hey, hey!...so here i am on xanga again...why?...becasue i am really really busy...that doesn't make any sense, does it?...maybe not to you, but truth is that's just how i roll...when i have so much to do that accomplishing anything is pretty much hopeless, i go waste time on the internet instead...it's such a good stress reliever...no not really...but since i'm here, let's chat, k?

so, not to long ago i just got back from a crazy sweet road trip to nashville...oh how i wish i could tell you all the details, because the details are the most entertaining...some pretty great stories, for sure...but due to the protection of the people in the stories, i jsut can't...just know that it was great and i wished that i was there longer and that nashville was a lot closer to here.

i really miss people a lot right now...all these random little things keep happening that remind me of people and i just wish that for a couple of weeks we could all get back together and go to the same school and stuff...life gets lonely when your closest friends are the ones who are farthest away.

had my last soccer game tonight...i loved that team so much...thanks to all you sweet people who invited me to play...even though i'm not all that skilled in soccer, i had a blast!

i have my first choir concert this sunday afternoon at 3:00 at first united methodist church downtown...just incase any of you really love listening to sweet choral music...lol...we really do have some good music...i am a little scared though that we aren't ready, but i'm sure it will all come together and be great in the end...i'm pretty excited!

my work situation is starting to look a little brighter...oh, and speaking of work...if anyone would like a coupon that will give you a dollar off of any sized latte or 3 dollars off our best car wash, let me know!...it's for this competition that i would like to win becasue i need the money...so if you use a "laura" coupon, you help me out a lot!...so if your car is dirty or if you like coffee or you know anyone who does, i can hook you up with a great deal and you can feel good about helping me out in the process!

school is getting ridiculous...i practically failed a test (and honest to goodness it's because the teacher is really bad at making tests...i knew the stuff...only one person in the entire class got an A and everyone else didn't even get a B or somethign like that)...so to make up for my bad grade, i have to watch three psychology movies between today and monday and write a 3 paged paper on each one...and then ofcourse there is all my other homework...like the paper i have to write about how chocolate is good for you even though i can find sources that tell me it isn't...and then ofcourse there is the test that is tomorrow that i haven't started studying for yet and honestly, i almsot completely forgot about it. and there are like a million other things that i've committed myself too and unfortunately i can't get out of them becasue they all involve other people who are depending on me, so basically i'm jsut as busy as i was in hgihschool...i wouldn't have it any other way...i enjoy being busy...it's jsut that if i could be busy doing things i loved instead of homework, it would be a lot more enjoyable and less stressful...but speaking of stress and homework...i really have to go study.

see you all later!

hey friends!...first of all, i jsut wanted to send a little love out to all ya'll...seeing as it's valentines day and all!

valentines day is kinda a disgusting holiday in my opinion...at my school anyway...but if you think about it, it's kinda ridiculous for anyone...allow me to explain...if you don't have a significant other, it's basically single's awareness day and you just feel kinda crappy and left out, and if you do have that special someone in your life, it's kinda dumb too, because why just celebrate someone one day out of the year...every day should be kinda like valentines day ya know?...without all the pink and teddy bears and fake roses and all that other nausiating stuff, that is.  i will admit that it is kinda funny though, to see college guys walking around carrying little red and white fuzzy stuffed puppies and girls with a boquets of fake light-up roses coming out of their backpacks and a few people were even carrying around like a full pot of planted flowers...pretty funny.  and then there was this awkward photo booth thing with a bunch of girls who were practically naked, but the bikinis and boots they were wearing were valentines day colors...that was, um...yeah....mrs. atsma would have had a field day.  my one and only valentines card of the day was a scoobie doo valentines day card from the attendance girl in choir who was handing them out to everyone...it said "i hope your day is filled with lots of extras"...i'll pretend that that doesn't mean anything.  i bought myself some really good chocolates...lol...how pathetic, i know...well, actually it was sorta left overs from stuff i gave to other people but still.

in other news, school is going very well...i finally started tutoring, i got the highest grade in the class on my government test, my band director said i was good and pretty much asked me to join the amazingly good band, but i can't because i'm in choir...which i really like...and we have a concert really soon, i think i failed my psychology test today because the questions were ridiculous, and i almost feel like i have friends! lol...i'm trying...its so hard to talk to people around there, but for the most part my ridiculously large amount of effort is sorta paying off. it's all good.

if anyone could hook me up with the movie "what about bob" by monday, that would be awesome.

my most exciting news is that friday i am leaving for a weekend in nashville!...i am sooo excited...you have no idea. yup, it's gonna be great...i have lots to do before i leave though, and i'm soooo tired, so i'm outa here folks!

today was freaky friday thursday....lot's of crazy stuff...

....you know it's gonna be a good day when it starts of like this: your leg is purple and has the pattern of a soccer ball on it (somebody kicks hard, is all i have to say, cause pretty sure it's been 24 hours as of right now and you still can see it...and for once, i am not exaggerating)...you spill your cappacino on your car seat, and then you miss your bus...twice...and have to wait forever in the cold and almost be late for class even though you got up earlier than you usually do.

...then ofcourse there's the everyday occurences like bomb threats...and you have to sit in a gym with several thousand people in it for 2 or 3 hours with nothing to do and not being allowed to go anywhere.

...and then a guy walks in on you while you are in the women's bathroom, and you smile awkwardly and say, "wrong one!"...and he looks at you like you were talking about yourself, and he almost keeps walking towards the stall as he says, "this is the men's bathroom, right?"...."uh, no."...(i mean, yes, yes indeed it is...it's my favorite place to hang out...what?)...follwed by an awkward laugh on my part, as he does the walk of shame out of the women's bathroom.

...so then i go to donate blood, and even though there wasalmost no one there, it takes me like over an hour, because apparently i am unable to bleed...lol...seriously, they stabbed me like five times in my ginormous extremely green protruging vein, and then they ask me questions like, "is it usually really slow like this?"...um, yes...usually when i chop at my appendages with large knives, it takes atleast 3 hours of continuous and vigorous stabbing before droplets begin to form and slowly drip out....seriously, i get a paper cut and it bleeds for two days straight...they stab me with a needle the size of a pencil and practically suck it out of me, and it doesn't work?...sure.

several starnge phone conversations, awkward experiences, cold car rides, lack of dinner, and one "aloha" muffin later, here i am...as normal as can be...i can't wait for tomorrow.

hello my friends!...well, i'm a whole year older now...and wow do i ever feel twice as wise and mature as i did last year...no, not really.  so, what's new?...not much...life is nice...kinda busy...kinda extremely boring on ocassion, but still nice, i suppose.

my b-day was nice...well not the actual day so much (i had lonely, boring school all day and then lonely, boring work...where i had 6 customers and made 45 cents in tips...and then i had praiseteam practice)...but all the phone calls and millions of facebook messages and random surprises in the mail and a little surprise party and other little surprises pretty much made my weekend...or week, really!...so thanks friends...i love you all.

as far as school goes................to make a long story short, somehow all the funding for pepband got cut so it's not happening anymore...which is reatrded because we learned all the music and never got to play it and that means that i also don't get to make like $100...oh well.  i do get to make money by doing several hours of online training to become a tutor...even if i never actually get any tutees...i love that word...tutees tutees tutees!!! i also had to go to customer service training at school...that was hilarious.  choir is cool...we pretty much ended up having like a show-and -tell day yesterday...i'm pretty jealous of all the extremely talented people there.  in english class, we did a scavenger hunt all over campus...that was random, but hey, i'm not complaining...and it turns out that it wasn't jsut for fun...it did actually have a purpose in the end...and my english group is pretty sweet too. so school is good.

the most exciting news i have is that in a few weeks i'm going on a three day, 10 hour away road trip with two guys i hardly know. lol...it should be quite the experience. :)

but for right now, i am trying to survive...my entire family is home together, stuck in the same small house probably for like three days straight becasue of the snow because everythign is canceled...except for work...yeah, i have to go work in a few minutes...who are they kidding?...no one comes even on a good day...who in their right mind would get out in a blizzard to go buy an icecream cone?...whatever...hopefully i don't die in the two minutes that it takes to get there...or die of boredom once i am there...seriously.  well, i better go...see ya!

ya know how i was going to kinda quit xanga?...ha...ha...ha...hm...yeah. right...we all knew that was going to happen. so, uh, life in the life of laura...

...well, i'm still kinda getting into the whole school thing...i finally had all of my classes atleast once now...as for the classes i haven't told you about yet, one of my professors is from congo and has quite an accent...pretty cool though i guess...the other one, though, has to be atleast 95...wow...i think i will die of boredom...a half hour of discussing current events followed by an hour of government lecture...twice a week. (insert me doing the "i'm poking my eyeballs out" motion right now.) as for that concert that i was all pumped about (seriously, i spent the whole weekend learning my song)...it got canceled because of the freakin snow or something...i was dissapointed...the roads weren't even that bad...my car on the other hand, had about an inch thick of ice on it and with the heat and defrost on full blast and three people scrapping at it, it still took over fifteen minutes to just get it good enough to see out of...it was honestly the worst it has ever been. let's see what other school news do i have?...i filled out all my paper work to be a tutor...or maybe i should say i wrote a novel...because that's practically how much writing i had to do...i think if i would have combined all of my previous work applications, school applications, everything apllications...lol...from everything in my whole life combined, it still would have been less than how much i had to fill out for this job...seriously...maybe i should have just written a novel...it would probably end up paying more than tutoring will.  hmm...also, i've been late for two classes already...missed the bus twice...oh, and accidentally slammed two guys in the door of the bus...not even at the same time...i let that happen twice...yeah...it looks like two is a good number for me....school is going really really well...yeah.

...so, freaky experience today...i'm driving down my street, headed to work, when there is a car coming at me kinda fast...i move over as far as i can, but i was still thinking that it would be close...i was jsut praying that the other guy would move over, cause i couldn't any farther...as he passes me, all the sudden i here this huge crash...and it's like on my windsheild...and i knew we didn't hit or anything...it was so weird...i didn't know what it was...but it was loud...and it looked like huge chuncks of glass covering my windsheild...finally i realized that since last night there had been a really thick layer of ice on the very top of my car, and i guess while i was at home for a half hour, it melted jsut enough in my driveway that when i started moving it started sliding, and so a sheet of ice the size of my car slid down on to the windsheild and cracked into these huge sharp pieces...and i couldn't see anymore...so like a totaly idiot, i decided to turn on my windshield wipers thinking that maybe that will just clear everything away so i can see so i can drive...yeah right!...this ice is like a half inch thick, in sections that are like two square feet and they are all jammed on top of eachother into my windshield wipers...so it like grinding and i still can't see and my wipers are getting stuck and i look retarded...because i am...it was quite the experience...fourtunately work is only like two minutes from my house.

...speaking of work...no nevermind...there is so much i could say, but i shall not...however, i will say this...the gate that protects the sacred giant garbage can located in the magical extremely slippery iceland, definitly bit me today...yeah, that's right, it took a huge chunk out of my hand...blood oozing...hand turned purple...delicious really....oh, and i also wacked my boss' son with a mop...i hop that's not a bad thing...hm...we'll find out i suppose...but seriously, he deserved it....oh and then i spilled melted mint chocolate chip icecream with hot fudge on my pants...literally flipped a whole spoon full of green and brown slop right onto the crotch of my pants...it's unbelievable....i don't think ther is ever a time when i am not either ruining myself or someone else...i need help or something.

...yes i laugh and joke about what a clutz i am and all the crazy stupid stuff that would only ever happen to me...but it's all really quite insignificant............today, when i got home from school...right before i had to go to work, i found a note waiting for me on the kitchen table...telling me that my friend's mother had a terrible stroke and was mostlikely going to die today....how the heck are you supposed to take news like that?...especially considering the circumstance...i msut admit i am not nearly as upset as i should be, but i think that is only because i'm not thinking about it...because i'm not letting myself think aobut it...i couldn't...i had to go to work and be a perky icecream server...not cry about how drastically my friend's life may change because of this. it's hard. tough stuff sucks..for everyone remotely involved.  it happened so fast and unexpectedly...so fast.  so fast. i do not want to have to go to a funeral home...i hate funeral homes more than anywhere else on earth i think.  i don't show much emotion in public...except when death is involved and then even if i hardly know the person who died, i'm usually crying harder than the family themselves...i turn into a total disaster...and i feel bad going because i feel like rather than being nice by showing sympathy, that instead i'm making everyone else more miserable. i'm almost in tears right now, knowing how hard it is going to be to see my friend again, knowing what has happened...i was supposed to see her tomorrow...but things mostlikely have changed a little from normal routine...so who knows when i will see her again...and what will i say when i do? (for those of you wondering who i am talking about, she is a "special" friend of mine from "friendship" and way older than me, but we were still really close anyway...atleast it always felt that way. she was quite dependant on her mother...her father died, and i think a brother or sister of her's did too...and her mom is all she had left) i don't even know what to think...i guess pray for a miracle...