So today I had my last day of rowing practice at Indianapolis Rowing Center.  Now that this season is over I only have two more left!!!  It’s crazy how time flies by when you are having the time of your life and living the glory days.  But today was unfortunately the end of a great run that I had with people that I fell in love with.  I love my teamates from rowing: they are hilarious, loving, fun, kind-hearted, and all-around great people.  I have made some of my best friends from rowing.  Even though I know that the season will be starting up again in the fall, the seniors will be off at college. I will never row with them at IRC again, and it is scary to think about.  My best friend on the team, Barbara, is going to Purdue next year and I am soooo proud of her…but I have never been in a boat without her.  Its gonna be a huge adjustment for me to get through the season without her.  But I guess I will just have to visit.  I hope to stay in touch with everyone and keep close friendships with all the people.  IRC and the people in it have changed my life and I thank them for that every day.

So basically I think this new song by Demi Lovato is AMAZING!!!!  I know that she’s a disney chanel kid and everything but I think she is a really talented artist.  She writes all of her own songs and I can really relate to them.  She also has a an awesome voice.  She hits some killer high notes.

I saw her in concert last summer when she opened up for the Jonas Brothers, before she was even made a name for herself and I really liked her and her music.  Now I’m so excited when I hear her songs on the radio and am always telling others to listen to her music.  

I can not believe that the school year has gone by this fast!!! I am so ready for summer its not even funny.  This past weekend has really given me summer fever with the hot weather and beautiful sunshine.  I have my summer life guarding job squared away and I just got the summer issue of my favorite magazine this morning, completely getting me into the summer spirit.

But then it downed on me: These last few weeks of school are gonna be super hard!! With finals and AP exams and hero movies and prom and just trying to get everything done, I’m gonna be crazy stressed.  But right now i’m just taking it one day at a time, trying to get through the last few weeks of school, and waiting for SUMMER!!!!!! 

So I know the title sounds really depressing but my easter was not as fun as the ones I remember in the past.  We always go to my dad’s side of the family in the morning and then to my Mom’s side in the afternoon.  But this year, after we had spent the earlier part of the afternoon at my aunt’s house, we left for my uncles for the second half of our day.  When we got there, NO ONE WAS THERE!!! They had changed the times to earlier so that they were the same time as my other family’s party. I was super bummed and my family got into a fight about the miscommunication and…yeah i didn’t get to see any of my family that I haven’t seen in a long time.  I mean, a lot of worse things could have happened, but it definitely wasn’t one of my favorite Easters.

As I examine my life and all aspects of it that surround me, I realize that my childhood is pretty much officially over.  Although it makes me sort of sad, i realize that it is really only the beginning.  I have my whole life ahead of me.  I have spent all this past time preparing for my journey that I am about to embark on.  During my childhood I have gained multiple strengths such as my hardworking persistence, my optimism, and loving nature. I like to think that these skills will give me the ability to create long-lasting relationships with others and getting a job.  However, I do have my weaknesses such as anxiety, negativity at times, and self-consciousness, which may set me back multiple times during my journey.  Therefore, I am still only a partial person because I have not completely figured myself out yet.  I still have a lot to learn.  I am always looking to medicines such as opportunities for more education and for building relationships with others.  I have discovered that the purpose of life is to focus on the relationships that I build and strengthen with the others in my life.        So as I was thinking about this, I started to contemplate on what qualities I would need to fully reach that life goal.  What kind of qualities does a person with lots of friends have?  Someone who is happily married?  Someone who is close to their family?  Someone who has a close relationship with God?   I began running images of people through my mind as I thought about all the types of relationships people have, and the type of person they must be in order to have those relationships.      So the first quality I decided I needed to have was patience.  You must be patient when it comes to nearly every aspect of life, especially in  relationships.  Nothing in life comes easy, and we must wait for virtually everything before we are able to obtain it.  It always seems that we are always moving so fast in life, like everything needs to be happening at the speed of light in order to be worthwhile.  But I really think that it is best of we just take it slow and wait for life to come to us, instead of chasing after it all the time. That is why it is best to be patient in relationships, because everything is better if you just et it happen instead of forcing it.  Also, you have to always be patient in dealing with other people.  In order for anything to work, you must be able to accept them for every flaw and tendency that they may have.  That brought me to the admissions office where I received a spool of thread.  I thought the symbol fit it well because sewing takes a lot of patience, consisting of tons of tiny stitches that eventually lead to the end product: a work of art.

    Also on my list of desired qualities was strength.  Life by no means is easy.  We have to be ready to handle all of the struggles that come our way.  After all, even though no one is sure why, much of life is suffering.  That is what we do most of the time here on earth. Strength is needed in order to push through the daily struggles that one must endure.  Specifically in relationships, we must be strong when our heart is broken and also in doing what is best without harming others.  Relationships and loving others requires the strength to stand up for yourself while remaining selfless.  As much as people believe that being nice is everything when in comes to being successful in life, you must be strong in competing with others.  It is after all, survival of the fittest.  I found it fitting that strength was found in the math office, that causes us students the most strife.  We have to push through the homework and tests an equations every day.  It is definitely the subject that requires the most strength.  However, I didn’t understand what the small bag of green sand meant in symbolizing the quality of strength……???????

     Humor was my favorite quality to search for.  I knew that Senora Jackman would hold the secret symbol before I even read the clue.  After having her for two years as my Spanish teacher, I began to reminisce on all the hilarious moments I have experienced in her class and how those moments are the ones that are the most profound in my mind.  They were all such good times and have really made me enjoy Spanish.  Therefore, i started to think about what my life would be like without humor.  Life would Suck!!!  Its such a huge part of my life and really makes it worthwhile.  Life can’t always be taken so seriously.  We have to just sit back and enjoy it…and laugh at it!!!  That’s how I decided that humor is a crucial part of life.  Without it, would life even be bearable???

      We must always be compassionate with others in life.  It’s imperative that we put ourselves in other’s shoes so that we can truly love them and understand them.  That is the basis in forming relationships.  You can’t care for a person if you don’t know them. Also, love is a lot different to me than compassion.  People can always love something and even ideas of something but showing compassion for someone or something means that they can relate to that person and feel for their problems.  That can make or break a relationship, meaning that we can’t just love someone for the external qualities but be able to look inside of them and see how they work and deal with all life throws at them.  When i found compassion in the religion office and received a small hand, I realized that religion and God are the ones that teach us to be compassionate towards others.  Jesus was able to be compassionate towards us when he suffered on the cross for us.  The hand, to me, symbolized the part of compassion that tells us that you must give up part of yourself for someone else.

      Finally, courage is what I believed that I would need the most of to embark on this journey called life.  All my life, I feel like I have been holding myself back in some way or another and not fully living life to the fullest.  Sometimes, I feel too embarrassed of what others may think of me that I don’t do the things that I want to do.  I have now discovered that I shouldn’t let little things bother me and that I only have one life to live so I should live it to the fullest.  That is the way it is meant to be lived.  In order to do this you have to have courage, to be brave in accomplishing what you want to accomplish in life.  Where other than the infamous speech room with Mr. Hicks? That place required more courage than anything else I have done at Brebeuf.  However, giving speeches is nothing compared to the amount that we will all have to go through in life.  

So this past weekend, I went with my cousins to go visit my other cousin in Columbus Ohio.  My cousins Beth and Mandy and I headed over to Columbus right after school on Friday and got to Robyn’s apartment by about 7.  Robyn is 24 and just moved out there for her job.  We went out to dinner that night and then played Apples to Apples…..till 3 in the morning.  It was hilarious! (and I won by the way…by a landslide)  THe next day we went to the Columbus Zoo which is supposedly ranked 2nd in the nation to the San Diego Zoo.  It was really cool.  I was able to see a rhino and manatees which I had never seen before at our zoo here.  The flamingos were really cool too.

THen we went to the biggest freakin mall I have ever been to in my life!!! It was called Easton and it seriously has every single store you could imagine. It was indoor and outdoor and three different levels filled with tons of good shops and restaurants.  Lets just say I was able to spend my last three pay checks pretty quickly.

So I just got home after our three-hour trip back and reminiscing on the trip really makes me pretty sad that I am not there anymore.  I really loved the area and the fact that I got to spend time with my cousins.  It was the best time that I have had in a while and I will remember it forever!!! 

Spring break is almost here!!  Exactly one month from now, I will be sitting on the beach, reading  a book, and listening to the waves roll into the shore.  I am so excited that words can’t even explain the elation i feel when I think about my spring break trip to Florida.  My family has been going to Destin, Florida every year since I was three, but I still get butterflies in my stomach every time before we leave.  We stay at a condo right on the beach where we can see perfectly the snow white sand and emerald green water.  You can hear the bumble of people on the boardwalk out your window.

       I love getting up early in the morning and going for a long run along the boardwalk while the air is still misty, letting my thoughts run on just like he ocean does.  I love coming back and jumping in the pool and then laying on the beach all day, without care in the world.  The restaurants and malls are amazing, too!!  I cannot wait!!  Better yet, I can’t believe that it is alredy time to think about spring break!!!

So i have been hearing A LOT about kairos 67 and how AMAZING it was.  No one gave anything away of course but everyone was just so loving and like “Oh my God! oh my god! it was the best thing i have ever experienced in my life!”.  And that left me to wondering….what makes kairos SO great.  I mean, I’ve been on all the retreats before and I have reallly liked them but, I mean, what makes Kairos so different? And why does everybody cry?  I am going to try to sign up for the next one in April to find out for myself to answer these questions that have been nagging at me all weekend long.

DISGUSTING!  VILE!! HORRIFYING!!! …but true.  I had never really seen this whole movie before until health class when we started watching it on Monday.  I didn’t really think it would be that bad watching a guy eat nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days but…wow…it was bad.  Watching him throw up really started the experience off on a good note and then when I found out that he gained 17 pounds in 10 days, I didnt even know what to think.  I NEVER want to eat McDonalds again.  The guy literally almost KILLED himself eating MCDONALDS.  I can never put that stuff in my body again…

Yeah so leave it to my brother to screw up a perfectly good snow day.  On Tuesday night as the snow started to pour down on the city, my 13 year old brother decided to go snowboarding with his friends down the street (he’s pretty good at it actually).  Well when he came back from a long night of carving and jumping off snow ramps (or whatever he said they were doing) he came home complaining of a horrible headache.  He told my mom that he thought he fell but didn’t really remember.  he didn’t really remember what happened at all that night for that matter.

So my mom, in the foot of snow the next day decides to drive my brother up to the St. Vincent ER where we find out that he does in fact have a moderate concussion….great.  Luckily there was no swelling or internal bleeding which would have been a whole other ball game.  But i had to stay home and take care of him all day long on our snow day when we all could have been out sleding and having a good time. leave it to my brother to screw it all up.

But the good thing is that he is fine and it could have been worse.  His head just hurts like crazy right now and he is sleeping 24-7 because he is on a ton of pain meds.  So I don’t think he will be going to school anytime soon…