Wow!

Wow! It's been awhile since I checked this blog. We just passed 300 pageviews! Thanks for reading, and please continue to recommend this blog to your friends. Thanks again! :D

The Reality of High School

Today, I got my first taste of what high school is going to be like in the form of walking
around the school after volleyball conditioning. I'm going to be a freshman in the fall, and I've never attended a public school before. Private school, yes, but not public school. Needless to say I'm suffering from severe culture shock. 

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I was honestly expecting something similar to the stuff you see in those Disney Channel movies we used to watch. Clean school, fun dances and pep rallies, popular girls, jocks, outcasts who somehow come out on top in the end [of the movie], etc. And while some of those stereotypes might be true, most are not, and it didn't take me long to discover this.

So let me compile a list of things I discovered today about the reality of high school:

1.  Mean girls? Sure, they're are people who can be rude, but for the most part, high school kids like keep to themselves and their posse and don't really care about what anyone else does. 
2. Movie romances don't exist in high school.Some high schoolers go through a million and one significant others before graduation, and others never land a date their entire time in high school. But those sweet little romances just don't exist. 
3. Going to a low-budget school can seriously suck. I never realized how spoiled we were at my old private school. We got nice uniforms, catered lunches, and none of our programs were ever even considered being cut. But my new school is dirty, drab, and falling apart around us, and pretty much everyone is from a low-income family. Well, at least I'll fit in a little bit more. It should be nice not having to deal with rich kids who think they should get everything handed to them on a silver platter. 


I've decided that I've seen WAAAY too many Disney Channel movies.

Random Things to Do When You're Bored

 If you're anything like me, boredom is a familiar concept, especially during the summer months (A certain song comes to mind-- "There's a hundred-and-four days of summer vacation, and school comes along just to end it, so the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend ittttt....." Oh come on, don't pretend you don't know where that reference is from!) It's a terrible thing that plagues this generation THIS EPIDEMIC MUST BE STOPPED!!! So I've made a list of random things to do when you're bored! Hopefully I'll take my own advice and do some of those. We'll see....

RANDOM THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU'RE BORED:

- Make a fort. Out of anything! Couch cushions, pillows, branches, bricks, books, chairs-with-blanket-over-them, etc. Don't let anyone in.
- Dress up in the dumbest costume you can find and go out in public. See how many awkward stares you get. 
- Take people-watching to the next level. Make up names and personalities for everyone you see. Just try not to cross the line into creepy-stalker-mode.
- Take an old t-shirt or pair of jeans and totally DIY all over them! Buttons, glitter, fabric pens/paint, appliques, random objects you find around the house... the list goes on! 
- Write a play and perform it. The catch? You must play every part. Use accents, props and simple costumes like hats, coats, and other accessories so people can tell which character you're supposed to be. Preform it for the neighborhood children. They'll most definitely get a bigger kick out it than your parents and older brother will. 
- Invent a recipe! No cookbooks allowed! Just try not to burn anything...
- Write the next great American novel (or just read one). 
- Make up a project for yourself, like in school, just without rules and deadlines. Learn everything you can about a subject that interests you, then make a poster or PowerPoint or diorama or speech or... 
- Get out the poster board and markers and make up a board game! Use random objects for pawns and dice for... um, dice (giant fuzzy ones are best)
- Redecorate your room! You can do anything from just rearranging some furniture to painting your walls a crazy color!
- MAKE EVERYDAY COUNT AND HAVE FUN! 

Apology

Okay, so apparently someone got the wrong idea about my post "Graduation," and they twisted it all up and lied to one of my classmates about some things I said. So much for my blog being a place I can write what I'm feeling. As you can see, I deleted part of that post. So I just wanted to say sorry to the classmate I mentioned in that post for putting him in an awkward situation. I'll be more careful about what I write from now on. And to the person who twisted up what I said about him, back off, okay? My blog is a place for my personal, anonymous writings. I never meant to put my classmate in a bad light, and you shouldn't be trying to put me in a bad light either.

Hi guys! Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Keeping up with two blogs can be exhausting!

Well, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who follows or reads Smile Because It Happened. It's reached 200 pageviews! Again, thanks, and please continue to help me build up with audience for both Smile Because It Happened! And don't forget to check out More Precious Than Rubies! :D

Graduation!

Well, I did it! I graduated from eighth grade! I know what you're thinking. So not a big deal, right? But it is! 

You see, I attended a tiny Christian school (and when I say tiny, I mean I graduated with ten other kids), and the school only goes through eighth grade. And you have no idea how much work it took to graduate from my school. Okay, so maybe it doesn't take a whole lot of work to graduate, but I graduated with A's and B's (and maybe one C in Algebra, but hey, it's Algebra), and let me tell you, THAT took some work!

At graduation, each person in my class had to give a speech. Most of us talked about the memories we made at our school, and some talked about what they loved about everyone in our class. But our student speaker, who just happened to be the most well-liked (I hesitate to use the word popular) girl in our small school and my best friend, definitely had to most impact on me.

She talked about how thankful she was that God chose the eleven of us to grow up together. She shared some memories she had about each person and one word to describe us (I got-- and I quote-- "awesome-- sometimes" *wink*). But the most insightful thing she said was this:
"People walk in and out of our lives. Some stay for a while and then leave, but others leave footprints on our hearts."

That's definitely what my class has been to me. We've loved and laughed and cried and fought and learned and shared. There's no two people who just absolutely hate each other. I definitely have some people that I find hard to get along with, but at the end of the day, I know that they've always got my back and I've got theirs. Sound too good to be true? Let me share a story about this:

There's this guy in my class who just annoyed the heck out of me. He's a total nerd, and goes through these phases where he gets totally obsessed with something and learns everything about it and totally exhausts the subject. This year it was anything to do with audio/visual stuff and his guitar. It was all he could talk about! Now do you see why this annoyed me?

Anyway, we fought a lot. It was usually just stupid little arguments, but a few weeks ago, he said some stuff that really offended me, and I offended him right back. We didn't talk much during the last few weeks of school. 

But then came our end-of-the-year class trip. Three days of bonding. Yippee. We continued to fight for the first day, which resulted in a late-night dodge ball battle to the death. Not fun.

One of the things we did on our trip was spend the day at an amusement park. And if you must know, I'm afraid of heights. Guess who else was. That's right, the guy I couldn't stand. This meant we were automatically paired up and stuck on the ground while the rest of my class rode the biggest, baddest roller coasters in the park over and over and over again. I knew this would present some problems, considering we weren't exactly on speaking terms. So I called a truce. I said we had to make this trip as enjoyable as possible, and fighting all the time wasn't the way to do this. He agreed, and we ended up spending pretty much the whole day together.

And it was awkward, but it was fun! I kept him company while he filmed our friends braving the roller coasters and even convinced him to ride a few with me. The rest of our trip was so much fun, and we ended up spending a lot of it together. My classmates were astonished that we could hang out for more than five minutes without me being on the verge of yanking his head off. 

So I think the biggest lesson I learned during my last year with my class was that fighting isn't worth your time, and it's definitely not pleasing to God. If you can stop arguing for five minutes and just try to get to know the person you can't stand, you might just discover that they're not as annoying as you thought you were and end up with a new friend. 

Leaving my class is very emotional for me. I'm the only one not going to high school with at least one of them next year. I have to brave the big bad world of high school all by myself, without the people I've grown up with and learned to love. But I know I can do it because God is with me and my classmates will always have a place in my heart. My friend summed it up perfectly:

You know it's friendship when you're happy to see them, but you know it's love when you're sad to see them go. 

  

New Blog?

I've had so much fun working on this blog and watching it grow. It's only been about two months, and I'm almost up to 200 views already! So I've been thinking... maybe I should start a new blog? 

Now don't get me wrong, I love Smile Because It Happened. But as you should know, I'm a Christian, and I think God may be calling me to write a blog for teenage Christian girls.

Don't worry, your beloved Smile Because It Happened isn't going anywhere. I'll keep posting fun stuff about my life, but I think I'm ready to use my gift of writing to tackle some tough issues and help bring girls closer to Jesus. 

So what do you think, readers? Would you read this new blog? Remember, I'm not trying to push my beliefs on anyone, I just want to help teen girls grow in their walk with God. Any feedback you have would be awesome. As always, just leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

-Laura

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss