ugh
i'm still sick. and unhappy about that fact. i've gotten the weirdest colds this year!! i don't have any symptoms other than a stuffy nose and fatigue. it's really quite miserable though. i think i'll go wallow in self pity. or not. i'll just write about it.

so my mom woke me up at 8:45 to go to church this morning. she spared me from having to go to sunday school. (thanks, mom!) not that i mind sunday school...it's just that i was thankful for the extra sleep. we get to church and she's like 'wait...i'm not doing the welcoming words and news?' (she's a lay leader, so every other week or so she does this little 'welcome to fumc, we have some announcements etc. etc.') it turns out she wouldn't have made us come if she'd known she didn't have to do anything. no fair!! so i'm sitting there using like 2 entire packs of tissues and feeling awful while maggie preaches about giving ourselves to God and how we should suffer for Him and stuff. great thing to talk about when i'm feeling like crap...ugh. i much prefer the sermons that focus on how we all make mistakes in our lives but God loves us anyway. those are much more uplifting. ya know, i've really been questioning my faith recently. i remember being about 9 and listening to the children's sermon...it was about praying and how important it is. i remember praying every night for an entire week and being really dissapointed because God never responded. it's really easy to just go along with the singing and communion and prayers and stuff in church, but when i actually try to think about it all, i'm really skeptical. in 6th grade i went through confirmation classes with everyone else, wrote a faith statement, and was confirmed and baptised on the same sunday. i can't remember my faith statement exactly, but it had that i believed in God and Jesus in there somewhere, i'm sure. it's just so hard to believe in something that you've never seen or felt. i mean, really. people say they've felt the presence of God with them in their lives, but i can't really say that i ever have. whenever i think about my doubts i tend to think of courtney, a girl from Pinewood that goes to my church. at the end of confirmation class, it is a choice to follow through with confirmation and write a faith statement and all of that. all of my class decided to go through with it, but in the class before mine, 2 years prior, courtney decided not to. i remember being really surprised and confused...i was only in 4th or 5th grade, but i couldn't think of anyone that went to our church NOT believing. i just didn't really think about it at that age. i don't know. i've been going to church since i was 3...it's never really occurred to me to doubt religion. well, until a few years ago. but as i think about it, i find it harder and harder to speak the responses in church because i just don't really mean them. and then, on the other hand, i can't control myself at good friday services...i cry along with all of the adults. and on christmas eve, when we were all singing silent night outside in the cold at 12:00, i was just so happy. and not because i got to open presents in the morning, because Jesus was born. faith is such a confusing thing...maybe i'll ramble on later.

well...to be continued. i must go change into my homecoming dress (yay!!) and go do make-up at nicole's house and then off to a party. i'll try to pretend like i'm not feeling like crap...ha.

alright well, i'm back from all of that, and, as i suspected, do not feel like continuing my whining about faith.

sooo....i'll whine about my clarinet lesson and how much it stunk. first of all, i wasn't expecting to have a clarinet lesson today, seeing as it is 3 days after christmas. it's not like i would have practiced a ton even if i HAD known about it, but it was still a nasty surprise. after church i washed my hair and fell asleep. i wasn't really up to doing much else, and i figured sleep would be a good idea...who knows? maybe i would wake up feeling better. well, that didn't work. i woke up an hour before my lesson and practiced a bit. great...turns out he gave me like 2 entire pages of crap to learn. wonderful... let's just say that when practicing, i figured out what the most annoying notes on the clarinet are. any guesses? high C#. second worst: high Eb. well, needless to say, the lesson was just awful. 15 minutes in to it my right arm/hand started shaking, making it quite difficult to play. i'm blaming it all on being sick. i think there are only 2 things that are keeping me going with clarinet lessons. 1) i'll forget it all if i don't. 2) i have to keep playing SOME instrument to live up to the Band Award. well, at least i feel like i should. this reminds me, i got yet ANOTHER lecture on how i need to buy a better mouthpiece today, and apparently said the wrong thing. my argument was that i don't play my clarinet very often, therefore a new mouthpiece would hardly ever be used. 'why not?' my clarinet teacher asks. so, i give him the abridged version of the issue: marching band is over, and i'm not enrolled in another band class. wrong thing to say. he begins to tell me about how i really should be playing more often...etc. etc. believe me, if i COULD be in symphonic band, i WOULD be. really. it's not like i don't want to be in a band. in fact, i think of band all the time and how much i miss it. so really, if you want to piss me off, start talking about band and mr. ferrucci and who's first chair and all that. i guarauntee you'll destroy my mood. so, that was fun. 45 minutes of hell.

alright well, i think i'm done bitching about life. i'm sorry i don't have anything uplifting to say. well, here's something good. tomorrow's monday and we don't have to go to school! yay! and new year's eve is wednesday! yay!

4 *time been annoyed* | *annoy me here*