Confessions
1. I really don't know what I'm gonna do once I get out of high school. Art and writing can be personal-time careers.
2. I'm really forgetful and go braindead in the middle of sentences. I just forgot the next thing I was gonna write.
3. I have a problem with being ignored. Maybe I'm too quiet or something, but someone always seems to interrupt me or something.
4. I'm a big Christian. I try to follow what the Bible says and everything, but it's not because I'm trying to be a goody-two-shoes; I just know what things are wrong and would rather not do them.
5. I always seem to be the one that gets in trouble when I DO do something wrong. That's another reason I don't do them very often.
6. I DO believe that Jesus is Lord and nothing you say is going to change that. I'm not being stubborn, I just know the truth. Confront me about it if you want, that's just my Faith.
7. I need to be more outgoing and less shy. I just went to a camp of about 500 people, with a whole busload of people from where I live, and I didn't meet anyone but the 6 other girls in my cabin.
8. I have all these great expectations and plans, but never seem to work them out. At the end of the school year or summer or week of camp or whatever, I realize nothing has changed and I never even tried to do what I was planning on.
9. and every time I say, "Oh, this time it'll be different."
10. I'm a band geek and I don't know what I'd do with all that free time no-marching-band would give me...
11. ...but I'm not really "passionate" about playing. Maybe it'll be different since I switched instruments, but... I don't even take the time to practice and I don't really want to.
12. I'm gonna be a sophmore in high school and I still don't wear dresses, makeup, or do my hair.
13. I love storms. I think they can only be described as awesome; God's showing just a little bit of his power making these loud noises and beautiful strikes of light.
14. I imagine God and Jesus and whoever else is up there wrestling or having some other competition.
15. I can't believe my "sweet sixteen" is less than half a year away. The driving I can handle, but those birthday parties are always so girly and mine won't be anything close to the word. No dances, no dresses, no makeup... I'm still a kid, really.
16. I will never drink alcohol. Ever. I've heard too many stories and seen how the people tell it like it's so cool. It's not.
17. The same goes for drugs and smoking and such. My dad's whole side of the family is addicted to cancer-sticks. One is even homeless because of his addictions. And he thinks it's such a great story about how he goes to the AA programs to get the money they give at the end so he can buy more alcohol and cigarettes.
18. I have a puny family and, frankly, I don't care much about hardly any of them. I know that's heartless, but my only cousin is already married with two little kids and we never visit them anyways. It's not like I can relate with any of them. They're just people that come sometimes for special occations. And I really do mean SOMETIMES. I'm not even that close to my brother and sister. Them and my parents and maybe one or two other family members are the only ones I can see myself really caring if something happened to them.
19. I'm not really that heartless, I'm just saying that my parents didn't try too hard to make it a close family, extended-wise.
20. I feel a bit disconnected from the world because I don't really care about stuff everyone else seems to care about. I don't care how I look, I don't care about video games, I could do without internet if I wanted to... I don't have all those family bonds so many people have.
21. Sometimes I write poems.
22. I have a few of the last chapters of Blood Brothers written, but I'm technically only on the eighth or ninth. (I need to type and post them...)
23. I think it would be awesome to animate things, but I can't draw very well with a tablet.
24. I come up with BB-related music videos for songs. That's one reason animation would be great for me.
25. I'm so awesome, I broke my camera before I even got to camp (will be explained)
26. "Sticks and stones may break some bones" but words can hurt a lot more. That's the truth, in case you didn't know yet.
27. Sometimes I think about becoming a vegetarian, but I don't like tomatoes, pickles, or mushrooms, I'm not too crazy about peppers, and salad isn't the best thing in the world either. But I'm still fine with fake meat and my sister's vegan meals.
28. I still can't remember what I was gonna say at the beginning. It came to mind while I was writing #26, but I forgot it again.
29. I'm not ready for a boyfriend. I figured that out about a year-and-a-half ago. And I don't like anyone that way, in case you thought this was truth-or-dare.
30. I want this to be the best summer ever, and have awesome plans, but in the back of my mind that voice is telling me I know it won't happen.
31. The only way to get attention on this site is to do fan art or just be awesome, and I won't do either. Well, I won't do fan art, and I'm not awesome, I mean. Because of this, I feel more neglected and left out. (#3)

What's up?
Well, now that I spilled a bit of my heart out to the couple of people that actually will read this, I guess it's back to normal journaling. Hopefully I'll remember that last one, but if not, oh well. I haven't journaled or updated in any way for a while so a lot of things have happened. This may be the longest journal entry yet. Sorry. Because of that, I'll just get right to the fun stuff.

Band Camp
The first week of band camp was the first week of June, two weeks ago. As of the friday before (a half-day of band camp) I play tenor sax. Amazingly I learned pretty much all the notes in the first couple days, but it's still hard switching from teeny-weeny flute to a big heavy sax. My thumb is still sore from holding all the weight.
FYI: In concert band, the sax is held out to the side, allowing all the weight to rest on your neck through the neck strap. In marching band, it is held out in front of you, throwing most if not all the weight on the right thumb.
Yeah so I managed to break my first reed in about two seconds. Cody tried to tell me not to try and put it on while I was walking but... oh well. That first day I couldn't play anything but a C (by the end of the day) because I was using an upperclassman's reeds which had a hardness of 4. As a beginner who had never even used a reed before, I needed a 2 or 2.5. Anyways, I got my own reeds. The first lasted till Thursday, and the second was mauled by a stand rack in the last hour of Friday.
I'm trying to keep this enjoyable and leave out the boring stuffs.
I also am doing better than a couple of the other Tenors. Hah I laugh at them.
Oh yeah, and my sax's name is Nessie. I was trying to play a low note and it was only coming out as weird, other-worldly noises, and my senior (Cody, a lazy jerk, and he wouldn't consider it mean of me to say that) is like, "I found the Loch Ness Monster!"
Yeah. Nessie.

Then there was a sax party after band on Friday, full of food and swimming and roasted shmellos and frisbee-ing. Then it was off to Young Life camp.

Young Life Camp: Rockbridge Alum Springs, Goshen, Virginia
Camp was awesome. If you've never been to a Young Life or Wyldlife camp, you need to. Wyldlife is for Jr. High/Middle School kids, and Young Life is high school. Maybe college-age, too. Anyways, there's so much to do: Swimming pool, complete with a diving board and awesome people.
-Zipline: You get harnessed in and attached to a cable, then jump and you fly through the air until you get to the end, where the lake stops you. And takes your pants if you're not careful.
-The Blob: There's this giant blow-up pillow-shaped thing. You jump on from a tower and crawl to the end and sit. Another person (preferably a heavier guy) jumps off the tower and lands on the other side, sending you sprawling into the air before plopping into the water
-The Ropes Course: About fifty feet up in the air, there are all these different challenges, getting from one checkpoint to the next. Maybe it's walking across a log, whether it's wobbly or stationary. Maybe it's walking across a cable either with another cable to hold on to or not. Or pulling yourself across a short zipline or walking across a rickety little bridge. Don't worry, you're harnessed in so you only fall perhaps two feet if you slip, then you can pull yourself back up. You can also use the "lobster claws" that attatch you to the safety line for balance if you're on a part with nothing to hold onto. There's probably at least five parts to whatever course you end up on before the ending. And the ending isn't climbing back down the ladder or hillside. I've seen one that ends in a zipline, a giant swing, or a trapeze bar to try and grab before they lower you to the ground.
-The Slide: Pretty much, it's a giant water slide. The fabric reminds me of a slippin' slide, except that it's about a hundred feet of it at maybe a 45-degree angle. You can go head-first, feet-first, or even try and surf down it. Just be sure the lake water isn't too cold!
-Rock wall: Just like any other rock wall. There are different levels of challenge… I think there were four choices both camps I've been to. One was on the wall of a gym and the other was outside on its own tower-structure. Just get to the top and ring the cowbell.
-The High Five: So there's a telephone pole. It has those staples servicemen use to climb up it and no wires attached to it, but really it's just a telephone pole. Harnessed in like you would be for the rock wall, you climb up the pole. Getting up it is simple, but now you have to try and stand on the top. Perhaps forty feet in the air, you can see how the pole wobbles, and you're trying to stand up on a little circle with nothing to hold onto for balance. If you can manage that, you turn around to see a gray glove-like thing hanging little more than a yard away. Jump off and give it a high-five, and that's the High Five. Really, you don't have to stand up, because a whole lot of people just can't. You can jump from the top of the staples and still make it. I did. But it's fun.

Not all the camps will have all of that (probably) and some may have more. It's a whole lot of fun and well worth the money. There's also great music, fun skits, awesome food, and something fun the whole camp does every day. One day may be a volleyball tournament, or a pool party, or a war, or a cabin-clean-up contest, or a dance, or 50's night, or a crazy obstacle course or… really it could be anything. It depends on the camp. Even if you don't like volleyball or dancing, I still promise you'll have a great time. "The Best Week Of Your Life Or Your Money Back!" That's what they say. And I bet the Young Life leaders would gladly give you your money back if you don't have fun.

There's my advertising of awesomeness. You can even look on YouTube for camp videos.
Well here's a bit of my camp experience.
After a long drive (fourteen hours including stops) we stopped for lunch at a little camping ground area next to a white-water-rafting river. We didn't actually go white water rafting, but pretty much everyone went out in the shallow water and proceeded to climb all the rocks sticking out of the water. I had my camera because my mom always gets mad at me for not taking pictures, plus these were some great pictures of the group anyways. I actually attached the camera to the straps of my tanktop in the back so I could use my hands and everything. Plus I was pretty good at this and knew I wouldn't fall in. Somehow I ended up being pretty much in the back of the group as they all climbed upriver, but caught up to some extent. There was a big spider that the guys chased out of its hole (one of our leaders is an arachnophobiac) and apparently the same guys found a snake (what's that deadly-poisonous red/black/white-striped one?) and taunted it a bit before the same leader told them to stop on account that he was responsible for their lives. A bunch of the group swam out to a really big rock and I took a picture of them on it, but I was at a spot where the gap between the rocks was too big to step across, jumping wasn't such a smart idea since a lot of the rocks were slippery and wet and I wasn't gonna take my chances, the water in between was too deep to wade across without getting my camera wet, and the current was too strong anyways. I stayed there for a while, trying to figure out an alternate way to get around or how to give my camera to one of the guys already over there so I could go across or something. Then I tried to go around that strong-current spot where it was shallower and ended up slipping and floating down the river about fifteen feet before getting stopped/saved by a leader. My poor camera was dead and we weren't even at camp yet. We managed to revive it a couple times at camp (it stayed hanging in front of the fan, batteries and card out and as open as possible) but after a few days it wouldn't work anymore. Well, I got those river pictures and one or two others from one time it came back to life, but anything else I have to get from my cabinmates.

At the pool party they did one night, there was one event everyone had to participate in, called the Whirlpool. As you may have guessed, everyone walks or runs or swims around the pool in one direction, creating a bit of a whirlpool effect. When the people with the microphones tell us to lift our feet up and stop swimming, the water keeps going that direction and the current picks us up. Then they tell us to go the OTHER way. After a while of struggle and slipping and being sucked away again by the current, we start reversing the current and the fun continues. It's AWESOME. If you're ever at a big swim party or something, DO IT.

There was also a big group of competitions between the four teams they split the camp into. I got to do "zipline for style" and thus rode down the zipline with a cape. Really, it was a poncho, but hey we were short on capes! It was awesome. There was also "Frisbee blob" where the person being blobbed (yes, that is now a verb, thanks to Young Life) throws a Frisbee to their teammate on land and the teammate is supposed to catch it. Our team's was perfect, and another team had an epic dive into the lake to catch it. He still missed but it was awesome.

There was also one night that we had a "rodeo". There was a series of relay races including the shovel race (two guys pull a girl down and back on a big shovel), a bike race, a barrel race (four guys carry a girl down and back on a barrel), and the whole spinning with your head on a baseball bat dizziness race. (run down to the end, put your forehead on one end of the bat and touch the other end to the ground, and run ten circles around it before trying to run back to your teammates. So many people fell, it was hilarious. One of my leaders, when she fell she started log-rolling instead of getting right back up. It was HILARIOUS.

That's my main excitement of camp. Most of the other stuff was already explained.

Woah


Upcoming Art
-I have a few chapters of Blood brothers to type and put up here, as well as the inspiration to continue with more chapters.
-I think I have a few random pictures to scan and show.

-I'm thinking of doing another giant picture of awesomeness. Hopefully this one won't be ruined by horrible anatomy like Da Dwaggin was, but I don't know what I'm gonna put on it. I think Blood Brothers characters like Kye and Aron, but I don't know a theme or plan for it. Maybe just one of those typical pictures of all the characters lined up for a picture, you know? Or maybe something to cover my door with. I don't know where else it would go, except perhaps throwing it on the basement wall instead of my own.
-I'm also trying to figure out animation. I downloaded Pencil; anyone think there's a better free one? Or cheap, whatever. But hopefully I'll get some animation videos up before the summer's over!

Have A Great Summer!