life

so these four guys at my school won 1,000 dollars in a local radio station contest. the contest was to create a commercial for the sation and all the videos entered were put online and the viewers voted. whoever had the most votes won and the guys in my class won. this is the second time a guy that was in the commercial and helped edit it has won a big contest. it's kinda cool i guess.

jon foreman of switchfoot is making a series of four cd's over the course of the next year titled fall, winter, spring, and summer. fall came out wednesday and i listened to some of the songs from it on his myspace. they are really good. i might be a little biased knowing that he is from switchfoot and switchfoot is like my all-time favorite band.

early wednesday morning my mom and my sister left to drive to oklahoma to go see my sister's ex-boyfriend graduate from basic training so it's just me and my dad in the house for 4 days. the ceremony was today and they said it was really nice.

my dog is sick. :( he's throwing up and... well some other stuff. i don't think i need to go in to detail..... i'm hoping he'll be okay.

i've been really in to "to write love on her arms" lately. i don't know why. to write love on her arms is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading hope and finding help for people who have suffered from depression, self-injury, and addiction. i have never suffered from any of those things and nobody really close to me has either (that i know of). so i dont know why i feel like i wanna help them so much.

i am sooooo ready for Christmas. i feel like it will be a lot different this year in a lot of ways, ways i don't feel like explaining because i'm tired and ready to go to sleep.

-em

go vols!

ok, so i'm pretty sure last week's game against vandy was nothing compared to today's! ut went in to 4 overtimes against kentucky and won 52-50!! it was so exciting.. i wouldn't have guessed this game would have run this long. it was insane! just a little fact for those who might possibly care, erik ainge, ut's quarterback, made 7 touchdowns in this game breaking the ut record for most touchdowns in a game...

peace everyone
-em

happy turkey day everyone!

hope it's great!




-em

i'm angry

i'm not as angry as i am sad. the only hope of our youth group staying together after losing our youth pastor has been kicked out. any adult leaders that we had volunteering now have to be members of the church. well let me just say that we had about 5 that were not yet members. these people were just working for God to help us. they were all friends of jonathon that came to help out regularly and after he left, they stayed which showed a great deal how much they cared for us and about what they were doing. two of them had been with us for over a year and the others helped out when we went on trips. the pastors' reasoning for asking them to leave was that they needed to be members of the church to be leaders. technically, the rule applies to lay leaders, not the awesome people that are volunteering to hold us together.

also the "real" adults that help with the youth are putting together what they call a youth council. in my opinion it's not much of a youth council as much as it is an adult council. we have already been volunteered to sing a song in our children's christmas play in december. i can't speak for anyone but i'm pretty sure nobody wants to be forced to sing a song for a children's play. the worst part is that they are taking up youth group time to rehearse it. i don't know who they are expecting to be there because everyone's going to stop coming since the only reason some people were even still coming after jonathon left was because of tyler and mellow (two of the adults they asked to leave).

i have stated to the right people what i think about the whole situation and that is unusual for me. usually i just go along with whatever they hand us but i can't take it anymore. they people in charge of youth now say they asked the other adults to leave becasue it was best for our situation. BUT IT WASN'T!!!! making them leave because they weren't members of the church would just make our situation worse!!!

these are some of the awesome people who can't come back.

thank you, God

my life is so good right now. i can only pray that everyone around me had as good a life as mine. (i'm not bragging about my life i'm saying that the almost all the people around me are have issues). i thank God that i am blessed to be getting good grades, have no relationship issues, have no medical problems, have my parents still be together, not losing a best friend, not have anyone close to me die recently, be making good choices, not be getting kicked out from somewhere i love to be and never thought a person could get kicked out of. all of these issues i am blessed to not have yet i still feel depressed and empty a lot of the time. everything i listed is an issue that at leats one of my close friends is going through and it really sucks for them. i don't know how they have these things happen to them yet they still act cheery. i think i'm really being hit with their issues because i care so much about them and i want to help them as much as i can. all i can do is ask God to be with them. they are all just so optimistic and worry-free. i give them kudos for that.


-em

sr. high retreat

i just got back a few hours ago from cedar crest camp. i was there with about 27 other people for the sr. high retreat. there were probably only 3 people there i knew and a few that i had met before but never really talked to. with the small number it was really easy to get to know everyone that was there.
the first night we had small prayer stations set up inside.
the next day was a pilgrimage-type day. we hiked around the camp in groups and stopped at stations along the way. one we did that i really liked was one where we had to walk a short way with a rock in our shoe then we got to the next station and we thought about names we had been called or called ourselves that hurt us. then we wrote them on a girl that was stading there. we were supposed to think about how God doesn't want us to walk around with all these words weighing us down but let God have these words. then we took the rock out of our shoe and thought about how it was easier to walk without it in there. saturday night we did kind of what we did last year. we broke up in four groups and planned the sunday morning worship service.

i think i got a lot out of the weekend and i'm really glad i went. it was much needed for me. it actually wasn't as cold as i had planned it to be (which was good).

also: pray for my friend and her family. she just lost her grandfather and it taking it kind of rough.

=)
-em

i'm pretty sure i'm feeling a lot better than i did yesterday. no need to worry. i'm getting things done and worked out so it's all good.

-em

tough

i'm so overwhelmed with life right now. i don't know how to handle it or what to do. i just want to fall asleep and sleep for an entire day and everything will be better. too bad that can't really happen. i guess it's better to actually live through tough times rather than just letting them blow over. then you can learn from them and make sure they don't happen again (although they probably will). there is just so much on me right now that i can't figure out how to make time to work it out. all i can do right now is pray. :)


-em

switchfoot has a new song out. they recorded it with the lead singer from relient k and a guy from ruth. the song is called rebuild and it is amazing! it's about habitat for humanity. then the fires in california (where switchfoot is from) and relient k's tour bus catching on fire made have such a personal meaning for the groups. i love it so much. i wish i could see them play it live but they aren't coming to nashville. but they are going to atlanta, knoxville, and evansville... everywhere except nashville basically. it makes me sad that i can't go see them. i bet the three put on a great live show. i have seen relient k in concert and switchfoot in concert... but not together. oh man.


-em