How old is too old?

So yesterday was Halloween. Yes, I know that just about everybody under the sun has blogged about Halloween already, but now it's my turn.

So every year when Halloween rolls around, It's time to pick out your costume for trick-or-treating. But nope, not for me! I'm "too old" for this...says my mother. Whether I think I'm too old or not, I don't know. I mean, all my friends do it. Why shouldn't I be able to? I did some hard core thinking and I realized that the last time I went trick-or-treating with friends was in sixth grade. SIXTH GRADE! I will admit that I have gone trick-or-treating with little kids I babysat for, but that's different.

So back to the friends trick-or-treating thing, they all got decked out in their costumes and got ready to go, but I just got to show up, costume-less, and give hugs and say have fun (and eat chili). But that's it. No candy for me, well, besides leftovers from my house. Again, I did some hard core thinking and I had an epiphany. Yep...I'm too old. I feel silly walking to houses asking for candy, just as I did when I was FOUR years old. That was 12 years ago, and for me to do the same thing 12 years later? Yeah...I am definitely too old.

When passing out candy, I really do feel bad giving it to the "big kids" when I could be giving more to the little kids that are having the time of their life walking from door to door getting the sugary sweets that will keep them up all night. It's just not right. Now I'm not at all directing this at any of my friends that I had the opportunity to go trick-or-treating with, quite frankly, I'm a little jealous that you probably had a lot of fun without me, but I am merely stating what I believe.

Although I miss getting to be whatever I wanted on Halloween, I will still always enjoy seeing those smiles on kids faces when you hand them their favorite piece of candy that they will most likely get to see twice that evening (once going in, once coming out). But they will never forget that time they were a clown, or a pumpkin, or Harry Potter. No matter how old you get, you can still have fun on Halloween...just maybe not in a way that little children do.

Will you have a happy Halloween?

Cell phone? Who needs 'em?

The answer to that question would be ME!! And just about every teenager in the United States of America. Cell phones have become the way of communication that has swept this nation. Whether it be texting or calling, it truly has spread across the USA. I have even seen kids in elementary school, walking around with their little hands just texting away.


My point is, unless you live in a bubble and have no access to the outside world, you either have, or have seen someone send a text message. If you have never sent a text message yourself, you are probably not allowed to, as said by your parents. Texting really is the way of communication among teens. We (teens) simply don't want to take the time to answer the phone and talk for a minute about what we could text in 2. I understand that doesn't make sense that we would take the longer route, but it really is just easier. If you are in a quiet location, you send a text. If you are in class (I would never...), you send a text. It essentially saves time just because you can do it anywhere.

Well...just about anywhere. Texting and driving = bad combination. I have heard of many horror stories where someone is texting while driving and they end up dead in a ditch. The only time I EVER text and drive is when sitting at a stop sign with no one around. That way I can sit there as long as needed to finish the text. When in the car with passengers, I usually just pass the phone to them and let them text for me.

So when my friend got her phone taken away, I started thinking about what it would be like without my phone for a day. I weighed the pros and cons and I determined my day would fall apart pretty easily. I use my phone to call someone in my family when I need something, to text friends for homework assignments, to text friends just for fun, to check Twitter and Facebook, to look at my schedule, basically to do everything. The only thing that I could think of that would be beneficial to not having my phone would be the relief of not checking it constantly when it's on silent, but that's about it.


My cell phone is my life. Cell phones are this nations life. They are a source for communication. Nowadays, they are even computers. You use them to text and talk.

Will you need your cell phone?

Image provided by Briancromer.files.wordpress.com

Okojablome...

College. It's the place every highschooler wants to be. It's the place every adult wishes they still were. And it's the place little kids dream of. I mentioned in a previous blog about how I went and visited a friend up at her college, well this is part two.

When visiting my friend Rihanna, I met some pretty interesting characters. The one that is "good at treating the psychotic" (from previous post), is from Okoboji, hence, "Okojablome." She is perhaps one of the coolest people in the world. She has no inhibitions and is completely comfortable talking to ANYONE about ANYTHING. She is one extremely fun person I would love to go to college with.

Another person I met while visiting is her was her friend, "G" (Rihanna told me to name you that, she'll explain it to you). In her opinion, Mike and I are close to identical (in behavior, not looks). I personally didn't think it, but i will admit that he was a pretty cool guy, and definitely a person I would want to go to college with.

Her friend BRRRRRRR is next on my list. She is one of the most fun girls I've ever hung out with. We recently also got to take a trip to Wendy's and catch up a little (which made Okojablome pretty jealous). Once again, I would love to go to college with her.

One final friend is Megasauraus. She took to me as soon as I met her. I would have to say that she was probably the most outgoing at first meeting. I miss her a lot and I know we will get together again. And again, she would be so much fun to go to college with.

The point of this blog is, should I let my friends determine where I go to school? I have made such good friends and should I really use them to make my decision? I say, no. Even though they are so much fun to hang out with. I need to think about what school is best for me. My friend Rihanna just about picked a different school because her best friend goes there, she is not extremely happy with her choice and would never go a different way.

Will you go to a college for the right reasons?

As Inspired by KillerQueen

"And no, my friends aren't crazy..."

I disagree. My friends are crazy. But that is exactly the reason why I love them. There is NEVER a dull moment in what we do. My friend LaQueefa and I once went with her sister and a friend to Iowa City, on the way back, LaQueefa showed some passersby truly what a full moon looks like. On this same trip, when we arrived back in town, we decided to sit outside the car while driving down some back roads. I have never had so much fun with a group of people in 6 hours.

As KillerQueen mentioned, there is never a time where we don't find ourselves quoting/acting out Harry Potter scenes. As seen in KillerQueen's picture, we find ourselves looking for sticks to act as wands and we then cast spells on each other. We even went online to find the true pronunciations/meanings of certain spells on this website.

When we are with this group of friends, I'm pretty sure we get a ton of crazy looks. We tend to go take pictures in the most random places and just have fun. On homecoming night, we went to Noelridge Park and a place called Hamburger Mary's and ate and took tons of crazy pictures (go to facebook for the rest of pictures). I'm pretty sure we spent about an hour at the park just taking fun pictures like the one to the left. This was the most fun I had ever had on homecoming, just because we goofed off the entire night.

At my birthday party, we had fun by dancing with a bubble maker blowing bubbles all over my living room. We have good clean fun by doing things that don't get us in trouble. We just enjoy ourselves just being ourselves.

Will you have fun with your friends?

Friends Part 2 "How you doin??"

Well I figured I will keep blogging about my favorite television show. Don't worry! I won't do it every week, just once in a while.

Friends is, hands down, the BEST television show ever put on this planet. I have thought more and more about it and I just can't find a better show. The way that these characters are developed and the chemistry between all of them captivates me in EVERY episode!

My friend that I dubbed the name Pheebs in my last post still has all my seasons of Friends and if she reads this post, I WANT THEM BACK! The reason I named her Pheebs is because we have had this ongoing Friends "marathon" where we named who we thought would be what character, well we decided she would be Phoebe and I would be Chandler. I don't think you can really call what we had a marathon between the two of us because alltogether I think her and I think we've watched 10 episodes? It seems that because they are at her house, she watches them with a bunch of her other friends. I'm not mad, just jealous that she gets to have the pleasure of watching our favorite TV show without me.

Once again, I will bring up Phoebe Buffay. Phoebe's cookiness on Friends makes me laugh every episode. A hilarious moment in the series in when she is "possessed" by an old lady that died when she was giving her a massage. She claims that the lady wanted to see everything before passing on, so when Phoebe went to a gay marraige wedding, she loudly professes that she has now seen everything, and then leaves Phoebe's body. I just about died laughing, mainly because Lisa Kudrow does such an astounding job of creating different characters in on body, but also just because of the hilarity of the entire situation.

One final thing that capitivates me with the TV show is that no matter what, ever episode makes me laugh. Even during the break-up of Ross and Rachel in season three, I was laughing because the rest of the friends are staked out in the bedroom listening to the entire event. And I laughed in the final episode because Joey kept sitting in the paint and leaving butt prints everywhere. No matter where or when, Friends puts a smile on my face.

Will you laugh at Friends?


Photo Provided by Flickr.com

All-State Schmall-State...

So yesterday started at 5:15 sharp at Happy Chef. Holy cow that was such an early morning, especially for a Saturday! Anyway, this was the beginning of the day of All-State Music Festival auditions. Our choir director always tells us that any good famous vocal performer will tell you that to do your best performance, your voice must be awake four hours prior to your performance. Well, the all state auditions begin at 9, so we are awake and talking by 5 a.m.

The All-State audition process is pretty messed up/ineffective. You can audition in a quartet, trio, or duet (mine was a trio), and any school can bring up to 28 students, 7 on a part (SATB). Well, when you arrive at your location in the state (based on school's location), you receive your cuts of the selected All-State pieces. You see, when you audition, you audition in front of ONE judge, not two, not three, not four, but ONE! Basically what I'm saying is, if that one judge does not like your voice, you are SCREWED. Two of my good friends, Lion and Pheebs, got screwed over for their third year of auditioning. They have just had the unfortunate circumstance of getting a judge that wasn't fond of their voice.

As well as auditioning in front of one judge instead of multiple, all of the high schools in our school system attend the same location for All-State auditions. Our school system has a lot of the state's most talented singers, and the fact that they ALL go to the same location makes it horribly competitive to get in. Each location picks about thirty on a voice part and with five Cedar Rapids schools with talented singers plus the other little schools in the area, many are left in the dust. I propose that we divide up Cedar Rapids schools into two different locations.

Once the first round of All-State auditions are completed, recalls are posted. Recalls are for those that they need to hear again. While the recalls are taking place, the list of those that made it first round are posted. It is a time of tears and joy. Those that made it console those that didn't, some, like my friend Lion :), get mad at those that don't shut up about making it. And others believe that there is always next year.

I have determined that this whole All-State thing is a bunch of, for lack of a better term, bullcrap. Some of THE most talented people don't make it simply because the entire process is subjective. Lion and Pheebs definitely deserve it more than anybody know, and definitely deserve it over a certain someone that made it. Only they shall know who I am talking about. All-State is a bunch of hooplah that doesn't do a whole lot for your future. Sure you can put it on resumes, but what else?

Will you let the All-State process effect you?

"I think you'd be good at treating the psychotic..."

I would have to say that this weekend was one of the most fun weekends of my entire life (minus Saturday morning). I began with the PSATs in the morning... that was a bit of a downer, but afterwards a couple of my friends and I headed over to the Spring House. Oh man was that goooood! Following that was a nice nap and the "Art of Imagination" show that took place at my high school.

That wasn't the best part of the weekend, what happened to follow was the most fun. You see, it all started when my friend, who we'll nickname Rihanna for only reasons she would understand, got extremely mad at me because I wasn't coming up to visit her at college. I felt bad enough as it was, but when she got mad it made it all the worse. This is when I decided to call up her sister (Rihanna II) and ask her if she would accompany me to go surprise Rihanna. She was in on the idea immediately. We did some planning and I decided we should get flowers and make signs for her. When we arrived on campus we went straight to her dorm and slid the signs under the door. Of course she wasn't, so that had no point whatsoever. You see, Rihanna II told Rihanna that their mom was taking her up and that she had to leave right away. I was hiding in the kitchenette next to her room when she arrived. As she read the notes, she assumed I sent them with Rihanna II, but then I walked out and she freaked out. She was ecstatic that I was able to make it up there.

At this point in time, I was planning to leave at 10. We were going to go swimming at Rihanna's friends hotel room and then leave. However, when I got to the hotel, I decided to text my mom to see if there was any remote possibility I would be able to stay. To my dismay, she replied with, "Just get a toothbrush and SLEEP!" If that was all I had to do, I was in! Swimming for about an hour, and then just hung out the entire night. It was nice to find out that the group of people Rihanna made friends with don't do anything of the illegal nature (i.e. drinking, drugs, etc.). It was just good, wholesome, pure FUN!

This was one of the most fun times I had had in a long time. I just would like to thank Rihanna for getting pissed off and making me realize I had to see you! And thank you Rihanna for introducing me to your friends!

Will you truly have fun?