Enthusiam & AILD

I’ve been crazy this week. Just really pumped about everything, really WILD. Everything I do recently, I get really into. Like right now, I’m really into this music. Like, I can’t even explain it. I’ve always *liked* music, and even lately liked it more, but right now, I love it. I love it so much.

As I Lay Dying is blasting through my M&M earbuds at a volume that may do permanent damage, and I could not be happier. I love this. I love this so much. It makes me feel better than good, it makes me feel alive (irony ftw) and happy and pumped and wild.

And like I have to be able to do this.

I need to be able to play guitar like that. I need to be able to scream. And you know what?
Right now, I’m convinced that I could.

Maybe I can, maybe I’m fooling myself. But there’s only one way to find out, right? And I intend to find out.

Our selfishness consumes us
Until the whole world is not enough
Forgive the day that I erased your name
For it's the memory of me that will decay.
~ "Forsaken" by As I Lay Dying

I've seen my world change
And then go back to where it came.
~ "I Never Wanted" by As I Lay Dying

~KeNDra

Episode II of Fortuna Kendrae (Kendra's Luck)

So, my mom got home a couple of weeks ago from her trip to Florida. She travels sometimes because of her position in Classical Conversations. Well, she had a lot of work that had accumulated over her week-long trip. The next day, she wanted to get right down to business.

That would have been much easier if her computer would turn on.

She pressed the "on" button of her laptop, and the cheerful Windows screen appeared along with the spinning mouse-arrow that's computer code for "Please-Hold-Oh-Impatient-One-Or-I-Will-Freeze-Up-For-Twenty-Minutes". Her computer's fairly new and fast, so that screen usually lasts all of seven seconds anyway. Not the case this time.

That cheerful Windows screen and Hold-On arrow continued to stare at her for minutes on end. Needless to say, ten minutes later, the screen was no longer cheerful, and neither was my mother.

She called in my dad, the family's Computer Superman (although he's not *especially* tech-savvy). I'm not really sure what they thought was wrong, but they tried all morning to get it to fix itself.

That afternoon, they moved on to looking for the computer's programming disk or something. I honestly have no idea. I think my dad explained to me why they were looking for it, but I can't remember. Maybe you geeks--I mean, computer lovers (XD just kidding) will know what the heck I'm talking about.

My dad looked ALL OVER THE HOUSE for that disk. We're a really organized family, so whenever we can't find something, it's a big deal. Major tension. My dad looked all in his and my mom's office, all upstairs, in the cabinets behind my Mom's Chair, in the unfinished part of the basement (a VERY large area), these drawers under this thing ('cause you totally know what I'm talking about there), EVERYWHERE. That stupid disk couldn't be found.

So they moved on to another solution. Don't remember what it was, but it was some kind of installment thing or something that took forEVER. It took about another whole day (so we're been trying to fix this stupid machine for two days), and the stupid thing still didn't work after that.

This lady from our church who's apparently computer-talented looked over the problem and didn't know what to do. So we called in our last resort:

COMPUTER GUY EXTRAORDINAIRE! From church. Very nice guy, very good with computers. He agreed to come the next day. So, it's now been THREE days of Tech Hell.

I wandered into my mom's office that night. She was leaning on her desk, just looking so depressed. I felt so bad for her. I went over and massaged her back a little. I sat down at her desk and glared at the stupid machine who was wreaking havoc on our family dynamic. The Windows screen was up and the arrow was spinning obliviously. Evil little creature.

Then I got this Feeling.

I sometimes get this Feeling. It's really hard to describe. It's like this happy, curious, confident, contented feeling. Like everything's all good, let me just try one thing...I usually get this feeling right before I do something weird. Good weird. Really unexpectedly-good-weird.

I cocked my head at my mom's computer, arrow still spinning. I got the Feeling and poked Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

Nothing happened. I honestly didn't expect it to. My subconscious seemed to only have tried that for kicks. All the sudden I pressed F5 (refresh).

The Windows screened cleared immediately, revealing Momma's account.

I looked up at her innocently: "I think I fixed your computer, Momma."

She looked. Eyes bugged. Jaw dropped. Whoa.

F5. Who woulda thought? Not Momma. Not Daddy. Not Computer Lady. Not Techie Man.

Not even me. I just did it. Didn't mean to; didn't think about it.

The computer is still running smoothly. Ta-da. Thank you, thank you very much.

And this has been another episode of...

FORTUNA KENDRAE!


P.S. Going to see "A Christmas Carol" in 3D tonight! I'll let you know if it sucks or not XD

Kendra + Time + Paint = ...

Hehe, hope I made you laugh! :)

Control

Thanks for following, Eruanna!!!
--------------------------
So, I'm trying to decide if I want to ditch the schedule thing. I dunno. I made a poll about it, so if you want, you can vote about it. For today, at least, I'm going to skip Advice Day and just post something I've been thinking about:

Control.

It might be like this for everyone, but I've been thinking a lot about how I am deep down, what I want deep down, how I feel deep down, and you know what it all comes down to? Control. I like to be in control; I hate it when I am not.

Think about my top three fears. What do I say they are?

#1: Losing people close to me
#2: Disease
#3: Change

What do those three things all revolve around? Me not being in control.

Remember how I said that episode of Alias freaked me out a couple of days ago? Because it was about a creepy insane asylum?

As I laid in bed that night, I tried to figure out why it scared me. (That's another control-freak-y thing about myself. There is a reason for everything, and I have to know what it is.)

I was kind of disgusted with myself. Kendra: not afraid of blood or needles or death or panic, but freaked out by people with mental problems?? Not only is it a bit embarassing, it's mean! I felt horrible as I realized that I didn't want to be around or think about people who were crazy (really crazy, not the fun kind of crazy). It was judgmental and wrong, but the deep-seated terror remained.

I thought about it for a while. Why does that scare me? What about crazy people is so terrifying and unsettling to me? Other people I know don't have a problem with this. I decided to take it one step at a time.

Crazy people are not masters of their own minds. That freaks me out. But why?

Crazy people see, hear, and feel things that are not there, that are not real. Freaky again. But why?

Crazy people see, hear and feel things that I cannot see, hear or feel. Now we're getting somewhere. It bothers me that they experience things that I don't. Why does that bother me?

If I can't see it, I can't stop it. Ah, getting even farther! But what they see doesn't bother me, so why should I care that I can't see it? I'm not this amazing person who only wants to see imaginary things to help the person.

Back to the people not being able to control their own minds. No matter how much I DO NOT see what they see, crazy people still see/hear/feel things that aren't there, and I cannot convince them otherwise. Big AH-HA moment.

What is so terrifying to me about crazy people?

I cannot persuade crazy people.

Yeah. Wow.

I feel like I can usually convince people of what I want, but crazy people don't appeal to reason, to logic. Reason, truth, and logic mean nothing to them. They believe what they see, and I can't see what they see, so I can't use it to persuade them.

Basically, it circles back to Control. I like control. When I'm not in control, I freak out. I can't persuade (control) crazy people, and it scares me.

I can't control when I lose people. That scares me.
I can't control disease. That scares me.
I can't control change. That scares me.

When it all comes down to it, my life is just about control. Either I have it, and I'm using it, or I don't have it, and I'm trying to gain it.

I believe this is why I have such a hard time with my faith. God is in control, not me, and that's hard for me.

What is your life all about? As complex as people are, I'm beginning to think that deep down, we're simpler than I thought.

Back-To-School Clothes + Photographer Sister = This

So, I got some new clothes, new books, new hat, and new shades, and asked Lizzy to take a picture of me for the blog and for Facebook. Well...we went photoshoot crazy :)

Today we went back-to-school shopping, and dropped by the bookstore. YAY!! Usually I don't like shopping all day, but this was surprisingly enjoyable. My style is slightly and slowly changing to something along the lines of punk rock. Not so much in this outfit in the pictures, though.

We had Katie ("little sister") with us today because her usual babysitter had a job interview. That was pretty fun. We got to fool strangers into thinking we had another sister. We're such sly dogs ;P

Lizzy and I also started having really similar tastes in clothes. We would walk through the store and pick out stuff, and then when we met back up, we'd have the same exact things. It was freaky.

Other than a really fun shopping "spree", nothing happened today. It's Challenge Day, but I'll just let the challenge be to get through looking at the pictures of me without grimacing ;)

Excuses, Excuses

I am evil and must be destroyed.

I didn't post yesterday.

But I have a fabulous excuse!!

Ready? Here it is:

I had no time.

I woke up at eight and had time to get dressed, eat, and skim over some peoples' blog posts before Maddie and Ryan were dropped off at my house. (I'm babysitting while their parents go to a home-school thing.) So then the next six and half hours were spent hanging out with them!

Things We Did:
1. Fed the fish at the lake
2. Fed the ducks at the lake
3. Saw the cutest ducklings EVER
4. Played a mystery and deduction game called Crack the Case (Maddie, who's seven, is REALLY good at that game!)
5. Watched the Bilbo's birthday party part of Lord of the Rings
6. Played a lot of hide 'n' seek
7. Ate lunch (cherries and Hot Pockets :D)
8. Went down to the "beach"
9. Took my dog on a walk
10. Watch part of Hannah Montana
11. Lizzy and I showed them our dances

I think that's it.

So then at three thirty, they get picked up and I start packing to go to a sleepover at Ellie B's.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but a couple of days ago, I GOT THE FINAL BOOK IN THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS TRILOGY!! YAAAAAY! Yeah. Sorry.

So I finished packing and called Ellie to ask her if I could come early. The party started at six, but my parents wouldn't be home from the home-school thing, so a family friend was gonna pick me on her way home from work and drop me at Ellie's, and just take Lizzy home with her. I also told Ellie that I was almost done with the Mortal Instruments book, and that if I finished it before I had to leave, I would bring it to her. Her response:

"Hang up. Go. Read. NOW."

Lols :)

So I sped read like 150 pages and finished the book two minutes before the family friend came to pick me and Lizzy up.

So, see, it's not actually my fault I didn't post.

...

Okay, yeah. Still my fault :P

Sorry. I'm making like no sense probably. I'm going to come back tomorrow and read this and be like, "WOW". But I'm reeeally tired. That's why I'm not making a lot of sense (if any at all). I got to sleep around four last night (sleepover at Ellie's), and woke up at nine forty-five. So, that's really not that bad. But I'm still a little out of it.

I had a really good time though! Two of Ellie's friends from private school came, and they're so fun and nice. We all had a great time together. And we watched Veggie Tales at like three in the morning. So that was FUN!!

Lizzy used to love Bob the Tomatoe. He was, like, her favorite.

Okay, wow. I usually make a little more sense when I've had... *counts on her fingers* ...almost six hours of sleep. I don't know why this time I'm especially...incoherent.

I also just drank a coke, so I'm hyper and about to crash at the same time.

I'll shut up.

No dark thoughts today yet, but I'll let ya know if I come with a good Carpe Noctem idea.

Carpe diem. Peace out.

(And if you're reading this blog for the first time, I promise I'm not always this...scattered? Whatever. Bye.)

OHH, and ONE LAST THING:

Thanks for following, Mike!!!!!