My Weekend. (WARNING: Epic moodwhiplash throughout. And zero organization.)

Well, I have just realized that I usually blog right before Carefest, or right after... it's now midnight, the day after Carefest. It was a great time, as it is every year. And I love to spend it with my friend. But the point is to serve others, to let them see the light of Christ. Wow.

I've recently had a conversation with someone close to me telling me that I need to stop beating myself up over things. But if I didn't... I don't know if I would be able to make myself stop doing stupid or obviously wrong things. I guilt myself into a lot of things, and it's absolutely wrong for me to do that in the first place, but if I didn't, I'd just be an honestly jerkish person who didn't give a crap. Some people encourage that. Some people see it as rude. I do rude things without knowing all the time, and what I need is to be more aware of my thoughts and actions... instead of overthinking them later when the deed's been done.

I'm considering taking advantage of my church's counseling services. I'm on the prayer team, but... I don't know about that now. I don't know. And it'd be hypocritical for me not to want to go by saying that I could handle this on my own/ONLY talking to other people who aren't counselors, with the way I push this stuff toward other people all the time. It's no cure-all and it's difficult and uncomfortable, and for the first time in a while, I have to consider that and admit that. But most of the people at the center aren't strangers to me. And if I honestly don't believe there's no shame in asking for help, and have humbled myself enough to say I need it, then... well... I should just do it. Before I talk myself out of it. Because that's happened a lot, with a lot of different things.

So... back to Carefest. We cleaned up a middle school. While cleaning lockers in the girls' locker room, I found a bullet in one of the lockers I let Leah keep it. She joked that it was just someone going to her high school(apparently, it's "ghetto" there. xP), but... I dunno. I was first reminded of a book I read (The Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga, in which the main character carries a bullet around with him at all times),and then disturbed. I remembered something I'd heard about that middle school, about a student that used to go there, and no longer goes there because they're dead, essentially. It was... briefly sobering. And then I just got back to work and joking around and socializing with Leah and the girl who graduated from my school last year, who happened to be at the same project.

In light of recent events... I found it even more disturbing. I don't know why I keep thinking about this kind of stuff. My friend and I have very drastically different ways with dealing with things. To be honest, I avoid my feelings, or channel them, in different ways, through focusing on fiction or other subjects. But never NOT talking about them. If it's really burning in me, I have to get it out. Whether in journal or blog or aloud, whichever works at the time, I have to get it out. I can never really be alone with my thoughts, unless those thoughts terrify me enough that I don't want people to be concerned. Which has been unfortunately often lately.

So later in Carefest, we arrived at the arena to do some more work (Leah and I were DETERMINED to paint, because we paint EVERY YEAR and we must paint each other! MUST.)So we got to paint a wall! And it was fun! :D Yeah! We did have some conversation too. We've actually taken off most of our roleplaying for a while, so now most of our conversation is just conversation, and it's pretty cool. 8) And we had some people help use finish the wall toward the end. They just happened to be male and of the attractive variety, which, again, is completely, COMPLETELY, missing the point of yesterday. But they were nice, and we talked about music and Sunshine festival, and plays and such.

And just to keep things interesting, I'll now tell you about what I did on Thursday and Friday. Thursday afternoon, miss lovely Ella brought me down to her house and we hung out and talked and stuff, while we waited for miss Leah to arrive. It was cool. We watched some deleted scenes from Repo! The Genetic Opera, and one of Terrance Zdunich's videos, and such, and it was quite enjoyable. Then Leah arrived, we watched some Uncle Yo on YouTube (Otaku/Geek comedian of epic lolz0rz), but they did not seem to appreciate him very much... ^^' Later on we watched Repo! The Genetic Opera. Honestly, I really only liked Mag, occasionally Shilo, and the Graverobber, and... well... I found the costumes to be a bit... distracting. xP And I worry that that might just be the point. Yes, it was sad when Nathan was dying and Shilo said goodbye. Of course I almost teared up at that point. But... costumes. Idea for the movie? Something and "love of beautiful women". *ahem* Decent movie overall, I suppose, in spite of that. Call me a prude or perv or whatever, but it was just too sexual in my opinion, even without an outright sex scene.

After this film, we did some awesome makeup, using songs as inspiration. We all looked pretty rad when we walked to the Dollar Store (which was closed), and then Wal*Mart to buy snacks for our next film-viewing. :)

Anyways, we also watched Vampires Suck, which was funny, mostly because it parodied Twilight, and Becca's actress imitated Kristen Stewart really well. (Haha, new nickname for her... K-Stew. Lol. Stew. Sorry, I'm a little off tonight...) Anyways, some YouTube parodies were better. But overall, pretty funny. Kind of reminded me of those straight-up teen movies.

Best of the night in my opinion (though you can't compare any of these genre-wise): Howl's Moving Castle. I know it wasn't too pleasing for Nathaniel to know that I watched it without him, but it was just... amazing. Truly a great film. The fantasy elements and the realistic paired up so well, and were well-balanced... though you could say there's not much realistic in the film. It just had the overtone of seriousness, with the backdrop of war. But like anime movies tend to go, there is hopefulness at the end. It was just incredible. I need to watch more Hayao Miyazaki...

(and Ella and Leah need to watch some Makoto Shinkai. *cough*)

The next morning, we hung out so more, ate some breakfast, watched Ella demonstrate some pretty awesome dances (Love and Joy and... I don't remember the other one. ^^' I'll have to ask her to Facebook it to me. x3), and then drove off to the AWESOMENESS that is X-Men: First Class. First off, I have to say, historical truth I learned here:

Mutants solved the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That is all. *jk* Actually, it was just a really great movie. The plot was fascinating, especially with Erik/Magento's character developments, as well as the contrast between he and Xavier/Professor x. Interactions between characters (particularly Mystique/X, Mystique/Erik, Erik/X, Mystique/Hank, and Mystique/Erik) were just spot on, in my opinion. Especially the scene where Xavier motivates Erik to move a gigantic satellite... his words... man. Knocked me out. Great movie. And not to mention the eye-candy. Heh. I decided to put that one last to make myself look a lot better than I am for a second. See how terrible I am? xP

We returned to Ella's and watched a show about survivors of stuff on Animal Planet. It was really intense. I have thoughts on that. But I've decided against expressing them. So, I left and went shopping for groceries and things for my mission trip with my youth group to the Dominican Republic in less than two weeks.

I'm going on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. June 30th to July 11th. I'm praying that God really changes my heart there. I'm always feeling like these trips and big events are what's just going to turn me around... but there's always that 48 hour rule (where, if you don't make a change within those hours, you probably won't change), and the fact that change is a process. I've got issues. And maybe they aren't solvable by counseling, or maybe that would help, or maybe I just need a big kick in the butt to get me going. And I haven't been managing to do it myself very well.

So, concluding thoughts for the night... yeah. I've thought too much this weekend. Good night and God bless, all. Thanks for reading.

Sleepover and various weekend epicness. (mostly a rant of recollection, some unnecessary stuff maybe. xD)

Leah, Ella, and I had a sleepover this weekend. It was supposed to be a huge movie night, with all the Harry Potter movies out being watched (provided that Leah brought them), Phantom of the Opera, The Dark Knight, and Transformers. The grocery store with movie rentals didn't have Transformers out anymore. xP And Leah forgot the Harry Potter movies... (and to return my Remedy Drive CD!!! D:< That's okay, though, I can wait... ^^'). So we wound up watching only two movies. They came over on Friday, and it was around... 4:40 or so, and it was amazing. We put their stuff away, and then we changed into our swimsuits (I lent Ella a skort to put on because she didn't have her suit, and I didn't have any regular shorts... xD ^^'). And we went to the river. It was a new part of the river that I'd been wanting to visit for a while, and it was amazing!!! XD :) There was a little deeper, poolish area, that wasn't too deep, but it was pretty awesome, and we swam around in it, and it had soft, silky, silt-mud on the floor of it, and it felt like we were walking in chocolate pudding... yeah, healthy, I know right? It was so much fun though. xD :) We walked through a small part of the river. Most of it was pretty shallow, not like the other part that we usually go to. It was epic fun. Then we went back home, and then we rented The Dark Knight, and we ate pizza and bread and Ella and Leah had apple juice, and then we watched Phantom of the Opera. Just to say, ELLA AND LEAH ARE VERY OPINIONATED (sp?). xD They're both super-fans of Erik/Kristine, and can't stand Raoul... but yeah, it was a good movie, from what I caught out of it. ^^' The Dark Knight, we realized, is a very, very deep movie, once you get past the needless violence. We stayed up until a little past 2:30 AM (Leah and I ran outside for a few minutes while it was storming, because it had FINALLY started raining...). And then we slept. And Saturday morning, we did this:

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/u-PKPGMqEd6F1gAwSFsPiA

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/6JwOQmMtEd60-gAwSFxytA

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/TNh5JGMxEd60-gAwSFxytA

It was pretty cool. xD :) We are dorks, and we're crazy and all that jazz, but we rock. XD :) It was very fun to record those.

After Montana went home, Leah stayed, and we hung out for the day, and walked in the part of the river we usually went on. We kept wanting it to rain, but the sun was absorbing the clouds and stalking us xP Finally, it did, a little. It was really cool, the way the clouds arranged. Partway sunny, partway cloudy, some patches of blue in the sky, it was awesome. The small bit of rain was fun. xD We love the river... XD :) Leah, my family, and I went to this place called Camp Victory, for this carnival. We were originally going to just bring her home after the carnival, which would have ended at 10:30 PM, but we decided she should just stay over if it was that late, and so we planned to have Leah sleepover another night. We sang Remedy Drive and attempted Children 18:3 in the car. xD When we got there, she and I played this game where two people had to throw a ball into a hoop, while being attached to this cable or something through an inflatable thing, with one person attached to one end, the other to the other end. Whoever puts the ball in first, wins (Ella, if you're reading this, it's the game you and Leah played at Sunshine, xD :) ). But it was shorter than Leah and Ella's elementary school's Spring Fling carnival (we only got one ball. xP). Afterward, we went and got funnel cake and popcorn and food and we ate. xD Funnel cake is one of the most unhealthy and delicious culinary inventions ever. XD ^^' Heh... yeah...

Leah and I played an 18-hole game of Mini-Golf. And I failed. Though I got a hole-in-one on hole 7. XD But that was the only good thing I ever did in the rest of the game. xD The rest of it, I failed on. xP And I would guide the ball into a hole, rather than hit it, once I got close enough... ^^' Heh... heheh.

The most fun part of the carnival was the stuff we did that we didn't fully realize we weren't supposed to. ^^' Heh. There was caution tape, but we went under it, because we saw these girls playing with water balloons by the Water Wars machine (http://www.funfilledevents.com/images/water_wars_pics_014_mpu4.jpg Basically like that one, except without the net or the big X in the middle, and just randomly outside, nothing protecting the ground...). Water Wars was also at the elementary school's carnival, and that's what I recognized it from, and it is EPICALLY FUN.

Anyway, it was suspiciously close to the fireworks, which were supposed to go off later that night... heh. Well, we disregarded that and started blowing up balloons, as soon as we could make the balloon-filling-thingy work without spitting water out from the hose. Soon, a father and his son showed up, after we launched a couple balloons at each other. The little boy started playing with the balloons, and the man talked with us. And then another boy showed up, an older one. Him and the other boy started playing and filling balloons. And then an older boy showed up. And then this huge group of kids and a couple of adults with them, who looked related to them, showed up, and started playing. So it was turning into a watery mess of fun. Another family showed up, two little girls, their mom, and then their dad showed up later. Eventually, my mom and dad showed up. Leah and I and my dad all threw some balloon at each other. xD And then... a guy from the camp showed up said that the Water Wars was actually for the campers, and it was pretty close to the fireworks and not supposed to be in use, sooo... ^^' Heheh. We had to stop. D: It was sad, and Leah and I felt a little guilty for opening it up, but it was still fun. We left early, but Leah was still sleeping over, which we were happy about. xD

We came home, and rented Slumdog Millionaire. My dad, brother, Leah, and I watched it. I don't think my mom was all that interested. That movie was intense. o.o Afterward, Leah had a sandwich and apple juice *random* and we went on the computer, and Leah was bent on harrassing me to upload photos to Facebook that I've been procrastinating on for weeks... ^^' Heh... heheh. But then the internet died after one picture. xP So we all went to bed (Leah, my brother, and me). Leah and I only stayed up until midnight, but it was alright.

We got up this morning, and it actually wasn't burning hot, so I was amazed. I slept in the guest room (two beds, one room, etc.) and had this thing that happens sometimes when I sleep in hotels, where I think I'm up in my room, and found that I was underneath a blanket over my head, so I kicked it off as fast as possible, cuz I was kinda freaked out, but then I realized I was just in the guest room, and I'm like "Oh...".

And then I was headed for the door, and Leah shoots right up. xD It was epic. I was amazed at how quickly she woke up this morning. xD She told me about her epic dream, where her and Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire went to McDonald's and they weren't allowed to go in because they were too dirty and shoeless... you'll have to ask her about it. :) It was pretty epicsauce.

I took a shower and then I got out and then Leah chose clothes to borrow from me, because she'd only brought two outfits that weekend, and she looked very feminine. xD :) ^^ Mwahahahahaha...

We ate a breakfast of coffee (Leah; I didn't have much coffee this weekend, sadly. D:), biscuits, bacon, and eggs. :) It was very good. And then we drove up to Rochester, singing Children 18:3's "Mock the Music" when it came onto the radio, and it was amazing. XD And then we got up to Sunday School. We chatted for a little bit with a couple of our friends, and then the high school band led worship for the first Sunday this summer in Middle School Sunday school. It was pretty awesome. And then we had the lesson, which was really cool and interesting, about Galations. It's about how the Galations made all of these unnecessary rules based on the Law, something called "legalism", where rules and restrictions overtake the purpose and message of the Gospel in a church, and how it was wrong. It was really interesting, and really cool. I've got a lot to work on in my walk with God right now, so I'm glad to keep going to Sunday School and everything.

We found my friend "Macy" (blog codename) after Sunday School again (we talked to her before it started), and I sadly couldn't stay to go over to her house or anything after church, or help out with King's Kids (the children's ministry service-thingy, with games, snacks, a video, songs, etc.). And we brought Leah home. :( And then my family went home, and my dad went to work, and I've been here ever since.

So that was my epic weekend. xD The best thing, I guess, about today, is that Rose is heading up from Florida today. :D

I love you guys. :) God loves you more! xD :) Talk to you all later. :) <3

Aly

*dusts off blog* I'M SORRY, PEOPLEZ! ILY STILL!

I'm sorry... D: *hugglefies everyone* I've been severely neglecting this blog and that's very unkind of me.

I'm very sorry. *sniff*

Well... let's see... life.

Umm... face-value, life's been... interesting. Last week, I logged onto the computer, and found out that someone online died. And I was really, extremely depressed about that. And then I found out, the next day, that they were alive. But they had almost died... from their throat bleeding, and they almost drowned from their own blood. *eyetwitch*

I was slightly relieved, but still worried about them. They talked to me though. They had recently been released from the hospital.

The week before, I'd had Leanne and Ella over, and we hung out. Leanne and I acted muffinleh (AS A JOKE), and Ella was all like "I don't swing that way!" Yeah, we have issues whenever we get together. Lea and I stayed up really late speak-RPing with our characters for our OC spoof with all of our characters. Yeah. It used to be humorous, but, it got slightly serious. Still is. It fluctuates. (And Lea and I are the comic relief characters... lately, all we've been doing is eating popcorn and drinking suicides [the drink you make when you put all the sodas from the little resturant soda machine thingeh in a cup]) Yeah. You wouldn't understand... *sigh*

Halloween, I went over to my friend's house, and we hung out and talked and ate caramel apples and pizza and apple cider/Mountain Dew and discussed political issues, American presidential candidates, and stuffs with her mommeh! ^^' Which, I'm actually interested in and very passionate about sometimes. Mostly abortion... *sigh* *isprolife*

Most of you guys knew that though... *sigh*

This, depresses me.

4,000 babies a day get murdered.

^That's just for the US.

Anyway, I'm going to write a poem for the rest of this...


Reaching out to the distant problems
That I have no control over
Lord, I try to let go
I pray, and then I take it back
I pray for my friends
Then try not to think...
Every 'real conversation' about problems
Statistics
People who are near me
Grow farther away
As I think of their issues
Rather than them
As a person.
Sixth grade may have been heck
But I'd rather be depressed and sensitive and emotional
Than obssessed with issues so corrupt and sad over things I can't touch
And cold.
I'd rather give all of my energy to everyone else
Than selfish
"How does this affect me?"
Is not the question I want to ask.
How can do this for the kingdom of God?
God first
He wants my passion to be for others
He wants me to be compassionate toward others
He wants me to be warm
Not distant, cold
Not too concerned with things He'll take care of.

If the world is ending, I can't change that
Revelations says we win.
I don't need to worry
I can still think
Of the world's problems
I can still debate

But I can't save the world
All I can do is try to touch the lives around me
With Jesus Christ's love.
Loving, compassionate, understanding
While yet speaking the truth.
If someone else rejects it, I can't take it personally.
"Dust off your shoes, and walk away."
It's not my job
To change them.

I just have to say.
And I have to pause.
Let God do his work.

I still want wings,
Rather than roots
That keep me on the ground.
I don't want to be judgemental.
I want to show love and light,
The way God made us too.

Speak the truth.
Know it, believe it, accept it.
That is all I need to do.
Love, show kindness, compassion, empathy.
Show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness
Gentleness
And self-control.

That's all I need to do.


Love you guys. :] Talk to ya'll later. God Bless!

~Aly