Competitive streak...

Sometimes I like to challenge myself. Especially with things I really love.

Like clogging, for example. I only ever made the All-American team once. And that was after three years of trying. But after making it, I was so excited. So the following year, when I again didn't make it, I was disappointed, and vowed that the next year I would work so hard that I'd make it. In the same spirit, at Nationals I came in second - barely - in acapella to a guy who I'd consistently come in second place to. I vowed that the next year I would beat him, too, and I went straight home and started brainstorming a new acappella. Not to mention, from the very first day that I started clogging, I vowed that I would someday be on the highest team in the studio.

Only I had to leave clogging before I made it to the next Nationals. I didn't get to try for either of those things. And I never quite made it to the highest team, something that had been a huge goal for me for seven years.

Maybe that's why I can't seem to feel settled about clogging. I have unresolved challenges to myself hanging over my head.

Do you ever have things like that - where you feel unfinished and incomplete, but there's just not a way to go back and finish it?

Cake adventures

Cake making - success! Snoopy turned out marvelously, as did the gnome's wonderland, complete with adorable rock people :)

Next project? Maybe :) Maybe even in cake form. We'll see what I'm in the mood for in a couple weeks once we recuperate from the sugar overload!

Twenty-one

* Cake decorating party to make an awesome Snoopy birthday cake.
* New sewing machine from my awesome mom! I'm so excited for all the possibilities :)
* Beating my dad at basketball at the games center.
* Package from Spain. Only a month and a half left...
* Harry Potter midnight premiere coming up with my best friend... :)
* Cupcakes with Spain friends coming up.

Twenty-one doesn't feel much different than twenty, especially since all during twenty I continued to accidentally introduce myself as nineteen, so I imagine I'll probably still introduce myself as nineteen, it's been a hard habit to break...

It's funny, though. When I think twenty-one, the first thing I think of is sitting in AP Spanish three and a half years ago, and Mr. Macdonald exclaiming, "Veinti-un años! Veinti-un años!" It was his belief that all dating-related activities should wait until we were twenty-one. It seemed pretty far away at seventeen. Now I wonder where the time went.

Life goes by so fast!

Viva la Vida.

Let them eat cake!

New goal on my 101 list (revisions allowed, right? I mean, after all, 1001 days is a long time... and my interests change like... daily... haha) MAKE THESE:






I want to make cakes. Beautiful cakes. I'm sure the first few will be total flops. That's okay. I'll bring the extras to work with me. :)

Anyone know of a good cake-decorating class in the area?

Impatience

Yesterday was a long day. But when I got home, there was a big, fat envelope in the mailbox! And yes, it came from Spain :)

So I tore it open.

And inside were four little packages, wrapped in newspaper, and a card in an envelope.

And it said, "Do not open until your birthday."

My birthday is still six days away. So the little packages are sitting on my desk in my room. Staring at me. Begging me to open them.

*sigh... *

Live Mindfully

New mantra.

Here's a question: How many of you can remember who you talked to first this morning? Where were you? How many people passed by you while you were conversing? What color were the other person's eyes? What did you talk about? What was the other person wearing?

What color are the mountains? How many colors? Could you sketch from memory the basic shapes of them?

How did you get to _____ this morning? Did you pass any people? How many of them were talking on phones? Were there birds chirping? How many different kinds of trees did you pass, or were they all the same?

Flowers are popping out all over campus. Stop and look at one. REALLY look at it. What do you see? How many colors? How many parts? What shape are they?

So much of life is spent rushing from place to place, constantly "doing" and never seeing, hearing, noticing whatever is around us. The Buddhist view is that we must live mindfully, for this is all there is to life. While I certainly don't believe that, I agree that I spend much of my time focused on the future, either close or distant, and I miss the moments happening all around me.

My challenge to myself is to be where I am. Really be there. To really see people when I look at them, to really experience my surroundings. It's not that hard with a little practice, but it adds ever so much depth and beauty and meaning to life.

Live mindfully.
Viva la Vida.

Regretting.

I saw someone tonight that I haven't talked to in six years.

The last time we did talk, I broke his heart in the middle of the sophomore hall.

It's silly now - heck, I wasn't even sixteen years old yet, and it was just high school drama. But the way that he was never anything but nice to me, and yet I treated him like a worn-out pair of shoes, that has stuck with me for six years. So I saw him tonight at a party. I looked over at him a few times, but, I'm ashamed to say, I was still too embarrassed and self-conscious to say a word. I'm sure by now he really couldn't care less - it was two months in 10th grade, and he probably laughs about it now. But it still haunts me, and I'm terribly embarrassed of how self-centered and inconsiderate I was.

It leaves me thinking "now what?" I don't know how to contact him except maybe through Facebook, and even if I did, it would seem ridiculous to apologize after all this time. But it would make me feel better.

There are only a few things in life that I truly regret. That moment and the way I acted is one of them. To him, I'm sorry for the hurt I caused him, however small or silly it seems now. Live and learn, right?