"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -- Helen Keller

 
got back from the acsi convention this evening. 2 days in hot sacramento.
good points:
- hanging out with the teacher gang
- meeting and hanging out with some of the new teachers
- hearing al menconi speak
- an encouraging and challenging message by mark hamby
- great time of worship during the first general session
- bought 4 new books
- rooming with my mom
- learned to make snow in the science workshop
not so good:
- went to the scripture song workshop and instead of hearing songs, heard the (married) speaker flirt with these 2 ladies in the front row throughout the presentation
- was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car and the person driving mistakenly turned into a one-way street towards oncoming traffic and we almost hit this other car head-on. VERY, VERY scary

 
since i know some people view this site often, it drives me to be more consistent in my posts. (less people saying, "hey you haven't updated your blog!)

so hmm... last week... worked on POWERGRADE. stayed up until 3 am on tuesday working on it. still didn't finish. so had to work on it the next couple days following. had 2 consecutive nights of only 3-1/2hours of sleep. not good. by the time friday rolled around, i was exhausted and didn't want to do any school work at all. and the school day on friday passed sooooo slowly. got to hang out with a bunch of different people throughout the week though. that was fun. here's a summary of my past week (sun-sat): 2 dinners with the mahs, dinner for jay's b-day, housesitting, finishing the forms for my music copyrighting (yea!!!), dinner w/ winnie, 2 xP meetings, 2 ccs staff meetings, a meeting w/ pastor steve and pastor pat, a nice walk w/ diana, mel, and jacyln after school (oh, what a beautiful view overlooking the water!), 1achord practice, and helping the crew put together the xP cabinets. no time though to watch my brand-spanking new michael w. smith dvd. =(

i had a lot of fun working on the cabinets. you know what? someone made a video of me hammering. i don't know why. oh well. it was a long day, but was very satisfying seeing the mostly finished product afterwards. the shelves were built to be very spacious. we all climbed in and laid down on them. hee hee hee. funny. yea, we finally have cabinets!!!

oh... scary moment of the week: i was working on the xP slides and decided to take a short nap. so i laid down on the carpet. when i opened my eyes, there was a big spider next to my face! so of course i screamed and ran to the sofa. the spider followed me and parked itself near the sofa. i didn't have anything to poke it with and i was too scared to kill it and the spider just stayed there. i tried blowing at it too, but that didn't work. i finally used a tissue to push it and it scurried under the other sofa. i stayed away from that area after that. didn't want to risk having to go to the emergency room again due to another spider bite. so... umm... jon and karen, it's still there.

well, it's time to go to sleep. gotta wake up at 5:00 am. will be in sacramento tomorrow and tuesday for the acsi convention. school will be short this week. i'm glad. oh, which reminds me... will be in sacramento again in a few weeks to see jars of clay and caedmon's call. i can't wait!

song of the day: "Lord You Have My Heart" by Martin Smith (from Delirious)
this is one of the songs we sang in xP today

Lord You have my heart and I will search for Yours
Jesus take my life and lead me on
Lord You have my heart and I will search for Yours
Let me be to You a sacrifice
And I will praise You Lord
And I will sing of love come down
And as You show Your face
We'll see Your glory here
We'll see Your glory here