Everything:infravermelho

[I'm reffering to "teenagers" in this blog as young adults 15+ - people who are becoming their own person but still legally bound to their parents rule]


the common misconception about teenagers is that they dont know what they want. while this is true for SOME teenagers it is also true for SOME adults, so teenagers should not be so easily generalized with this. if you stopped telling them what to do: who to hang out with, where to go, where NOT to go, what to learn, how to act, what NOT to wear, play sports, sing in the choir, join the youth group, dont talk on the phone too much - you would actually be surprised how much teenagers DO know what they want. why would you expect them to know what they wanted if you kept telling them what you wanted for them. I still believe parents should be legally responsible for their kids by making sure that they dont do drugs and have the proper birth control, I'm not talking about saftey here.

what I AM talking about it stereotyping. I hate it when I hear someone say "you're 16! you can't be in love." I didnt know love had an age limit... If a 16 year old can go to school everyday and learn 6 different areas of academics, be expected to learn those 6 subjects well, hold a part time job of their choice, maintain a social life with the hundreds of different people they are forced to sit next to everyday, participate it numerous differnt activities during the week such as church, youth group, musical groups, or sports, AND try and please your parents who just want you to be perfect at all 49875 of those activities you SHOULD KNOW what you want and WHO you want to spend the rest of your life with. again, YES, some teenagers are promiscuous and fickle with their relationships BUT they do not outnumber the adults that share the same habits.

I am MORE than capable to be discerning in my own life in what I do/dont do and I have so many examples of what love does not look like. my parents showed me growing up that you can't give up. you can't give up on dealing with stuff and push it down inside you whichever way that might be. you have to open up and address the problem areas in your relationship no matter how hard or painful that might be. and they also taught me that you can't give up on each other. no matter what love is ultimatley a commitment you make, a commitment that says "even if this gets really sucky I will always try and I will always forgive you, and I will never stop giving." my brother and Jody have taught me that even when your plans fall through you need to be there to support each other. that even when you have your own goals in life and so many dreams that you've always had you might need to push those to the side for a while and focus on your priorities. and no matter what you need to keep thinking of the other person. I have never met a married couple who has had no issues, who has never had at least that one major thing that they are always working over. for some it is an affair, for some it is money, or for some it is work, but no one is perfect.

in the end I guess this blog is about me. I have a lot of anger towards a lot of people and I dont want to, but mostly I want people to stop stereotyping me as a teenager, because I am more than that. I want people to start looking past Matt's age and see his heart, his and mine. our hearts that our committed, our hearts that say we are young and we are willing to learn from you. our hearts that say we know we love each other.

Pray that I:

>finish/pass my drivers ed final
>do well on the accuplacer
>stay caught up on my school work
>get over my sinus infection
>get registered for running start

this weekend was such a blast. I know this probably sounds totally lame but as I was walking off the ferry into seattle I just felt like that was where I was supposed to be. yep, it definitley sounded lamer after I said it out loud. rightly so the first place we went was to starbucks before church, church was awesome, of course. matt would say that he wants something different out of church, even mars hill, but we both agree that mars hill is offering something a lot better to the % of middle class white christians who would normally be attending another church anyway. does that make sense? driscoll preached out of nemiah [I think it was the 8th week of their series], about how nemiah made A TON of sacrafices for his people because God had called him to love them as a leader. he talked about how he and his wife struggled so much during the first three years of mars hill church but how they were faithful and it was worth it.

after church brian, mandy, matt, and I drove to the freemont st. market [not until searching for parking that, after a half an hour, ended up being very close] we walked through the market, I seriously LOVE those places. my dad use to take us all the time it was so much fun. mandy and I got some pizza that was cooked in a real fire out in the open, it was SO good.

afterwards we drove to the sculpture park near downtown seattle. I never knew that seattle had so much art literally embeded into the city. the inside building which isnt really a part of "the walk" was incredibly modern and beautiful, as were the sculptures. brian and I took a lot of pictures [him of art, me of our group] and we spent a good amount of time sitting down on the beach. when we were finished we all drove to Brians house for a few minutes before he went to meet Justin for dinner and mandy, matt, and I walked to meet kat for dinner. we went to this really good thai place and chatted it up. I LOVE phad thai.. mmmm...

we still had some time to kill before the concert so the four of us went to gasworks park and sat on the hill and talked about our lives, haha. then it was off to the concert and matt went back home. the show was a lot of fun, REALLY good music on all the bands' parts. I sat down for about half of it, I was so tired and out of it and my feet hurt so bad. but it was still really enjoyable.

I need to take my drivers-ed test. but yet I am just not too excited, haha. I have the wasl [washington assesment of STUPID learning] haha yes I did just come up with that myself ;] although the math wasnt hard as I thought it would be today, so that's good. I am still working on getting 100% on my assignments but I am doing good!

on Sunday morning I am taking the ferry up to Seattle to meet brian and mandy. we are gonna go to mars hill church then hang out all day and go to mutemath sunday night. I think I am staying the night. I'm pretty excited; I love those guys.

I have been helping Matt out a little with his new venue that he is running. It's super hard for him because he does everythig [it's A LOT to do] but he has very little help and isnt paid. so I am helping him run the myspace and the website and just doing a little bit of promoting [Michael Gee this Friday anyone?]. allison and I worked the doors at his show this past Saturday. I was really impressed, it was only the second show but he brought out about 50 paying people, but there were also a lot of guests/band members/volunteers which was cool.

so I guess that's all that's new...

I just have to write about how relieved I am feeling!!

All day I have felt so depressed and discouraged about my school work, I felt like I was stuck like I would never get through it! But I finally decided just to suck it up and put one foot in front of the other. I have been working straight for the past two hours and I did SOOO MUCH reading and knocked off three assignments! I know I still have a lot of work to do still but just getting some progress made has really gave me some motivation and inspiration! I know I can do this. I feel a lot better now.

Easter yesterday was pretty fun. I went to church... Matt and I sat on the steps of our row, haha. It was so packed! It was cool being there as a family again though. A lot of my family came over afterwards, 28 people total!! it was a lot to put in our living/kitchen/dining room area, but it was fun. It was fun to introduce Matt to all of my crazy family because even though we're not that close they want the best for me and they're still interested in my life. He is the best at making situations like that not awkward, he just went right up to lots of people and started conversations with them... except I think most of them were semi-drunk, haha. It was great though.

I feel like I have a hang over though, haha. Not from alcohol of course! I dont know why, I'm just so tired and have a throbbing headache.

Easter has never really had much meaning to me before, other than dying eggs when I was little [okay, fine, last year too] and I have to admit it still doesnt. I don't think the church paints a very honest picture of Jesus' crucifixtion/ressurection. I think if they did Easter would mean a lot more in all of our hearts. One pastor that did the most spectacular job of this though was Marc Driscoll. He described in detail all of the things that happened to Jesus and gave a lot of researched history on what crucifixtion was like back in that day. Anyways, I guess I would just really like to hear a pastor go on and tell the truth not some pastel painted version of what happened because he is worried about how the little children will be scarred, they should be in Sunday School! haha

anyways, I didnt even mean to rant about that, this was going to be about how much fun Easter is.

My mom randomly decided that she wanted to have family over tomorrow, we have never really done anything on Easter before, but I'm glad she did. She even invited Matt, which was nice. A lot of my cousins have little kids a bit older than Makenna, and some just under 10, so we are going to do an easter egg hunt, which should be interesting because my mom was asking me how that worked, haha. I'm just really excited I dont have to work tomorrow and get to go to church, I havent been in so long!