I'm here! But where's that?

Safe arrival... at least to Ripley, WV. We spent last night in Cincinatti, OH. I wouldn't say we slept last night in Cincinatti, b/c we really slept early this morning, not last night. We stayed up and "partied" until 2:00 AM and didn't go to bed until 3:30. We played Ping-pong, Creepsy-Crawlsy-Slam-Bang, Bang-Bang-Bang, Billy-Whoops, and Spoons. All incredibly hard games that do NOT test your intellect. At all.

We left this morning to drive to Ripley, WV. We met the rest of the TEAM at the church that is sending us on the trip. There are 47ish people going. After orientation at the church, we went bowling for a couple of hours, and had pizza and pop. I guess PREACH paid for us, because as far as I know, we didn't pay a thing. After bowling, we came to Brother Paul Pritchard's house. Brother Paul is the preacher who got into the car accident in Cape Verde earlier this year. I posted a few things about him. He is doing better, and hopefully in about 8 weeks, will be able to put pressure on his leg. If all goes well at the check-up on Wednesday, then he should be able to start using his right arm again.

So we are staying at the Pritchard's house until 1:30 tomorrow morning, when we go back to the church to meet up with the TEAM again. The TEAM is kind of spread out. Some people are at the church, so are here at the Pritchard's. etc... Then at 2:00 we'll pull out of here to go to Columbus, OH, where we will fly to Cincinatti, then to Boston, then a 9-hour layover, then a 7-8 hour flight to Cape Verde. A long day. We get in around 4:00 AMish to Cape Verde.

I kind of doubt that I will be able to post anything while in Cape Verde. In fact, I'll probably only call home once while I am there. We'll see. If I can't post, then I'll keep a good journal. Maybe. :)

Today's Verse, and packing

I really like today's verse. "Today's Verse" can be found on the right side of my blog. You'll have to highlight it to read it. I can't change the font color b/c of the layout. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Acts 28:31 This is what I am going to do in Africa! Talk about a verse from the Lord.

Packing is exhausting work. First you have to wash all your clothes. (Yes, I do wash my clothes on occasion) Then you have to pack. Then you have to run down to Walmart to get all the things that you forgot to pick up the last 10 times you've been there. Then you go home and pack again. Then you go to the bank and get money out for on-trip expenses. Then you go back to Walmart....
Has anybody else ever had this experience? It happens every time I go on a trip.

I think I am at 12 1/2 hours till I leave. Unfortunately, we are driving all the way to West Virginia, so I get to sit in a car for way too long and get way too stiff. Oh well, such is life. This will be my last post before I leave. No guarantees that I'll be able to post again before I get back. We'll see what happens.

Countdown to a Life Saving Mission

33 hours and counting. I love countdowns. They're so fun. This is the plane that I will be taking to Cape Verde. Yeah, I wish I could take a SR-71 Blackbird to Africa. It'd cut down on the flight time. Tonight I said goodbye for the last time to my adopted family. That was sad. It'll be even more sad when I say goodbye to my real family. :( Oh well. That's the way it is. I already said goodbye to Jessi last night. She left this morning at 4:45 to go to Haiti. Needless to say, I wasn't up saying my goodbyes this morning. I said them last night. By the time I got up, she was alreay in Dallas, getting ready to fly to Miami.

I went to the S-'s tonight to hang out for a while. Talked to one of my best friends and said goodbye and all that. I was really hoping that we'd be able to do that, since we hadn't really gotten a chance to say goodbye yet. Not that I am going to be away for an eternity. Only 2 1/2 weeks. I think it's the fact that we usually talk twice a week on the phone, and we see each other at least once a week.

This trip should be exciting. Especially the 7 some hours that we spend over the water. And the 9 hour layover in Boston. Maybe I can catch a game at Fenway Park while I am there and see the best team (for right now) in baseball play. But the chances of that are second to none.
I finally finished Chemistry today. I got an A in the class. I won't tell you how close I was to a B. We don't like to think about such things. :) Algebra is confusing me for some reason. The book doesn't lay it out very clearly. So I've still got one more test in that, and then I am done.
Okay. It's time to go to bed. I want to sleep in tomorrow, but also have to pack everything. And I haven't eaten yet. :(

Do I have the right to write right rites and copyright them?

Bom Dia!
Try this on for size!



When you write copy you have the right to copyright the copy you write, if the copy is right. If however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy.


If you write religious services you write rite, and have the right to copyright the rite you write. Very conservative people write right copy, and have the right to copyright the right copy they write.


A right wing preacher would write right rite, and has the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copyright before the copyright can be right.


Should Pastor Jim Wright decide to write right rite, then Wright would write right rite, which Wright has the right to copyright. Duplicating that rite would mean you copy Wright’s right rite, and violate copyright, which Wright would have the right to right.


Right?




Okay. That kind of hurt my head the first time I heard/read it, and it still hurts a little. C&ace, this is just about as bad as forgetting what I forgot to forget. :)

Cape Verde consists of 2 archipelagos off the west coast of Africa. There are 10 islands. Of these, only one island is unihabited. All the islands are volcanic, but an active volcano exists on only one the islands, Fogo. From April to July, the islands average about 1mm of rain per month. It's the Dry Season!

Adeus!

Getting Closer

Here is a picture of Picos, Santiago Islands, Cape Verde. Pretty, isn't it? I looked at the weather forecast for Cape Verde. It's a high of 77 and a low of 73 every day this week. The only difference is a slight change in the average 16-mph winds and whether it's overcast or cloudy. How exciting!
Cape Verde is 4 hours ahead of Central Time. That's not too bad for adjustment purposes. And btw, locals call Cape Verde, Cabo Verde. And you don't pronounce the "e" on the end of Verde. According to all the pronunciation guides I've looked at, you pronounce it vurd.

It's getting closer to the time when I leave. I guess that's kind of obvious. My mom never commented on the peace and tranquility part of my previous post, so I guess she agrees! :0


Thursday creeps ever closer. It kind of hit me on Friday that I was leaving to travel 4,494.16 miles away from my friends and family. I was saying goodbye to a couple of my close friends, and wham... it hit me. I'm gonna be a horrible missionary. You know, it's not the fact that I'll be gone for 3 weeks, it's the fact that I'll be 4,500 miles away. I'm going to Camp Barnabas for 2 weeks later this summer, and I won't feel this way (hopefully). At least, I didn't last year. Camp Barnabas is only 50 some odd miles away. Anyway....


I really should be finishing up school right now, so I don't have to worry about it over the next few days, but I am posting instead. How sad. :)


I'm going to look for some new layouts for a little bit, then I'll probably hit the books. I wonder where that phrase came from, "hit the books"? I mean, nothing happens when you hit a book, except that eventually, the cover starts to wear out or something. I mean, I can understand something like, "Hit the sack", because my pillow could be mistaken for a sack, and I hit it with my head every night as I fall into bed. But, "Hit the books"? Sure, whatever.

Peace, Tranquility, and Star Wars. (I think)

Last night was the last Springfield Symphony Orchestra concert of the 2006 - 2007 year. It was really neat to go and hear/see the music being played. They didn't play anything from Saving Private Ryan, but they did play stuff from Munich. The song they played from Munich was called Prayer for Peace. I've never seen Munich, so I don't know where this song is in the movie, I just know it was really pretty, and had a really pretty cello solo.
Of course, they played music from all the Star Wars' films. So totally cool. And they had our local Star Wars Fan Force come in and show off. The FanForce is a group of geeks who like to dress up in Star Wars costumes. They had a full Darth Vader outfit (the guy who dressed up like Vader was like 7' tall with the costume on), a Jango Fett outfit, a bunch of Imperial Stormtroopers, a few Rebel Alliance Troops, and 4 or 5 Jedi, including Anakin, Obi-wan, a (white) Mace Windu, etc... oh, they also had Padme.

I leave for Africa in 11 days. I am getting exciteder and exciteder. Yes, I know that's not a real word, but I can't be perfect in my writing all the time, now can I? My sister leaves for Haiti in 9 days. I think it's finally beginning to "kick in" in her mind that she leaves in a week and two days. I think my parents are also getting excited that we are leaving. I can see the thoughts running through their minds: "At last, peace and quiet, not to mention tranquility!" If my mom doesn't comment on that, then we'll know she agrees. :)

I did not go to church this morning. I had a massive headache and couldn't even sit up. So I slept in till 2:00 PM. My head feels better now, but I still feel a little weird. Better to get a bug now then in about a week, when I am getting ready to leave.

This next week should be interesting. I've got a friend coming over near the middle to end of this week. His parent's will be out of town, so he's staying with me. But I've also got to do 2 weeks of school this week. That way next week, I won't have to do school, and I can focus on getting things done for my trip. One of those weeks of school is also my "finals week." Now, I'm homeschooled, and I am sure that I don't have as many finals to take as a public school student, but... My finals are cumulative for the semester. That's like having to know half the stinking Chemistry book. That's a lot to remeber, especially when you've got a problem like I have. For some reason, I've been losing my memory. I just up and forget things. Like just a minute ago, I could not for the life of me type an "s" without looking. I never look at the keyboard while I am typing. I know where all the keys are. And if I can't remember, then my fingers remember. I tried typing that "s" 4 times, and I still had to look in the end. Or I am supposed to bring something somewhere for someone, and I forget 3 days in a row. It's awful. I could go on and on, but I'll spare you the details. I even forget what I forgot, which is even worse, since you can't remember what you forget to forgot. That's a weird sentence. I guess that fits my personality, though. :)

Sonic Adventures

Okay, I reckon it's time to let people know what's going on in my life. Not that you really want to know. You just check my blog on occasion so that you can say that you have, and so you won't make me feel unloved if I ask if you have been to my blog lately.

What's with the picture? you might ask. This is how I feel sometimes, though not right now.

We went up to my grandparents on Sunday. We went up for my grandpa's b/d. We decided to go to Sonic for lunch. That was an adventure. To read a very well written, play-by-play account of our adventure, then go to http://anurseslife-jessi.blogspot.com/2007/05/sonic-adventures.html. This is my sister's blog, and since she wrote the whole adventure herself, I won't bother trying to recount it. Makes it easier for me, and she gets more hits on her site, which she loves.

Tomorrow, May the 10th, marks 2 weeks till I leave for AFRICA! That's not very much time. I feel like I have a ton to do, but it hasn't started to hit me yet that I don't have much time left. Oh well. About 2 days before I leave I'll start scrambling and doing things in a big rush. I'll start to feel like Larry Daley did in A Night at the Museum in the picture above. A little stretched, like butter spread too thin. But that's my life anyway. After all, I've already proved in a previous post that I am smart and intelligent, and because of that, I can wait to the last minute to do things, and still get them done. :)

On Monday and Tuesday I helped out at the Evangel College Garage Sale. It's actually a Gymnasium Sale. Evangel cleans out all the dorms of all the junk that has been accumulated over the last 2 semesters and sells it all. Last year they made over $11,000. Anyway, my mom, my two younger sisters, and I all helped out. We had to sort all the clothing and various articles that come in. It takes multiple days. But, while we work, we get to look at all the things that are being sold. And if we see something we like, we grab it, and stick it in a back room. Then on Tuesday, we buy all the things that we gathered. But the sale didn't start till Tuesday Evening, so we basically get first dibs. I got two of my friends birthday gifts, and spent like, nothing. That doesn't mean they are not worth much, but.... nevermind. I spent $29, but got at least $200 worth of stuff. It was worth it.

There is a Symphony Concert coming up on Saturday. It's called A Tribute to John Williams. The music is all written by John Williams. They'll be playing stuff from movies like E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, music from all 6 of the Star Wars films, and stuff like that. It is going to be sooo cool. I've been waiting 9 months for this concert. I got a group together to go with me. I am going with 51 others. I asked people if they wanted to go, and if they did, then they could give me the money by last Monday, and I'd buy the tickets for them. This way, we could all sit together. So I went in Monday morning, and bought 49 tickets (we had 3 free tickets given to me by a Symphony member). The fellow working at the desk selected 52 seats one by one, and then said,

"Those are $26 a piece, so your total come out to $1274.

Me: Umm... I am using these $5 vouchers for the tickets.

Him: Oh. Okay. (speaking to a lady in the back) How do I do these vouchers?

Well, they got it worked out, and the fellow then had to select all the seats again, one by one.

Him: Okay, your total will be $245.

Well, that's how much money I had, so I handed over the cash. That hurts. I hate giving someone that much money. But it wasn't my money, so it didn't hurt for very long.

Anyway, now I have 52 Symphony tickets sitting in my room, waiting to be given to the people that bought them.

The World Series Trophy!

It's been a while since I posted, so I'll try and make a quick run through of the highlights from the past week. Actually, now that I look, it's only been a week since I posted, but it seems like forever. Last Tuesday, my family and I went to the Springfield Cardinals game. Actually, we went, set down in our seats, and left 15 minutes later, because it started to rain. One of the reasons we had gone in the first place was because we wanted to get our picture taken with the St. Louis Cardinals World Series Trophy that was on display at Hammon's Field. It was the last night that it would be there, so we went and got our picture taken with it. The picture isn't flattering, but... Go Saint Louis Cardinals!

This weekend was the Southwest Home Education Ministry (SHEM) Convention. It was held at the Expo Center in downtown Springfield. I was given the opportunity (after asking) to be a "page" at the convention. My duties included such things as: helping vendors set up and tear down their booths, directing people on where to go, especially if they looked clueless, answering questions for those people who knew they were clueless, and overall, just trying my best to look important. I had a great time. The hours were long, though. I got up around 6:45, left my house around 7:15, was at the Expo Center by 7:30ish, and didn't get back home until 9 or 10 o'clock PM. Long days, and running on pure adrenaline, but that's the way I work best. Of course, the next few days are miserable for my family. I'm nearly impossible to get out of bed. :)

And the convention was also a way to see my friends. Don't let anyone tell you that home schoolers are socially deprived. It just isn't the truth 99% of the time. Maybe it the truth 30 years ago when 1 out of 10 million families homeschooled, but not today.

One of my friends (Heather S) lent me a book called When a Man's a Man by Harold Bell Wright. She says it's a must read for any teenage boy. It's a good book so far, and perhaps I'll tell you about it when I am finished. But then again, maybe you should just read it for yourself. :)