As I think I said last week, there's not as much to say this week, so that's a relief. I'm gonna start with a rundown of this week, and then say some stuff I didn't have time for earlier.
On Monday and Tuesday, my mom was finishing up with taking stuff out of the house. I helped her as much as I could on Monday, despite having some math homework to do, and then Tuesday... she ended up leaving me at school till 5-ish while she did some final rushing around to complete the job in time. On the upside, we ate some pupusas on Monday, and then Subway on Wednesday! *silly shrug*
I believe it was on Wednesday that I played my drum set for the first time in this house. I waited for only my mom to be in the top floor of the house (I mean, how am I supposed to know when the people who live downstairs are around or annoyed by such noise?) before doing so. It was... kinda rough. It felt like some of the sounds produced were different from before, and of course, it wasn't the exact same placement for everything as before. I eventually figured that it was likely because I was somewhere else in a room with a different size and flooring and what have you. With some more adjustments to layout and practice to get used to it (once again), I'll be fine.
On Thursday, my math teacher told me something amusing. I'd already noticed that she would do little things that showed that she was a little fond of me, like how she'd giggle every time she passed by me crouched over my math homework on a set of stairs, or the time she patted my shoulder as she walked around the room. (I dunno why, but that second example felt really affectionate, and it leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy and smiley every time I think about it.) She finally revealed the reason why as I was leaving the classroom: I remind her a lot of her 11-year-old daughter. She mentioned black hair, for example (mine's really dark brown), and having similar facial features, but I imagine the way that I dress and act certainly don't help the resemblance. I grinned on hearing that, and lightly commented, "I've been told the same by other teachers," as I went out the door, hearing her laugh in reply.
When I recounted the incident to my sister and mom, they also laughed, and thought of exactly the same past occurrence as I had- how my 2nd grade teacher had said I reminded her of her granddaughter. (If I remember correctly, she had shown me and my mom a picture of this granddaughter, and we really did look quite alike.) I think there may have actually been another teacher who said something similar, but I'm having a hard time remembering what exactly.
Nothing particularly interesting happened on Friday, since I spent the day going through my Watch Later videos on Youtube (man, I've been using that feature a lot more than I used to), reading fics, and listening to Nightcore Radio. (Remember the kid with the calculator? We're pretty good friends now, so he defs deserved a code-name by now... Considering he's really into fiddling with his Rubik's Cube lately, I think Rubik is fitting. Some things we share in common are liking Ninjago and Nightcore. He and a few of this other friends assured me last week that it was perfectly a-okay to be excited about The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie and etc. and he told me about some of his cool Ninjago Lego sets. I'm also getting more into Nightcore again- I mean, I already was a little bit, but finding out that he's way into it has certainly sped up the process- and we've exchanged recommendations and stuff. I also found a live feed on Youtube where they play Nightcore songs 24/7. I can be kinda iffy about some of the ones they play, but some are really cool! Unfortunately, I indulged in my curiosity about where the heck Nightcore came from, and ultimately found out that what I've been listening to is fake Nightcore? Like, it used to be a band who wrote original music that had being sped-up as part of their aesthetic, and then some people suddenly started taking that aspect and speeding up already-existing songs and called it Nightcore, and now people only know that as Nightcore when it's just a cheap imitation of the inspiration. It makes me feel a little bad for liking it, especially with the tone of the article I read. I don't have the heart to pass on the info to Rubik.)
Oh, and a kid at school had shown me this online/app game called LittleAlchemy, which I played for hours on Friday. At one point, I got really serious and methodical about it: I put all the elements in alphabetical order on the playing field (no idea what it's really called, but just roll with it), and then took one element and paired it with everything, and kept doing that, both elements I already had and the new ones that cropped up as I went through this process. (I'm suddenly thinking about it like a code, the kind that loops. Except I had to do everything in every loop by hand.) I know you're more supposed to do it with getting a specific element in mind, but this is still fun. I haven't found how to make a human, but I've got 127 elements/products at this point, so I'm bound to get it soon! (Plus, I found a secret element~)
I was a little busier yesterday (Saturday). Right before 10 AM, my mom drove me to the stake center, as there was a stake youth activity to watch the Face-to-Face session with Pres. Eyring and Elder Holland. They started with making waffles for everyone (which ended up being kind of a mess since it looked like the leaders just brought whatever they had at home, and some were not particularly fast), and by the time everyone was finishing their food, the broadcast began. Throughout, I was hanging out with Elenita's older sisters (let's call them Lia and Lala) and Nutella's younger sister (I don't think I've called her anything, so... Flower?). I hope they're not bothered by me being like "Halp I don't want to be alone"...
When that was over, I did some more reading and laptoping, and I found a golden opportunity in which no one was around! (Again, can't speak for if people are downstairs or not, but at least I try to keep the quiet kick drum from touching the real one so that the thumps are a lot softer for anyone who just so happens to be below me.) I played a whole lotta drums, and I did a lot better than the time before. It's so much funner singing and playing when I'm not worried about being too loud!
Unfortunately, it turned to might've not been the wisest decision... Because once people started coming home, including my mom, said mom informed me that Lala wanted me to go to a stake dance with her. And she'd be going in an hour.
I already can't handle much dancing anymore, but then with having played drums earlier, and not eaten in a few hours, I had an even harder time staying on the dance floor as often as I wanted to. I had to take a looooot of water breaks, but they were never as much of a break as I really needed.
Regardless, I had a lot of fun during the good songs. I got my groove once they played "Cupid Shuffle", and from there I went hardcore on the songs that were my jam, and did my best with the songs I was less sure how to dance to. I think dances are probably the one place you're more likely to see me get a little braver, when I've got a good groove going. I even went into a circle for a few seconds! And, well, I know that some of what I call "dancing" is not particularly normal, and often rips off from choreographies I've done over the years, but whether those count or not, I've got some pretty good moves!
One really awkward kid- I think his name was Hayden- asked me to dance at one point. It turned out he was in 8th grade, and this was his first stake dance, so he very much looked like he didn't know what to do, but he was still a good sport, and did stuff like when everyone would group up in preparation for the beat-drop in the song (a new thing I saw this time around was that, not only were we all encouraged to pack together, but everyone rubbed their hands together like to warm them, and the guys in the middle would say "Heat it up, heat it up!" which I found amusing), and do the limbo (he actually got further in the game than I did!).
The funniest thing to happen was when "Party Rock Anthem" came on, which became one of my moments to shine. I pulled out some wicked shuffling and others of my best moves, and this redheaded girl just gawked in amazement as my awesomeness. She literally blurted out at one point, "Who are you?!"
There was a few other people who showed appreciation for a certain step, but the one who showed the most was a different girl with her hair in cute twin buns. She was very enthusiastic, and started adopting a lot of my moves, and also showing me some of her own stuff. I was particularly impressed with some of the stuff she already had for the very few Latino songs played. She could work a little more on hips, but otherwise, she's pretty dang equipped for pretty much any song with Enrique Iglesias and/or Pitbull! (And probably Sean Paul, too!) She actually wanted to exchange phone numbers so we could hang out sometime. We'll see what happens with that!
We stayed till the party ended at 11, and by then I was almost dead on my feet. I usually wouldn't wanna bother with showering when that tired, but I knew I was just too sweaty and gross to go to bed like that. So, once my sis got home from whatever she was doing with Captain and showered, I took my turn, and then my mom realized- we were going to do a fast.
Yup.
I mean, we had a more immediate reason for doing a fast, so I still felt like I should do it, but, well... I'd basically burned everything that I had eaten earlier in the day with the drumming and especially the dancing. And I knew I was going to be even more sore the next day (which definitely came true- my shoulders and lower back are having an awful time today). So... I ended up eating a protein bar real fast before we did the prayer.
I actually lasted longer than I expected, but I still feel pain in the aforementioned areas, plus I've got a bit of a headache, and ugh.
As for why we were doing the fast... Well, two main things. One, plans as to which college I'd attend quickly changed within the week. I don't know exactly why, but I really disliked the idea of going to USU. I mean, besides the fact that I knew the U of U was better-known for their science and technology stuff, and there was the potential of being part of a really good opportunity over the summer and first year. My mom's been pointing out, though. that USU would be a whole lot easier on my parents' wallets, especially if I went to Eastern. (My sis and Captain have actually been considering going there next year, so that'd be another plus!) We wanted to do the fast just to be able to figure out if it truly is the best option, or if another college is (ooh, I'll just insert here that I got my BYU acceptance email yesterday), or what.
And two is a little weird and uncomfortable to talk about... But, basically, at one point in the weekend, I discovered that there was a lump in my chest that did not belong. (I believe I'd been scratching my side and inadvertently came across this weirdness, so don't think otherwise!) My heart kinda dropped to my stomach when I found it, because I'd heard plenty of stuff about how women are highly recommended to do breast-checks in order to find breast cancer. I was pretty sure I was pretty dang young to be getting something like that, but it can't possibly be a good thing to find something that shouldn't be there!
I told my mom later that day, and she got really scared and worried, and called my dad, and we later told my sis when she came home. (I think this was on Friday.) My mom did some research as to what it could mean, plus asked the lady we live with (I'd forgotten that she used to work as a nurse), and both resulted in saying it's much, much more likely to be something that isn't a big deal. Nonetheless, my parents wanna get me to a doctor ASAP to get my prob checked out, and do the fast in order for that to happen and for it to not be something serious.
I don't know if it sounds weird or not, but my immediate thought on finding that was, "Yet something else on top of everything we're already dealing with?!"
Church today, as I expected, was a little weird. This is one of the few times in which I attend a place that is technically new, but I already know some of the people there for years. Most of the branch I don't recognize, but the ones I do I knew since I was 9 or 10 years old.
As usual, the boys act a little dumb in Sunday School, and the Young Women generally don't talk much besides to their closest friends, but the YW leaders aren't that bad. They're more organized and purposeful than some previous ones I've had, I guess I could say. I'd usually be fine with it, but I feel like I'm going to stress out more without having my old Personal Progress book. I hate the idea of using a new one, especially since I have less than a year left of being a Young Woman, but this particular presidency does a lot of PP stuff. They're probably also gonna be pushier about me finishing it than all the previous ones (and some of them were pretty dang pushy). That doesn't sound very fun.
I really don't have much time left today, but I wanted to end with a couple thoughts I had during the moving process.
If someone read the posts from around May 2015, they'd learn that, for about a month, my dad was in Oregon and my sis was in Utah, leaving me and my mom in Alabama to survive moving our stuff on our own (with help of people from our church, but still). It'd been the very first time for me to live in a house with two-thirds of my family gone, and I think it was pretty tough for both me and my mom. Nonetheless, we made the most of it, and I ended up feeling closer to my mom than ever before.
Though, technically, my sis still lives with us this time around, we kinda switched between which of us was helping my mom with packing over the big moving weekend. So, the times that I went to the slowly-emptying house with my mom to get more stuff done... it reminded me of that time we spent together in Alabama, and I didn't really mind. We still got up to some of the same antics of playing 80's music loud and proud while sorting and packing, and cooking stuff together in the kitchen with whatever we had left, and talking about stuff completely unrelated to whatever we were doing. It was something nice in the midst of the awfulness of moving, being able to reminisce and be with my mom and nobody else.
(Of course, this doesn't mean at all that I didn't miss my dad and sis back then, nor that I don't miss my dad now. I actually cried quite a bit on the day that my dad left, when it hit me how this was just the beginning of our family splitting apart to different places, and if my sis moved out of the state later this year, I'd be all alone without the people who'd been there my whole life.)
Again, much like our move from Alabama, we ended up selling, donating, and giving away a lot of stuff, and I had to learn once again to decide what truly mattered to me and let other things go. Considering how I've always put a lot of sentimental value in the most mundane things (dude, I think I still have somewhere this one Popsicle stick a friend gave me in 7th grade- yes, a Popsicle stick), it was a victory to be able to look at some of my things and decide I'd be okay without them anymore. This pertained mostly to clothing, rather than the stuffed animals (I think my mom still thinks I have too many), but that was perfectly fine, because we suddenly realized that I have a lot more pieces of clothing than we thought. I still had many things I wanted to keep for storage, but we ended up removing a significant portion of my whole collection, a portion of things I was finally okay with letting go of. I hope I can continue to do this a little more over the next few years, so that I have a good amount for starting out a new life with whoever I end up marrying. (Whoever he is, I sure hope he can deal with my stuffed animals- I still have enough to fill a box or two.)
Alrighty, looks like that's everything! I wonder what will happen this next week...
(Wait, last thing! Due to a certain text conversation I had with Carter, the idea for this pictoral representation of the inside joke came about, and it became a reality through one of the girls at my school, one who was bored and wanted to Photoshop something near the end of the day. I found the opportunity, and I seized it!
Carter loved it.
Perhaps, if you're lucky, I could tell you what exactly the inside joke is! It relates to personal information, however, that I definitely don't want to share to the general public.)
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