ok so i got home from austin last night at 11 something...and pretty much went straight to bed. i was absolutely exhausted. i had been there for state solo & ensemble, where i sang a solo and they rated me from 1 to 5, 1 being the best and 5 being the worst...everyone in our group got 1's or 2's, which is really good...i got a 2. i'm happy with it, and i got some good constructive criticism for once, so now i can start working on some areas of my voice that are weak right now. anywho, congrats to everyone who went, cause you all did great!!! and kudos to my mom who most definitely accompanied everyone from our group. well, i'm gonna go start getting the stuff i need for MEXICO!!!! HECK YES!!!! i'm so excited!!!!

so, yeah.....i haven't posted since school got out. um, well, summer's here, which i'm really excited about!!!! and i'm a senior now, which is really weird and kinda scary. in one year i will be doing all this graduation stuff. that's just creepy. the graduation reception was today, and we got to see the slide show of all the seniors, which was so fun!!!! bethany and i took some pics and had a lot of laughs....lol......and then we went to kids kastle, where we did pretty much nothing until close to midnight. anywho, the graduation ceremonies for FMHS and MHS are tomorrow, and i'm going to both of them with a group of friends...that ought to be fun, but i will most likely cry a little bit. plus, our choir is singing at MHS graduation, so that will be our final performance with this particular group of people, all of whom i have grown to love so much!!

so, does anyone else feel like it's not summer yet?? to me it feels like it's just an extended weekend or something, and it's odd to think that i won't be walking the halls of marcus again for another few months. while it's nice having a break from school, the lack of a daily schedule is at the same time very good and very bad for kayla. see, it's good because it's less stressful this way....but it's bad because without it i have no structure!!! i'm the type of person that really likes structure. anywho, i'm just gonna enjoy this summer, while remembering that it is my last as a high schooler!!!!

seriously, that's just crazy......

senior speeches are over, and i'm so sad!!! i'm still not ready for all of the seniors to leave, and tomorrow in choir i think i'm going to be a wreck. aahhh!! okay, not crying, not crying....... anyway, life for the next day or two is mostly made up of exams and goodbyes. i wish i could tell all of my senior friends individually how much they mean to me. i feel like i've just run out of time with them all of a sudden...even though i knew it was coming, that doesn't make it any easier......still, i would rather have known them and have to say goodbye than not have known them at all. to my senior friends, i love you all so dearly!!!

emotions suck. i guess that's pretty much all i have to say right now.

i think i have cried more in the past week and a half than i did the entire school year. between my last choir concert of the year, to choir banquet, to starting to say goodbye to all my seniors. i can't take it!!! i almost broke down in english today, cause i was reading what one of my good friends who's graduating wrote in my yearbook, and it was so sweet, and i wanted to cry!!! sarah and i had a cryfest at banquet, along with a couple of other people...that was interesting. and depressing. basically, i'm nowhere near ready for the seniors to leave--if only i had one more year with them!!! and now i'll have to conclude this blog before i have my own little sobfest here alone in my living room.

if i never have to write a research paper again in my life, i wouldn't mind. i don't know why, but this paper has been so difficult for me. i barely have anything done, and even though i have plenty of information i just don't know what to write. maybe i'm just making it difficult when it really isn't that hard...but to me it is. it's just like...i don't know if i can take any more of reading and analyzing about existentialism and what not...it makes my head spin. i think i must have ADD...because before i sit down to work on the project, i'm resigned to doing it, and then when i open up the file to start typing my mind goes blank and i don't know what to do. i'm so confused and frustrated right now...but hey, i've only got 6 days left of school, i've just gotta hang in there a little bit longer......

God is so cool!!! i love love love the rain!!! thunderstorms are seriously one of my favorite things ever. it makes me think about God and how He's working in my life. it's like, we're going to have trials in our life, there's no escaping that. but there's light after the storm. basically, storms remind me that God is here with me, and the rainbow afterward reminds me that He always will be. praise God for the rain!!!

the SAT is officially in my past now......and i really want to know how i did!! i think i did well. the test was easier than the practice i took this february--however, that could be because i actually remembered my calculator for this one!!! that should boost my grade up a little bit, thank goodness. the essay wasn't as hard this time either, and the reading seemed easier since i'm used to AP-style questions, which are a lot harder. so overall, the SAT was stressful, but easy enough. then after eating lunch with my parents, i came home and slept for like 4 hours (since i stayed up till after midnight last night w/ heathbar talking and watching Garden State, and i was completely exhausted!!). anywho, i'm desperately trying to avoid my research paper, while at the same time knowing that i have to have bib cards and notecards in on Monday and a rough draft due on Friday. It's getting down to the wire on this one, and i don't even have a set stance on which to base my paper!! we're supposed to read a novel (mine was slaughterhouse-five by kurt vonnegut) and research literary criticism over it. sometime in there we are supposed to choose a theme or something from the novel on which to discuss literary criticism and give a stance. three to five pages long...and i don't even have one bibliography card completed. but i will by monday!!! i hope.....seriously, research papers need to be shredded and then burned in a huge bonfire never to be spoken of again.........

i couldn't decide which of these quotes to put in here, so i'm posting them all...they're all by the same author, from the same book...but i find them thought-provoking:

"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."

"For, after all, how do we know that two and two makes four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past in unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable--what then?"

"But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it into words it sounded reasonable; it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith."

--George Orwell, 1984

today, the internet is my best friend. not only was i able to find the sources i needed for my research paper, but i was also able to find a site detailing MLA guidelines for bib cards...i don't know how i would have gotten my bib cards done so fast without the internet......woot!!!