Cell

I am reading a book right now by a very good author and I'm beginning to like him a lot. But this book that I'm reading (Cell) sucks. It just seems like he is saying "Hey I'm Stephen King and I'm so famous I can write whatever crap I want to and get away with it". And that is just super annoying. This book makes no sense. It's about a "pulse" that went through every cell phone in the country at three in the afternoon and is making everybody that was on their cell phone at that time go crazy. Absolutely insane! They start eating each other and ripping out chunks of their throats and snapping necks. It's truly bizzare. And I just felt the need to blog about my disappointment :)

English

Today was one of the best days in Honors English I think I've ever had. We walk into the classroom and our teacher yells "Everybody sit down! I have just been inspired!" He then tells us what we are to do. We were all to sit down for 15 minutes and sum up our entire life in 6 words and six words only. No more, no less. After we wrote them down, those six little words, we gave him our note cards and he read them outloud to the class. He asked us not to put our names on them because he wanted to keep them personal. It was very interesting. I wrote down my favorites:

Lacking the courage, smiling through it

Always finds life confusing, craves simplicity

I have a good friend who marches to the beat of her own drum and I love that...this is one of my favorites :)

Be pessimistic, lazy and boring....check
(She may or may not be all these things :) )


And the normal teen:

Stupid overly trusting teen in love :)

And others:

Still waiting for you to change

Messed up family, no father figure

Day by day to the fullest

That's life...just live with it

In our class there is a girl who is one of those people where you always wonder what's going on inside her head...well here's a glimpse of it:

bizzarly sanguin outsider afflicted with wonderlust

...couldn't agree more!

And one of my best guy friends who is very very athletic!!:

Run high, jump fast, rock off ...................................... haha

And mine:
Broken, amputated, sewn together again, adapted

What's yours?

Seneca...

In English we are doing some world literature and recently we are digging into some famous philosophers like Plato and Socrates etc. Seneca was a student of Socrates and killed himself because...well...Socrates told him to. He had so much respect and love for his teacher he thought it would be cool to kill himself. So..he did. And I find that very strange. Anyways, here is something that Seneca had written and I want to share it with you lovely people.

There is no such thing as peaceful stillness except
where reason has willed it to rest. Night does not
remove our worries; it brings them to the surface.
All it gives us is a change of anxieties, for even when
people are asleep they have dreams as troubled as their days.
The only serenity is the one which represents the free
development of a sound mind.



Lately I've been having 2 dreams repeatedly and I keep waking up thinking they're so real. I wake up sweating and sometimes in tears because they were so intense. And they don't go away. So I am agreeing with Seneca, this is exactly how I feel. :)

Santiam

Well, the game has come and gone. We didn't win, but it felt like it. Those are the best games. Where you just play your hardest as a team and feel good about every play. But no matter how hard you play, or how good your team is...there's always someone better than you. And in this case, it was Santiam. I was super happy though, I started. This is the best team in the league and our coach has me starting. It made me feel good about myself and it just made me want to play that much harder because I knew the coach saw something and put me in there for a reason. So I played my best. They played very well too. They have 2 players that are exceptional. Their Libero and their outside hitter. We have some good players too. Chandler Gabrio is our main hitter and she is so much fun to watch! Anyways, yes we lost to Santiam BUT we beat Regius on Thursday. THAT was also a tough game. We beat them in four. You could just tell we wanted it so bad. Chandler had 21 kills. Some boys were trying to get on her nerves and so the coach just told her to show them what she had and it definitely motivated her. Good job Chan!
Now, the best part of this blog. We had a tournament in South Umpqua this weekend. We won and brought home the trophy. Yes, we are the champions of the South Umpqua tournament! It's a good feeling. It was so intense and so insane at the same time. I enjoyed every second of it. Probably because I played every second, but also because EVERYBODY on the team was playing with passion and going all out. It was a blast. We didn't have 2 of our right sides, Briana Wipplinger and Ashley Kulm. Briana is out for a couple weeks due to a sprained ankle and Ashleys grandpa just passed away, so she was at the funeral. That left us with a main setter and no right side. Our coach, lately has been pushing me to play more and more right side, so I played LOTS of right side. It was kind of fun. I like taking the second ball sometimes and hitting from the right side you get lots more kills because people don't get set back that often and so the blockers aren't expecting it. Playing middle is my true calling, though. I like it very much. :) Well, it's definitely time for me to be getting to bed. Tomorrow's practice will be tough and I need rest. I also have a headache right now. So I'm gonna go pop some pills and hop into bed. I'll let you know how next weeks games go...Until then.

My oh so interesting life in a nutshell....

So, volleyball has been consuming my life lately and I'm loving every minute of it. Our varisty team is now 2-0. Our big game is on Tuesday against Santiam Christian. They are definitely our biggest competition. It should be pretty exciting. So, all of you readers out there! Come and watch...ok, there's one more fan in the crowd... :) Our first home game was last night and it was way fun. Chandler Gabrio and Chelsie Joyce...our top two hitters, got 12 kills each. That's pretty good. And our setter, Jamie McMahon got 25 assists. She's amazing. :)
School is going good for the most part as well. It's definitely more difficult than last year. But I guess that comes with the package of being older :) My classes are:
1. Choir
2. Geometry
3. Honors English
4. U.S. History
5. Biology 2
6. Spanish 2
7. Library Aid
First and seventh periods are obviously my easiest. Which is nice, because for volleyball and stuff I'm gonna have to leave early to go to away games and I don't do anything in 7th period. So...that's about it. I have nothing else to say that will be of any interest to my many interested readers. Until.....whenever.
JR out

:)

Wow, so it's been a while, huh? Well, I'm sure you've all gotten over it. I'm nothing too special. :) But mucho has happened since the last time I've written. I went to volleyball camp, Clear Lake...doubles have started and I'm loving it. Volleyball has definitely been a big hilight in my summer. Camp was incredible, lots of good memories. I think I can honestly say that this has been the best summer I've ever had. I've learned so much and definitely feel better about...things. But it has definitely had it's downfalls. Like work, I like actually working and earning money and working with people that I like...but, it's also just been hard trying to reschedule and reschedule when I shouldn't have to and junk like that.
The luau we had here last weekend was a blast. We danced and ate and chilled out on the tennis court. It was pretty interesting. I loved every minute of it. :) It also helped that one of the hawaiian dancers complimented me on my dancing skills. It felt good.
Well...I have nothing else to say. If you want to know anything else...feel free to ask. But no promises on honest answers.
~James