End of year 2009.

So, i've decided that I'm going to write an end of the year post. Partly because I have nothing else to write about, and I do believe I should write more in my blog. And the fact that these are fun to write. And I'm writing it today, the twenty-ninth, because I'll be busy tomorrow hanging out with a friend, and then on thursday night with new years plans and such. Anyway, where to begin? Well, I should say that time goes by so fast, because it feels like everything that happened this year is nothing but distant memories. And I'm 16, and I feel like I should start living my life, you know? I should start doing things besides sitting in front of the computer all day because life's too short just to do nothing. Now, I should start listing things that made 2009 so great. and some that were less than extraordinary.

I'm starting in May, because frankly, I don't really remember anything that happened before then. As I said, distant memories.

May 29th marked my one year anniversary in joining the LOBH boards. Before then, I just lurked around but when I joined, I quickly realized that LOBH is a fun place to meet people who have similar interests. I've met some extraordinary people there in this year and a half, albeit not in person. Also, In May of this year, I started writing letters to other boardies. I enjoy writing letters to Emily, Lee, Nova, Rachel, and Michael. Though that last one has taken his time in replying. Hah, I just give you a hard time, Michael. No worries. The snail mail among us is just fantastic. It's more personal, and adds to the fact that LOBH is a close knit group. I think that's what makes LOBH so incredible. We're able to send letters to each other, and we can tell each other things that we can't tell others. Plus, we can talk about Switchfoot all we want without it being annoying. We have great adventure threads, that have died out, but at the time that we do post in them, it's great fun.

Of course, where would I be without my other friends? They are just as incredible as the LOBH boardies I'm friends with. We have such great conversations at lunch and in free period that predominantly confuse the crap out of everyone else. I think the friendship and closeness in our group surpasses any other group. That goes a bit far to say, but I cherish our friendships a lot. You guys know who you are.

June was fantastic. It was full of excitement of myself going to a foreign country, and out of the country for the first time. Up until June 29, I didn't do much of anything for my summer. June 29 is when I left to go to France. My trip there was astonishing. It was such a great experience. I loved both of my families, and they took great care of me while I was there.

July 23rd seemed to come quickly, but I was ready to be home as well. My trip to France proved a great experience, I, with no doubt, will go there again.

On August 11, we celebrated my birthday by spending the day at water world, and going to restaurants the day before and the day of. I think it was a fantastic way to celebrate my 16 years of life thus far.

Exactly a week later, I started my junior year of high school. As the first four months proved to be non-stressful, december definately took a sharp turn into stress. I was so glad to be on break after that month. But I know this next semester will be better, because I've heard that December is the worst month out of all of them. So I know I'll do okay.

Ten days after the first day of school, I lost someone so dear to me. Losing my puppy was really heartbreaking, but we knew it was coming, because she fell 3 weeks before, and wasn't getting better. I really miss her, but I've moved on, and I wasn't going to let her death stop me in my tracks. She will always be in my heart though. Plus, we still have the company of our cat.

My friends and I also started our club Amnesty International at school. It's been successful so far, and I'm pretty sure that it'll continue to be successful.

As december got underway, we gained a lot of stress, as I mentioned before. Finals, Math Papers, History Documentaries, Science stuff, and other school related stuff soon became the only focus that we had. Winter break could not come fast enough.

Then Winter Break came, and relaxation soon after. It was such a liberating feeling, just to be done with the first semester of school.

Christmas came and went, but it was such a fantastic day. :) I always enjoy christmas. I love it when my family spends time together. I mean, not in the sense that we sit around the living room doing our own thing, but in the sense of eating dinner and playing board games together. It's really great.

Now I'm here writing the end of the year blog post. I can't believe how fast this year has gone.

And I don't think that I have anything more to say.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'ma list the gifts that I got and I'll leave my absolute favourite/sweetest gift I got to the end of this list.
-favourite sweets in my stocking.
-DVD of the 6th Harry Potter movie along with the Marauders Map. It's exciting.
-movies Taken and The Bucket List. two movies that I've seen before, but I still love anyways. I would love to watch again.
-first season of the Big Bang Theory. xD funfunfun.
-board game Fact or Crap. which will be fun to play.
-a new docking station for my iPod. So I don't have to fall asleep with headphones in my ears. I've been needing a new one for several months.
-Raclette. It's a grill with spots to melt cheese under to put over the food. it's really fun. We had it in France, and i told my mom about it, and she found a set at a shop downtown. I just saw the grill part, and I was thinking; oh. it's a grill. then I saw the raclette part, and you should have seen my reaction. oh wow. I was excited. It's a fun dish.
-my dad gave both my brother and I a portable DVD player, since his broke ages ago from overuse.
-other small things
and my favourite: my dad took a picture of Neenae who died back in august and made it bigger. we need frames for it, but it's so bittersweet and I love it. It just goes to show that homemade things/thoughtful things can have a big impact on the receiver. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my other gifts, but this one was sooo sweet.

Woah.

I'm done with the first semester of junior year. and the hardest semester of high school at the high school that I go to. It feels sooooo weird to not have any homework at all. The only thing I have to do over break is to read a book for english class, and nothing else. But it doesn't feel like Christmas break. It just feels like another friday, and we're ready to go back to school on monday. It's a strange feeling. I'm actually bored tonight for the first time in months, and I don't know what to do with myself. I can finally read for fun or watch a movie without feeling guilty about not doing my work.

So, after school today, my mom picked me up and we went shopping in Old Colorado City. While in one of the shops, we found this rack of angel dogs. They were dog figurines with halos above their heads. I thought it was the sweetest idea, and I wanted to have one of an Australian Cattle Dog, which was the breed of Neenae who died a few months ago. They didn't have one though, but I thought it was a really precious idea to have an angel figurine of my dog. Now I really want one, pretty much in rememberance of my puppy. really, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about her. but some nights I miss her more than anything else.

Yesterday, I saw the movie Invictus. I thought it was a brilliant movie. It was well made, and I felt like I understood it a lot. If we weren't learning about Africa the past two weeks, I feel like I would not have understood it. I think everyone should take the time to see it, the storyline is fantastic, and Morgan Freeman portrays Nelson Mandela perfectly.

For our psych final, we were supposed to research a topic of our choice. I decided to do mine on depersonalization disorder. it's where people go through the motions of life without feeling the emotion, as if in a dream or watching themselves in a movie. Does anyone feel like this sometimes? Somedays I do, like I'm running on autopilot and my thoughts run on their own. It would be really scary to have the full on disorder, but I think I get minute cases here and there. I thought depersonalization disorder was really interesting to read about, so I thought I'd share it with you guys.

anyways, I'll find more to write about later.
-Renae