black friday

yep, i went black friday shopping. i went to the mall at green hills and it was so not crowded. i got a shirt, a sweater, and a 3-in-1 sandwich maker all for $60. i think that's pretty exciting. several of my friends went to opry mills at midnight on thursday and said it was sooooo crowded. two of them went to old navy and waited in line for 45 minutes! but they got free 1gb mp3 players. i think that's pretty cool. i've got some homework i need to be doing...

-em

i'm pretty proud of my team

tennessee has won their past two games, that's an accomplishment for us. but not only did we win, we beat vanderbilt and kentucky. i don't think anyone expected us to beat vandy. even i was preparing for a loss. but then we owned the first half. :)

-em

twilight?

i have heard so much about this book lately! it seems like everyone at my school is reading it. almost every single one of my friends have read it and they keep trying to talk me in to reading it. when i ask them what it's about they say vampires and my first reaction is, um... no thanks! but then they tell me it isn't just vampires but it's like more of a love story. i still don't think i would like it very much. now they're making a movie? i just think that since i have already made up my mind that i won't like it, if i tried to read it i just wouldn't enjoy it. i like to think that my reading level is higher than that of a book about a vampire love story. i'm not bashing the series, i haven't even read any of the books. i just don't think i'll like them and i think people should stop reading them just because it's the "trendy" thing to do. people who don't normally read for pleasure are reading them because everyone else is. that's just it: it's a trend.

-em

yeah!

the bears won our first playoff game of the season tonight in overtime! woooo!!

-em

prediction

obama's going to win.




i hope i'm wrong...

-em

oh my gosh!
school consumes my life!!

:|

-em

my internet has been down!

i really don't like using my mom's computer but that is the only way i could check my facebook! haha, but seriously. our internet has been messed up for like the past week and i couldn't do anything! i mean, i could if i really wanted to.... but that computer is sooooo slow!! i haven't done anything that exciting though so that's a plus. oh yeah, both of the people my friend (who shall remain anonymous [cara]) and i rolled found out we rolled them (please send us pictures by the way) haha. we got my previous youth pastor and my current youth pastor in the same night. it was fun and a very last minute thing. i took the ACT hopefully for the last time yesterday and i'm pretty sure that is the most exciting thing that's happened all week.

-em

relient k, anyone?

guess who's going to see relient k, live, with tobyMac on december 5th?!?!
i'm super excited!!!!
:)

-em

college=done

well... the very first part of it. i just sent in my application to UTknox and filled out all my housing and meal plan stuff. doing all of this is getting me really excited for next year! i still have to do all my scholarship stuff though. i hate writing essays. :(

logic?

i was editing my side links and such and as i was studying my links to other people's blogs, i began to wonder what on earth my logic was in ordering them. i think i started out in alphabetical order by first name, then i started adding people's last names to the link. the alphabeticalness (yes i made that word up), was then lost. then instead of rearranging them by last name, i just left them by first name. except there are still some that are out of place.....
i guess that's what happened?

-em

it's been a while

sorry i haven't blogged in so long! no excuse except that i was lazy. i have done a lot since the last post.

school started back and we are at our new building now. it's okay i guess but i liked the old school better. the new one is so open and there are so many new rules. instead of being able to wander around in the mornings, we are all in an area called "the commons" until 15 minutes before school starts. if we have a morning meeting we have to meet in the cafeteria, which is nicknamed the "food court." it is nothing like a food court by the way. having like 3 or 4 different clubs trying to meet in one room while there are also other students eating breakfast in there does not work very well.

i started working on my college application. i'm only applying to UTknox because i know that is where i want to go. i have considered other schools along side UT and looked around but UT really has everything i want. all that is left for me to do is my personal statement and i can send it in. i know that once i get my application in i will feel less stressed about it.

my mom and i went to visit my sister in early september. it was a really last-minute thing. she was supposed to graduate from basic training and would have an on-base pass so my mom had scheduled off time from work and booked a hotel and everything. then my sister hurt her foot. there's something going on with her tendon and it was really bothering her. i don't really know the whole issue. so she called and told us she wouldn't be graduating and probably wouldn't get to see us so my mom cancelled our hotel reservations and we made other plans. well the tuesday before the thursday she was supposed to graduate, sarah called and told us we would be able to see her and that she would have an all-day on-base pass. so that wednesday afternoon, my mom and i drove up to ft. leonard wood, missouri. we called the hotel and they still had rooms available. we got to see her all day thursday and some on friday. my dad couldn't go though and he was really sad about it. she'll get to come home for Christmas though! keep praying for sarah while she's doing what she's doing. she really needs it.

school work has been keeping me busy. i have a.p. calculus this year and my teacher had a baby the week before school started. so for the first seven weeks of an a.p. class we had a sub. we watched a lot of videos and talked mainly about limits. it was sad that most of the time we were correcting the teacher. one time she even gave us a multiple-choice worksheet that had a star by all the answers. it was a pretty easy worksheet.... haha.

we are on our two-week fall break now and i haven't done much. i've pretty much just been lounging around my house and hanging out with my friends. there was talk of my family going somewhere but we couldn't get our schedules worked out. i've still been having plenty of fun though....
:)

-em

best friend time

one of my best friends has spent practically her entire summer at vanderbilt doing an academic summer program they offer called pave, so i haven't really seen much of her this summer. she finished up with the program on friday so she and i spent the whole day together yesterday. we made a variety of fancy looking desserts including chocolate mousse and individual strawberry cheesecake. and another favorite i like to call homemade ice cream--all of which were very yummy. we didn't really have a reason to make any food at all really and we weren't even hungry. we just like making food. :)
especially when it's pretty and yummy!








-em

summer sizzler!

a couple of days ago i got back from summer sizzler and it was so fun! there were so many people this year! it was a little tough to do some things and personally i think there were some organization problems. but how could there not be? this year all the behind the scenes stuff that beth morris usually did got put on the design team's shoulders. but everything still ran smoothly and the fun continued. at summer sizzler y.s.f. usually has two competitions: the girls vs boys challenge and the design team challenge. this year the design team challenge was between each individual member of the design team. it's been done in years past and it was eggs on heads. every dollar that got put in a specific member's bag equaled one egg they (including me) had to smash on their head. i had the most with 13 eggs. i didn't feel as messy though as the new ccym who competed in the girls vs boys challenge. the deal with that is if the girls raise more money per capita than the guys, then the guys become human pancakes and vise versa. what all goes in to a human pancake you ask? all of your essentials, flour, eggs, butter, syrup, chocolate syrup, and powdered sugar. this year neither the boys or the girls won, it was a tie! but girls will be girls. the girls of the ccym didn't want to become human pancakes so the boys got to pick three other girls that were there to represent the 3 ccym girls (i didn't think that was very fair). overall though i'm happy about how the event went this year. up next: hands and feet, a two day local mission retreat. can't wait!

-em

woo!

we have volleyball tryouts going on right now and they are three days long. well today i made first cut. we still have tomorrow and then they'll have second cut. the thing about today's cut is that only 5 people were cut. so that means everyone will really have to step it up tomorrow. we have about 30 people coming to tryouts tomorrow and will have anywhere from 16- 20 players. i'm staying pretty optimistic though. if i don't make tomorrow's cut then i have like a "fun list" of things i can do that i wouldn't be able to do if i played. either outcome, i'll be sure to be happy. :)

oh, and we got a new cat. he likes to attack our dogs though so we're still trying to decide if we're going to keep him.

-em

woo caving!

today i spent about four hours inside one of the south's best spelunking areas - raccoon mountain caverns. it wasn't easy i'll say that. but it was really fun and a time i wont forget. we shimmied and we slid, we crawled and we climbed. our guides were like super fast and it was a little challenging keeping up with them. i have been caving before and this was definitely harder. it was a little assuring though that one of our guides was a pretty buff guy and i figured if he could get through these small places then i wouldn't have a problem. certainly a fun trip and i know i'll be sore tomorrow. not sure if it's really something i'd do again. well at least not one that's four hours long!

-em

mission trip

right now i'm in mississippi on our senior high mission trip. we are doing hurricane relief, well i thought that's what we were doing. i havent really seen very much hurricane damage. even the house we are working on is just painting the exterior and replacing some old wood. i think in some way it was damaged by katrina whether it was on the inside or just a little somewhere else. it's still cool though. the lady whose house our group is working on is extremely grateful of what we're doing. we just have to finish about an hours worth of work there and we'll be done. we head home on sunday so until then we'll probably just do some fun stuff down here.



-em

finally

hermitage united methodist church, after nine months, finally has a new youth pastor. think about that, 9 months! i'm so angry that it took that long. anyway. his name is matt sands. he's been going to our church for, well i dont really know how long. he's been teaching our 9th and 10th grade sunday school since january. and our senior high mission trip is when he starts. which means he started 4 days ago. its really exciting that we finally have one but i still cant get over the fact that it took nine months!!!! way too long. and it isnt like we were doing things that postponed the search or anything. we had everything in place in time to have one back in march. oh well. i'm just glad we finally have someone.

-em

my sister's a blogger

well not technically. but my mom and i set up a blog for her to keep family and friends updated on her situation. she's at basic training right now and will be for the next 18 weeks. she can't really post anything right now so for the time being my mom posts updates including conversions we have with her through letters and phone calls. you can check it out if you want at http://www.pfcmastin.blogspot.com

-em

a few pictures

home from a great trip

today i got home from a mission trip in eleuthera, bahamas. we were down there with the bahamas methodist habitat. we were originally supposed to be home last night but of course our flight got all messed up. when we were on the island the plane that was taking us from there to ft. lauderdale was two hours behind. so we had to get our two other flights rescheduled. we had to spend the night in florida and catch our other two planes this morning and in order to do that we had to be up at 4:15am this morning. i'm surprised i'm still even awake.


so here are the highlights of each day we were down there
sunday: fly down to the island and unpack.

monday: first work day--jackhammer a tree stump out of the cement ground in a community center, get to know some of the local kids, go to the beach

tuesday: start putting up dura-rock (i have no idea how you're supposed to spell that. it's a more weather durable version of drywall), jackhammer a funny shaped outline on the floor for pluming, go to the beach, go to the local church for a bible study (it wasn't that exciting)

wednesday: lady with annoying voice from colorado, the other group that was down there with us, talking in amazement about the thunderstorm that was currently going on during quiet hours (she made me very frustrated), finish putting up some dura-rock in the community center and put in a ceiling, go to the beach, go back to the same church for youth group that night.

thursday: work half a day in the cottage the camp is building, go to governor's harbour and shop a little, buy some goombay punch, go to the beach.

friday: work a bit more at the cottage, go to the beach, visit the glass bridge, have a two hour flight delay, finally get to florida, sleep over in a hotel

saturday: wake up at 4:15am to catch our plane home.
:)
and now here i am. actually today was a little bit more eventful. my family got a new washer and dryer today. a new pair was much needed. the one we have now is the same one my parents got when the got married. it's been a while. oh and wednesday was also a little bit more eventful. my sister shipped out to basic training camp in missouri for the army. she will be there for 19 weeks and it's going to be weird with her not around the house.

goodnight my friends,
-em