John Lennon, which I painted on my wall today.
Take a look:

Isn't that awesome? It only took between 4 and 5 hours. -_- Hah. The texturing of my wall made it quite difficult--especially since I wrote all the letters first in pencil. Anyway, I think it's cool, and I'm satisfied with my song choice.

I also found pictures from my burrfday party! :D I think we're cute.

Hot dang.

2012-01-16T20:52:00.000-06:00

I've been doing this rant foreeeeeverrrrr. Well, not really forever..maybe it will last that long though.
Sometimes I like going back and reading just one random day.
Quite entertaining.

Anyway, today was a superrr busy day.
We had cross country--or gasp! TRACK practice (even though it was identical to a cross country practice) this morning at Oakmont park. Quite lovely, really. Nice morning. :)

Afterwards, my mom helped set up tape lines on my wall for me to paint my favorite song lyrics. Ever. And while I'm excited to have a cool mural or whatever, I'm mildly panicking. WHAT SONG DO I CHOOSE? Do I choose a Beatles song because...well, it's a given. I've been a huge fan since I was 5 years old, running around in my undies singing Octupus's Garden. Well..hopefully I was a little more clothed. But I do remember being naked a lot as a child. Off topic. THEY'RE MY FAVORITE BAND EVER.
But, that being said, I have... 3? 4? Posters in my room. And a framed picture of John Lennon. OH. It's 4-- Yellow Submarine, Anthology, Sgt. Pepper's, and Abbey Road. And John. Not to mention a book shelf dedicated to Beatles books, and another one to their CDs.

So...do I go with a Brazilian song? Of such genre that I've also been a fan of for a long time? I DON'T KNOW. Can I just write every song lyric I've ever liked?

SUGGESTIONS POR FAVOR.

Anyway.
I also went grocery shopping..I was supposed to meet our new exchange students today--one from Australia and one from Germany..but I ran out of time. Honestly though, it'd be nice to meet them, but it's easier not to become too attatched. I've learned that the hard way with Michelle and Caio.

AND. Ashley and I watched the last 3 episodes of Friends. Ever. We bawled.

Seriously. Mascara running, pillow face covering, crying.
Hahaha..we're so silly. But it was so emotional. Sigh. 10 years was not enough.

Note from my dad:
"Are you gonna come watch the show?" (I of course fell asleep while we were watching a movie about a Brazilian racecar driver..last night.) --Dad
"Yeah, I'm finishing my rant.."--Me
"HOW COME YOU NEVER LET ME WRITE YOUR RANT?"--Dad
"Do you want to write it?"--Me
"No."--Dad
(a few seconds later)
"DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A CALVIN AND HOBBS IN PORTUGUESE?"--Dad
"No.."-Me
"WANT TO READ IT? WANT TO TOUCH IT?'' --Dad

Haha.

Gosto de bunda :)

2012-01-15T00:34:00.000-06:00

I LIKE POOP. Just kidding.. Cai is the one that likes poop. KIDDING AGAIN. I like poop :) (This is Maddie, BT-DUBS.)

Today is Sunday.. Sunday is a good day. Sunday is a day full of church, and sleep, and food. What else could you ask for? Personally, I could ask for a few others things.. KIDDING. Why am I obsessed with the word kidding in this blog? Not really sure..

SO YESTERDAY. Cai saved me from killing two children while babysitting. After she done did dat, we went to not one..but TWO Goodwill stores. Cai got an antique alarm clock, an oversized sweater, two dresses, and a skirt. She scored. I only got a skirt but hey, that's still awesome. When our shopping spree was over, we went to Taco Cabana. Yum..yum...yum.

Hey everyone. Guess what. I LOVE CAI. She's what I call the bomb diggity.
Dat's all I have to say :)

-Mweezy

Loverly day.

2012-01-14T16:46:00.001-06:00

Recently, I've been loving Texas. Strange, no?
We've been having gorgeous weather--every day is sunshiny and bright with mild temperatures. So me and my papsters went for a run along the Trinity this morning for 40 minutes.
Gorgeous.
It made me love my city a little more. It really is pretty nice--it may not have mountains, but it has the Trinity, a nice zoo, one of the very few Bureaus of Engraving and Printing (money maker, literally), lots of good places to shop, tons of good restaurants, the Bass Performance Hall, and gorgeeeeous houses built long ago--the "old money'' of Fort Worth.
:)

Anyway, we went to Gap afterwards (despite being kind of gross and sweaty) and I was going to pay $31 for pants that I already thought were on sale.. but turns out, they were $13 final sale. Whoohoo. :D
Then we finished a movie we had started in Portuguese (kind of like a Brazilian Catch-Me-If-You-Can); very good.

Aaaaaand I'm gonna go see Maddieeeee and not do any homework. :)

Whoohoo! :D

2012-01-13T16:39:00.000-06:00

Remember how last week I did a recording at the university?

It got accepted!! :D I got this email today:

"Dear Cai,

It is my pleasure to invite you to perform the Rachmaninoff C# minor Prelude for the Cecile Licad Piano Masterclass on Feb. 4, 2012. Congratulations on a lovely recording!

You will perform sometime after 10 am. There will be an opportunity to try the actual piano for the class from 8:30 to 9 am. There will also be a piano to warmup on after 9 am.

Ms. Licad’s recital program Friday evening, 7:30 pm February 3, is the Liszt B minor Sonata and Chopin Etudes, Op. 25. This promises to be a historic event, because most pianists do not tackle repertoire this difficult.

I look forward to meeting you and hearing you play in person.

With best wishes,

Dr. Leslie Spotz

Associate Professor of Piano

Box T-0320

Department of Fine Arts

Tarleton State University

Stephenville, TX 76402"

Awwww yeah. :) Great day.

Today was the last day of finals, thank goodness. Honestly, all the reviewing was the worst part. It's a lot of work and there's tons of things to remember. But once you get through that, the tests weren't too terrible..with the exception of the history final. That one was.

I also ran a 6:58 mile this morning; which isn't super fast, but it's the first mile I've run in the 6's since track last year--and we haven't even been doing speed work. Good day. :D

Aaaaaand I have piano and a babysitting job tonight. Chaching.

I have so much to be thankful for.

2012-01-12T21:43:00.001-06:00

Seriously.
Today was, for the most part, excellent. I studied last night for Spanish and History. For Spanish, it paid off a lot. I feel really good about it. For history... It paid off somewhat. That test was so hard, it took me foreverrrr.

But anyway. It's good to take a break from everything and be grateful.
Reasons to be thankful:

59 days until Brazil. I realize people are probably getting annoyed that I talk about it so much, but seriously. It's not every day that your dreams come trueeee. :D
My hair is super long.. I haven't gotten it trimmed since the beginning of the summer, and even though the ends are kind of dead, I really like it lately.
MY SKIN IS CLEAR. For the most part. Thank you modern medicine that cures even vanity issues. :)
My piano lesson got moved from tonight to tomorrow. Three great things about that: I get more time to work on my (ridunkulously difficult) theory, I got a babysitting job for her afterwards, aaaaand--
I got to go partayyy with Maddie, her little brother Spencer, the missionaries, and 2 of Spence's friends. It's his burfffdayyyy today!! :D HAVE I MENTIONED THAT HE'S LIKE THE COOLEST GUY EVER? Seriously. It was a lot of fun--good food, good company, errthang. We have a new missionary from Peru; he understands Portuguese (he said he's always wanted to learn) and we spoke in Spanish. His accent while speaking Spanish (and English, teehee) is super cool-- much different than the Mexican accent and errthang we hear here.
My review is ready for pre-cal tomorrow! :D
ONLY 2 MORE FINAAAALS.
4 day weekend? Yes please. :)
No seminary tomorrow, and I'm home alone tonight. I'm gonna stay up late watching a Brazilian movie and wake up at 8:30. It's a great life.

:)))

I'm one blessed kid.

-_-

2012-01-11T18:34:00.000-06:00

So I learned yesterday that Kindle is not good for rant posting whatsoever. It's okay, I fixed it today.
It's good for literally everything else though. I loveeee it so much. A lot of people didn't give it super good reviews, but it's not supposed to be as amazing as an iPad. You're paying several hundreds of dollars less for it--infact, Amazon is losing money on it. (Costs $193 to make, $199 to sell, plus all the manufacturers they have to PAY for doing their jobs.) I'm pretty sure they make more than enough for all the other kindles and on all the books and media they sell for it.

But thank goodness it wasn't super expensive, because I get the cheap (and a lot of the time, free) books, free apps, errthang. I think I've spent $5. Haha.

SO TODAY WAS GREAT.
Very easy finals. :)
Seriously.

Except we had the meanest sub in the planet in my tech theater class. Almost to a point where it was funny, but then she got mad at us for laughing.

ANDDDD.. I just got done skyping with Caio. :)))) We hadn't actually video-chatted in a really long time, so it was nice. And my Portuguese is like 23498098 times better. :D He noticed ;)
TWO MONTHS from today, I will be in Brazil. He told me all the cool stuff we can do.
Cannot wait.

The only downside is coming home. -_- Hah.

Anyway, I actually have to study for my finals tomorrow. AP Spanish and AP US History. Sighhh.

Studystudystudystudy.

2012-01-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

I'm attempting this rant on my Kindle. ;D
I need to do what my title says haha.
I'm being a lazy bum, besides teaching piano. And tailoring a pair of my pants. I lead an exciting life.

Thankfully tomorrow's exam will be easy--just tech theater, and cross country, which I don't even think there will be a final for.
I'm just worried about Spanish, because there's no review, which makes the test seem really vague.
So for now, I will enjoy a movie in Portuguese with my pappy, and surf through fat books on the Kindle.

DID I MENTION I'M ADDICTED TO FAT BOOKS?
I dunno why. Always have been. And I don't mean fat as in a lot of pages. Books about fat people, or really skinny people...
Again.
Don't know why.

But today I finished a really really good fat book-- Fat Cat.
READ IT.

Too revealing?

2012-01-09T18:27:00.001-06:00

First of all, a big thanks to Kelci for answering the questions from yesterday. She beat you all to it. :) SO SUBMIT ANSWERS. And I will post them within the next couple of days. ;D

Anyway, while procrastinating all the final exam review stuff (I'm trying guys, really...), I came upon an interesting article on MSN.
(Wouldn't it be funny if I ended my rant here? Heheh.)

It was about a girl (sorry, an aspiring model) who submitted a photo to her yearbook.
Quite scandalous in my opinion:

Quote from the article:

"Sydney says she submitted the photo to the yearbook staff, and they approved it shortly before Christmas. But after the school’s Christmas break, staff told her the photo was unacceptable. They asked her to submit a second photo, and Sydney agreed; but staff found the image of her wearing a form-fitting, black mesh strapless dress no less racy. She believes the school brass had a hand in the reversal: "I think it was the administration," she told Lauer. "They had a meeting with the principal and the next day their whole decision changed and completely against me."
But school yearbook staff say a precedent was set two years ago when the yearbook nixed a photo of a shirtless male student. And editor Brian Jamirillo said the award-winning yearbook has a standard to uphold. "We didn’t want this picture to make our publication seem unprofessional and inappropriate," he told NBC News' Tamron Hall. "

DUH.
OF COURSE you didn't want to make the yearbook seem inappropriate. It's school for crying out loud. Her mom is battling on her daughter's side, which to me is ridiculous. What sensible mother would want a half-dressed picture of her child in a school yearbook?
Completely disgusting in my opinion. Yes, she's a beautiful girl, but you don't need to put a picture like this to show it.
And, chances are she probably wouldn't be allowed to wear a just a sash around herself to school...what makes it okay to publish such attire in a yearbook?

So, readers vote.
Do you think the school is wrong in their display of censorship by NOT allowing this picture in the yearbook?
Or do you think it should be allowed?
Comment below.

(PS--everyone can comment regardless of whether they have

New Blog Design :)

2012-01-08T12:53:00.002-06:00

I was home alone last night, and I tend to stay up late and do creative things when I am.
So I made a new blog design :D
I hope you all like it as much as I do.
Thanks to my webmastering skills that have carried me over since the 9th grade, I figured out how to take out the advertisement logo from the HTML code of my background..eheheheh.

Anyway, today I am going to try to do a little more homework, and reward myself by going to the Brazilian church. They so nice to me ;D

So. Since I really don't have much to post about, take a random reader questionnaire.
Respond in the comment box or email answers to clivecai13@hotmail.com. :)

If you knew that your city and house was going to be destroyed, what 3 things would you take with you?
If you were the kind of person to get a tattoo, what would you get?
One goal for the New Year?
Favorite topic to discuss?
Drink of choice? (Besides water.)
The most important trait you look for in a significant other?
One thing you want to do before you die?
Something you could eat forever and not get sick of?
Your favorite outfit?
Least favorite color?

GO :D

Compleeeetion!

2012-01-07T22:48:00.001-06:00

I had a list of 5 things for Brazil.

Passport pictures.
VOE
License renewal
Passport papers
Visa papers

They are ALL done as of today. :)))) And we expedited everything (which unfortunately cost a bit more, as expected), so everything should get here within a month. :D :D :D :D

It feels sooooo finalized. Thank goodness. Caio's host parents won a trip to Brazil but couldn't go because their visas didn't get there in time, and I was worried about that. But we used a service that they use for all the international people at my dad's work, so I feel pretty good about it. Ahhhh.

Today was a lovely day. I spent it basically with my pappy--we got drinks at Starbucks, played Boggle, fought (physically but jokingly..), talked in Portuguese, and tried to clean his house. What a nice day. :)

Then I came home, did ALL of my physics review, a little bit of math and some of history.
And then I danced for an hour.
:)

What a greeeeat weekend already. I'm gonna get up early before church tomorrow to go rollerblading through the park too. :D

Reviewwws.

2012-01-06T18:02:00.002-06:00

So many reviews for finals next week.
So. Many. Things. To. Remember.

It's ridiculous. I never throw away papers. Ever. (And when I decide to, I recycle of course ;D) In high school, you really can't.
It's also insane to try to remember/study everything you've learned so far.. literally, everything. In every class. The end of the year is always great because we CAN get exempt, if grades and attendance are good. But there is no opportunity for exemption during midterms. It's the inevitable stressful time of the year--and it's only made worse due to the fact that we just got back from the break. Sigh.

In random news, I was reading up in current events and whatnot, and saw something about a murder trial in Peru that just got postponed because the accused murderer needed more time to decide what he would plead.
HELLO?! Isn't that a pretty good indication that he's guilty?? I guess you could maybe argue that he's trying to weigh out the consequences--if he pleads innocent, that might make the process a lot longer. But still.
Sounds pretty guilty to me, and if he was convicted in the first place, he must already have some sort of evidence against him...

In good news, I got away with my Kindle book cover thing this week. ;D Eheheh.
In BETTER news, Fridays on the Gameshow Network are "Flashback Fridays"--meaning retro episodes of classics aaaallllll night.

And in tiring news, I'm babysitting tonight from 11pm-2:30am.
Something about Serbian midnight mass.

But, it frugal news,
I'm getting paid to sleep.

Somebody do my homework for me. -_-

2012-01-05T19:28:00.000-06:00

In a way, I wish that my dad hadn't told me about Brazil until like..the Friday of.
Not that it would be possible to execute any of this, buuuut like I said. I can't sleep.

But right now.
I could sleep forever. Too tired to think nonstop about it.
Today was such a long day.
I normally go back to sleep after seminary, which is loveeeely. But today I had so much theory and homework to do, that I didn't. :( And yesterday, my teacher told me that I had to drive out to TWU (Texas Wesleyan) to do a recording of my Rachmaninoff. Meheheheh. First she said to be there at 4, but that's when school lets out..so I got there at 4:30 and got home at 6:30. Sighhh.

And there's a Spanish test to study for, and a history chapter to take notes on.
-_-

In other exciting news, I got the school's wifi code today. :D I caught up on my blogs during part of tech theatre.
I also built a wooden flat.
And took a terrible terrible physics test.. I honestly don't think it was that hard, but my brain felt super dead by 4th period.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Debating whether to do my homework now and go to sleep late, or go to sleep late and do my homework in the morning..
decisions decisions.

Legality and Other Rantdoms.

2012-01-04T18:02:00.002-06:00

So I'm ridiculously excited for Brazil. I probably don't even have to tell you that. (My status got over 30 likes on Facebook, haha..)
And, I literally cannot sleep. These past 2 nights (last night was worse than the first), I've just laid in bed, thinking about it. It'll be sooooo great.

Oh, and as of today, I'm a legal driver...again. Haha.. my license expired on my birthday back in October. But to get a passport, I need a valid license. Which required a VOE, all of which I got today. I feel so accomplished. :D And it only took a trip to Brazil..heheh.

I also got my pictures..the only things left are passport and visa. Whooohoooooo. :D

Though I really should get more sleep, because I'm sure I did pretty terrible in school today. Heheh.

Hahahaha. ^^I can't wait to see him. :)

OH.
Other excitement. Remember my handmade book Kindle case? I uploaded it to Pinterest, and it got 12 repins. That's a big deal for me. :D

Brasilbrasilbrasilbrasil.

2012-01-03T20:34:00.000-06:00

OH MY GOSHHHHH.
Finally.
Finally finally finally.

My dreams are coming true :D :D :D

My.
Dad.
Booked.
The.
Flight.
For.
Brazil.

March 11th. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I nearly cried while he booked the flight. I'm so. So. So. So. Happy.
I got a fortune awhile ago saying "One of your dreams will come true".
Then we ate out at Pei Wei's again tonight, since Dane's going back to Utah tomorrow. I got the same fortune. Amen. Amen beautiful sweet destiny.

:D

Oi gente, vou te conhecer em breve. :D

I also got my passport pictures. Tomorrow I'm getting my license renewed (hopefully), and going to start working on my passaporteeeee as well. Then we have to get a visa from the Brazilian Consulate in Houston, which hopefully won't take too long.

Ahhhhhh. :) My life is complete.

Noooooo Schoooooool Tomorrow :(

2012-01-02T19:17:00.000-06:00

Ugh. It has been such a lovely break, filled with friends, work, good food, and good presents.
WHY MUST SCHOOL RUIN OUR LIVES?
Students obviously don't want to go back, and teachers probably want to go even less.
So why go??

Justttt keeeeeding.
It actually won't be too terrible. I did all the necessary homework (Spanish story, history chapter, and English project today with Alex and Jay)... I'm mostly dreading all the final review stuff. We get basically a review week, and then it's alllll finals. Then comes track season and urgggg. Busy life.

^^I think I just proved that it will be terrible. D'oh.
BUT.
Tomorrow I get to sleep in soooooo late. Seriously. I'm going to get all of my stuff ready, pack my lunch, sleep in my running shorts and shirt (which I normally do anyway), aaaaand..
wake up at 8:30. :) There's no seminary tomorrow. What. A. Great. Morning.

I mean, yes--seminary is very good and important and uplifting.
But man, do I love me some sleep.

Oh! Here is the weenie dog nativity I made for my mom. :)

And, here is proof that Alex and I already know Italian.

Feliz Ano Novo :D

2012-01-01T01:20:00.001-06:00

Ahhh. And what a crazy day it was.
Oh, first--I've been a veggie for six years even now. That's a super long time, yo.

Anyway, today was a series of crazy events..in hindsight they seem especially so.

We took family pictures this morning..it seems so long ago.
I went rollerblading with Alex!
Then we got froyo..and I'm 99% sure that I have a job offer there. Not sure if I'm going to accept or not.
WE CLEANED ALL THE CRAP OUT OF MY CAR. Successfully. :D Thank you, Afwex. :)
I went to ma pappy's.
He said he can book a flight to Brazil for March 8th. EEEEEEEK. :D :D :D
We tried watching a classic movie, but I fell asleep. My movie curse..sigh.
I talked to my uncle in Portuguese!
I went to pick up Maddie for dinner.
We went dooooown town :)
While wandering around, we ran into her 2 friends from Southwest, Joey and Denny.
Joey, as we learned, is a flirtatious creep.
A hobo asked us for money.
We went into a fancy hotel and met 2 awesome Asians playing piano/ singing. We sang along and I played a duet with him. :D
A hobo hit on me. (Hey gurr, you single? Dang you sexy.) Heheheheh.
We got hot chocolate! :D
After deciding that Joey was too obnoxious to hang around, we let him and Denny walk ahead of us.. and then we ran across the street while they weren't looking. Heheheh.. ditched.
We played on Maddie's new X-Box Kinect thing. Very fun. :D
I went over to Ashwee's to hang out with her and Andyroohoo.
Aaaaaaand we counted down the New Year by unsuccessfully holding our breaths.

Happy New Year errbody!
Here are some resolutions:

Learn Italian, with Alex. So we can say stuff to eachother without others understanding. ;D
Run a 13:45 in track season.
Finish my Young Women's Personal Progress thing. It's like a 6 year ordeal, and I'm almost done. :))))
Stop eating so much candyyy. After giving up junkfood the first time, I'm not crazy about eating chips and cookies and cake..but candy is so good.
Try to take atleast 1 yoga class a week. I've been good about going Saturdays, but it'll be a little more hectic with track season.
Perform my Rachmaninov C# minor prelude. Such. A. Crazy. Song.
Keep learning MORE Portuguese. :D
RUN A HALF MARATHON. Seriously this time.
Read my scriptures everyday. Which I've gotten a lot better at, let me tell you; but some days I just completely forget. Even if it's just a chapter or a couple of verses.
Always have a good number in my bank account... Ideally, $1,000.

Yup. I'm going to write these down, and hopefully it will stick. :)

Evaluation of Goals.

2011-12-31T07:00:00.000-06:00

Eek.
Happy New Year's Eve errbody. Can you believe that this year has passed so ridiculously fast?! I can't.

So. Let's review my resolutions/goals from last year.. (Goals in normal face, commentary in italics)

1.Run a half marathon

Nope. Sadly. I did a lot of long distance runs this year, didn't miss any XC practices out of laziness (only if I was out of town or working), and probably ran tons of half marathons added up. But those are just things I tell myself to feel better. No I did not run a half marathon.
2.Get another summer job

Yes. Yes I did. And it was the most miserable job of my life. But, it did establish a really good savings for me, so whoohoo.
3.Learn to play another instrument :D

Patrick taught me a little bit on the drums.. does that count?
No. No new instruments.
4.Attempt to go to bed at decent hours. This is going to be really hard.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Atleast I told myself I would try.
5.Be nice. And say nice things to people more often, like compliments and such.
I think so. I've gotten good about being less shy about giving people compliments. If I like something about you, I'll probably let you know. ;D

6.Finish the New Testament.

Thanks to Sunday school, yes. :D

7.RIDE A SEE-SAW TEETER TOTTER THING. I will find one. I guess this is more of a goal than a resolution. I guess these all are goals..

I don't believe so. I rode a lame one awhile ago in my friend's backyard.
8.Aprender mais portugues :D (This will be easier with my new Brazilian piano teacher and such.)

Oh my goodness, YES. Definitely. At the beginning of January, my Portuguese was pretty conversational. I would say I'm relatively fluent now-- I mean, I talked to a lady in Brazil just a couple of days ago. :D I don't know how my brain retained so much in such a short amount of time, but yes. I learned miles and miles of Portuguese. Graças a Deus! I even went to church in Portuguese. Twice. :D

9.Get more piano students. Even if it's just one more, that's still one more.

Yes. I did get one more student.
She ended up going to college. But I still consider my goal accomplished.
And I'm also proud to say that my current student is almost done learning a church hymn. :D

10.Try not to spend so much money, unless I absolutely need something. (Gas, if you haven't noticed, is getting quite expensive, and I drive many people and myself around.)

Ehh.. I would say no. But I definitely earned enough money that I can fill up my tank without worries EVERY time I need to, which is great. Yes, I still spend a considerable amount of money, but like I mentioned earlier, I established a good financial cushion. :D

So yup. Some big successes, some..not so great.
Tomorrow will come resolutions. :D Happy almost New Year's, errbody. :)

Hollow Book

2011-12-30T18:18:00.001-06:00

:D
I'm taking a mini-break in between babysitting jobs to bring to you the wonders of my new Kindle Fire case.
A hollowed out vintage book.

I made it by cutting a Kindle sized rectangle out from every page, while watching Friends with little Ashwee. :) And I'm in looove with the book. It's adorable.

So I got somewhat robbed this morning. $40 for 8 hours. Considerably less than minimum wage. Whoop. Thank goodness for round 2.

Cachingle Bells

2011-12-29T21:17:00.000-06:00

I've made $350 this week. I've worked a buttload of hours, but it has (as you all can tell) definitely paid off.
Ow ow :D

Today was loverly day. Notice a pattern? Every day has been a great day. :) Me, Alex, and Ashwee went for a run through Oakmont park and it was literally perfect weather. Afterwards, my pappy picked me up so we could watch Malcolm in the Middle before I had to go babysit. He's been working some at home and some at the office this week, so he called a lady (Sun) from Brazil...and guess who got to talk to her?
ME. :D
Heheheheeeeeeeeeeeee. I was following my dad around for a long time with this look on my face:

Until he was finished with his conversation and handed me the phone. Teehee. :)

Once I went to babysit, I decided to walk down a trail with kids (in a double stroller of course, or else we would have been there all day) to go to the park. :D It was about 70 degrees outside and gorgeous. Thank you Texas, some days I really do like you.

I dunno why, but I was in such a good mood. Weather had a lot to do with it. It always makes babysitting a lot more fun. :)

Tomorrow I have 2 babysitting jobs-- one from 9-5 and another from 6:45 to..who knows when.

Cachingle bells, cachingle bells, cachingle alllll the waaay.

Hiccup

2011-12-28T22:55:00.001-06:00

^^ I have them.

So.
Today was a lot of fun. We crashed at Alex's house last night and laughed basically the entire time.. I think. We had extreme frisbee golf (running and thorns involved) this morning, and also did an obstacle course on the playground afterwards..I lost.. I'm too cautious, haha.

Afterwords, I had a lovely friends marathon with Ashwee :) I was avoiding Dane the tryant, who's been tearing our family apart with his anger. Hahahaaa.. but really, it's true. How one person can be so bitter and mean, I don't know. Sigh. He only has a week left, thank goodness.

Aaaand then I picked up Maddie to go work at a weddinggg reception. :) We took trash and restocked food. Thankfully we each got $20, because I had literally turned down 3 babysitting jobs today...it had the potential of being a waste of money. Can I just say that I love hanging out with Maddie and her little brother Spencer? They're hilaaaarious.

Ohhh. Somebody please do my homework for me.
Love, Cai.

My Life Could Not Get Better.

2011-12-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

Seriously.
I'm so incredibly blessed; I really need to remember times like these when I'm down.

I finished the book and packet for Spanish that I was supposed to (the FIRST book ever published in Spanish-- Lazarillo de Tormes) while babysitting, ran on their fancy pancy elliptical, saw them (the parents) on TV at the Mavs game, and made another nice chunk of money (safely bringing my bank account to almost $1100). Not to mention I have 2 more jobs this week, plus piano to teach. And the post yesterday sums up my bliss. :)

I have so much to be thankful for. God has truly blessed me, and this has literally been the best break and Christmas season of my entire life.

AND I have the blue skies dress. Ahhh. :)
Icing.
On.
Maaa.
Cake.

This school year started off rocky to say the least. And I thought, man. Junior year is going to suck.

Ahhhhh. You all cannot understand how happy I am. :)

Heheheh.. I don't know why I posted the 2nd picture but it made me laugh regardless.

So.. Normally I don't like to post about this stuff, but..

2011-12-26T11:27:00.001-06:00

I can't help it, I'm sooo happy.
So, remember back when Patrick wrote about feeling satisfied that his exgirlfriend (me) was getting more and more unattractive?
That hurt. A lot.

And so I think I finally realized that I didn't want to be like that anymore.
And today, I decided to weigh myself (since I hadn't since before the 15K, back in September). I've lost 10 pounds from my heaviest in the summer, and 5 pounds since September.
And my skin is clearing up, thanks to the dermatologist.

Like I said, I normally don't like writing stuff like this, because it feels really personal, whatever, blah blah blah.
But I couldn't help it today. I'm so. Happy. Seriously. I haven't felt this good about myself in a long time.
So in a way, I'm thankful for that hurtful tumblr post, because it kind of made me get back into gear.

Ahhhhh.
:)
I swear, I did a happy dance for like 10 minutes.
One of the track coaches asked me on the Friday that we got out of school if I had slimmed down.. and I said, I dunno.. Maybe.
Ahhhhhhh. Now I know. :)

Anyway, today will be another excellent (yet supahh busy) day. We have our little Christmas party (amongst me, Ashwee, and Alex) and then I'm babysitting from 3 until late at night, for a family that I'm super fond of, with 2 adorable children, who pay well. :D
Great.
Day.

And I used to think that the day after Christmas was the saddest day of the year. Hah. :)

Feliz Natal!!

2011-12-25T19:24:00.002-06:00

Ahhh.
What a wonderful, wonderful day.
Which consisted of:

Waking up at 5 am. After going to bed sometime around 1am. :) Christmas tradition every year is to be woken up ridiculously early by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" and open presents. And what lovely presents they were, consisting of:
Be Delicious perfume & a time telling necklace from Maddie, a super sparkly scarf from Andrea, Viva la Juicy (my signature scent) and pepper spray (for protection, haha) from Chris, and more tomorrow from Alex and Ashwee. From my parents, the Amazon Kindle Fire (ohhhhhhh my goshhhh I'm in love), the Blue Skies dress that I've ranted twice about, a big hymn book, a paisley hairbrush, more slipper boots, a peace shirt, 2 jackets (I accidentally bought a very similar one just yesterday, much to my mother's displease..heheh..oops... It was on super good sale!), $20 giftcard from Dane Dane, $30 from my grandpappies, a Los Hermanos (Brazilian band with a Spanish name) CD that is literally to die for, running shorts, ACT/SAT prep books, and more little stocking stuffers. What a great day :D
Giving gifts. Ahhhh I've been dying to talk about them! Turquoise shoes and some eyeshadow for Maddie, and elephant shirt for Andrea, a handmade (out of polymer clay) weimaraner ornament (the type of dog that he has) for Chris... it's adorable. For Dane Dane, a $20 giftcard to Taco Bell (we're totally even, haha), the Smiths complete boxset for my pappy (he loveeeed it, I was so excited to give it to him), a framed poster and a handmade weiner dog nativity set for my mammy. :) I was also dying to give that to her/ talk about it..she sent Dane and I a picture of a weiner dog nativity on Etsy that was pretty expensive, so I tried to recreate it out clay and it's adorrrableeee... it also happened to be the ONE dang present that broke. Thank you Gorilla Glue for saving Christmas. There are also presents for Alex and Ashwee that will be exchanged and discussed tomorrow. :) It felt reaaally good giving this year.
Going to church and enjoying sooooooooooo much music. The "sermon", I guess you could call it, was only 15 minutes and the rest of the time was filled with singing. :D Including me and Maddie, singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. :) It was loverlyyyy. So good. I'm really glad Christmas fell on a Sunday.

Seriously. It was nice to take a step back from presents and to really feel the spirit of Christ-- and remember the reason why we have Christmas. I was thinking about that driving home. First I thought, wow. It's amazing how the Savior's birth really has a world impact. But it's also sad how Christ has in many cases been taken out of Christmas. I think we're all guilty of being so excited about giving and getting presents that we really do forget.
The Stake President spoke with us today, and said that he hopes we will be closer to Christ tomorrow than we were today, and that each day our relationship with Him will strengthen. I hope so too; not just for myself but everyone.

I hope everyone's had a lovely day :)

Christmas Eve :D

2011-12-24T15:38:00.000-06:00

Ahhhh.
How nice. It's rainy and cold and perfect wintery weather.
I've also been hearing rumors of snow; not sure if they're true or not.

I started off the day with a nice yoga class--and surprisingly there were 4 people there. :O Haha..there were only 2 last week, so I wasn't expecting much more considering it's Christmas Eve. But what do you know, the gym was packed.

Afterwards, me and my friend Esther (see picture)

went to La Favorita. It's our favorite Mexican market of all time.. I'm not really sure why. Most of the food is expired and there's hardly anyone that's ever there. But we love it, and we frequent it somewhat often.

I bought a type of pan dulce for breakfast, and she bought Mexican poptarts. Great times. :) I ALSO MET A FRIEND NAMED MIGUEL THAT WORKS THERE. He's from Mexico (dur), and I became his friend through the following conversation:

Me (eyeing the warm breads)

Him: It's fresh!

Me: Ah, cual es el mejor? (Which one's the best?)

Him: (surprised I said something in Spanish, walked over and starting describing each bread to me)

Me: Hmm.. creo que voy a comprar el pan dulce. (I think I'm gonna buy the pan dulce..but it wasn't the typical kind--it had sesame seeds and was just a little sweet. Delicious.)

Him: Ahh, y hablas espanol? (You speak Spanish?)

Me: Siii. Pues, un poquito. Hablo mas portugues. (Yep, well, a little bit. I speak more Portuugese.)

Him: Hablas portugues?

Me: *nod*

Him: (pointing to Esther) y ella?

Esther: Noooooo. Hahaha.

Me: Portugues y espanol son muy parecidos. Como..se eu falar em portugues, voce ainda pode me entender. (Portuguese and Spanish are a lot alike. Like, if I speak Portuguese, you can still understand me.)

Him: *nod* Soy de (I can't remember the city) Mexico.

Me: Que padre :D (Cool, hahaha) Entonces, gracias y Feliz Navidad.

Him: Como te llamas?

Me: Cai. Y tu?

Him: Miguel. *handshake*

YUP.

New friends and 40 cent Mexican bread. What a great day.

I then helped my mom wrap presents, and put up with annoying buttface..I mean Dane.

He's being super grumpy and obnoxious lately..

But I guess it's good to know college hasn't changed him too much.

Hah.

Merry Christmas Eve everybody!! :)

Christmas Adam

2011-12-23T23:59:00.000-06:00

I read something on Facebook about today being Christmas Adam...hehe.. because it's not Christmas Eve. Anyway, I'm just babysitting nowwww.
Banking :D I have 2 more jobs for next week, possibly 3.

Today was a most excellent day. I went to work with my papsters, fell asleep on his ground until lunch time, and then went to Brazil Brasileiro. :D It's a marvelous place! It's funny to me though, even if you say that you speak Portuguese and you talk to them in Portuguese, they'll still try to respond in English. People who speak Spanish do that too, I've noticed. It's like they don't think you'll understand them.

Anyway, we ate some delicious food and bought some Nescau (delicious Brazilian chocolate milk powder shtuffff) and a box of candy for my piano teacher.. who was very excited.. except her kids ate like half the box already. Oops.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve!! :D
Who's excited? :)

Workkkk

2011-12-22T23:51:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow I'm going to work with my papsters. :D I haven't been in forever. In reality, it's the most boring place that ever existed. Everything is gray and there's no wifi. But there is a Brazilian restaurant and store that's pretty close by..heheh..

I'm not giving that place enough credit. I really do love going to work with my dad. It's always a lot of fun, even if the atmosphere is drowning in white noise.

Afterwords, I have a babysitting job for my piano teacher. Yesssss please! I've made $155 this week alone. I'm quickly regaining everything I spent from Christmas presents, thank goodness.
I've also seen Maddie everyday this week. :D I loveeee break.

And I can't wait till Christmas.
Happy days. :) Though Maddie pointed out something kinda sad. Yes, we only have a couple of days left before Christmas, which is exciting, but that means the season is almost over.
I dunno about you, but I loooooooveeee me some holiday season for the following reasons:

Commemoration of the birth of our Savior. :)
No school.
Hot chocolate
Better yet, peppermint hot chocolate
Buying presents
Making presents
The satisfaction you feel when you know someone is going to love what you got them.
Getting presents. :D
Christmas trees...
...and all other decorations.
Partayyyy! (Well, none so far but I'll let you all know when that happens.)
Everyone is in a generally happier mood
Savoring the last few moments before months of trackwork. Ahhh.
The possibility of snow!
The possibility of the return of SNOW WEEK. Best. Week. Of. My. Life. :D
Wearing long sleeve shirts, sweaters, coats, leggings, boots, the works.
Pink cheeks :)
Running outside and not coming back looking like you showered in your clothes.
Blankets
Using the heat in my car, which unlike the AC, actually works!
NO SCHOOOOOOL. And Jesus. :)

Oh Dog.

2011-12-21T23:01:00.003-06:00

The dumb dog just came into my room and peed. -_- Merry Christmas.

SO.

Have I mentioned how much I adore break? Seriously. School isn't even that bad this year, but it's definitely long and slow. This break feels so great. I've been seriously banking just this week and in general, so I was able to get everyone gifts that I know they'd like. :) It makes me happy.

I've also been having a most excellent time with my friends. Today we did a free run for cross country, and then went ice skating. :) Although ice skating smashes my feet and hurts my already-injured ankle, it's a lot of fun. And hilarious watching Angelique try to find balance.

I finished wrapping presents today too. They're adorable!
The bad thing? One of my handmade presents BROKE. I dropped the box on the cement coming into the house. I cried a little bit. So. Pissed. Praying that superglue will save it.

Then I went to hang out with Maddie while she was babysitting.
We were in the kitchen writing on a piece of paper and we heard the doorbell ring and someone knocking.
And we freaked out.
We dropped down to the floor and crawled around to the back door to lock it. I think we were both about to cry.
Then we decided to rewind the TV, which had been on, and realized that it was a commercial. Salty.

Pray for my dear sweet mammy who is having surgery tomorrow, por favor.

Must. Be. Quick.

2011-12-20T23:35:00.000-06:00

My papster and I are watching a movie--a scary movie. And I'm missing it, but it's almost midnight.
So.
Rant.

Today was a most excellent day.
I ran XC, starting wrapping presents, taught a piano lesson and babysat (again, short notice) for 5.5 hours. I practiced "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" with Maddie in 3 languages because we're singing in church on Christmas. :D

I also ate a vegetarian taco and finished buying Christmas presents.
IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS GUYS!
Better rant to follow tomorrow, I promise.

:D

2011-12-19T23:09:00.000-06:00

I love break. I'm never going back to school.
We went to a Brazilian church after our church yesterday--mostly for me, to practice my Portuguese. (No worries, we're still Mormons.) It was soooooooooooooooooo great. Everyone was super nice to us, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then I had a good long talk with Andrea :)

Andddd I woke up at 6 to go to el gym before I had to babysit..which I did, all day (I missed XC, hence the waking up early). It was great though. I really like the kids and I made good money for 9 hours of laid back babysitting. It totally did not feel like 9 hours, btw.

Then I picked up Maddie to go finish some Christmas shopping and I'm crying from laughing so hard over really stupid insiders. Pahahaaaa.
I'm also super tired and DO have to go to XC tomorrow. D:

Joint Survey

2011-12-18T10:34:00.000-06:00

But we're not smoking joints.
We don't do that kinda thang.

Sooo.

Who was the last attractive person you saw?
Maddie- TONGAN.
Cai- like, every boy I've ever loved last night at the dance.
Would you consider yourself a complicated person?
M- maybe.
C- noooo.
Do you have a tattoo? If not, are you going to get one?
M- YES.
C- nooooo.
Have you smoked a cigarette in the last 24 hours?
M- you know me ;)
C-I can't even breath in 2nd hand smoke without coughing.
What emotions are you feeling right now?
M- Is sleep deprivation an emotion?
C- longing. For Brazilians. 3 possible Portuguese encounters today.
Also somewhat creeped out from this guy that be messaging me on fb yo.
What are you currently doing?
M- Trying to lick Cai's elbow.
C- Thanking the heavens that we don't have school for 2 weeks. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
Do you miss anybody?
M- yeth.
C- someone that has my same name plus an o. ;)
Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?
M- you can say that.
C- Yes. You do have the ability to pronounce those words.
How has this week been?
M- SO LONG.
C- ^^agreed. Why does time go by so slow before breaks and so fast during them?
Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?
M- Mmm..eventually.
C- not everyone.
What do you want most right now?
M- TONGAN. [Please note that Maddie has an affinity for Tongan men, and there happened to be 2 of them at the dance last night.]
C-to encounter Brazilians.
Do you remember your dreams?
M- Sometimes
C- YES. I keep having really really random ones.
Trolls are haunting me!

What will you name your son?
M- Hunter or Hadrian or Collier
C- Benjamin Toronto, Winston Lennon, and Joao :D or Marcello. :)
What will you name your daughter?
M- Emma or.. Idunno.
C- Prudence and Jade. But not pronounced JAYDE, I like it the Brazilian way-- Chjah-gee
What is your favorite number?
M- 27
C- 13 :D
What time did you go to sleep last night?
M- a little after one
C- yup yup.
Are you afraid of falling in love?
M- *in a scared voice* nooooo...
C- No. I think the right man will come along and it will be wonderful. :D
Do you have a weird little sister?
M- Does Spencer count?
C- ^^I LOVE SPENCER.

Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?
M- My ears, taking they're not pierced.
C- I have ALWAYS wanted my cartilage pierced, but the Church says otherwise. And I'm okay with that. :D

Are you one of those people that always answer their phones?
M- Neverrrrrrrrrr
C- yeth! And it's a good thing, considering what happened yesterday.. teeheehee.
Where would you like to be right now?
M-In the arms of my Tongan ;)
C- BRAZILLLL. My dad said maybe Spring Break. Yes please.

Are you in a good mood?
M- maybe..as I see Cai pick a wedgie.
C- It was a chocolate wrapper stuck to my butt.

What SHOULD you be doing right now?
M- Sleeping? or Showering. OR BOTH. Eheheheh.
C- Crying.
Are you currently looking forward to tomorrow?
M- YES because I can sleep *laughing that resembles birds chirping*
C- noooo I have to run cross country even though my ankle is dead.
Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow?
M- YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
C- Noooo :(
What do you hear right now?
M- me singing
C- Maddie singing
If you died today would your life be complete?
M- Noooo
C- Brazil has not met me. So no.

If you are being extremely quiet, what does that mean?
M- I'm pooping. No just kidding. I sad. Or mad. :( and I want to murder someone with a plastic fork.
C- I'm frustrated dfsfsdfsa;dfkjas;dfjasd;lfkajsd;flk or shy. Teehee.

Do you know what high school your dad went to?
M- Arlington Heights HS
C-... one in Brazil and also Spanish Fork High, I think.

What time will you be getting up tomorrow morning?
M- more like tomorrow afternoon!
C- I dunnooooo. Cross country time. I don't think it's until like 9:30 though, which I guess is ok.

When you have nightmares, do you wake up crying?
M- noo.
C- Not to the point where actual tears will come out of my eyes, but I'll be sniffling and doing that gasping thing.
Is your last name longer than 6 letters?
M- nooooo.
C- It's half that!
How are things between you and the person you like?
M- mehhhhhh.
C- I don't know who I like, I like everybody

Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?
M- TONGAN.
C- Last night at the dance. D:
What were you doing at 7:45AM this morning?
M- sleeping and not listening to Cai.
C- trying to wake up Maddie.
Where would you rather live, England or Italy?
M- England, fasho
C- ITALY. All the sexy Italians.
Do you have any pets?
M- Dutchypoopy
C- Rusty, Flash, Arnaldo, and Rocky. (Rocky is a rock.)

What’s your favorite color?
M- turquoise!
C- blues. Mint. I dunno. Sparkly.

When was the last time you cried?
M- hmmm..Thursday.
C- I think 2 Sundays ago, whenever my leader got released. :(
What will you be doing at 3pm tomorrow?
M- Jaaaake.
C- I dunno. Wrapping presents? :)

Yesssss.

2011-12-17T18:53:00.001-06:00

What a literally perfect day.
Absolutely nothing wrong in the world of Cai.

I woke up at 8 and went to do an hour yoga class where only one other girl showed up. It was like having a private instructor. Wonderful.

Then I picked up Alex to go finish up some Christmas shopping.
Can I say I'm ridiculously excited to give everyone their presents?!?!
I did a good job this year, if I may say so myself. Which I just did. OHHHH.
I'm in such a good mood. :)

Then..I worked on part of my mom's Christmas present all afternoon. I CANNOT WAIT.
I even made her stay in her room all day..pictures will be posted Dec. 26th. :D

There's also a multistake dance tonight. MULTISTAKE. That means tons of cute boys to dance with. :D

And. To top it all off.

Scott called me and asked me to hang out. (Tonight, but I said I couldn't, so we're doing it later on this week.)

So. So. So. Perfect.

Partyyyy :D

2011-12-16T23:07:00.000-06:00

Ahhh.
I love when my doubts/fears/worries are proved wrong.

I was stressing out about the whole birthday party thing because I was incharge of spreading the word, and majority (seriously, BIG majority) of the church group couldn't come. It ended up being me, Jeremy, Andrea, Kristina, Pablo, and Jeremy's little brothers and sisters. It was sooooo much fun. No regrets. :)

ALSO A BIG THANK YOU TO ALEX FOR SURPRISING ME WITH HER SURPRISE PRIZES AND WHATNOT. My nails are all glittery right now, what a lovely feeling. :)

Oh.
Oh.
Ohhhhh.
Today was the last day of school!! And seminary. Thank goodness, I cannot wait to get sleep. (We still have cross country this week..meh..but not till 9:30am :D) No school, seminary, piano, nothing. When did I get so lucky?
Wellllll. There's still homework. But 2 weeks to do it. :D

This morning, I played football with the track boys.
I also talked to the football coach about playing next year..I think it was a no, but I always looooove: 1. playing football 2. proving that GIRLS CAN PLAY 3. and in some cases (like today), are much better than boys.
Hah.
Mwahahaha.

Oh. And Dane's here I think. (As in Texas..not in my house yet.)
While brainstorming some present ideas, I texted him: Have you gotten a present for Mom?
Him: No.
Me: *still considering options* Oh. I'll talk to you about it whenever you get here.
Him: No.

Thanks brudder.

TOMORROW IS FRIDAY AND OTHER RANTDOMS.

2011-12-15T21:17:00.001-06:00

Oh my goodness.
Only 7 more hours of school until glorious, glorious break.
I. Can't. Wait.

Today was aiiiight. I got all showered and ready for school, only to learn that yes--we were doing a time trial. I stole..err, I mean borrowed..a pair of XC shorts and got my shoes out of my car. Fun times.

I didn't have to teach at all this week, but I went to piano (I loveee my teacher so much) and then to the choir concert with Alex to see Ashwee. :D She had a solo. You are amazing girl, I'm so proud of you!! :)
Me and Alex and quite a fun time goofing off. :)

She came over for a little while afterward..only to find that Rusty had trashed the kitchen. Literally.
With garbage.

Dog for sale. Any takers??
-_-

Did I mention that I cannot WAIT until 4:00pm tomorrow?
I'm going to a surprise birthday party for a guy visiting from New Mexico, then I'm going to get alllll my Christmas shopping done on Saturday (hopefully), and go to the multi stake dance.
Oh my gosh. Have I mentioned that the ONLY good dances are combined ones? I can't wait.
(Unless I get a babysitting job, in which case, I would readily accept.)

Today I was also looking at my New Year's Resolutions. They make me a little sad. I rant about those later.
TOMORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW is Friday.
Don't know why the tomorrow is so exaggerated, but I literally cannot wait.
:D

Nursing Home

2011-12-14T20:39:00.000-06:00

Tonight for church, our original plan was to go caroling.
It. Was. Pouring.

So we went to sing inside at a nursing home instead. I promised my dad after we left (somewhat jokingly) that I would never put him in a home.

But seriously.
I love the elderly and all. They're full of wisdom and experience.
(Please watch this short clip to emphasize my point.)

I felt so sad. I mean, singing was nice and all, and I'm sure it made a lot of them happy. (A lot of them were sleeping though, so maybe it wasn't the best timing.)
Do you know how horrible it would be to sit in a foul smelling room all day with a roommate that was forced upon you? There is NOTHING to do. There is no freedom whatsoever. It's like an old people jail. It was really muggy and sad inside.:( So I encourage all my readers to go visit a nursing home to cheer up those lonely elderly folk.

Teaching Little Kids Spanish :D

2011-12-13T20:23:00.003-06:00

Today was a great day.
I literally went to bed at 8:30 last night, to make up for the ridiculous lack of sleep the night before. I had to be at school at 7 to go on literally the greatest field trip ever.

Our group (me, Jay, and Mariana) got to teach 3 classes of 1st graders. DO YOU KNOW HOW ADORABLE FIRST GRADERS ARE?!?! And surprisingly, Jay is really good with kids. I was impressed.
We taught them basic greetings and some foods, had them do a coloring sheet, played a game, and sent them off with a follow-up activity.

Favorite quote of the day.
"We have a bonus word for you guys! What does a monkey eat?" -us
"BANANAS!"-class
"Right! Do you know how to say banana in Spanish?"-us
"...*mumbles of naranja, manzana, etc.*"-class
"Can you all say PLATANOS?"-us
"PLATANOS!"-class
"Right! What does platanos mean again?"
"DONUTS!"--random 1st grader. Pahahahahahah.

I was still ridiculously exhausted by 6:30 and was seriously considering just going to bed. But then I reconsidered--seeing as I hadn't had dinner and I didn't shower.
Sleeeeeeep.

Here's another thing that made me laugh pretty hard (but when you're super tired, everything is funny) that I found on a random Tumblr.

Noooooo Sleep.

2011-12-12T20:15:00.000-06:00

I stayed up sooooooo late last night.
It was ridiculous.
I'm going to bed (it's like 8:15) after I type this. Seriously.
I don't think I've ever been to school with less sleep. I laughed at everything..even things that probably weren't that funny.

Anyway, tomorrow's the day that we go to the elementary schools to teach little kids Spanish. I'm so excited. :D We got all 1st grade classes. HAVE YOU SEEN 1st GRADERS?! Too cute.

Today I also wrote thank you letters to the ladies in Brazil (who work with my dad) that sent me magazines and a book in Portuguese. Did I mention that? :D It was a great day.

I also talked to Caio aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand..finished a super good book on my Kindle for PC app.
Well, by "super good", I mean chick lit brain candy. Not really well written or with that great of a plot. Heh. Maybe I'll try over the break to read something meaningful.
OH!.
Like the first book ever published in Spanish. Homework assignment over the break. Fun times.

Maaaa History Project...

2011-12-11T18:18:00.001-06:00

I'm soooo proud of it.
Seriously.
The project for our APUSH class was to make a visual describing some of the causes of the Civil War.
I made a cube.

First, I measured and cut 6 squares out of cardstock and taped them all together. (Unfortunately while watching George Lopez..later Friends came on, so it was ok.)
Then I wrote down some of the causes.
Then... I went crazy with the hot glue gun, markers, scissors, paper, paint, and fabric.
Look for yourself. :) The picture quality isn't that great--I wish you could all see it in person!

Abolition (the little blue book is Uncle Tom's Cabin)

Gaining new territories and the debate of whether they should be slave or free.

Different economies.

The 10th ammendment granting state's rights.

The election of Abe Lincoln..

Slavery (the bottom fluff is cotton)

And..well, he's not my project. But he sure is cute. :D

Babysittinggggg :)

2011-12-10T23:41:00.001-06:00

I'm babysitting right now. :D For my piano teacher. I feel somewhat stressed though, because I had to turn down 3 other babysitting jobs..I know I was committed to this one first, AND I know that I'm definitely making the most money here, but I dunno. I wish I could do all the jobs.
Even though I'm pretty well off bank-account wise, I could really use the money to offset my Christmas shopping. I've only bought for 3 people (all online, thank you), and I'm out nearly $100. Eek.

Anyway, last night was mucho fun. As you probably read yesterday, Ashwee came over after the play. Due to some boy-silliness drama, I spent the night at her house. We went through old yearbooks, which was a blast, and went to bed at 2am. Want to know what time we woke up? 1 pm. ELEVEN HOURS of sleep. And that is why I love Ashley.

After that, I did a most excellent job cleaning out some old clothes and stuff from my closet and cleaning the hizzle. It felt really nice. Then I ran and came here. It's been a great day.

I'm getting paid to do my history notes now--or atleast that's how I see it. :) Did I mention I love these kids?!?!?! Seriously. Since the family of the genius children rarely call me, I have declared this my favorite babysitting gig. The kids are adorable and the money is so great. And they're Brazilian. Happy days. :)

"I dunno." -Ashwee

2011-12-09T23:07:00.001-06:00

I'm sitting here with Ashwee! :D
We just got back (well, like an hour ago) from our school's play--Much Ado About Nothing. It lasted three hours. It was a pleasant 3 hours though, and there were many attractive men..such as Beardy. And Antonio. Good day. :)

Ashley will now give us some words of wisdom.

"Cookies."
"Giggle." (while covering her face in her hands)
Me: What did you learn today? I have to ensure that the public school system is not failing you.
Ashley: I learned that Antonio was a good actor. And stuff in physics. I dunno.

Our physics teacher comes to all the school functions alone.. she's only 25, which Ashley says does not qualify her as a lonely cat lady.. It makes me sad though. She's very professional and she never reveals any of her personal life. Ashley thinks she has a finacee but I'm not sure she would ever tell us if she had one.

"Cool story bro." --Ashwee.

Joint survey:
1.You have 10 dollars and need to buy snacks at a gas station:

Ashwee- chocolate, a pint of ice cream, and a Dr. Pepper
Cai- a Sobe, something minty, and pretzels..and..a popsicle!

2. If you were reincarnated as a sea creature, what would you want to be?
A- a dolphin
C- a seahorse :)

3. Whos your favorite redhead?
A- Ron Weasley
C- my aunt Sarah :D

4. What do you order when youre at IHOP?
A- pancakes!..and eggs..and bacon..and chocolate milk
C- blueberry pancakes

5. Last book you read?
A- Like completely? Blue like Jazz.
C- I never have time to read anymore. :( OH! The Book of Mormon, completely. :)

6. Describe your mood.
A- sleepy, yet happy
C- happy, yet sleepy

8. Of all your friends, who would you want to be stuck in a well with?
A- umm.. none of them?
C- Rusty.

10. What is the wallpaper of your cell phone?
A- flowers :)
C- a thing I wrote in Portuguese-- tenta de novo, tudo vai dar certo (try again, everything will work out)
11. Favorite Soda?
A- Doctor Pepper!
C- NOT the diet coke they were selling at the dang play. I tasted it, and it was terrible. I made 3 others taste it, who confirmed it was terrible. They let me throw it away and get a different one, because it was 2 years old. (January 4th, 2010. EXPIRED.)

14. Most recent movie you have watched in theatres?
A- Tower Heist
C- I hate to say it. So I won't.

15. Name an actor/actress/singer you have had the hots for:
A- Ryan Reynolds
C- ^^ AMEN.
16. Whats your favorite kind of cake?
A- any kind of cake!
C- tres leche. Oh my gosh.
18. Look to your left, what do you see?
A- Cai's kitchen
C- Ashwee
20. Favorite toy as a child?
A- Polly Pockets!
C- Barbie :D and alligators
22. Do you think people talk about you behind your back?
A- duhh.
C- Who doesn't? --quoted from Ashley

25. Do you have a picture of yourself doing a cartwheel?
A- no I can't do a cartwheel.
C- yeth.

26. Do you like running long distances?
A- not really. But I'm forced to.
C- ehh. It's nice when there isn't any pressure to go fast
32. What is the 1st TV Theme song that pops in your head?

Friends.
I'll be there for YOU.

34. What temperature is it outside right now?
A- 40s?
C- 39.

35. Do people consider you smart?
A- I guess so.
C- considering the amount of people that want to cheat off me, yes.
38. Have you ever tried gluing your fingers together?
A- no.
C- 9th grade biology, all the time.
39. How do you feel about your family?
A- pleasantly. :)
C- What family? Just kidding. But they could be home more often.
41. What time do you go to bed?
A- 11ish
C- too late.
42. What CD is currently in your CD player?
^^ who has a CD player?

47. Do you like hugs?
A- Who doesn't? Unless they're hugs from creepy people.
C- ^^people with skin eating diseases. That's who doesn't likes hugs.
48. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?
A- I dunno. Maybe from a certain thing Cai told me ;) No homo.
C- Whenever I had that dream that I was falling.
49. What’s the happiest moment/thing/day you can remember?
A- I have no memories.
C- PROM NIGHT. Not the killer movie.
50. Last person you hugged?
A- Raul?
C- Jerry. Or Antonio. I can't remember which came first, but I remembered which one I enjoyed more. :D

Good day.

2011-12-08T18:38:00.001-06:00

How come Americans never say good day?
Australians do.
Do British people? I can't remember.
Classy people do. (Good day, sir.)
In Portuguese, you say "Bom dia", which literally translates to "good day" (but it's said to mean good morning). Same in Spanish--buenos dias (good days).

I'm going to start saying it to appear classier.

However, this day started out very stressfully. Angelique and I ran 5 miles before school (to get it out of the way, even though it was pretty chilly), and then we had to do a stupid 20 minute circuit, (plus warm-up before that, even though I was already warmed up, aaaand tired) and I was sooooo exhausted. Have I mentioned that my achilles tendon is dying slowly? It's progressively getting worse, and running probably a total of 6 miles (after the circuit) and stomping up and down the bleachers was not good for it at all. -_-

Then I realized (after showering, while getting dressed) I only had one shoe. So I ran out to my car, shoe-less, and did not find a lone sparkly boot. Sad day. THEN, I had to run outside to my car again to get my stupid ID. Grr. I didn't get to finish my breakfast either, and I felt kind of sickly the rest of the day. (Sorry I'm so complainy.)

Angelique was super sweet and let me wear her extra shoes today, though.

Oh, and did I mention what day it is today?
Maddie's birthday!! :D

She's officially an adult! Maddie, you can vote, buy porn and cigars (please don't, hahaha), order things off of infomercials, go places that would normally require a legal guardian, get a free guest pass to my gym, sign up for the draft, and boss around teenagers that do not yet have the title of such seniority. :)
I love you, girl-- I love how much you make me laugh and all the ridiculous things we do together. (Do you remember when we slept outside, randomly?) I love seeing your beeeautiful face every morning at seminary, and I love that we share some pretty radical veggie power. :D

Love you girl! Have an amazing dayyy :)

Oh awkward times.

2011-12-07T21:22:00.001-06:00

So, remember the whole conversation between me and Gaetan?
He hasn't exactly talked to me since then. Which I'm fine with. I still feel bad.

He's leaving tomorrow for the navy though, so the other ward at church threw a party for him.. and I walked by the door to see what was going on, kept walking, but he came and found me.

Ohhhh. Awkward.
I felt obligated to say goodbye, and I mean..I'm glad that I did.

But..
What do you say to a person like him?
My words were, "Hey buddy. Did you have a fun party?"
Him: Yes.
Me: We had cake too. Tomorrow's Maddie's birthday!
Him: Happy birthday Maddie! I'm leaving tomorrow.
Me: Ohh. Bye buddy. Keep in touch. *hug*

a;lsdfkja;lsdkfja;sldfkja;sldkfj;asldkfja;sldfkjas;ldkfjas;dlfkjasdlfkjas;ldfkja;sldkfjas;ldkfjas;ldfkjas;ldkfjas;ldkfjas;ldkfj
Life is so fun.

Anyway. Tomorrow I'm debating whether to man up and run 5 miles in the cold (in the morning), or wait until after school when it will be slightly warmer (probably still in the 40s), risking that I will miss piano, aaaaand dreading the run the entire school day.

Mehhhh.
OH.
I made adorable hand drawn cards for the 12 days of Christmas. So. Cute. Totally bragging on myself. :)

Rantttdoooommmm

2011-12-06T21:51:00.001-06:00

I could have done my homework that isn't due until Thursday. But I watched New Girl and surfed though funny pictures on this girl's tumblr. Like:

Today after my piano lesson, the girl's mom asked me to cut raw chicken for her. -____- I did it, kindly I might add, because she had surgery on her fingers and couldn't do it herself. Did I mention that raw chicken is disgusting, even if you aren't vegetarian?
I saw that they're making a cartoon Napoleon Dynamite on Fox. I don't know how I feel about this..
I'm super paranoid right now that somebody is outside my house. (I used to feel like that all the time whenever I was dating Patrick, because he did show up randomly a few times.) Is it bad that I'm in my undies? (TMI?)
Do you ever tell yourself that you have to go and do something? And then you walk off to do it, get distracted, do something completely different, then come back to where you originally were, and soon realize that you didn't do the thing you were supposed to do? I told myself to look for my phone, then I went to the bathroom cupboard, found my lint shaver, and tried shaving my arm hairs. It doesn't work, btw.
Whenever I'm home alone, which is basically all the time--or when I'm giving myself a pre-hard-task-pep-talk...I call myself Caizinha.
I got my acceptance letter to Nation Honor Society today. :D :D :D
I've been having terrible dreams lately. Seriously. And I'm remembering a lot of them too. I have no clue why. For example, the other night, Francis (the oldest brother from the TV show Malcolm in the Middle) was my older brother. And we had to run away to California for some reason, so we walked 500 miles on the highway. The last mile involved a ridiculous angle to climb through, and there were metal bars to grab onto to slide through a small portal to California. And I fell, and woke up because of the oh-no-I'm-falling feeling you get in your stomach.

Since When...

2011-12-05T20:01:00.001-06:00

..does it take 20 minutes to do Pre-cal homework?!?!?! It was assigned today, and I finished it in a ridiculously reasonable amount of time. It's a great day. :D

So.
Questions for the readers.

Today I read a (very brief) article on MSN about a 9 year old boy suspended for 2 days because he called his teacher "cute".

"GASTON COUNTY, N.C. -- A Gaston County family is getting lots of attention after a mother said her 9-year-old son was suspended for calling a teacher cute.
The boy's mother, Chiquita Lockett, received a certified letter from the school, explaining why her son is accused of sexual harassment.

In the letter, school officials say Emanyea Lockett said a teacher was fine in a suggestive tone. He said he told a friend she was cute.
The district says the comment is considered a form of sexual harassment.
Eyewitness News watched Chiquita Lockett go over the letter with her son on Monday. It says that he admitted to calling his teacher cute last Wednesday.
School officials said in addition to the comment about the teacher, Emanyea had been warned about calling students bad words. They said all of the comments are inappropriate and violate the student code of conduct.
His mother said she was never told about the other comments. Eyewitness News asked Emanyea specifically about them.
“I didn’t use bad language about other students,” he said.
“All you said is your teacher is cute?” Eyewitness News asked.

“Yes,” he replied.
“What's in that letter, what they accuse him about -- if that's true, I should have been notified about it,” Chiquita Lockett said. “And if so, then I would have seen where a suspension would have taken place.”

Personally, I think it's silly.
Since when was the word cute a form of sexual harassment? I could maybe understand the need for such reaction (2 days of suspension?!) if the kid was older. Maybe. But for crying out loud, he's still a little boy. If a 9 year old boy said I was cute, I would think it to be exactly that--cute.

Here are some of the comments from the general public:

"This is out of control. She should have just said thank you and continued with her supposed job, teaching. The TEACHER is at fault here for making a mountain out of a mole hill. If SHE hadn't reported it as inappropriate behavior, it would have just ended."

"This is truly disturbing. A normal person would feel gratitude by such a remark from a young person."

"Isn't this the second incident in less than a week to be reported of a 9 y/o (or was the other one just 7) being suspended for "sexual harassment" in NC? The one last week was a kid who defended himself from a bully choking him by kicking him in the balls. Way to go kids." [Heheheheh]

"Sexual harassment or the loss of his freedom of speech? Tough call huh?"

"Maybe he was suspended for lying--his teacher's ugly."

^^hahah.

So. Comment. Do you think it was "sexual harassment" or a huge overreaction?

Sad Day :(

2011-12-04T22:13:00.001-06:00

My favorite youth leader of all time got released from her calling today. :( I think I've explained this before--released just means you don't have that calling in the church anymore (they're constantly changing)...basically to give someone else the opportunity, and that person gets a different calling. (Which was why I was the chorister for a year, but then I got released.)

It was soooooo dumb.
She had only been our leader since February. :( Normally, the young women's president stays for over a year.
Grrrr.

Asdflkaj;sdlfjkas;dlfkjas;dlfkjas;dlfkja;sdlfkjas;ldfkja;sldkfj. Saddest of all days.

Ssaattuurrddaayy

2011-12-03T22:44:00.001-06:00

Typing that out slowly made me realize that the word "turd" is in Saturday. Hahahaha.
My day was most excellent.
Last night was a lot of fun. I always goof off whenever I'm home alone, and yesterday was no exception. :D

My mom woke me up at 7ish to go decorate one of her Christmas houses.
IT WAS A MANSION. Literally. Well, all of the ones she does are, but this one. Oh my gosh. Literally, the most amazing house I've ever been in. I took a tour..guided by me. :D I opened one door which would lead to a spectacularly gorgeous room, which had 1230981204983420958 more doors, which opened up to more spectacularly gorgeous components of the house.
SO AMAZING. I want to live there. It was also my favorite of the decorations that my mom has done this year--or at least of the ones I've seen. She made all these gorgeous silvery bows. Very classy. :D My mom has mad skills.

Afterwards, I went Christmas shopping with Alex. I think she was relatively successful. On my part, not at all. I didn't buy ANYTHING. I came close, but nope. I did buy a delicious Which Wich salad though.. you can't give that to people for Christmas though.

After that, Ashwee and Scott came over to hang out. :D It was quite a nice time.

And nooooowwww, I'm babysitting for my piano teacher. I always love babysitting here--it's one of my favorites and most frequent. Good day. :)

OH.
Listen to this song.
It's from a Brazilian band, but ignore the Portuguese. Isn't this man's voice dreamy??
(Seriously. Listen to it.)

Conversationssss.

2011-12-02T23:21:00.001-06:00

Mmkay.
First off, wonderful day. It's FRIDAY. :D Alex and I danced at my house this morning instead of running in the rain, and letter we went to Starbucks with little Ashwee to enjoy some nice minty deliciousness and good conversation.
I love you guys. :)

SO.
Conversation I'm not so fond of.
Between Gaetan.
The beginning was pretty irrelevant.
Here's what happened. (Please note that I was slow to respond because I was skyping with one of my Brazilian friends, and that probably didn't help my case with Gaetan.)

Him: Cai, have you been in Brazil before?
Me: Nooo :(
Him: For some reason I thought you were born there. How did you learn portuguese so well?
Me: Well my dad lived there. And then last year at school, there was a Brazilian exchange student that I dated.
Him: Umm..That sounds interesting.
Me: He already went back to Brazil though :(
Him: Do you still talk to him?
Me: Yep, but it's sad because Brazil's so far away
Him: I know. Do you think I can get really good in Portuguese if I date a Portuguese speaking girl?
Me: Haha..um..probably so.
Him: Can you give me something sweet to say to that girl? In portuguese of course.
Me: Hmm.. voce pode dizer: Oi menina, te desejo saude e felicidade na sua vida. (Which means, I wish you a life of health and happiness.)
Him: No way. I'll never get a girl with those lines. Try again. :)
Me: What do you want to say?
Him: Well okay, this is for you. [Please note that this is VERY google translated Portuguese on his part.] Nossa voce e incrivel! Voce consegi tira o meu folego. (Which means, loosely, Wow, you are incredible. You take my breath away.)
Me: Google translators are no good.
Him: Oh man! But still, voce e incrivel. (You are incredible.)
Me: Haha.
Him: E me deixa louco. (And you make me crazy. [Please note that I was about ready to puke]) Seriously does it make even a little sense?
Me: Haha. Um.. somewhat.
Him: I'll take that as a yes!! :D And thank you google translate.
Me: Haha.
Him: Vou sentir saudades muito quando sair porque voce e minha garota favorita no mundo. (Again, google translated--I'm going to miss you a lot when I leave because you are my favorite girl in the whole world.)
Me: Gaetan. Para falar a verdade, so gosto de voce como um amigo. Sinto muito :( (Gaetan, to be honest, I just like you as a friend. I'm sorry.)
Him: Nao ha problema. (No problem.)
Me: ...
Him: I'm fine with that
Me: Okay, I just don't want to make you sad.
Him: It's okay, I'm fine, just as long as you keep teaching me Portuguese.

OH MY GOODNESS.
Creepy?!?!
Yes.
I know I used to like him. But it just got to be too much. Toooo much.
-_-

I feel bad, but at the same time, relieved because I finally just told him the truth.

Oh. And Royce texted me today.
My life is crazy.

What we sound like to foreigners..

2011-12-01T17:56:00.001-06:00

I have you ever wondered what the American accent sounds like to other people?
I mean, if you think of say, a Chinese person. You probably wouldn't be able to actually say anything in Chinese, but you know what it sounds like. Same with any language really. It even applies to people who speak English from other places--like the UK and Australia.

I found this video.
It's Italians..kind of making fun? of the way Americans speak. This video is completely gibberish--there aren't any real words, but they have the accent down.

:D Enjoy

Evening of Excellence :)

2011-11-30T20:45:00.001-06:00

It was quite excellent.
It's a church thing where we showcase all the churcy stuff we've worked on throughout the year. And I got to conduct it and errthang, I felt so grown up :)

This day has been so long.
Cross country off season is before school so that we have time to shower, since the class got moved from 4th period to 1st. It makes me soooo sleepy.

Aaand we were on yellow code or something for school today. Somebody robbed the bank across from the school. D:

Aaaaand we had to do senior course selections. The LAST time I will do a high school course selection. Isn't that ridiculous?
So far it looks like:

AP Physics
AP English 4
AP Calculus (AB)
AP Government
AP Economics
AP Spanish 5
Cross country
...and hopefully early release! :D

Yes, that's a heck of a lot of AP classes, but if I get to leave school at 2:20, I would have sooooo much more time, as opposed to leaving at 4. (Well, only like an hour and 40 minutes. But still.)

After school, some people came over to work on our Spanish project. It's adorable. We're going to the elementary schools to teach little kids Spanish!! So we had to come up with a lesson plan and activities. I think it'll be a lot of fun. :)

The Odyssey

2011-11-29T05:13:00.000-06:00

I've probably ranted about this before.
Sure, it's a classic, blah blah blah.
But the movie.
The movie is the greatest of all time. Well, not in the sense that it's good quality or well produced. It's hilarious because of how awful the acting and writing are.

Ashley got me this excellent movie for my 16th birthday. We've laughed countless times watching it. The DVD itself is from..Thailand I think. The description on the back of the box is icing on the cake. (And should be a lesson to everyone not to type things directly into a translator and expect an accurate response.) Original spelling, capitalizations, grammar, etc:

"The Great epic of the ancient world, Homer's Odyssey is now magnificently recreated for television, filmed on breath taking locations and brought to life with never-before-screen special effects, Homer's enganging and edifying tale recounts the journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and mastermind of the greek victory in the Trojan war, who servives ten years of trials and temptations thrown in his way by angry gods and makes his way home at last to his kingdom, his loyal wife and son with something more valuable than the spoils of war wisdom. [Yes. That was one sentence. Can you find the mistakes?] Odyssus (??), know as a man of exceptioonal cunning and ingenuity, leaves his wife, Penelope, and infant son, Telemachus, for what becomes a ten years siege of the distant city of Troy. Where brute force tails, cunning prevails : Odysseus froms the famous plan to infiltrate the city with a giant wooden horst filled with Greek soldiers, and troy is taken. That night, in the drunket revelry of victory, Odysseus blasphemes the gods, boasting that own ingenuity, not the help and intervention of the gods, has brought his glory. Poseidon, god of the sea, is deeply offended and lays on Odysseus a curse, that he will never reach home again. While has been lost, ten years have passed and a company of suitors has descended upon his home, seeking the hand of Penelope and the kingdom of her lost husband. For ten years she has put them off, refusing to give up on the chance that Odysseus will return. In the meantime, thy feast and covart, lying waste to Odysseus' estate as they form plots to kill Telemachus his heir, Odysseus, disguised with the help of Athene, plots his revent. With Telemachus and a few loyal servant he defeats the treacherous suitors slaying them all in a mighty display of strength, resolve, and guile."

Well said.

Things are looking up :)

2011-11-28T19:43:00.001-06:00

It's cooooold.
I like the cold. :D
My boots are getting worn, and I needed a new pair, soooo I went to DSW.
No luck.
I went to a buttload of other stores on Hulen.
Noooo luck.

Finally I decided to try Old Navy. Great, beautiful, wonderful decision. They're having a buy-one-get-the-second 75% off. They also had all their boots on markdown in the first place, making the first pair (silvery gray) $20 and the second pair (Ugg-ish tan like) $3.75. Thank you, beautiful 75% off. :)
My feet will be nice and toasty.

I'm honestly dreading when it gets warm again. I know it's only just starting to get cold but I hate hot weather. It's so much nicer running now than it was in the summer. Seriously. This summer, temperature wise, was the absolute worst. Especially because our AC is not trustworthy. That jerk.

ANYWAY.
We have a math test tomorrow, and I know I'm not the only one getting freaked out about it. (I got a text from a guy in our class asking if I was scared. YES.) This unit was killer. Seriously. 4 students died.
Just kidding. But it was the worst one yet. Thankfully, I went and checked my answers online for our review, which she just posted.

Allllll of them right. :) Except the 2 that I didn't know how to do.
I feel much better.

And I went to bed before 9:30 last night. It was lovely.

Dear ________,

2011-11-27T01:26:00.001-06:00

So. It's 1:25 in the morning. What am I doing up? I'm exhausted.
I only took a 1 hour nap today..but then goofed off with my dad for too long (I guess) because I'm still awake and kind of in a giggly mood.

Oh.
And I attempted more of the pre-cal. Despite me spending an hour on it at a time when I should be asleep, I felt very successful. Only skipped one, only doubted half of it. For pre-cal, that's saying a lot.
I USED TO BE A MATH PERSON.
I still somewhat am, I guess. Especially compared to a lot of kids in my class. But like I said in the last rant, it's bringing me a lot of grief. :(
I also sent my teacher a message saying she was TERRIBLE and should fall in a ditch.
Justttt kiiiiiddding, I asked if the review would be covered in the test review on Tuesday or if I needed to come see her at a different time.
If I had the nerve, though..

Anyway.
I saw this "Dear ______," thing on facebook.
Felt like I wanted to participate, but not annoy 600something people... or reveal anything embarrassing. Mwahahaha.
I don't know who exactly reads this (I mean, I have a pretty good idea), but here goes anyway.

Dear person I hate,
I wouldn't say hate. Just dislike.
I know your intentions are good. Unfortunately, I have to remind myself of that far too often. You're too old to be hugging me. You claim to be humble but in reality are one of the most conceited people I know. You repeat the same things, the same divine counsel constantly. You're too old to be hugging me and others my age. You make my position seem a heck of a lot more important than it really is. And let's be honest, it's not.
You're intentions are good.
I know.

Dear ex-boyfriend, [oh boy]
I don't know what to say. I feel like I say things too often.
I feel like I owe you a lot more credit than I give you. The almost-4-months I spent with you were, for the most part, a lot of fun. You were always very sweet and respectful to me. It was nice to be with someone who was a close friend and really dependent. I don't agree with a lot of the stuff you do. I think you're too young to abuse your body, and I can't stand how you try to justify it. I wish would realize the ill effects of your actions before you seriously hurt yourself. I also wish you acknowledged Christ as our Savior..which I know is asking a lot and you're free to believe whatever. (I did say wish. ) And I think your music sucks and that you try to come off sounding a lot classier than you really are. (OUCH. Sorry. Had to throw that in there.) I wish things weren't so awkward and that we could be friends, even though I know that's never going to happen.

Dear Boy I love,
I wouldn't say love. Just like.
Wow. Can 5 months impact my life or what?
You've been gone longer than you were here, but I still think about you every day. Sou bobaaa, neh? (That was a lame thing to say.)
I like your taste in music, I like that you're a genius, I like your accent, your sense of humor, and that you opened up to me and quit being so dang shy.
I also realized that they probably could have sent anyone from Brazil. Kind of sad, but true. I'm in love with the country, language and culture.
But I'm glad they sent you. ;)

Dear Ex-Bestfriend, [I have a lot]
We're still friends..sometimes.
You piss me off sooooooooo much though, it's not even funny. You remind me too much of my brother. I thought we were a lot closer than we really are. Hanging out in the summer was the best, and at that point I considered you one of my best friends.
But seriously. You don't know when to stop being a douche and to start being a friend.

Dear Best Friends,
Where would my life be without you guys?
Seriously. I think about it all the time. I would be sad, lost somewhere far away (literally, since I have a bad sense of direction), and ugly. Heheh. But seriously.
I think about how lucky I am to have friends with values the same (and in some cases better) as mine. It makes life a heck of a lot easier, and I'm forever grateful for having been blessed with such amazing people. (You know who you are ;D)
I love that I can share literally every detail of my life (PC-ers, anyone?) and that I have people who I can legitimately trust.

Dear Mom,
Hi der.
I like our mother-daughter relationship. I like how we're generally chill, and that the house stays a lot cleaner without Dane around. We've never been terrible about fighting, and I like that you can deal with all the awkward things that I don't like to tell Dad. I think you're a very decisive person (does that sound weird?)--you can (much more easily than me) choose what you want and immediately work to attain it. You're very accepting of everyone (which makes me question how you gave birth to Dane), and have always been one to stand up for your beliefs. SERIOUSLY. Women's rights, religious decisions, whatever. You have never been one to back down, and you always let your voice be heard-- you are a good example to Dane and I. You're a talented writer, sewer of many things, cooker of delicious foods, and..you throw up a lot. But I still love you and admire that you will put up with me tomorrow after what will be 5 hours of sleep. I love you more than Tuncan Tell! ;D

Dear Dad,
Oiiii papaiii.
I like how close we are. I like that we speak Portuguese to eachother, especially when other people are around. (It's like a secret language!) I like how much we goof off and laugh--whether it's commenting "boiola" on Youtube videos, playing Boggle, making fun of eachother, or watching TV. You're more like a friend than a father sometimes, which I love. I like that there aren't a whole lot of rules for me and that you and Mom trust me. I also like that you still take care of me and always make sure I have money and things to eat. You're one of the smartest and most humble people I know. I like that you're not easily impressed and you're really well rounded in pop culture, world events, general knowledge, etc. I like that you deal with all my finances and things that are relatively difficult to understand. I love you ol' Chum, and I'm blessed to have you in my life.

Dear Future Me,
Hiiiiii Caiiiiii.
I hope that you follow your dreams. Which is a lame thing to say, but it's true.
Go to a school that offers Portuguese. Go study abroad in Brazil. Go find a sexy Portuguese speaking man to marry. (Only if he's Mormon of course!) Continue to play piano and learn more instruments. Continue to find random oldies bands and listen to good music. Never forget the Beatles. They are your favorite band and always will be. Don't eat meat. (Duhhh. You'd get sick at this point.) Don't compromise your values or your wants. Remember what an impact Christ has in your life. Remember to pray and read your scriptures and to ALWAYS keep high standards of yourself and others. And remember to wear fresh undies and deodorant every day. ;D

Dear Future Hubby,
Oi. Espero que voce fale portugues! Se nao falar, SAI DAQUI. Kkkk.
Anyway, I hope that you're a member of the Church. That's super important to me. I hope that you're nice and non-judgemental and not critical of me or others. I hope that you're smart and that we share the same goals and values in life. I hope that we buy a puppy. I hope that we will stay together foreverrrrr.

Love, Cai

Somebody do my Pre-Cal

2011-11-26T22:38:00.001-06:00

Please.
It's stressing me out..I've procrastinated this entire break (oops).
I was good and did my history homework..it was hard (not the content, but the actual getting it done part), but my dad woke me up from a "power nap" (what easily could have been a 4 or 5 hour ordeal) to do it. Thanks pops.

Remember awhile ago how I said we're so lucky to be blessed with great education?
And even if something's useless, we're still fortunate to have the opportunity to learn it?
I quote, from the beginning of this month's rants:
"I've always been one of the kids who says--why are we learning this? We're never going to need to know it in the real world.

But now that I think about it--it's truly amazing. All the crazy stuff we learned in chemistry last year, for example. Calculating the frequency of a wave of light. (I say that because I helped a sophmore with his homework yesterday.) I'm never going to need those calculations..but I know how to do it."
And "Knowledge is an amazing power. The brain is an amazing thing."

I TAKE IT BACK.
Just keeeeding.
But my goodness.
Trigonometric identities? Really? Really?
I can guarantee you that I will never use that in the real world.
I will follow up this post in 25 years to confirm. (Dang. I'll be 42 in 25 years. THAT'S OLD.)

So these identities are giving me a lot of grief today. Our test review for pre-cal is straight up ridiculous.
The notes our teacher gives us never seem to match the difficulty level of the homework. It's stupid.

ANYWAY.
Today was a very nice day. I went running with Ami this morning, did my history notes as mentioned, watched a buttload of Malcolm in the Middle with my dad, watched part of the Graduate, avoided a few phone calls (oops..remember the boy from the Congo? He likes me too much.. to the point where I don't really think I like him anymore..it's starting to creep me out..he calls me all the time), aaaaaaaaaaand cooked a delicious veggie roast dinner.

And I will probably either start some dang pre-cal or fall asleep.
Hmmm..

Blackest of All Fridays

2011-11-25T15:52:00.001-06:00

I've never gotten that into Black Friday sales.
But this year, the new trend was that most stores were opening at midnight instead of super early in the morning. Thank goodness, because it's way easier to stay up late than it is to get up early. One of my church leaders came and picked up Maddie and I, and we waited in the Kohl's line from around 11:15 until midnight. It was absolutely insane. I got some Vera Wang boots for 60% off. :D
We also hit up Target..since Kohl's was so crazy, we didn't get to Target until 2am-ish, and thankfully the craziness there had died down. (I saw one of my friends from school who had been trampled and punched at Walmart. Wow.) It was a great time :D

We didn't go to bed until around 4am, but I still wanted to go wait in line at Half Price Books to get the $5 giftcard that they give away every year. And I swear, every year I miss it. Quote from my rant 2 years ago:
"They were having a deal where they would give out free totes and $5 giftcards to the first hundred people in line. And so I waited in the cold for 30 minutes, only to find out that I was 103rd in line. It seriously sucked."
Paha. So yes, we set our alarms for around 5am.
Let's just say we weren't too surprised waking up at 10:30 with no recollection of any alarms going off.

Now I'm soooooooo sleepy.

Happy Thanksgiving! :D

2011-11-24T17:44:00.001-06:00

So, first, a correction from yesterday-- the 8mile race was only in Dallas. It was just a 10K here in Fort Worth. It was a blast. I got up at 5 to get ready and go pick up everyone, who lived kind of far from each other (gassss mehhh), but it was a-ok. (Herman and Abe's mom spoke with me in Spanish!! It was super cool.) We all had a really good time hanging out before the race. Me and Abe ran together pretty much the whole time in about 56 minutes. Not too shabby for 6.2 miles. :D

Thanksgiving today and last night was delicious. We had it separately (Mom and Dad), which meant twice as much delicious, delicious food.

Here are 20 things that I'm thankful for:

My family.
My wonderful best friends. Seriously. I don't know where I would be without you all.
Christ and God
Having the church in my life
Sleep.
Piano.
Guitar.
BRAZIL.
Portuguese.
Cute boys ;D
My car
The fact I paid $2.98 for gas yesterday!!
Babysitting for well behaved children/ teaching piano/ any other means I can make tax free money
My hizzle dizzle. (That's gangster for house)
Going to a good school. Seriously, we are so blessed.
Teachers that actually care about getting something out of school
DIY. The blogs, the process, everything.
Good books and magazines
Being a vegetarian, and my situation which allows me to do so.
My generally laid back, free spirited life. :)

I hope you all have a loverly day and eat mucho amounts of pie!

Shoppinggg

2011-11-23T14:40:00.001-06:00

...is a dangerous passtime for me.
By college, I legitimately need to learn to control my spending..I mean, not that I'm absolutely terrible right now, but I do give in to impulse buys and go through periods of times where checking my bank account balance is a little painful.

Last night though, Maddie and I went to the Parks Mall.
The Forever 21 there is gigantic. Huge. So. Freaking. Big. It's amazing, but it's almost stressful trying to find anything you like/want to buy.
I found this, though:
Well, nevermind, I couldn't find the exact one on the website.
If the following two dresses had a baby, imagine that as being the dress I bought.

The shape of the first one, color of the second. :) It's amazing. Just the right amount of sparkly.
HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE SPARKLES?
It's an addiction really.
They're so great.
Soooooo great.
Who doesn't love sparkly?

Yup it was a fun time :) Followed by delicious tofu from Pei Wei. They make it the best, they really do.
I also went running in the dark last night. I felt like a super stealthy secret agent, running down a thought-to-be-safe (but secretly dangerous) to catch a bad guy..in the suburbs.
I went again this morning, and unfortunately Ami overslept. ;) Silly girl.

OH.
So I thought I was running the Turkey Trot 10K (Thanksgiving day running tradition) tomorrow morning with the XC boys.
Turns out, they don't have a 10K. It's an 8 mile. Just 2 miles more, but it's also an hour later, and it might get a little toasty. It'll still be fun though. :D

Fillin' It Up

2011-11-22T09:08:00.001-06:00

As in my break.
So many plans. :D
It's so nice.

Yesterday was great. I went to the mall with Esther, who I hadn't hung out with since the end of the summer (and we have no classes together this year), to buy "surprise prizes" for Ashwee and Alex. We switch off every month; it's quite fun. :) Unfortunately, it was raining yesterday so my plan for secretly placing the gifts was ruined.

Anyway, Ashwee came and picked me up to go to practice at Bicentenial Park. OHMYGOSH. It was a blast. :D It was the course where we had our middle school district (THREE years ago. Isn't that crazy?), which also happens to have a frisbee golf course.. Since only 6 people showed up (2 of them being the coach's children), we broke into very small teams and raced through the course.. it involved small amounts of blood, sweat, tears, sliding down rocky hills, acting like cannibulistic cavemen, losing one of our frisbees to a stream.
Did I mention that it was raining?
Epic.
:D

After that, I went to a older lady's house in my ward (the one that used to be our youth group leader, who I love) to help her iron napkins and tablecloths for her gigantic Thanksgiving. Seriously. She's one of the classiest people I know, and she's hosting a huge (and elegant) dinner involving 32 other people. Insanity.
It took me two hours and I only got burned twice. ;D

Aaaaand after that.
I went and saw the worst movie of all time.
Breaking Dawn. I didn't really understand everything behind it, since I've never seen the other 2 movies or read the books. But Scott has (hahahaa) and was dying to see it.
We mostly made fun of it.. because it really was the worst movie. Of all time.
The rest of the audience seemed to think so too--there were a lot of chuckles at the "serious" parts that came off as super lame.
Taylor Lautner is fine, by the way, but he's a terrible actor.
The only thing that somewhat saved the video is that they went to Brazil on their honeymoon, and Edward spoke Portuguese. Honestly, I was impressed--it was very authentic sounding.
But yup, the rest of it sucked. It was a good time though. :D

Thanksgiving Break

2011-11-21T00:25:00.001-06:00

My goodness how I love it.
Seriously. It's getting so close to Christmas, it's marvelous. And I love the races I do this week (the relay and the Turkey Trot 10K) and eating good food, and wearing warm clothes (if it would just get cold outside).

It's 12:30 right now. So great. I don't have to be up for seminary or practice or school tomorrow. Practice starts at 2pm!! I was worried at first because I know I'll be super sore, but I just checked the weather and it's supposed to be thunderstorming. :D Fingers crossed.
Oh, and as I mentioned, Dane Dane came home.
It's surprisingly a lot of fun today. It always is whenever it's me, him and my papster. We laugh about a lot of stupid things..sillieeeees. :)

I also skyped with one of my Brazilian friends, Landerson. :D I like natives confirming that my Portuguese is good. I also taught him a little bit of English. It's hilarious how he says the word yes..I wish I had a video of it.
My goodness, I cannot wait to live there. Nothing makes me so happy. :D

Oh.
So I talked to Gaetan yesterday afternoon too. He definitely likes me..that has been established. And I want to be happy, but he's leaving in 2 weeks for the navy. Whoooo. -_-
Distance sucks. It truly does. I mean, I'm not even that close with Gaetan but nothing will happen.
You can say that you'll keep in touch with people and that nothing will change, but it never works. Seriously.

Anyway, we've been reading one chapter of Psalms every day of November (which will continue into the next couple of months until we're done). I loved the last verse of Friday's: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

Isn't that powerful?
I love Psalms..although David can be a little wishy washy and depressing.

Yup. Life is good today. I love staying up late. I don't know why, but I always have. I just like the night in general. I also like the early morning. Good times of the day... And I like being alone sometimes. As I posted yesterday, this weekend has been so nice. :)

Relay and Raaaain

2011-11-20T16:04:00.001-06:00

So my parents basically abandoned me this entire weekend. Both nights.
Totally not complaining. It was some nice ME time before the holidays. ;D Heheheh. Seriously though. I watched so much TV.

Dane Dane is coming home today.
He's driving, which makes us all a little nervous--especially because I've seen a few FB statuses that there's snow in Utah. It'll be somewhat nice to have him home, I guess. It's ridiculous how much food my mother bought for his coming.
-_-

This morning was the half marathon relay! I was kind of freaking out because my dad hurt his ribs and can't really work out or run. He and I normally do it..thankfully, super fast lady from our church (JayJay's mom) said that she would be down.
So she picked me up pretty early this morning (considering how late I went to bed..d'oh) and ran the 1st leg. Neither of us felt that great during it. My legs were ridiculously sore from just starting back up running this past week, so it wasn't the best experience. But it's nice to have another long run under my belt. :)

GAH.
But I'm so sad. Today was Stake Conference in church, and I got all ready to go to the second half.. I could have easily made it by 11:15, but I sat down on the couch because I was so sleepy. And I didn't wake up for like 3ish hours.
D'oh.
And you know what happened? Gaetan translated his mom's talk from French to English. I heard that it was adorable. :(

Maaa Christmas List :)

2011-11-19T00:30:00.000-06:00

Hi Mom and Dad.
I know you both read this blog at some point..Mom, more frequently than meu papai, but I'll forgive that.
Here are the artsy things that you can only find on specific sites.

http://www.copperetiquette.com/blue-skies-dress/

Please.

I cannot stop thinking about this dress. Isn't it the most flowy delightful thing you've ever seen? :D

Sunglasses.

The bigger the better!

(Did I mention that all mine broke?)

No specific web address for this one.

Vintage mocassins

Vintage stud earrings

Vintage purse

Vintage Brazilian school book.

All of these can be found on my etsy favorites.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Caiii

Under the profile on the left, click favorites.

Aloooooneeee

2011-11-18T23:10:00.001-06:00

Ahhhh.
What a glorious glorious day.
The only homework I have is a horrendous precal review (we'll deal with that later) and an APUSH chapter.
Physics was superrrr nice today, except I missed Ashweeberry.
I worked with two super fine black guys to build the upper part of the set in tech theater. The balcony! :D It's probably about 10 or 12 feet up in the air..a little bit scary, but did I mention that they were fiiiine?
I'm babysitting tomorrow, so that means moooolaaaa.
And, nobody came home today.

I mean, yes family, I love you.
But I practiced piano for a good hour--my Rachmaninoff is almost done. :D And I watched game shows, worked on surprise prizes (heheh), andddddd this rant is a bunch of rambly rambles.

OH.
So the internet at my house is still being stupid. I'm at my pappy's, but he's downtown.
Aloneeeee.
:D

AND IT'S THANKSGIVING BREAK!
A busy one really.
Lots of running. Lots. Half marathon relay on Sunday, 10K with some XC boys on Thanksgiving, practice on Monday, and I will force myself to run the other days. I've gotten into it again, running in the cold reminds me of why I do it.

Last of all,
I talked to Gaetan and Caio anddd I'm hanging out with Scott this weekend.
Happy happy days. :)

:D

2011-11-17T20:38:00.001-06:00

Internet is temporarily fixed.
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou times a trillion to Chris, who has literally been up in the attic and
everywhere else working on it. I'm amazed. He always knows how to fix stuff.
:D

Sooo. I'm watching Mexican TV--Tengo Talento Mucho Talento. It's like an America's Got Talent..but in Spanish. It's so great. I finished all my homework for tomorrow, and received minimal amounts from today that won't be due until after Thanksgiving break. And I'm sitting in between the two cutest dogs in the world, who differ immensely in size. (Remember the dogs chewing the puppets?)
And I wore my new Brazil sweatshirt that I made to school, and lots of people liked it. :) That makes me so happy. ($5 Hanes sweatshirt + cut shoulders to make it slouchy + handsewn Brazil flag courtesy of me and my mom's supplies.)

In celebration of such happy times, enjoy a survey for my readers. You can email me answers at clivecai13@hotmail.com or leave comments on this post. (Errbody can post one, regardless of whether you have a Google account.)

1. What's one thing you want for Christmas this year?
2. What's your favorite food to eat on Thanksgiving?
3. Favorite color?
4. Something you were thinking just now?
5. Worst movie you've ever seen?

Andddd, go!

I love...

2011-11-16T21:40:00.001-06:00

..my friends.
I did some much needed catching up with my longtime friend Andrew. I forgot how much I love him. Seriously. This catch up (hehe ketchup) was long overdue.

And Ashwee and Alex, I love you guys.
I have so much respect for you both.

And Andrea and Maddie and Ami and all my blog readers.

This day was great. So much better than the last two.

Stupid Internet

2011-11-15T21:14:00.001-06:00

So, despite the fact that my internet was working perfectly this morning, it decided to explode whenever I got home from school.
I spent a good amount of time talking to the stupid Charter robot, but that didn't want to help me either. Chris tried looking at it, but ultimately, nothing worked.

So I'm at Ashwee's hizzle, typing this rant yo.
By the way, did I mention that I hate the Charter robot? It's evil. Just saying.

Today was not the greatest of days. I've gotten a combined total of 11 hours of sleep in the past 2 days, so I was already not in a great mood to begin with. But then stupid jerk boys at lunch have to gang up on me at lunch over such a stupid thing.
Never trust guys when they say they'll keep a secret, by the way.

I fell asleep in history and felt better. For awhile there I kept feeling tears welling up in my eyes.. I don't deal well when I don't get sleep.

Anywayyy, Alex and Ashwee came over to watch New Girl tonight. Anyone watched it out there? It's. So. Great. If you're not watching it, go to hulu and catch up before it's too late. :D

Ashwee is contributing some words of inspiration:
Uhhh..whimsical! Uhh Pumpkin! Yeauhhh.. I don't know. Popsicle. Um. Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Me: Would you like to phrase your words into a sentence?
Ashwee: What were my words again?
The whimsical pumpkin decided while eating a popsicle that he supported antidisestablishmentarianism. Duhh.

Stressssss

2011-11-14T16:42:00.001-06:00

So, this was not an easy Sunday/Monday morning.
I scrapped along through my pre-cal homework and finally figured out my physics, played piano for the fireside (that part was nice), and drove over to the house where I was dogsitting..
And may I mention that I was very proud that I didn't get lost/harmed on the way there?

When I had talked to the lady on Saturday, she told me she would leave me the key in the mail box.. Easy enough. I get there, open the mailbox..yes. There's a key in there. I pulled it out thinking, hmm.. this is an odd shaped key.
Because it was the car key. Not the house key. I was locked out for awhile, while Chris (thank you thank you thank you--have you noticed how he's constantly saving my butt?) got the key from her son.. Mind you, this woman is old.

So I had to stay up for awhile--feed the dogs (one of which was 15 years old..I was worried that it would die while I was there..) and walk them. Then I got up at around 4:50am to walk them, feed them, and drive on over to seminary.
Fun day.
Right?
Nooo. It was our first XC offseason, and while it felt good to run outside again (me and the elliptical had become good friends for awhile there), I was so ridiculously tired.

And let me tell you, this video helped a lot.
It's. Hilarious.

Pre-Cal...

2011-11-13T18:45:00.001-06:00

...is legitimately stressing me out today.
We took notes over what we're supposed to do for homework last class. Oh my goodness, the homework is so freaking hard.
At the beginning of the year, I was like--yeah. I like pre-cal. I like math. I'm a math kind of person.
Not. Today.
At all.

I'm soooooo stressed out.
I have to leave in 5 minutes for a fireside that I'm playing piano at.
And after that, I have to drive 30 minutes to go overnight dog sitting.
Yes, that means money, but it also means waking up super early to make it on time to seminary.

And I still have physics and history homework to do.
I'm going to cry.

How does our stupid teacher expect us to understand this?!

Soooo sleepy.

2011-11-12T21:06:00.001-06:00

Between piano recitals, hanging out with Maddie, buying hula hoops/ cheap Brazilian CDs, and going downtown with the papsters for dinner..
I'm so tired.
Ridiculously tired.

I could have gone to bed at 7 if I wanted to.
It's 9.
Goodnight errbody.

Rantdommmmm

2011-11-11T17:14:00.001-06:00

Thank goodness it's Friday.
SERIOUSLY.

I agree with Ashley and Alex, who have claimed that this week felt so long. Soooo long.
Monday was whenever I went out with Scott. That seems like atleast a month ago. Atleast.

So I don't have really anything too exciting to say.
This will be rantdom.

Does anyone remember Gaetan, the boy from the Congo? I met him at Youth Conference over the summer, and I've had a crush on him ever since. Well, I'm 99% sure that he likes me now. :D Let me see if I can find what I wrote.. Ahh yes: (refering to the dance) "It was soooooo much fun. I danced with a lot of people, some who I knew and some who I didn't. Everyone was really nice andddd I danced TWICE with this superrrr cool African boy from the Congo. He speaks 5 languages, including French (so he has a French accent), and said something to me in each one.
Yeah. He's a babe." Heheheh. I also said he was one of my "prospects for a future hubby" the next day. :D
The problem? (Yes, there always has to be one.) He's leaving for the US Navy in 28 days. :(
I went to a yoga class last night--my first one since we switched gyms. It was sooooo intense; I'm ridiculously sore from today. But it was great :D
TODAY IS FRIDAYYYYY. I'm hanging out with Maddie, and then I have a pianooo recital tomorrow. And I have to learn some transposed hymn for this fireside on Sunday...one that they didn't tell me about until Wednesday. Joy.

Yupppp. We're also painting parts of the house, and I have a crapton of laundry to fold. Yay.
OH.
And I started a new blog a few days ago--all in Portuguese. I decided that I'm learning a lot of Spanish..which is a good thing.. but it's a little too much Spanish. I'm worried about maintaining my Portuguese. Like yesterday. My teacher said something to me and it took me forever to understand it. I felt soooo dumb. But if she had said in Spanish? I'm worried that I would have understood. So yes.
New blog.
:D

Love is a many splendid thing!

2011-11-10T16:51:00.001-06:00

Wowwwww.
Just found out today that our exchange students are in love. Just like they were last year. Though, can I say that Michelle and Antoine kept a much better secret? Nobody knew until after they left.
Max, the boy from Sweden (who is in love with Rinia) is getting sent home tomorrow morning.

It's quite crazy, really. The organization has really strict rules about dating--especially when you live in the same house. (Rinia was telling me all this during Tech Theatre.) So last week, their host parents found a love letter between them; Rinia had to switch houses (pretty much immediately) and yup. Max is going home. (He also failed school in the first 6 weeks--a contributing factor.)

CRAZY.
I told Caio all this just now..haha. His response? Daaaang, am I the only one that didn't fall in love with his host brother? Heheh.

Anyway, our super awesome tech teacher let me, Rinia, and 3 other girls get out of class early to go find Max, so they could say their final goodbye. :( [Obviously, their phones were taken and they're not allowed to facebook eachother or text until he gets home..] And, we were kind of freaking out because we couldn't find him, and it looked like Rinia was about to cry. :(
BUT THEN WE FOUND HIM.
It was so cute.

Sooooooooooooooooo cute. :)
She also read us something he wrote her..
Dang. Those European boys have a way with words.

My name is Cai...

2011-11-09T07:07:00.000-06:00

..and...

I like to weave ribbons into my braids and fishtails. (Fishtails are more time consuming..)

I like to wake up 7 minutes earlier before seminary to shower. I like to throw on a sweatshirt, shorts and lovely slipper boots (gifted from Ashwee), and run a brush through my hair.

I like to not care what I look like in the morning. :D

I like to shower before seminary so that I can sleep longer afterwards.

I LIKE NOT HAVING MORNING XC PRACTICE FOR ONE MORE WEEK.

I like to come home and watch Friends.

I like to later watch the Mexican channel, including my new favortite show Caso Cerrado. (Mexican court--the greatest ever.)

I like to run on the eliptical late at night while watching MTV.

Aaaaand I like playing Brazilian music in class to annoy everyone else.

Aaaaaaaaaand I like speaking in Spanish with my favorite fishie Hermanito. :D

Oh. My.

2011-11-08T07:49:00.000-06:00

So, I've spent a bit of time on the Collegeboard website, looking at schools that offer Portuguese. (Mostly out of curiosity-- I'm relatively sure I want to go to BYU..)

And my number one school on my Collegeboard list was BYU.
It made me a little shaky--I was so excited and I dunno. A million emotions at the same time.
I went to the BYU website afterwards to read about the Foreign Lanuage Student Residence--I've wanted to live in the Portuguese housing ever since I found out it existed.

But this.. this just made me cry.

My grandpa.. the faculty coordinator.

I dunno.

They were tears of mixed emotions; I don't know how to feel.

He's a translator during General Conference. Which I watched. In Portuguese.

Good gosh.

:)

2011-11-07T17:52:00.001-06:00

Today was a great day for the following reasons:

I got a little more than 8 hours of sleep. On a school night. Life is good. (There wasn't any seminary this morning, but I had to be at school early to get help with homework I missed on Friday--so theoretically, it could have been 9 hours :D)
With the exception of studying for a physics test and history test, I have nooooo homework for tonight. :D I finished errrthang yesterday.
We did a debate today instead of a quiz in APUSH. Hallelujahhhh.
It was Scott's birthday, so I took him out to eat after school. :) And who doesn't love an afternoon of laughing your butt off with one of your best friends?

Oh, so I read today that Michael Jackson's doctor was found guilty of manslaughter. MANSLAUGHTER. And you know what he got off with?

"The jury deliberated less than nine hours. Murray, 58, faces a sentence of up to four years in prison. He could also lose his medical license."

UP TO 4 years. COULD lose his license. Why do the rich and powerful get off so easily?
I remember reading something about a big scandal with the CEO of a company (who should have been in the slammer for a long time) that got off with no jail time and a fine that he could easily pay.
Followed by a homeless man who was arrested for stealing something trivial (I think food), and got a 25 year sentence.
Pshhh.

Sleepysleepysleeeepy

2011-11-06T18:06:00.001-06:00

Today was daylight savings, but I'm still so so so tired from the trip. I didn't even go to bed super late last night, but I dunno. We were wild last night.

Anyway, I spent part of the day at church (I had a really bad migraine, so I came home a little early) and the rest doing homework. Precal is a little pooper. I like it, but I didn't do too well on the last test (it was an 80, but I hopefully have some bonus points coming to me)--and the thing is, I was so confident about it. It had to have been stupid mistakes, because I was 95% sure that I nailed it. (There was 1 question, out of 20, that I didn't know.)

So.
Due to my sleepiness (and the fact that I have some physics to do), enjoy this survey.

Do you have the guts take this survey?

Considering one of my irrational fears is not taking surveys, I would say yes.
Is it awkward when you run into your ex?

A little bit, yes. Considering I see him all the freaking time. -_-

If your best friend was kicked out, would your parents let him/her live with you?

Honestly, I think so. My parents are generally chill, and we have an extra bed now that Dane's gone. That being said, my best friends are some of the most moral people on the face of the earth..I can't imagine what they would do to get kicked out.

Are you afraid of falling in love?
Not really, but I think I'm more rational about it.

Did anyone watch you the last time you kissed someone?
Nooooo, ew.
Where is your bf/gf right now?
Hanging out with the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and Santa Clause.

Are you comfortable answering theses questions?
What was question so far was so bad that I needed to feel uncomfortable?
Dumb.
Who was the last person to kiss your cheek?
I dunno. Caio?
Is there anybody you wish you could be with right now?
I dunno. Caio?
Heheheheh.
Have you ever taken anyone/anything for granted?
Fer sure.
I always took my laptop's hard drive for granted.
And look how that turned out!

Do you act differently around the person you like?
Not too much, I'm generally obnoxious/stupid/funny around everyone.
Was your last kiss drunk or sober?
Drunk. Horribly drunken.
Duhh.
What is the WORST subject they teach at school ?
A class that I'm taking? None really, they're all decent.
But any subject--chemistry.
Do you remember who you liked in grade seven?
Oh my goodness, who did I not like in grade seven?
Matt, Cole, Joe, Jeremy, Hunter, Logan, 20 million other boys. Mostly Joe and Jeremy I think.
Do you have any television obsessions?
Most gameshows (except Deal or No Deal--I ultimately decided that it was stupid, Catch 21, and High Stakes Poker.)
Are there any relationships you wish could have lasted longer?
Shoooooo thang I do.

Has anyone told you they would never leave and left?
I don't think so..
How many times a week do you go on facebook?
Too many.
I'm ashamed to say.

Lubbock:D

2011-11-05T21:52:00.001-05:00

This weekend.
Was.
An.
Absolute.
Blast.

Seriously. Driving a total of 12 hours with your best friends and NOT having to race? So:

We were a little late to leave, but ended up arriving in Lubbock at around 4. We left at around 9 and stopped for delicious lunch. (Everyone in my car slept practically the entire way. So nice.) Did I mention all of our meals (except for gas station snacks and stuff) was paid for by the district budget? We drove straight to the regionals course--wow. It was a beast. Lubbock, for those of you who don't live in Texas, is a hilly, dusty, windy city out in west Texas, about 6 hours from Fort Worth. We all jogged the course once, and the girls did starters, bought shirts, registered, etc.
We went to eat an Italian restaurant for dinner, and the wait was 1,003,424,675 years. Not really, but we hadn't eaten in 9 hours and were all starving by the time we got seated. I felt pretty sick the whole way up and couldn't really eat much..but it was tasty regardless. We went back to the hotel, took a nice trip to the jacuzzi, and watched Friends for awhile. Me, Ashley, Alex, and Angelique shared a room. It was ridiculously fun. :)
We woke up at about 6:30-7ish the next morning to eat breakfast and get ready to go. (A lot of the trip was waiting around for everyone--it's hard when you're traveling in a big group.) After we got to the district, I warmed up with the runners (because it was freezing outside), and during the actual race, I took mile times. We ended up getting 19th place, and our girls' times were definitely not the best. (Did I mention how hard the course was?!) But, we should all be superrrr proud, considering this is the first year that the NCHS girl's cross country team has ever made it to regionals. (And, not to mention, we won district.) We ate lunch and headed home--and surprisingly didn't sleep too much. We played games (we played truth or dare yesterday, and I had to make a chicken noise every time somebody said the word run) and talked about theological matters. Very deep, yes yes. Then, I don't know what happened, but we all just kind of went crazy for the last little bit of the ride home.

All in all, it was a super fun weekend, and I couldn't be prouder of our team. :D Love you guys!

It's Friday, Friday, Leaving for Lubbock on Friday

2011-11-04T06:57:00.000-05:00

Whoo hooooo.
:D Missing school and hanging out with some of my favorite people for the weekend? Awesome. I'm leaving..kind of now.. so I'll post a long rant tomorrow catching errbody up about the trip.
In the meantime, please enjoy this picture.

Rantyrantrantrant

2011-11-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

I feel like I have so many things to say but at the same time, they are all trivial. Not in a depressy way, but maybe what I felt like I had to say yesterday doesn't really seem so important today.
Hummm..
Anyway. I'll try.

Two nights ago I talked to Caio's mom. :) One day, we will meet. I'm determined to make that happen.
So my dad's the new prez of our boy's youth group, and I stayed with him through some meeting last night. I went over afterwards (anyone else loving this cold weather?!), and we watched a few episodes of Malcom in the Middle, and then we just talked. For a couple of hours. About the church, people, family, death.. deep stuff. (I got 5 hours of sleep last night.) But it was so great. My dad's a really, really great person--but sometimes he's too humble to realize it.
I love Spanish class. So much. My goodness, my love for it grows every time I go. I mean, yes, it's hard. I feel like I say this all the time; but I don't know. It's sooooo good. I've really been blessed with languages and music in my life. I dunno. I realized that while I was playing the piano today, trying to learn more of this ridiculous Rachmaninoff piece. I can sight read faster than my teacher can. Of course, she's waaay more talented and knowledgeable at all things piano, but it comes naturally to me. Languages are the same, I think. I don't know why certain people are good at somethings and terrible at another....I was discussing this sort of thing with Ashley.. Take my physics teacher for example-- she's a genius at physics. She always knows how to explain things. But she told us earlier in the year that she's terrible at spelling. Why is that? It's an innate thing, I think--you're just born with it. But I don't understand the logic behind it.
Speaking of physics, I taught it to Andrea tonight :D It was fun-- I love that my science class is math based. It's ridiculous--at her school, the lady with the biology degree is teaching the physics degree and the lady with the physics degree is teaching biology. That makes no sense at all. It's a science academy, for crying out loud.
WE'RE GOING TO LUBBOCK TOMORROW. :D I'm excited. Soooo excited. Not about West Texas, but that I'm going on a road trip with my best friends. Ashley and the varsity runners (aka 2011 District Champs!!) are running regionals on Saturday. We get to miss school, too. Whooooohooo.

Yup.
That was a rambly ramble of rantdom. Maybe one day I will be organized.

Long Rant to Follow

2011-11-02T00:06:00.000-05:00

It's soooo late.
Goodness how I lost track of time.

I'll post a good one tomorrow, no worries.
I was talking with my papster. :)

La Fuerze del Destino

2011-11-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

I'm watching soap operas in Spanish. I'm determined that they will help me pass the AP Spanish 4 exam with a 4 or 5. (I have to beat Dane's score; that is my only requirement.)

Spanish is my favorite class though. It really is. It's the only class (besides maybe tech theater) where I'm not constantly checking the clock, waiting to leave. I mean, it's no blow off class. I work my butt off to make an A, but it's worth it.

We're so ridiculously lucky to live in the US.
Seriously.
We were talking about that in Spanish today. We have so much opportunity here compared to other countries.
Public schooling is great. Yes it has its problems, but I became semi-fluent in Spanish in only 4 years. For free. (I mean, yes, there's taxes and whatnot, but we would pay those anyways even if there weren't schools.) Think of everything we learn about--and in such detail.
I've always been one of the kids who says--why are we learning this? We're never going to need to know it in the real world.
But now that I think about it--it's truly amazing. All the crazy stuff we learned in chemistry last year, for example. Calculating the frequency of a wave of light. (I say that because I helped a sophmore with his homework yesterday.) I'm never going to need those calculations..but I know how to do it.
It's like, I'm never going to NEED to know how to play the ukulele. It doesn't solve our economic problems, it doesn't feed hungry children, and it doesn't get us any closer to world peace. (Although if everyone would just take up ukulele as a hobby, I'm sure we'd be happier all together..) But I know how to do it.
Knowledge is an amazing power.
The brain is an amazing thing.

I never know if these crazy ramblings ever make sense to you all. But if you really think about it, we are so lucky to have the opportunity to learn for free. And I know I complain all the time about homework (which I'm still not a fan of), but I'm grateful for school in general.

That was a far branch from Spanish soap operas..

Halloween

2011-10-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, in this town, we call home, everyone hail to the pumpkin throne.. la la la lala la la la lala la la la lala la lala la.
Nightmare before Christmas, anyone? Great movie.

Anyway, this is my last Halloween before becoming an ADULT.
Isn't that absolutely ridiculous? Shortly after this time next year, I can vote. D: Wow.

Tonight was a lot of fun. This day was just nice in general. There's a really cute boy from the Dominican Republic in my tech theater class who's becoming one of my good friends--not to mention, I am literally learning how to build things. (It used to be a major blow off class, but this year, he actually gives us grades on whether we participated or not..) I also got minimal amounts of homework (although there is a huge Spanish test tomorrow that I feel 85% unprepared for) aaaaand there's no seminary tomorrow.
Thank goodness!
It is so hard to get up and go. It gets harder and harder every year.

So Alex came over and we attempted to watch the Crucible. We made delicious smores and everything, wearing viking hats, but ultimately decided to play games.
And she let me go trick-or-treating at one house. (She was not in favor of it at all; my argument was that this is my last year being a kid, and I tried to call Raul, who told me that trick-or-treating ends at 9:00.) Hahahaaaa. I got a candy. A. Candy.
:D

I'm still wearing my viking hat by the way. I like it. :D It's an $80 hat from Scandinavia--a Saunahaute or something like that (made to wear in saunas, which are quite the thing over there. Makes sense because it's freezing. I'm rambling).

So yes. Good Halloween. :D
So radically different from last Halloween--it was my first date ever, with someone who I barely talk to now. Soooo weird.

OH.
I'm SUPER DUPER excited for regionals on Friday in Lubbock. I don't have to run (Coach was teasing that I was going to have to..let's pray that it really was just a joke..a cruel, cruel joke..) and it'll be a roadtrip with my bestest friends. :D

And now, to top off Halloween night, I will dance around to burn off some of the energy induced by sugar and read about serial killers to give me nightmares. Joy. :D

Stressful Day.

2011-10-30T19:51:00.002-05:00

So, my computer decided to crash. Again. For good. For goooood good (in reality, bad) this time; as in beyond repair. (It's sitting pathetically on the couch now. What a jerk.)
The problem:
Yes, I had 92% of my documents backed up--I had done it 2 weeks ago, so I had a couple new songs, a few pictures and documents, and oh yeah.
Our video APUSH project.
Which we spent a few hours working on, not including the time I spent editing. Yeahhh. I was a nervous wreck for awhile there. Did I mention it's due on Tuesday?

Not to mention, all the odds were against us on this one.
The file itself was lost at first.
Oh, it's okay. It's on facebook.
Whoooop, no it's not--the dang uploader wouldn't work.
Oh, not too bad, I just re-edit the videos that we have on Ashley's camera.
Except they're not on Ashley's camera anymore.
Oh, welllllll..Crap.
We're screwed.

Nope. :D
THANK YOU, CHRIS. You literally saved my butt. I cannot express my grattitude enough--if there is any beverage or candy or labor that I can provide to you, consider it done.
Seriously.
This man is a modern day hero.

He took out the hard disk, connected it to a bunch of cords and spent who knows how much time backing it up and trying to get to that file.
Not to mention, I have everything on my external now.
Thank you, a billion times infinity.
The project and my grade are saved.

Soooo. I spent a good chunk of time on the phone with HP; they're sending me a new 320 gig hard disk. Thank heavens for warranties.

Now the stressful part is finishing a buttload of math, 2 essays for English, and another history mini-project.
Whoooooop.

Thank you thank you thank you Chris.
Again.
:D

Funnyyyy

2011-10-29T14:57:00.000-05:00

#2: Playing Madlibs with Dane and my dad. I've missed that.

#3. whenparentstext.com

It's hilarious. It's a compilation of funny texts messages from parents and grandparents. Some of them are kind of stupid, but there are a lot that literally made me laugh out loud.

Something like

Mom: Sitting on the porch. 5:06 PM TWITTER

Daughter: What?

Mom: I'm tweeting.

Daughter: Just becaues you put twitter after your message doesn't mean you're tweeting.

Mom: My daughter sucks. 5:09 PM TWITTER

Kid: Dad will you come pick me up? I've been waiting for 30 min

Dad: Tehe

Kid: Does that mean you're coming?

Dad: ;)

Mom: Onion on table is not to eat. I read in a magazine they absorb germs so we won’t get sick. Do not eat it. Un-germy onion in fridge if u want.

Kid: okay…but since when would I ever just eat an onion?

Mom: I don’t know what you kids like these days.

Heheheheh. GO THERE.

Thinking.

2011-10-28T21:18:00.003-05:00

So first, today was a lovely day.
I had substitutes in 2 of my AP classes (I LOVE SUBS) aaaand that made the day 50% easier.
And I went to dinner with Alex my love :)

Dane Dane came home today..that basically meant that I had to get all of my stuff off his bed and clean the bathroom.
Nothing changed. No hug when he got here (I didn't expect one), and I've heard my fair share of "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"s. Though I wanted to cry whenever I watched him greet the dog. It was adorable--it made me think about me going to college and not having little Rusty waddling around and eating my stuff. It went something like, "D'awwwwwwwwwww, hey lil' Rust! Do you remember me? D'awwww you still have ears! D'awwwwww he's being cute!"

That also made me think about a lot of stuff.
After everyone left for the game (even my mom--how was I the only one in the family not invited?), I danced around the house for a good 41 minutes to a Jam playlist. In my underwear.
(TMI? Sorry. ;D)
I can't DO that at college. Unless I get an eccentric roommate who also likes to dance to Portuguese music in their underwear. What are the odds of that? I also don't think the BYU honor code supports dancing half naked. Just saying.

I mean, I'm excited for college--I'm going to live in the Portuguese foreign housing and everything will be fine and dandy. But the sacrifices definitely scare me.

Project. Runway. Finale.

2011-10-27T19:10:00.002-05:00

Is in 1 hour.
How can one possibly be expected to do Spanish hw, take notes, and write an essay tonight of all nights?!

It's the only season I've completely followed from start to finish. My goodness.
One of my favorite designers from the beginning (Anya) made it to Fashion Week. WHICH IS TONIGHT.
Oh my goodness.
I can't wait.

As long as Josh doesn't win.
Any other fans out there?

Josh is a real jerk--he can't be happy for anyone else but himself, and he throws a big fit everytime he doesn't win a challenge. Psh. I can't wait to see his reaction if he loses tonight.

OH.
So I got a new vintage (oxymoron anyone?) bag for my scriptures, and a vintage scarf in the mail today (from Etsy). :D It's a great day. Except for the homework. I also found a lot of new DIY blogs, which I've literally been obsessed with this entire school year. I have a list of things I want to make, and I'm slowly crossing them off one by one.
Project Runway inspires me. :)

Anddd quote of the day, from wittle Ashwee (while attempting to do physics): "I'M TOO DISTRACTED TO FOCUS!"
The lab today was a real turd today, bytheway.

Oh.
And Dane comes home tomorrow.
Whoooooooooooooo. -_-
I wish I was more excited.. (Sorry, Sarai, haha.)

Building a Tower..

2011-10-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

...building..
building...
building...
silence.
Silence.
CRASH.
*Dad starts sobbing*
"IT FELL DOWN!"

My dad and I were playing this game called VisualEyes, like a picture version of Boggle sort of. And it ended up with him building a tower...he's funny.

Anyway, today was district. Not my best race; I don't really want to talk about it.
But a huge congratulations to the varsity girls--we're going to Lubbock!! :D (For regionals, that is.)
We've never had such a good girls team before.

And as for me, I don't have practice tomorrow. :D

Dangerous.

2011-10-25T17:53:00.000-05:00

Having less homework this year and have a crapton of money is a dangerous combination for me. All I ever want to do now is shop--online and instore, it doesn't matter. I know that I should save for a number of things-- buying Christmas/birthday gifts/ random expenses that inevitably surface/ gas money/ eating out with the XC team, but I swear. I want to go shopping right now. And most days. Oh, but in reality, the homework is pretty sporadic. There's always something to do--some days it's not very much and some days, it's entirely overwhelming.

Anyway, today was nice. It's our last in-season cross country practice (well, atleast for me--I'm 99.9% sure our girls team will be going to regionals though). So YES. That means tomorrow is district. The excitement.

Actually, it's quite nerve-wracking. I always get ridiculously nervous before a race. Without fail. I don't know why; I've been doing it for 3 years and unless I'm running varsity, there's no legitimate fear. (Heheh.)
Hopefully I will have more luck this year and not fall into the lake 20 minutes before the run.

;D

ANYWAY.
Today is AMI'S BIRTHDAY!!!
While I don't get to see her too often, given the ridiculous schedules of our lives, she will always be my vegetarian twindian.

I love you, best friend, and we will hang out soon!

Piano Stairs

2011-10-24T17:44:00.000-05:00

Theory: People would take the stairs more often if it was fun to do so.
Theory?FACT.:DI would run up and down those stairs all day if I could.

Cuidandoooo das crianças

2011-10-23T20:40:00.001-05:00

Or, in English, babysitting.
For half Brazilian half Serbian kids. They're adorable, but I'm exhausted--I've been here all day since 10am. (I still have probably an hour or so left.)

The cable lost its signal 30 minutes after I got here, so that really sucked. They're pretty good at entertaining themselves, though, and did I mention that they're adorable?!

They basically just played amongst themselves for the majority of the day. I got a buttload of homework done (a good 2 hours of Spanish and 2 hours of precal) aaaand I read them a bedtime story in Portuguese-- O Patinho Feio, or the Ugly Duckling. It was super cute.

Anyway.
This is super random, but I miss being 11. That was a great year for me. I dunno why; everything seemed so happy and simple. I loved my teachers, all of my best friends were in my class, and I remember walking home from school (which was 3 or so miles away) whenever my mom couldn't pick me up and having an absolute blast.
I wasn't weighed down by homework and projects every night, I went to bed on time, and I didn't have to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn. My parents were still married, we lived in our big house, I had time to read books that I liked, and it was the year I decided to play football and be a vegetarian.

Sigh.
I know that I'm going to look back whenever I'm 30 and say "I wish I was 17. I got to see my best friends almost every day, I had time to go for a run every morning, I was constantly learning new things, I had a car, I didn't have to pay taxes, I lived at home, and I didn't have to be held accountable for so many people."

Phew.

2011-10-22T23:59:00.000-05:00

One minute away from midnight.
Great rant timing.

Such a long day.
We rode an about an hour each way to run the district course, which we did twice, plus some warm up, cool down, and build ups. Intense.

Then we worked on a history project with a group of APUSH kids at Alex's house. We made some epic videos, which I edited. My stupid facebook is dumb about uploading videos, but I'll work on it.

Aaaand I went to the dance.
It was a blast. Normally dances aren't that great, but today was a lot of fun. We went to Sonic afterwards and it was nice just to sit around and talk.

Crappyyyy rant, I know.
I'm so sleepy.

Tomorrow I'm babysitting for my piano teacher's kids from 10am to 9pm. I need to do homework somewhere inbetween too. D: