hey,
So this is going to be long post.. or at least that is what I anticipate to bring everyone up to date.
On September 1st (Friday) I auditioned for Voices. Man oh man.. I didn’t have a song prepared but we are required to sing.. so I sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and you know what? I almost couldn’t even sing that song. I felt like the girl who forgot the words to the Star Spangled Banner during the NBA playoffs. I do not like auditions… if Tom didn’t know what I really sounded like I doubt I would have made it.
Tom also invited me to be a part of another group that he is putting together – so I accepted.
Went to Mcdonald for lunch (doublecheese burger = 1 dollar… Oregon = No sales tax) I drove up and paid.. then putting the change in my wallet drove forward, but I didn’t realize that the steering wheel was still at an angle where my car would hit the building. So ‘sccrraaapppee’ and yeah. I scraped the Probe.
Bugger.. talk about making me mad. BUGGA! Made me very very mad. Including the bad audition that I just got done failing at.. now the car.. which I was trying… trying… trying to sell.
Later on that day.. I went home and my dad and I spray painted white over it so you really couldn’t tell. Then people came to look at the car, they liked what they saw. They said they would buy it.
Going.. going gone.
Then as you all know, later in the week I drove my mom’s car to school and I got a ticket for ‘following too closely’ but one of my friends told me that (on the same day I got my ticket) it was a record day for Portland. Apparently the police officers hadn’t given out that many tickets in Portland ever before.
Guess it just wasn’t my week.
This week I met up with a new friend of mine.. and in the process ran over.. I mean.. into Lisa.
She’s wonderful hehe, but I had to snap a picture of her when she laid out in the parking lot. I talked to Lindsay – she pretty much rocks. I haven’t talked to her before but we know each other through each others friends haha
So then I’ve just been going to school this whole week.. and everything has went smoothly minus the Ticket. I’ll fight it if I have to.. right now I’ve written a letter into the courts asking them to excuse the ticket (Oregon law allows for this).
Hmm yep, more on that jazz later on another journal entry when I have more to tell.
Saturday I went on a Class Field trip for Mount Saint Helens, I snapped a few pictures a long the way (so you don’t have to read the whole time as I am proving).
When we first started our trip we came to this bridge. This bridge has significance (it is about 15 miles away from St. Helens but this was the end of the ‘blast zone’ which had all the trees knocked over. The bridge is a cool looking thing… well I like bridges anyway.
A view of the surrounding mountains and the gray wayyy below.. well a little river runs through that. When St. Helens erupted the whole part was covered (until you see green). There was Elk down yonder, but they are waaaay to small to see. So don’t bother.
We hiked around 3 miles. Looking at rocks and other stuff along the way.
Finally… Mt. St. Helens. It was pretty cloudy the whole time we were there.
I was in the mall, saw these crazy girls (pictured above). Hehe, nah.. but Saturday afternoon I met up with Rebecca and Lauren and we went downtown and hung out. They are photo additcts.
The like to take and review pictures.. don’t believe me?
Ha! Caught in the Act.
Today was Sunday, or.. Today IS Sunday. I went to church.. it was a good sermon– because it dealt with something I was just talking about with a friend on Saturday night.
I took notes, so I’ll share them.
3 out of 4 (as recently reported on Yahoo) 10 year old girls think they are fat.
1 in 12 attempt suicide.
40% are cutters
In high school amongst the teens, 48% have been sexually active
1 in 10 girls have reported as being raped.
All of these things effect what we think about ourselves. Society is feeding us thoughts and ways to think, and as consumerism driven Americans we Buy into them.
Colossians 2:8-10 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”
To be fully loved, you must be fully known. God knows you better than anyone else ever will.
Expose yourself before God and be known.
Pslam 139 reads:
O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Enough said.
So the next thing was that my car sold today..
That is the Probe driving off for the last time… with a new owner. I no longer want a car I have to feel like I have to ‘baby’. I just want it to be a vehicle. Not a sports car nothing too fancy shmancy. I want to focus on things greater than that. It works out that I will get an Explorer for not a lot more– (parts and everything will cost less).
It was a great deal… sold the car, went looked at the Explorer and bought it. I wanna focus on God!
Speaking of that…
My loans…
Well.. they need more paperwork for things because I have previously had a loan with them (I didn’t think it would work that way but okay), so I won’t get it in time (that is 100% fact)– so I’m going to back out of that loan.. so what do I do for school?
I am going to talk to the Finical Aid office and see if I can get a job (not on campus.. wouldn’t cover my costs).. but get a Job working someplace and pay them monthly until it is paid off. I’m not sure if they will do it, so be praying about that.. I am going to talk to them about it tomorrow.
If I can’t do it.. I’m going to work and pay off my loans, and hopefully go back to school when I have adequate funds to do so.
So about this picture…
My mom .. at McDonalds. haha I’m lovin it! She always gets Ranch or something on her shirt so we gave her a napkin bib. My dad said it was ‘xanga worthy’ so I snapped a picture. She isn’t mad, just caught off guard.
So tomorrow is September 11th 2006. Five Years.
Five years.
I have updated the music site with a remix of a song. http://www.jshox.com/music.html
Portland, last year.
September 11th 2001 was all but a normal day.
It started at 8:45am eastern time. Scenes broke out on the airwaves that you only heard of on movies. Not knowing how to act, and being astonished at the current events – we saw fear. Yes fear – even in the reporters eyes. Because no matter how long they have reported, or how much they have covered, there was no being “professional” to this breaking story. It was a day America was forced to open their eyes, imbedding questions in our kids minds across the nation. When the regular programming for TV’s across America had been cut off and resumed with breaking news, all I saw was to my surprise was the Today Show, Live. It reminded me of Deep Impact – waiting to see if they would survive from the meteor that was destined to hit earth. It was Armageddon when we saw everyone run with fear – to no avail, fearing hundreds, no thousands dead.
It still is unforgettable.
The fear and disbelief that came into my eyes when I saw – live, with my own eyes – the second plane hit the WTC, it was simply unimaginable. That was the starting point to the next few days feeling.. how do you say, surreal. I – like every other American, was obsessed with the media coverage of this. 24/7 coverage, and every minute was turned into Prime Time. So astonished was I, that I posted the first issue of CNN breaking news on my web site, and it became stale and not visited over the next few weeks.
If I am to refresh my memory correctly, on September 12th, I was at work. I was working at Target, and went in – on time, with virtually no traffic at all. I think I only worked for about 4 hours – but nobody came in. It was dead. I haven’t seen it that slow at Target, or for that fact, any store since then. That Friday they had the candle lighting. Where at like 7 you were encouraged to go outside and light a candle in memory of those who had passed on. Business wasn’t a whole lot busier than it was before, but there was enough. Most people were coming in and buying candles. I was on a cart attendant job that night, and had just finished inside the store, and was going to make a round for carts. To my amazement I saw every person in the parking lot with a candle, that for the most part they had just bought. America was blind-sided, but even when we were on our knees – we grew.
I must say my last two cents and then I am done. It is my thoughts of that time which are probably like everyone else’s. I kept thinking about mostly one thing. What did it feel like, what were the passengers on the planes, thinking about when they saw the plane take a dive and turn for the building? In the past few years it has been discovered that the hijackers told the people onboard that they were flying back to the airport to negotiate. The other questions that filled my head sometimes consumed me. How bad was it in the buildings, to the point where people were jumping out – hoping to.. live? And if was anyone looking at a plane fly into them, only god knows what they would have been thinking. The people on the flight that crashed in Penn. must have known the plan of the hijackers, and tried to take it over before it got to the White House.
The famous words “Let’s Roll”
As I learned more about it in those few weeks, I wondered and prayed for everyone. From the Pentagon to the firefighters, police, camera men, and even common folk. Still to this day I am sickened when I see footage of any of the 3 incidents. When I see other countries dance in the street and wave the burning US flag, they think we have been defeated. The cowardly acts of the devil, have been dealt with. America has prevailed and we aren’t innocent like a child anymore, but we are more proud, and have more to be proud over- than ever before.
I love America. 9/11/01, Never Forget.
Pray Hard. Seek Harder.
Ciao.