Fall Semester

At the end of everything, I go through a period of reflection, as most people do. So, with the end of the first semester of junior year (and another semester closer to college!) I get to reflect on everything that has happened so far.

A lot has happened this semester. We juniors went through a lot of change, stress and drama (no matter how silly). Not to mention, the shaky start that came with the huge amount of unfamiliar responsibility set on our shoulders at the beginning of the year. Let's be honest, there is too much to reflect on and not enough time. But, the most important thing, to me, has definitely been how comfortable I have become... comfortable with myself, with my life, with my age, with my surroundings. I don't know why it happened, don't know what changed, what clicked, but it happened, and it's been great. Following this comfort was not ridicule or mocking from my peers, but connection. I found out that everyone is secretly weird, I am just more open about it, and once someone realized I was weird like them, we became friends. School was more fun, life was more interesting, and I was more happy! It's been a great semester. In addition to this, I have been able to watch a lot of other girls go through this sort of self-acceptance adventure. Call it whatever you want, normal, a miracle, an answer to my prayers. It's weird and it's cool and I've loved watching and being apart of it.

Just Your Usual Whining

I want. Oh the things I want. Call it whining. Heck. Call it pleading. I do not care. These are the things I want.

-I want to be happy

-I want to make other people happy

-I want people to see how beautiful they are

-I want people to stop limiting themselves by saying they aren't good enough

-I want these things for myself

-I want uniqueness to be seen as a good thing... because it's natural; it is a good thing

-I want support in my decision of picking a college

-I want everyone (even myself sometimes) to see that there's more to life than grades, a career, and money

-I want everyone to be more joyful.... because it's contagious

-I want everyone to stop using the word love (again. including myself) so casually

there's more. there always is. but for right now... this is what I want.

Oh, Nine!

(pardon my poor wording and grammar... it is late and I am tired, and yet, unable to sleep- the best and worst feeling in the world to me. In addition, this is very much me copying Molly... but hey. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I hear)

December 25th... The end is drawing near. Haha or should I say the beginning. Actually, it's neither. To me, it's a reminder that time continues to move forward. Scary, isn't it? Haha cliche cliche! But seriously. To every cliche there is some truth, mostly truth we don't want to hear... that's why we get to dismiss it as a cliche. But anyway, I'm rambling. So let's do what we all have a love/hate relationship with doing and look back at the past. Whether while smiling, grimacing or blushing- we do it, we love it, we hate it, but all in all, we learn from it.

So Molls style, I'll do it in list form

Reasons why 2009 was great:

Drivers license

Choir Camp

Spring Break girl scout trip- Big Bend

Yearbook/Molly McConn :)

Happiness

Self-acceptance

Lifegroups

New friends... Friends MY OWN AGE.

California trip/moving Westmont to the top of the list

Realizing clothing can be a form of expression

Learning I love to write

God speaking to me in ways I thought impossible

Getting close to my brother/Ryan starting high school!

The arrival of William Lukefahr, the coolest baby in the whole wide world.

The discovery of stumbleupon.com

Quidditch club

Realizing my obsession with good/moving/thought-provoking quotes

Living with Kayla and the Stewarts for two weeks

Trying new things

Fantastic music

My favorite thing of the year however has definitely been watching everyone, including myself, grow this year, junior year. Whatever way it was, everybody did it, and it's been beautiful to watch and take part in.

Now... not so great things of 2009

Allison Aubrecht being taken away

Junior year school stress

The wasting of time in classes where you don't do anything

Carolyn's job changing

Kayla going off to college, although she is so happy so I guess it's not so bad at all!

The destruction of my home on the flood day

Forgotten memories fighting their way into my dreams

The fading away of old friends

Those moments when you ask yourself, "what the heck am I doing?"

SAT/ACT

And the top songs of my year would be... (not in any particular order)

Seventeen Years- Ratatat (no lyrics but still tells one of the best stories ever told)

Times- Tenth Avenue North (a letter from the Ol' Man)

Walking On Air- Kerli ("is this that creepy song?")

Divine Romance- Phil Wickham (don't remember where I heard this first but I love it)

The Story I Heard- Blind Pilot (perfect for the "what the heck are you doing?" moments)

Summertime Clothes- Animal Collective (trippy)

Werewolf- CoCo Rosie (breaks my heart. One of those songs that you can interpret it to fit you)

Mess You Up- Sheanderthal (AGH CALIFORNIA)

Can't Get It Right Today- Joe Purdy (story of my life)

Sleepyhead- Passion Pit (my second favorite song)

But For You Who Fear My Name- Welcome Wagon (actually good Jesus music)

Only The Good Die Young- Billy Joel ("just facts.")

Somebody To Love- Glee version (Claire Hogan is my somebody to love)

Colors of the Wind- Pocahontas (Disney songs always have deep underlying meanings)

First Day of My Life-Bright Eyes (cutest love song)

Home- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes (I will be playing this song when I come home after I leave senior year)

Break Me Out- The Rescues (run.away.)

Congratulations- Blue October and Imogen Heap (just a dang good song)

Running Up That Hill- Placebo (Christ)

I'm Going Away- Meg and Dia (self explanatory)

Have a Danging Good New Year everybody

Cardio-workout

Homeless people. I like them. Everything they have is real.

Beauty and Vanity

A couple of weeks ago I did this thing. I decided to stop wearing anything more than a T-shirt and jeans and in addition, I stopped wearing any make-up.

What makes me laugh when I look back is how people responded. The people who I told were rather appalled; I mean, come on, voluntarily not wearing make-up or dressing up to school? To some, not everyone, the idea is one never to be considered. Then... there are the people who didn't know. Their responses were, although full of concern, a little bit stressful. I got comments like, "what happened to your eyes?" and, "are you okay? You look really different," or "did you not sleep at all?" These were stressful because, to be honest, taking these two things away was difficult. Which begs the question, why did I do this to myself?

Well, I did it because I felt I was becoming increasingly vain and dependent on appearance to win people over. I realized that I counted on make-up to feel pretty. Not only is that bad but I'd feel the amount I had on wasn't enough so then put more and more on as time went on. Just like any other dependency on something that will not satisfy, this was going somewhere I didn't want to follow. For the make-up part, I had to stop until I found myself just as pretty without it; only then would putting make-up on not be an unhealthy habit. As for the not "dressing up" part of the week, that had to do more with how other people felt about me. I use clothing as a form of expression and to show my individuality... this is not a bad thing. The problem was that as time went on the question that I subconsciously asked myself when putting things on went from, "what is this saying?" to "what will people think of this and think of me?" We live in a world where it is impossible to please everyone or to make everyone like you, so to start caring about what everyone thought would lead only to dissatisfaction and unhappiness and thus, take away the fun I find in "dressing up." So... I stopped "dressing up" until I understood that the clothes I wear can make a statement, yes, but I am the one that allows that and that the statement applies to... so, I can make said statement without "dressing up." Haha. Yeah, that probably doesn't make sense.

What I got out of it was more than I asked for, in a good way. I learned about myself and my self-image and what I wanted out of my appearance. Haha my notes and journal entries from that week are really interesting to me and full of epiphanies but what I realized as I read over them was that the epiphanies were all things people had told me multiple times, I just never heard them. We can be told something a thousand times but until we learn, come to believe or realize it for ourselves we will never hear them. One thing however, a thought that crossed my mind on Day 3, I had never been told before... which actually makes me sad. All the notes of that day consist of this one statement, "thanking God for the way I look... That just sounds like the weirdest thing." Well yeah, it sounds cocky and it sounds like I think of myself as divinely beautiful. Which, for someone who has battled with persistent self-image problems, is just not true. But that's not the point. We are all pretty; we don't have a choice and it's not an opinion. Made in the image of God, made in the image of beauty. So we're all beautiful? Okay... that's a lot to take in. But being thankful for how I look as an individual... scary, a legitimate thing to be thankful for and it doesn't make sense to me. But I guess that the beauty of it... to me anyway. haha cheesy