My siblings were all at their spouses and boyfriend's house over Christmas day, so we had our own little celebration today and yesterday when they came home. Christmas time makes me happy. That's all there is to it, but there are a few things that make Christmas...CHRISTMAS!1) It's not about the day you have Christmas on. Yes, it's an official holiday on December 25, but is it any fun if you have no one to share it with? When my family walked in yesterday I started crying I was so happy they were there! I know-- embarrassing!! Haha, it was actually kind of funny because my brother and sister in law were hugging so many people that I ended up crying in my sister's boyfriend's arms. Bahaha2) Without the ones you love there, Christmas isn't half as good.3) Cowboy boots and turquoise rings make the world spin around.
This is obviously the ring I was talking about earlier. Yeah...my dad has good taste ehh?
And these are my cowboy boots! YYYEEAHH! If I had it my way I'd live on a ranch in Montana with my horses and cows. ..If only dreams were a reality ;)Merry Christmas all!! Peace out chubs!
One night my family and I were all sitting in the living room talking to some friends of ours. About halfway through our conversation one of the men (there were two of them) reached over and handed me a piece of paper with two airplanes on it. One was the Wright brothers (Sp?..that's embarrassing...) first air plane and the other was the most advanced technologically that we have today. Our friend talked to us about how these air planes represent our lives. We build our own plane. It's not like having the Wright brothers' plane would be bad-- at least it's an airplane.. but wouldn't it be so much better to have the technologically advanced plane? You could do so many more things and have so many more things and give such amazing things.
After our friends left I took this thought a step further in my head. You build your own plane, right? And the plane represents our life. After we decide what we're going to do with our life and choose a career and have built our airplane, what next? Have any of you e
ver seen that old movie "The Even Stevens Movie?" It was a T.V. show and then they made a movie out of it. Anyway, in the movie, the Stevens family thinks they're going to some tropical island to participate in a reality show, but really they get in an airplane and ride around in circles for hours and then land at a local beach the T.V. station has disguised to look like some far away paradise. Think about it..What if we applied this to our lives. We first build our airplane, and then WE decide where it goes! WE choose if we want to ride around in circles for hours and then land back home or if we want to ride in the plane for hours and end up in Paris, France. Or wherever you might want to go the most. We are the pilots of our own lives. We decide..no matter how much we wish it were up to someone else..it's our life; our plane; our destination. What will you do with it? ..Just a thought
Oh man, tonight will be such a blast! I've got the Christmas Eve party here with my family and I Missy, Mike, Dave, Kristin and Patten will be there along with my parents and all of my dad's extended family! Talk about HUGE HEADACHE! ...And LOADS OF FUN! Hahahaha, I'm quite excited to say the lease.
Hmmm...I don't usually do many updates on this thing, but I guess I might as well ehh?
-I got sick starting about...last Wednesday. My glands were so swollen I honestly didn't know if they were my glands or not. They were bigger than they'd EVER been before! I had little white cuts all over the back of my throat that made me want to throw up when I saw them, and for part of the time I was so tired I couldn't even stand. ..I'm sure you all REALLY wanted to know that, but I'm better now! SO WHOOO!
-I finally took my Christmas presents around last night. I gave the usual..lotions and creams. With the occasional "grow your own aquarium" and toy elephant. Haha that was a lot of fun...OH! And I gave Tori a 10 pack of juice boxes because she always gives me her juice at lunch! Hahaha, I don't know if you guys could tell, but I'm not exactly in to the whole "nice present" thing. I don't know why..I'm just too lazy or something. so I just go with the 2 dollar toys at Albertsons ;) (P.S. I haven't given out all my presents yet, so if you read this and haven't gotten one yet, do not dismay!)
-When I took my presents around I sat and talked to some of my friends which was fun because I've been cooped up in my room for the last little while. I talked to Tori and she was very happy about her juice, haha. My favorite quote from last night was definitely when Thomas introduced me to his dad--
Thomas: Dad, this is Natalie, she's Dave Johnson's little sister...Dave was good friends with Ben in highschool. Do you remember him?
Thomas's dad (Sad, I didn't even catch his name): Oh yeah, I remember Dave!
Thomas: She had a crush on Ben!!....when she was like 6!
TD: Oh, well good thing you got over that, haha.
Thomas: Yeah, she had a little trouble when she found out he was getting married.
Natalie: Yeah, it took me a little while to get over myself, but I eventually was okay!
TD: Well, it's nice to meet you, Natalie!
*Thomas's dad begins walking away...*
Thomas: OH! And she's a BYU fan!
TD: ....Oh....Well...don't keep her here too long, son.
Hahahahahahaha this is pretty much how his conversation with my parents went when they met when he came over to wish me happy birthday. Except, instead of ME bringing up that he's a Utah fan HE did and my parents thought he was a "great guy."
-It's sunny outside...which kind of worries me because it's Christmas Eve and it looks like there's not chance of recieving any more snow than we've already got! :'(
-Tyler, Becca, Dave, Kristin, Patten, Missy, and Mike will be here next week for our Christmas celebration. All those people will be away for the actual Christmas day celebration, so we're having our own Christmas next week when all of them can be present. My mom, dad, and I are opening our "Santa" presents tomorrow morning and then waiting to open the rest when everyone else can be there with us. I'm excited for our traditional game of Running Charades...as long as dad doesn't pick like...Laurence Welk and Great Expectations again. I'm going to have to sing Taylor the Latte Boy for Becca so she knows what it is this time around ;) AND....I'm gonna have to have a friend come over and play with us because now that Missy has Mike (hahah M&M!!! Never saw that one before) we have uneven teams and TRUST ME!!!!! Mike really does make a difference! When he was on Missy's team they always won! And when he was on my team WE always won! So....I'm gonna have to make the teams even this time.
Hmm...I think that's about all the updates I have for now...
Merry Christmas everyone! I guess I'll make this blog post all the more cheesy and end it with one of my very favorite Christmas songs.
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams!
Merry Christmas all! And Peace out Chubs!!
Okay everyone, I know I've written about school before, and I know everyone thinks it's the most boring topic ever, but I need to write again. I need to vent and I need to introduce some ideas to everyone who reads. (which very well may be like three people...but that's okay.)
Cheating.
This particular type of cheating may not go on as often as other types. But, really, what IS cheating? Does taking a friend's worksheet and writing down the answers as your own count as cheating? Is it bad to do? Does it really matter? Maybe it doesn't matter for that specific class...maybe it's not a big deal. But if you do it in one class, what's to say you won't try to do it in other classes as well? What's to say you won't cheat in higher places like med-school or try to take a short cut in surgery. Maybe you didn't pay attention in your English class on how to properly write an essay and you just had someone else write it for you. Then when you're applying to college you write some crap essay that gets you no where-- if anywhere farther away from where you WANT to be. Maybe you didn't pay attention in that math class and you copy the answer from a friend. Accidentally, you leave the negative sign off the answer. Meh...no big deal. Well, imagine a few years later, you're an engineer and you have a similar type of promlem. You do everything right on the problem except put that little insignificant negative sign on. There is no partial credit this time. You're not just risking your grade. You actually send in your calculations and they begin to build the bridge you did the calculation for. About two weeks after they build the bridge you turn on the news only to find that your bridge has fallen down. ONE LITTLE negavite sign made your entire bridge fall down. (As much as that may seem like a made up scenario, it's not. I know a guy who actually had this happen.) So what's the big deal? I'm just in highschool, it's not like I'm building bridges or anything. Does that mean it doesn't matter? Cheating happens WWWWWAAAAYYYY to frequently at East High School, and I'm sure other schools as well. We need to take a stand as students and say NO to cheating. WE are the future leaders of America. WE are the future surgons and doctors who will be cutting into real people whos lives depend on us! WE are the future lawyers. We are the future teachers. WE are the future of America. If all we do is cheat right now, who's to say we won't just cheat later.
Teachers
Not only do WE, as students, need to have integrity and do our own work, but we also need teachers who care and WANT to teach us. People often overlook the importance of good teachers in the highschool environment because...well I don't know exactly why. Maybe because it's just highschool and it really doesn't matter THAT much. Maybe it's because people don't realize just how bad some of the teachers are. Maybe they just don't really care. I'm not exactly sure. A teacher is one of the single most important people in an adolecant's life. Not only do they teach us, but when we walk in to that class room we hand over a part of our educational future to the one who operates that classroom. OBVIOUSLY we have to do the work they give us. OBVIOUSLY we need to try hard in the class. But we CANNOT do it alone!!!! We need the help of the teachers! We need to get the information needed to perform well on tests and other measurements of logic. We should not be expected to learn things by ourself from the book ALL of the time. I know learning from the book is an important skill, but it should NOT be expected all the time. Teachers should be in the teaching environment to teach. Not to earn money. Not to simply get by. If you expect us students to spend more than half our lives with you then you better be willing to teach us what we need to know to pass AP tests, pass classes, and just be an overall intelligent person. Teachers need to make rules and enforce them. Make them AAAANNNDDDDD enforce them.
Students
Students!! We have just as much responsibility as teachers do in sculpting a good learning environment! We MUST do our homework. We NEED to be honest about it! We NEED to pay attention in class. We need to do what we can to become intelligent. If we don't take in the information our teachers feed us, why should we expect them to feed us more? Do not ask friends if you can copy their homework because you were up late last night. Do not think it's no big deal to talk through the teacher while they're trying to teach. Do not aim to be the class clown. Do not try to be defiant towards your teachers. Most of what I have to say about students is up where I talked about cheating. Seriously, if we're going to spend six hours a day in school, why don't we learn something while we're there.
The things I've talked about all mix with eachother. You need all of them to have a good learning environment. Without one it's like taking the bottom block off of a tower of blocks. Everything comes tumbling down. One more thing we need to finish off our learning environment is respect. There are times in school, and in other places I'm sure, where it's not about learning anymore. It's not about having a good education. It's about respect. Simple respect. Without respect we lose everything. I want to be able to trust the people who operate on my body in the future. I don't want to have to tell my parents my teachers don't care about cheating anymore. I don't want to have to say no to my friends who want to cheat off me because it's so normal anymore....do you?
This is obviously the ring I was talking about earlier. Yeah...my dad has good taste ehh?
And these are my cowboy boots! YYYEEAHH! If I had it my way I'd live on a ranch in Montana with my horses and cows. ..If only dreams were a reality ;)
