whatever comes my way, embrace it with a smile

all match days are good days, in my book, but yesterday could have been better. it was my fault that i didn't make is so though; i really can't blame anyone else around me. it's all about attitude. instead of letting the #1 girls get to me, i should have embraced the difficulties with a simle. we played Archer yesterday (away) and laney and i didn't do so hot in our first match. we were down 0-4 and managed to come back 4-6, still losing it, but at least we put up a fight. it just really frusterated me since last time we beat these girls 6-1 and i didn't feel like we were playing badly. eventally (at the point we were down love-4) ms. admiraal tells both of us to stay back and the just rally, letting them make the mistake. this obviously worked for the next four games in our favor, but we still ended up losing the match. for some reason, i really let the girl's bad attitudes and poor line calls effect me and walked off the court with much more of an attitude than i should have. it's not like i did anything to really show bad sportsmanship, but my mood shouldn't have been effected by something so trivial, like the other girls or the loss of a game. not, that i think it's always a bad thing to be upset...i think it can show passion, but i guess i just feel guilty.
i think i'm just one of those people who, in order to let things go, i need to simply be angry for a minute. it takes me a minute to pull myself together and then simply let it roll off my back. although most times i like consolation in a moment of anger, but sometimes i really don't want to "talk it out" (if it has to do with sports that is). unfortunately laney is the type of person who likes to talk through things instead of being mad, and when i'm mad and she wants to talk...it just isn't a good combo. we didn't get mad at eachother or anything, but i probably didn't show the best attitude towards her...i should have been more paticent. but, these are just things in the past now; i'll try and just remember them in order to work on the future. i did apologize for not letting the match go as easily as i should have and we had fun in our last two.
perhaps i'm just a bit edgy right now, since season is coming to a close (tomorrow is our last team match). it feels like it just started and i just keep thinking about how much i'm going to miss it. i know there are worse things in life, but i can't help feeling upset and i think that is one of the worst things of all. no matter what i do, i can't change the way i'm going to feel. sure i can have a posotive outlook on change and look ahead to all the other great things that are to come, but no matter what i do i will miss tennis when it's over. oh well, i will just have to come to terms with that and move on...i'll look forward to track, i guess :)
well, i think this is just about enough for now. wish us luck against CAMS tomorrow...we are going to need it. all i can ask for is i play my best and embrace anything that comes my way with a good outlook and attitude.
thanks for checking in and sorry that, that post wasn't more interesting or upbeat...hopefully i'll have a better one tomorrow for you all.

brief overview of homecoming week!

so, after a fun filled homecoming week, i'm glad it is the weekend. finally get to have some down time. well, i'll start with thrusday's tennis match and then go from there.
thrusday we played Campbell Hall, who is as good, if not better than Brentwood. Laney and i lost all three matches, but i was really just mad about the first one. ms. admiraal changed the order of line up to possibly have some strategy, so laney and i played the threes first. we could have totally beaten them, but my ground strokes were just not on. i didn't stay upset too long though...the ones were just downright annoying and cocky, but they were really good. alicia and brittany played doubles together and did really well against them though. the only thing i was really upset about was the fact that, that was my last ever home match...season is coming to an end, but i'm not really ready to think about it. oh, well...life must go on. some of my amazing friends (amy, august and grace) did come and watch, which was much appreciated. sorry if i scared you guys with my wrath...haha i don't think any of them have ever seen that side of me when i get mad about my playing. but, thanks guys for coming! :)
friday was a really good day. i went out to dinner with julie and then we headed over to the homecoming game and later, i went to the dance. i figured i should go to at least one gym dance before i graduate :) i had a lot of fun. at one point some of us seniors formed a line and just ran through the middle of the dance floor, breaking up any who were dancing inappropriately. they didn't like us too much, but too bad for them. it was pretty funny.
well, now that you all have been updated on my week, i think i'm going to get some sleep.
make sure to check out the pictures below! :)
i'll be sure to post again soon.

school spirit!

me and chelsea...she is hilarious, i love her!


















check out our cool shirts! :)















me and terisha

















me, scott and allison in bible...again haha






















we had a sub in Land Culture Book and when we were waiting for the bell to ring, we started blowing a string in the air and seeing how long we could keep it up for...we are SO easily amused! haha :)

back in time

to the 80's!!!



like my hot 80's attire???



me and terisha in spanish 1st period









me and alicia in psychology...haha mr. bras in the backround



































nice face, amy
























me and scott in bible












yeah...this is what we do in bible class...there were no cookies that day, so...













...we ate eachothers hair instead. yum












attractive

































me and andrea










we were so not even ready for this picture haha

rojo dia for the seniors and our Brentwood tennis match

first of all, here are some pictures from yesterday, which was class color day.














































we decided to discover all the words we could spell. haha

SI!






















and "seis!"...with only five people...ironic















"sin"...naughty, naughty












and "sign"...grace and her nerdy math skills. by the way...don't even ask what i'm doing...i really have no clue.









today's match was against Brentwood...we lost bad. really bad! like 0-18 bad! haha. we completely switched up our line up and put alternates in for singles, moving brittany and alicia to doubles. i played with alicia today instead of laney and then laney and brittany played together. we still lost miserably, but at least we all put up a fight. not to mention some of their doubles team's had some pretty bad line calls. but, what can ya do? they are just a solid team all around. i still had fun though!
stay tuned for more adventures of homecoming week! :)
night!

a completly packed weekend

yesterday i went over to august's house to decorate shirts for this upcoming week. amy, grace and kamille were also there. between jewish guys walking by and laughing at us and then going up to the thrift store a buying a rockin' 80's jacket for a buck 25 it was a blast!

enjoy the pics! for some reason i can't get them to go in a row, but whatever...as long as you can still see them, it's all good.

the process of making some t-shirts!

waiting for them to dry...

the back's of our class color attire. 09! complete with our last names...so fine!

hey look we spell "seis"...like 6 in spanish! haha love it! tell me, why do i look exasperated?

after the shirt decorating at august's i went and hung out with julie. we went to the movies and saw "Eagle Eye", which was interesting. it was intense, but i'm not sure if i liked it or not. overall i guess i did; it is kind of scary to think about how much of our world is controlled by technology.

after the movie we just sat outside starbuck's in the cold and talked for like and hour and a half, which was fun.

all in all it was a great weekend! now, i'm prepared for what should be a great week!

blessings!

good but short week

only two days of school this week for me...yeah really tough life, i know. but, since i haven't updated since tuesday, let me fill you all in on the happenings since then.
wednesday was testing for the underclassmen, so seniors didn't have school. all i had was practice at three, but since i love practice that was actually a really good day. just relaxing and tennis...two very good things.
thursday we had a match against Whittier christian. overall our team lost...pretty bad, but laney and i were playing really well for the most part. i felt completely on with my ground strokes. we won our first and our third with the scores of 6-4 and 7-5, but lost our second 4-6, which would have been completely fine if i hadn't double faulted three times in the last game...i was really upset. i quickly got over it though and went out to play our third set.
another great thing about thursday, aside from us playing some good tennis, was that my high jump coach came to our match. it was really great to see him and it really meant a lot to me for him to come out and see me play. thanks coach jim! :)
today, i didn't go to school because i went up to westmont (again) and took yet another tour. it's not that i don't like the school, but i feel like i've been up there so many time, it feels like my family is sort of pushing me to go there. but, it is a really nice school and definitely in my top choices along with a few others, but we shall see what happens. i'm just working on applying to places at this point and then i figure i'm just going to leave the rest up to God and come spring, i'll make my decision.
next week should be a fun week as well. i'ts homecoming week, so dress up days are always interesting. this year it's character day and decade day (seniors are 80's). i think i could have a little fun with both of those...i've come up with the best idea for character day with the help of august! but, you all will have to wait till tuesday to see! oh, the suspense.
well, enjoy your weekends!
cheerio!

11 hrs of sleep and i'm still as crazy as ever

today was out of control! first off i was late because i over-slept...i slept for 11 hours! and tell me how i over sleep after going to be at 8:30??? oh, well. we also voted for nominees for homecoming ambassadors. it was just so weird that these were people in our class, but cool. classes were pretty good...nothing special. ms. admiraal had me dying in bible...we had like a 20 min discussion on her college roommate and hermit crabs. hilarious! she is crazy! and practice was another adventure. we were playing a game where you can have up to three people on a side and you must get two players out and then three must play against one in order to win any points. well it was me left against alicia, ava and jackie. i hit a lob and alicia is coming to put it away and lining up to hit me, but instead the ball goes flying right into the back of jackie's head, who was at net! it hit her hard! but it was so funny to watch...sounds sad. i looked over at ms. admiraal, who looked like she was trying so hard not to laugh until she made sure jackie was okay. we were all dying! poor jackie. she was okay though and we then continued playing. sorry i just had to throw that story out there.
the weekend was good. on sunday i went to Azuza and visited julie. we went out to dinner and watched a movie. it was fun to hang out for a while and meet all the people in her dorm. we had yesterday off, so i toured the campus a bit and then came home and slept...i was SO tired.
well sorry for the quick update, but i've got some homework to finish and even though i don't have school tomorrow, i don't want to worry about it tomorrow night.
so, bye for now!

oh, wait i lied...i have a random story to tell! i was walking from chapel to first period today and then see my friend, so i start walking with her. she was holding a necklace chain and i asked her about it. she goes "oh it broke over the weekend and i burned my arm". you have to know her, but this, coming from her is not an unusual way our conversations go. i was like "how did you burn your arm"
"well, my necklace broke so i tried to weld it back together."
"with what???" (i was slightly afraid to ask)
"well, a blowtorch, of course"
"oh, of course. because everyone has a blowtorch in their house."
seriously! who does that?! only allison...she is the funniest person! gotta love her.
okay now i'm really done!
bye! :)

harvest festival, face painting and more tennis

this weeks seemed to fly by and to also drag along all at the same time. all i can say is i'm glad it is the weekend and that i don't have too much homework. also, it is very nice to have monday off and then i get wednesday off as well! what a great week next week!

so, yesterday we started second round in tennis against Maranatha. laney and i won two or our three sets, but i was pretty happy with how we played overall. in our first set, against the ones, we were down 2-5 and then came back and won it 7-5!!! we were SO EXCITED! we put up a good fight for that set. our second set, against the threes we won 6-0 and then we lost our third 3-6, but what can ya do? it was still a good day. after our match i went to a christian college fair with my mom; it was at Whittier Christian high school (i have never actually been to their campus, so that was kinda cool to see). i ended up talking to a lot of people and filling our a lot of cards for them to send me more stuff...yay make my life harder. but no, i guess it will be good in the long-run to have options. also, while i was there, i ran into the Whittier tennis coach, who has always been really nice. she totally recognized me and started talking to me for a while about our season and their season and college. i just thought that was kind of cool; its not like i would recognize or want to talk to many other tennis coaches from other schools or they would recognize me.

today was the harvest festival, during which i painted a billion little kids faces! haha...bit of an exaggeration. :) i helped out yearbook with their face-painting booth and i like how i'm not even on yearbook staff any more haha. oh, well. august ended up painting my whole face (except my forehead) maroon and putting a big "VC" on my cheeks. people were either just staring at me or people that did know me didn't even know who i was at first. it was nice.

well, i'm tired and i'm going to go to bed now, so hope all of you have a fantastic weekend...i know i will!

bye for now!

pictures...finally

alicia told me to put all these up for her, so here you are, alicia.


told you, you looked retarted...haha...not that i don't. we were trying to jump! :)












this was at ava's house earlier...i stole this from alicia.



































she just looks at me like i've totally lost it! so great!












































we are pretty darn cute! haha


well, that is about all i have time for...i'm going to sleeeeeeep!!! i've somehow attracted a sickness of some sort and am not feeling up to my usual par. this started yesterday afternoon, but i did get a 40 min nap in before practice. i was totally knocked out in study hall face down on my book...must have been adorable. last night was an adventure...the team went out for dinner. twas fun!
okay bye for now

quote of the day: "yes now i'm poor, ugly and have given up on life..." -hannah (haha love her!)

i always knew tennis was dangerous

like i said before, mondays always seem to be good days for me. this very fine monday was no different. today i herd many things in a way that i have never before or just simply in a way that made so much more sense. two of these were in bible. we were talking about how we, as human beings, can't possibly know everything about God and why should we? it isn't that God wants to hide from us, but what would elevate Him from us if we knew everything He did? ms. admiraal explained it like this...if you have a circle and then a larger circle surrounding it, and lets say that the smaller circle represents our finite knowledge and the larger, God's infinite knowledge. now without changing the form or shape of the larger circle in any way, how can you make the larger circle fit inside the smaller circle? you can't. i really thought that was a great analogy and something so simple to remember. just wanted to share that.
another point that really served me well today especially was also from bible class. sometimes do you ever wish that God would let you look at your life in the future so that you know what you are supposed to do or what you are supposed to be aspiring to or simply just to see what will happen. i know i do, especially right now with college and changes. well, think about that on the opposite side for a moment. would you want to know all the negative things that were to happen in your life before they happen? to constantly be dreading something before it happens? to always be trying to stop it from happening? lets be honest, i don't think any of us could handle that pressure. so great that God gives us one day at a time. like today, i wasn't happy that i came to government class and found out that our test has been moved from friday to wednesday, two days earlier and i wouldn't have wanted to be there to here that had i known that was going to happen. or later when i got home this evening and all i wanted to do was do my homework, relax and maybe read a book. instead i ended up going to the auto shop to get my tire fixed because air was leaking out of it. but, it's all good cause it's just one day at a time. :)
moving on, we had another tennis match today. it was against CAMS, whom we haven't played for two years now, but they are still as good as ever, if not better. laney and i lost our first set 0-6 ouch! haha we were frustrated up until we "talked" to coach on change over at 0-5. she looks at us and goes "are you frustrated?" we were like "yeah! what are we doing wrong? it's 0-5" and she just starts laughing and goes "0-5. keep playing" and then waves us off in the direction of the court. and then laney double faults 3 times and ms. admiraal continues laughing at us. she is so funny! seriously only she could laugh at us when we are frustrated and we think it is funny. i'm just saying not many people could pull that off...she has a gift. haha
our second set didn't go so hot, although we didn't get bagled...a nice 1-6 haha! and our third was by far the best! laney and i both hit one girl! i was at net and the girl that was back hits a ball that was perfect over-head material. well, what am i going to do here? hit it at the girl who is at back court and has more time to react to the ball or hit it at the vulnerable girl right in front of me and finish the point. i think you could guess. i was probably only about 5-6 ft. away and i pretty much slam the thing at her; it hits her right on the hip without even a bounce on the court to cushion the blow. yeah...that must have hurt...she is definitely going to have a bruise. of course i apologized and felt kinda bad, but the game of tennis is rough and you gotta be tough. needless to say, i was quite proud of my hit. :) then to make it even better about 20 mins. later, laney hits a solid volley and it smacks the same girl right the stomach. laney also apologized immediately, but the girl ignored her, turning back to her partner and just yells "you can not keep setting me up like that...keep it away from the net!" then she turns back to us and says "can we just get this game over with...i want to go home!". i glanced over at the bleachers where i saw mr. bras trying to suppress a laugh, which was the same thing laney and i were doing; at one point we had to turn the other direction, so our opponents wouldn't see us cracking up. all in all our last match was a pretty memorable one. :)
well, that's all for now! thanks for bearing with me and reading!
more later! night!

life never changes...

yesterday i went to do my service hours with amy and august at a convalescent home in Norwalk. i have to say it was quite an experience; it breaks your heart to see these people and not know what their situation is and if their family's ever come and visit them. most of them are not coherent enough to have an intelligent conversation with you, but just the same are beautiful in their own way and still can give a smile or a hug. at one point i was in the activities room with some of the elders and they were making ghosts to hang up for halloween (it's like preschool, but on the opposite end). one lady, Beverly that i was helping just kept repeating over and over that she couldn't do it or "i give up". i kept encouraging her, telling her that it looked good and then asked her if she would like some help. at those words she sort of lit up and you could tell she just loved watching me paint the ghost for her. it was just really cute. another lady, who was struggling with her's as well, asked me if i wanted to finish it for her. i gladly went over and helped her and she kept telling me that she wasn't feeling well today. then her husband came in to visit her and her attitude completely changed. it was amazing! she perked up and delighted in showing him the pumpkin she had colored. he had the biggest smile on his face and i could tell that he was just so happy to be with her. it really touches your heart and opens your eyes to the fact that life really never does change. just as a preschooler is excited to show thier parent their picture, this woman was excited to show her husband the creation she had made. that is one moment i hope i never forget as long as i live.
another lady, Alice, we visited her in her room and talked to her for maybe an hour. she just LOVED having someone to talk to. she has some type of brain cancer or something, but her mind is completely there, although she did tell us several stories several times. i didn't mind and actually i'm glad she did. i think her meaning had much more effect after repetition. she was a feisty little old woman! it was amazing! she was very firm about the fact that she wanted her old diet back and did not like the tasteless mush they gave her for lunch. she told us about her daughter, who visits her and about all the books she likes to read and asked us what we all wanted to do after school. one thing that really stuck with me was that she kept repeating "i bet you girls are learning so much". at first i didn't really know what she meant, but then as i thought about it, i did learn so much and not nearly enough from these people, who all have stories and feelings and something to bring to this world no matter their age.
i don't really even know how to explain all the things that i felt and have become aware of, but i guess the best thing i can relate it to is that after we left august amy and i hung out at amy's house for a while and just sat on her bed talking about things, listening to music and having fun. it occurs to me now that almost everyone of them did that back when they were young and look where they are now. why is it fair that the younger generation can just think they have the right to put them in a place where they are taken care of and forget about the fact that they are people. just think about it. and i'm not saying that it is wrong to put a family member in a convalescent home by any means; i know that many of them have no choice. all i'm saying is being there they don't get to experience the same type of social life and it is our obligation and duty to remember them for who they are and what they do for this world, cause although elderly, they bring so much to this world. we can't think of them as "on their way out". and also not that all their families do forget them, like the man who came to visit his wife and Alice said her daughter , but i'm sure it is true of some.
well, i'll leave my thoughts here. it was a very good weekend, full of learning experiences :)
i'll get those pics up at some point...
night!

photos de tenis!

here are some of those pictures that i promised!
these first few are from our match against Brentwood the other week.


hannah being weird











laney looking mighty fine...she spilled water on herself, so this face was totally unintentional haha!














hannah and laney look cute...me....not so much













ms. admiraal obviously got bored taking our picture and then fell asleep...at least i'm not a creeper like hannah, who zoomed in on her face...it's a pretty scary picture, i'm not going to lie :)















since coach fell asleep and could no longer be out photographer, we tried all piling on one seat and putting the camera on top of a bag; it kept falling off, but we got some pretty funny shots.










i think this is my favorite. laney disappeared!















it didn't work out too well for us.








these next ones are from yesterday's match against Archer.




yeah...whenever i look weird, alicia smiles













and whenever she makes a weird face, i smile...she looks like she wants to kill me haha










i think this picture is hilarious! ava is the only one really looking and alicia looks like she is checking out her butt. haha














laney and i and kaite with her elmo shirt!












caitlin, ava, hannah and me

















hannah and alicia have become one!









































how cute











my mom tried to get an intense shot of me playing...too bad the fence was in the way.


i have some more pictures from after school today that i will put up as soon as i find my camera cord



today's practice was insane! we were all crazy! but, that's what happens when you play games like wipeout, sky-ball and dingles the entire practice...twas fun!


adios for now! hope you enjoyed the pics!