Food for Thought

"If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." ~ Atticus Finch, "To Kill A Mocking Bird"

People talk about being judgmental a lot, but I'm starting to think it's one of those lessons you have to figure out for yourself. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about not judging, but you have to learn it for yourself.

Things that you swore never to do, say, think, feel, wear, or forget, you will. Don't be so quick to judge people for what they do. You don't know the half of it. You don't know what's going on with them. You don't know how they feel. Someday when you do, you might feel pretty silly for stereotyping them or writing them off.

Of course, there are boundaries to this. There are some things that are never okay, no matter what the situation. However, it may turn out that things you thought were black and white actually aren't.

Think about it.

~Kendra

P.S. Check out Levi's blog, With the Setting Sun. His writing style is cool, and he's got great thoughts.

My Fail At Being Photogenic (the night of my haircut)

***WARNING: HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH CHRISTMAS. FOR THE CHRISTMAS POST, SEE PREVIOUS POST. ALSO, SORRY FOR POSTING TWICE IN A DAY.***

So, basically: Lizzy's camera + new hair + late at night = crazy pictures!

I'm also really annoyed by those popular girls who sit around all day taking "bad" pictures of themselves when they couldn't look bad if they'd been run through a meat-grinder. I never felt like I had whatever it is that makes them look good even when they're not trying. *sigh* Ah well. New hair did help some. I guess. *raises eyebrow*

Hopefully you won't stare at these and dump me in the category of Vain-Popular-Princess, because I'm not. I don't think...I hope I'm not...

*shakes head*

It's late (well, after midnight at any rate), I'm tired, I can't think straight.

SO, without further ado, I present you, the epic fail called "My Fail At Being Photogenic" :)

Cheesy smile...
This one was an accident, but I figured you should be allowed to see me at my weirdest, too :P*Blink* A little distant...Get some Spock eyebrow goin' on...Future in modeling: Greatest Failure in History XDDon't judge me :P Just kidding.Lol, the real me... :)

Who Am I?

Fact or Fiction?

Eating 2 poppy seed bagels can make you test positive for drugs.

Email. Comment. First correct gets an award. No Googling.
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So, Followers Say is this Saturday! I'm really excited to see what people have to say. I'm thinking this is gonna be an anual thing, and I hope that it will grow every year.

School...I don't know what's wrong with me. Usually, I go through times when I "hate" school, but I never REALLY do. I feel like I'm kind of resenting school right now. It's getting in the way of all the other stuff I like to do. It seems like the assignments are all really tedious and stupid. I don't know.

I don't like myself very much lately. It's not that I'm usually in love with myself, but I'm usually pretty okay with how I am and getting to be more of who I want to be. Lately, I've not been liking the way my work ethic and thoughts are going, but I don't seem to take the iniciate to change them either. Everything just seems like of discouraging, like I'll never get anywhere I want to be with anything.

My posting style and content are going downhill, too. I used to post lighter, more fun things with interesting facts and real outlooks on things. I used to try to be real and post challenging things. I feel different now, but not good different. Different...darker, more conforming. I hate that. I really hate myself right now.

Don't freak out, I'm not suicidal or anything; I'm not one to go for the permanent solution to a temporary problem. I just don't know what to do to get myself back on track to...whatever it is I want.

I feel kind of lost, I guess. Remember my advice a few weeks ago? "Be sure you know who you are. If you don't, how can you expect others to?" Well, I really need to do that now. I feel like I'm being fake with everyone, but it's not really my fault because I'm not sure who I am anyway. I used to be really sure of who I was. I was KENDRA: smart, persistent, persuasive, and certainly destined to be a great writer and lawyer someday.

NOW what am I? I have no idea, and it bothers me.

Sorry. I don't mean to rant at you guys. You didn't sign up for this.

I guess I'm just feeling down-in-the-dumps. *shrug*

I have my headshot for the play today. I hate pictures like this. I don't mind regular pictures when you're just doing life and people are like "SMILE!" *flash* I hate pictures that you prepare for. I always end up having a bad hair day, or one of those times when my eyeliner won't do right. This picture is for the play, so all the people that I really care about what they think are gonna see it all over. If I look stupid, I'll look stupid for a long time.

-_-

I'm just going to stop now. I don't know who I am, so how can I expect you to?

A Lame Award and Two Good Newses (Lol XD)

I had a soccer game today. More on that later.
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Award Day!!

The I-Know-You-In-Real-Life Award! :D I know, pitifully unoriginal and disappointing. Sorry.


It goes to Cavender, Gracie, Gabrielle, Lizzy, Ellie B, Meggie, Mr. Chris, Tori, David Bailey, Anna Lee, Cassie Roads, Nicole, Lisabailey and Ember! It's great knowing you guys!
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So, I had a soccer game today. We played the team with all the really good Mexican kids on it. (I'm not being racist, I'm just saying they're all REALLY GOOD where I live.) It was coached by a college guy named Luis, who's pretty much a soccer legend in my town. I didn't think we would win.

Which is why it surprised me when we did.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I actually did okay this game, too!! Ben (The Dare Devil) even told me I did well, and he never says that unless it's true. Especially at soccer. He doesn't talk to me that much at soccer. So yay!! :)

Lizzy's party was today, but because of the soccer game, I missed pretty much all of it :( Ah well. It's times when she gets all her friends together that I actually like being the oldest. I get a lot of reverent looks from the younger ones when I tell them I'm a sophmore XD

No play practice today, but I have it tomorrow.

OH!! I didn't tell you about Thursday night. Okay, so, Thursday night at play practice, we started at the beginning of the show, and just did it up until a certain point with singing, dancing, lines and everything. My part came. Man, my heart was pounding, but I sang it out. (I actually sing better when I sing loud.) I sounded fine! I was so relieved. The second time through wasn't as good. I got a little nervous for no reason, and I didn't sing very loud, so I couldn't hit some notes :-/

We took a five minute break, and Matt (who's playing Shang, the main guy character) came up to me and told me, "Girl, you can sing! You sound good! You just gotta sing loud."

That made me feel SO GOOD. I was definitely beaming for a while. I was so afraid that I just sounded really bad, but apparently I sound fine. What a relief! And it was nice of Matt to encourage the New Girl.

Sorry. That was random and you probably don't care XD

That's all! Thanks for reading! Bye!

Missed: One Brain Half

God Day:

Er...Not now, y'all.
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Sorry. It has so been one of THOSE days. As much as I really have tried to put on a happy face, today did not go well for me at all, as much as I think I hid it.

I got up, thinking that the day was going to go differently, and when it didn't go how I thought, I was pretty disappointed.
I was hungry all during church.
I woke up just kind of stressed out because tomorrow is Monday, which is gonna be bleep.
The sermon just did not hit me at all today.
I didn't feel good this afternoon.
I had to go to youth group, which I feel is at the moment led by slightly hypocritical people. (They DEMAND us to be consistent and faithful with coming to youth, and yet they cancel on a dime because they "want to spend time with their kids" or something.)
I got so hot playing outside at youth, then I came inside, and it was the same temperature.
I was just feeling so stressed and not looking forward to tomorrow at all when the work load will hit me like a ton of freakin' bricks.
I really miss the other half of my brain that decided to be lame and quit doing Classical.
I really miss the other half of my brain. Really a lot. It is so not the same without it. So not.
Chores.
Suck.
Crap.
Crapp.
Crappp.
The end.

Sorry for being depressing.

~Kendra

P.S. Oh, and my nose hurts from getting hit in the face at the soccer game yesterday. All this stupid little crappiness just makes me wanna cry, you know? It's nothing big, just a lot of little things.

:'(

Losing Losers

*swallows hard* Soccer practice is tonight at 8 o'clock. Not only is Ben-from-class on my team, so is Josh-from-class and all Josh-from-class's awesome siblings (at least the high-school-aged ones). Their family is insanely talented in soccer, and Ben isn't a bad goalie himself, so I think we have a really good team even though I don't know who else is on the team. Except me. But I hardly count. I don't do anything stupid, but I'm not really good either, so I'm kind of like a 0. I don't subract from the team's goodness, but I don't add to it either.

I am so nervous. This is gonna be horrible. The coach is gonna make us run suicides or something and I'm gonna finish dead last and then throw up or something. Omg, this is so awful. Why did I even sign up for soccer? I'm so out of shape. This is awful. Oh my gosh. *MOAN*

*clears throat* Well, um, on a lighter note, I just finished watching 17 Again. I really love that movie. Every other line is a LOL, and the moral of the story is great. If you can get past the billions of inuendos, lol ;) Luckily Lizzy doesn't pick up on half of it, or I'd feel really creepy watching it with her. That's why I didn't want her coming with me to see it in the theater. I was so glad my mom hadn't made me take her, too. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the movie knowing my impressionable little sister was watching in the next seat.

I did the 16 pages of pre-class biology today. I love the science book. It's written by the same guy as last year's was. The way he phrases things is really easy to understand, but it's still complicated stuff so I feel like I've actually learned something when I'm finished.

After school starts tomorrow, I might not be able to post as often. I'm not sure. I'd still like to post every day, and I'll try, but I'm not sure how hard this year is going to be. We'll just have to see.

In honor of school starting tomorrow, let me post a quick class "cast" and an unfair stereotype to them to help you follow me if I start using names.

1. Me - The Bigmouth
2. Ben - The Dare Devil
3. Tori - The Pretty One
4. Josh - The Nice Guy
5. Amanda - The Normal One
6. Kirsten - The Genius
7. Chris - The Clown
8. Jessie - The Good One
9. David - The Youngest
10. Alex -
11. Cassidy -

Yeah, that's our class. Alex (she's a girl) and Cassidy are new this year, so I don't know about them yet.

Writing that list almost made me cry. Know why? Because two very, very, VERY important people aren't on it. Ellie B and Taylor (he's a guy) aren't going to be in class this year. Y'all "know" Ellie. She's a follower and one of my best friends. She's been going to my school since 7th grade. We've started school together every year since middle school. She's awesome. She's part of the class.

And she won't be there this year.

Taylor goes back wayyy farther. We've known each other since we were five (wow, a whole decade), and done school together since we were like seven. We've both been going to THIS school since fifth grade, and every year as long as I can really remember, he's been in my class. We aren't amazing friends or anything, we don't even talk to each other that much. But we're exactly alike. EXACTLY ALIKE. I honestly can't imagine school without him there, asking the question I was opening my mouth to ask, finishing my sentence, giving me the word I was looking for when I'm talking, making the same stupid mistakes as me in math, helping me remember what I was going to say even though I hadn't said it, glancing at each other when someone says something stupid.

I don't mean to get all...memory-lane on you guys, but...all the sudden, it feels really wrong to be starting school without him. It'll be like half the class is gone, not to mention half my brain. We don't like each other all that much, we never talk, don't each lunch together, don't even see each other outside of class, but I'm really gonna miss him. Way more than I ever imagined. In some ways, more than Ellie. I'll still call Ellie and talk to her like every day, and we'll get together sometimes, but Taylor...I might never really see him again.

I don't know what to do about that. It's not like I want to hang out with him, it's just that I feel like I shouldn't be starting school without him. He's always been there, and I kind of figured he always would be.

Gosh, I hate this. I hate it when people leave that you never even knew you cared anything about. You know how whenever I get an email or Facebook fill-out and the question is "What are you most afraid of?" I always put "losing people"? Well, this is why.

I HATE this. Why can't everyone just stay where they are forever? What is so great about changing, growing up, being a LOSER and LEAVING? What is the deal?

*sigh*

I guess I'm done posting. Sorry for ranting.

Soccer in 2 hours and forty-nine minutes.

Carpe diem. You never know who's gonna just not show up next year.

Yeah.

Carpe Noctem Day: http://toseizethenight.blogspot.com/2009/08/word-inflation-is-love-officially.html

Hung out at the neighbors' today, saw the movie Knowing (good, just...creepy), went to the lake, read some "Maximum Ride", which is very good so far. I like Fang a lot :D

That's all.

My Eye

Well, Seth/Shep, Steph, and Cavender all asked to see my eye, so I guess it's about time I made good on that. With the help of my awesome photographer and picture-uploading lil' sister Lizzy, I bring you...*drumroll* KENDRA LOGAN'S LEFT EYE!

CRABBINESS

I'm back! I have so much to say, but I'm too tired and crabby to type everything out. VERY short version:

1. Fun
2. Terrible crew
3. Matt in crew
4. Matt is hilarious
5. Moose
6. Not homesick
7. Horrible Red Shirt Staff
8. Overall yay
9. Lizzy not bad
10. Music
11. Emotional night
12. Lame contest
13. Rude youth group
14. Obnoxious-beyond-all-compare person
15. Retarded-beyond-all-compare person.

Crabby. Tired. Had fun. Won't type all now. Probably will forget everything. Oh well. Deal with it. Bye.

Camp Overview: Day 1

*sigh*

Don't you hate it when you find out bad things about someone you looked up to? I just went through one of my friend's (sort of) pictures on Facebook and found out she isn't quite the girl I thought she was. I'm really sad :( I sort of looked up to her, I thought she was pretty cool, and now it turns out apparently our ideals aren't the same at all. What an awful feeling :(

I really don't feel like posting at all right now, but I need to post about camp or I never will, haha. 'Kay, here:

THURSDAY:
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- Got up at seven and finished packing.

- Brianna came to pick me up at 8:30.

- Went to the camp leader's house.

- He was old, but still pretty fun. His name was Arnie.

- We waited around at his house until everyone else showed up.

THE CAMPERS:
1. Me (9th grader) :D

2. Brianna (9th grader): The fun-loving, easy-going, nice girl who makes you feel special and comfortable even if you're a total dork.

3. Erica: The responsible college girl that came along as a chaperone. She was fun, but sometimes a little brusque. I don't think she liked me that much...

4. Jessica (11th grader): Possibly the funnest girl there (me and Brianna aside :D). She was really nice, really fun, had a great personality, and seemed genuinely interested in talking to us.

5. Jenny (9th grader): Jessica's little sister. She was fun, but a little quiet and sort of timid. She seemed nice enough though.

6. Kara (9th or 10th, I think...I'm not sure): She was fun and really pretty. I don't know why, but she was. Her eyes actually sparkled. Like, I've read that in books, but I didn't know what it would look like if someone's eyes really sparkled. It was weird. Her eyes were actually sparkling, but they sizzled and gleamed with fun sort of...hmm...

7. Haley (9th grader): Haley was gorgeous. I hope this doesn't sound mean, but I could tell immediately that she was a "rich girl". She wasn't snobby though. Just obviously from a more well-to-do environment. She was fun, but she stuck by Jenny pretty closely, so I didn't get to know her much.

8. Courtney (9th grader, I think): She was okay. She said she was the "crazy one", but honestly, I didn't see it.

9. Eddrinia (9th grader): She was nice, but...she was homeschooled and, well, she was much more like a "homeschooler" than me or my friends. She was really sweet and I love her to death, but she wouldn't sleep in the beds. She said she doesn't sleep in other peoples' beds. She also put on sunscreen every ten minutes, and THEN just laid there on the dock *covered up with her towel*. She did watch a movie with us, and though she didn't say why, I think it was because it was rated PG. Yeah. Anyway.

10. Cathy (10th grader?): Ah, Cathy. Couldn't stand her. Don't ask me why, I'm not even sure, but I really couldn't stand her! And the frustrating thing was, everyone else *LOVED HER!* She was loud, had to have her way, thought she was all that, thought she knew everything, and enjoyed snubbing and ignoring me whenever possible. Probably some of that is in my head, but a lot of it was real.

Back to the camp experience.

- We piled into Arnie's van and Erica's car and started off to go to the lake house.

- Stopped at the grocery store to get provisions. That was pretty fun. Ish.

- Drove for about forty-five minutes, then stopped and got Subway (yay!).

- Drove for probably another forty-five minutes until we got to the lake house.

- From the road (or really from the loooong driveway), I could tell that the house was small and not in the best condition, but it looked okay.

- We went inside. It was hot and small, but still okay. It was old, but it looked clean enough. At least the kitchen/dining room and the living room that we could see from the front door did. The house kind of had three floors. When you walked in, you were standing on the dividing line between the living room on your left, and the kitchen/dining room on your right. Dead ahead were maybe six stairs that led to an eight-foot-long hall way with three bedrooms and a bathroom. There were also maybe six stairs that led down to a small downstairs. Arnie told us that we girls got the upstairs, and he got the downstairs.

- We unloaded our stuff, and blew up the inflatable innertubes and stuff.

- We were hot and sweaty, but we went inside and got changed into swimsuit attire and headed down to the dock.

- Some people tubed, but I just rode in the boat. Some people tanned, and I tried, but I got sooooooo bored just lying there doing nothing.

- At around seven, we had dinner. It was hot dogs. They were okay. I didn't starve.

- Then we had Chapel Time. Wow. No offense, but it was *SO* boring!! I have a whole new appreciation for my youth group. All we did was read a Bible passage (OVER AND OVER, too), listen to Arnie talk about it in the most boring way possible, read a song while Arnie interrupted every line to explain it to us, then we listened to the song (always a really...not-very-contemporary song), then Arnie just talked about boring stuff that I already had heard at least a thousand times...Oh, and I forgot communion! *moan* Wow. It takes talent to make something so dull. He's just so repetitive! At least the communion bread was really good :D

- Erica, Brianna, Eddrinia and I watched "Casablanca" while the others did stuff outside in the dark. I never noticed how awesome the dialogue in that movie is. It's so good. I advise anyone to watch it. It's an old movie, has great dialogue, it's pretty funny, and it's a great love story.

- We went to bed around midnight. My bed didn't have sheets on it, which was kind of a downer, but I was so tired I didn't even care. I wasn't homesick at all either. Like, at all. I used to get really homesick, but lately I haven't really cared. There was no cell signal at the cabin, though, so it's a good thing I wasn't homesick--I couldn't have called home if I'd wanted to!

And that was day one. If you got this far, I'm proud of you. I won't post days 2 and 3 now, though, so don't worry. I'll do one tomorrow and one the next day, I guess.

Back to the present. I have to clean the bathroom because people are coming to stay at our house for the practicum. This practicum is relatively close to my house, so we don't have to travel this time! Yay! our own beds! :) But, other people will have to travel to get here, so we're being a host family. Two families (well, a mom and her daughter, and then a mom and two daughters) are staying at our house. That should be interesting.

I know I didn't post a God Thought today. I do have one, but this post is so long already that I think I'll just save it. Okay? Great :D Thanks for reading, carpe diem, and in the words of Angela the Herbalist, "avoid roasted cabbage, do not eat earwax, and look on the bright side of life!"




P.S. Which signature do you like better?

News of Many Varieties

Good news, medium news, sad news and terribly sad news:

Good news first: MY PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEST WENT JUST FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I got an A!! The test was much easier than I thought it was going to be. My mom says it was because I studied so hard. Maybe it was! Cool!

Medium news second: School is over. *blink* Holy crud. School is over????? I'm on.........summer break?? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! *moan* I'm bored already! I've hated school and wanted summer for the past two months, but now I'm sad! And sort of happy, too. I mean, no more science. I still have a ton of math to do. *glares* And no friends. *sniff sniff* Oh well. I'm free, right? That should feel like good news. Except for now some people aren't coming back next year, and I'll pretty much never REALLY see him again. I mean them. Okay, yeah, it's a him, but I don't like him or anything. I'm just gonna miss him being around. Okay, change this from being "medium news" to just being "sad news".

Sad news third: I don't remember what this was going to be...

Terribly sad news: Okay, have I mentioned this thing called Mock Trial to you? Well, I don't have time to go into a lot of detail, just know it's a complicated and challenging court experience thing people at my "school" do in Challenge B (eighth grade). It's a huge competition, and it's much harder than it looks. And it looks hard! My team won the championships. I loved Mock Trial. That's what made me want to be a lawyer. So, when this year's eighth graders started preparing, I was so excited!! I helped them all I could, but some of them just were not taking the whole thing seriously.

Yesterday was the first round of the competition. The team mostly surprised me! They were very good! Some of it was excellent, some of it wasn't so good. But I was still thinking we had won the first round. I mean, of course they would win the first round. Never in the whole history of the tutor has her class come in anything but second or first.

There is a first time for everything, folks.

Yeah.

They LOST.

They lost.

They lost??????????????

I'm so upset! More upset than you can realize! Mock Trial is a huge deal to me. I could hardly sleep last night at first. I just kept going over the trial in my head again and again and again and AGAIN. I couldn't stop! I kept telling myself, "KENDRA, STOP IT. This wasn't even your class; why are you so upset? And anyway, it's OVER. You can't do anything about winning now."

*moan* So, yeah. That's very sad news.

A tiny bit more not-so-good-news: On account of all the stress of three finals, a memorized speech, and Mock Trial, I have three stress pimples, and two ulcers in my throat, and I think I might have a stomach ulcer.

I know. I seriously need to switch to decaf. Lol! :) Really, I'm okay. I know I'll get over all of this eventually. Even my class breaking apart. It's all good. Sort of. I WILL be all good. You just gotta believe that. Things will work out right somehow, even if it isn't YOUR version of "right". God knows what he's doing. Carpe diem!