this post is a little late...

when i think of courage, i think of

• being yourself, and not caring what other people think about you.
• standing up to people who are mean to you, or others.
• not giving up, even when things seem hopeless.
• letting go of people who will only hurt you.
• believing in santa clause when no one else does.
• doing the right thing, even when no one else is (especially when no one else is).
• crying in the middle of a crowded place and not caring who sees.
• not only following your dreams, but chasing them.
• forgiving someone, whether or not they deserve it.
• giving your parents a hug and telling them you love them, when your friends are around.
• telling the stupid, annoying, distracting kid(s) in class to stfu.

lead. follow. or get out of the way!

"if you follow the crowd,  you might get lost in it." that's something i'll always remember. i try my hardest not to be a follower. followers were always frowned upon when i was growing up, although i'm not quite sure why. an expression i heard almost daily; "be a leader, not a follower."

so if you're not a follower, does that automatically make you a leader? that may be so, but i'm not sure i'm the best leader either. i can take charge in certain situations, rather than rely on someone else to get things done, but that doesn't make me a good leader. i feel like i'm the person who leaves the group altogether--with no intention of leading anyone--and simply goes where she pleases.

i'll only follow the crowd as long as it takes me in the direction i want to go. and it seems to me that even if you're the leader of the crowd, you've still got a pretty good chance of getting lost in it eventually.

you have now donated ___ grains of rice

when i'm chilling at home with nothing to do, i like going to freerice.com. freerice is a place where you answer simple questions, and for every question you get right, 10 grains of rice is donated to a third world country to help feed hungry people. 10 grains of rice might not seem like a lot, but after a while of playing, you'll find that you've donated quite a bit of rice. go back every few days when you've got nothing better to do (we all have those days), and keep giving. when you think about the thousands of other people in the world playing at the same time you are, that's a lot of hungry mouths being fed. but they can always use more. so next time you get bored of creepin the book, go to freerice.com and give your brain a work-out while feeding hungry people. its easy!

i hope this makes you think

i could make a list to the moon and back of things i've hoped for in my life.

i hope we eat soon, i'm so hungry. i hope i did good on that math test, i probably should have studied. i hope i didn't miss jersey shore, what time does it come on again?

a few things that i'm sure go through the mind of every american teenager at some point in their life.

but how often do we say things like;

i hope we eat tomorrow, there wasn't much today. i hope mom doesn't die, i don't think i can take care of my siblings on my own. i hope we had enough money to pay for heat this week, my toes are so cold they're turning purple.

hope is wishing and believing that something better will come along.

i think americans have a distorted vision of hope sometimes.

Two Dead, Assault Suspected

Two beloved family pets were found dead in their homes this morning.

Butternut, tadpole, of Albert Lea, lived a short life. She enjoyed music and often swam about while the piano that served as the foundation to her home was being played.

“Butternut always seemed to enjoy the music I played, and never yelled at me when I hit a wrong note,” said Lani, neighbor of Butternut. “her dancing was beautiful.”

The coroner stated the cause of Butternut's death was loneliness, as the autopsy revealed a broken heart. Butternut’s husband and lifelong friend, Peanut, passed away only a few months ago of natural causes.

Joshua, fish, also of Albert Lea, was found dead after a short but intense search of his home and surrounding area.
"Joshua and I grew up together," said Noah, friend of Joshua. "we'll miss him a lot."

Joshua is survived by his wife, Samanthapoo, who was unavailable for interview as she is being questioned by the authorities.

The cause of Joshua’s death is yet to be determined. The investigation continues, and domestic assault is suspected.

Funerals were held for both Joshua and Butternut this morning, and they were laid to rest at Flush O' the Toilet cemetery at approximately 10 am.

HP 7.1

i saw harry potter and the deathly hallows part one today with my friend lynzee and her grandma. this is the first harry potter movie i've watched when i didn't know what was going to happen next. i read the book 2 years ago, and i can only remember a few parts. it was weird.

*SPOILER*

"blue. what a crazy color"

• putting makeup on the guys and making fun of those who tried to do it themselves
• bursting out into song at applebee's
• telling jokes backstage and trying not to laugh too loud
• playing catch phrase with more than 20 people
• eating homemade pizza from heaven
• hearing the audience laugh at the things we forgot were funny
• getting flowers
• making new friends and getting to know the old ones
• creating inside jokes and confusing the rest of the world with them

being a part of this year's high school musical, guys and dolls, was pretty amazing.

i wonder how many people i’ve looked at all my life and never really seen

i have this friend. we haven't been friends for a very long time, maybe 4 months. but for how close we are, you'd think we've known each other since we were toddlers.

i'm not even sure how we became such good friends. we'd met briefly before, but never really talked. he came up to me one night at a party and said hi, and suddenly we were best friends.

my life has completely changed because of him, and i continuously wonder to myself why we weren't friends before. it's not like we'd never met. we'd had several opportunities to become friends, but neither of us ever took advantage of those opportunities. maybe we became friends at that exact moment because that's how it was meant for it to be. maybe it was fate.

but i think a more logical explanation is that we as humans just don't pay enough attention to each other.

what i've learned in biology10

adaptation is "the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat."

1. all animal species have certain traits that are different from animal to animal, such as the size and shape of a bird's beak, the color and pattern on a snake, or the how fast a horse can run.

2. some of these variations can be beneficial to the animal that possesses it, while others might make their survival more difficult. for example, if the color and pattern on a snake make it blend into its environment, that snake's predators will have a harder time preying on that snake because it is camouflaged and therefore harder to see. but if the snake is colored in a way that makes it stand out, its predator will see it more easily than the camouflaged snake.

3. so if the camouflaged snake is harder to kill, it would make sense that more of them would survive. over the years, more camouflaged snakes would live and reproduce. eventually, all of the not-so-camouflaged snakes would die, and all that would be left are the camouflaged snakes.

that species of snake has adapted to its envrionment.

oh, the power of the human mind

according to biologists, there are only a few things that separate "homo sapiens" from the rest of the animal kingdom; humans are bipedal (we walk on 2 feet), and we have a more complex cerebrum and fully opposable thumbs. that's what we learned in biology anyway.

christians (for the most part), on the other hand, believe that humans were created in god's image, therefore are the only animals that have souls.

i'm not sure my beliefs fall on either end of that spectrum.

i'm not really even sure what my beliefs are.

i used to be a hardcore, stereotypical christian when it came to the concept of humanity. but now that i've learned more about it, i'm not really sure what i think about it. its something that i think about a lot, but it's such a vast topic, it's hard for me to even comprehend what i'm thinking about sometimes.

metacognition makes me dizzy.

i wish i'd never grown up

oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up, just stay this little. oh darling don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple. no one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred. and even though you want to, just try to never grow up.  

--taylor swift, never grow up.

tomorrow, i turn 16.

i opened my presents today, and people are already starting to post on my facebook wall, wishing me a happy birthday.

and i'm starting to realize just how old i am. 

don't get me wrong; i love a day dedicated to me.

i love getting presents

and having people tell me to have a happy birthday.

but...

a year from now, my best friend will be in college.

in two years, i'll be deciding on a college myself.

and 3 years in the future--if everything turns out as planned--i'll be doing my homework in a dorm room.

[ohmigoodness. i'm halfway to 32.]

i want to be little again.

back when sleeping with your blankie wasn't childish,

you fought with your friends and made up 3 minutes later,

everyone's favorite color was pink,

the word terrorist had no meaning,

when boys had cooties,

and your mom was the prettiest person in the world.

take pictures in your mind of your childhood room, memorize what it sounded like what your dad gets home, remember the footsteps, remember the words said, and all your little brother's favorite songs.
i just realized

everything i have

is someday gonna be gone.

--ts.

[i'm scared]

what really matters.

“when you start to know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. you begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. you see only the essence of the person, not the shell. that’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. you can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. you can love it with your eyes and your body but not your heart. and that’s why, when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.”
--lisa unger, beautiful lies

i used to hate life.

i ate my feelings.

i cried myself to sleep nearly every night.

i plastered a fake smile on my face every morning. 

and i prayed that i'd find someone who could see through my happy facade.

today, i have not one, but two beautiful people in my life that make every day worth it.

they're not perfect.

they make me mad.

they annoy the crap out of me.

they don't always understand.

but they're always there for me.

and that's what matters.

these two people have put meaning behind that old clichéd phrase, "beauty comes from within."

when you spend as much time with your friends as i do, their appearance doesn't even matter anymore.

my friends are beautiful.

every single one of them.

and i love them

with every fiber of my being. (:

sometimes you just need to vent

so i'm really sick of the whole facebook/twitter thing, because it's replacing that face-to-face communication that is necessary for living. i had a 30-second conversation with someone today, in which i simply asked him to confirm a rumor i'd been hearing. i seriously just asked if it was true. and less than an hour later, i've got people messaging me on facebook that i don't even talk to who are yelling at me for getting in someone else's business, angry texts from my "friends," and people on twitter saying nonfriendly things that are obviously about me (you know i can read that right? its at the top of my news feed.). i honestly don't feel like i did anything wrong, and if someone thinks i did then they should talk to ME about it, not have their friends yell at me all over the internet. i'm sincerely sorry if i upset anyone, but really, this shouldn't be that big of a deal. i didn't say anything mean, i didn't spread any rumors, i didn't make even close to a medium-sized deal about it. so why am i getting all these upsetting messages? its ridiculous--and sad--the way all this social-networking can blow things waaaaay out of proportion, and hurt people who don't even know what they did wrong.

my favorite freedom

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

on tuesday, i will take full advantage of this freedom. i am planning on participating in the prolife day of silent solidarity.

prolife day is a day where people from all over the world make a silent protest against abortion. it's one of my favorite days of the year because it is a day where i get to join thousands of other prolifers in standing up for what i believe in.

i've talked to many people about my stance on abortion, and a lot of them have different views than mine. i do everything i can to make my point heard without making people feel like i'm shoving my opinion down their throat. a few questions/arguments that i hear often are;

1. what if the mother can't take care of the child?

     pleasepleaseplease consider the idea of adoption. there are loads of people out there who would be completely willing to take the child into their home and give him/her a beautiful life.

2. what if a girl gets raped?

     the way i see it, whether she has that child or not, she will always have that memory of being raped. you can't get rid of the memory of being raped by aborting the child. if the girl has the child and puts it up for adoption, she won't have the added emotional stress that comes along with an abortion. and she will know that something good came out of her being raped; another beautiful person will experience the world.

3. if the fetus you save is gay, will you continue to protect its rights?

     yes. whether or not the fetus ends up being gay/lesbian/homosexual, i still believe he/she has the right to live.

i realize that everyone has their own unique situation and opinion on this topic. i'm not trying to offend or hurt anyone.

this is what i believe.

and i will respect your beliefs also.

if you have any questions for me, please ask. i would love to talk to you. if you want to participate in the prolife day of silence and have any questions, click here.

i'd also like to apologize for both myself and anyone else who has ever upset you or seemed forceful about being prolife. i'm personally trying very hard to continue standing up for what i believe in without being passionate to the point of pushing people away.

whoever built this is a genius

i just happened to be walking through a path in the woods that doesn’t seem to be traveled on often, and i saw this and immediately smiled. i think it’s amazing.

a tree must have fallen in one of the recent storms, which serves as the top of the “fort.” a bunch of branches were tied together and leaned up against it to make a tent-like structure.

i don’t remember the fence being wrapped around the inside when i first discovered it, but when i went back a few days ago to take this picture, it was obvious that someone had been there. there was a bunch of two-by-fours nailed together before (like the one laying on the ground, but smaller) that served as a door, but it was moved to add to the roof when this picture was taken.

i wish i had the skills to build something like this. it must have taken a lot of time, and quite a bit of imagination.

i wonder how long it will stay up before someone/something comes along and ruins it. and i wonder who all knows about it, and who built it. i’m loving the mystery in this place.

what's the difference?

Is there a difference between justice and fairness? They're like a pair of identical twins. Separately they seem almost exactly the same, but if you look closely at them right next to each other, you will recognize a few distinctions.

To me, fairness is getting what you deserve, whether it's good or not. An example would be how everyone deserves to be treated with respect. That's fair. But it's also fair that if someone is completely disrespectful to you, they don't really deserve to be treated with respect anymore. That's my definition of fairness.

My way of explaining justice in my own words, is that justice is a form of fairness. It's when a person does something wrong and is given a fair punishment for it. Now there's a difference between justice and revenge. Revenge is often taken way to far. Justice is when a judge hears all the testimony of all the parties involved and makes a fair ruling based on that information and his or her knowledge of the law, then provides a fair punishment for the person who did something wrong. That's justice to me.

Case dismissed.

Google Docs for iPod.

I'm a multitasker. So I'm at one of my friends houses trying to do my homework, and I downloaded the google docs application, but as you can see, I can't edit my documents from the iPod.

I mean, it's google and apple. Shouldn't they have worked something out already so everything is accessible? In this age of technology, I can do anything on a regular sized computer desktop, and I fully expect to be able to do the same on a two by three once touch screen. Get it together apple/google.

I also can't blog directly from from my iPod, so I went through all the hassle of setting up an email for my blog, so I can type up an email on my iPod and send it to my blog email.

I guess I'll be done ranting now. Hahah. And I'll go home and do my homework on my computer like a good girl. 

a random poem i wrote

The hardest decision in life
is choosing which bridges to cross
and which to burn

Long ago, a bridge was built,
and I decided I would cross it.
It was long and narrow,
broken and rotting,
but I did not notice
until I had already set food
upon it.

Although I couldn’t see the other side,
I knew what was there,
and I knew it was what I wanted.

So across the bridge
I had decided,
for the other option
was to burn it.

A struggle, it was,
crossing this bridge,
and leaving others behind.
But as my heart had told me to,
I continued,

until I reached the halfway point.
It was here that I discovered
the bridge I swore was mine to cross
I had once shared with another.

It was this other who,
with my own match,
had burnt the bridge,
but only to the point
on which I was standing.

I cannot simply turn around
for fear the bridge has weakened 
and will crumble
under my weary feet.

I cannot continue
moving forward,
for I have nothing
to move forward on.

To burn the bridge
would be a worse fate,
for I, with no escape,
would burn
along with my beloved bridge.

I cannot cross.
I cannot burn.

So here I sit,
in the middle of
a crumbling bridge.

the most exhausting and hilarious hour of my life

i have a small part in our high school's fall musical, guys & dolls. at practice last week, we spent an entire hour going over the first three minutes or so of the musical. the director, mrs. grimius, gave each cast member a role to play (ex. shady character, salesman, couple from texas), and we were to walk/run/sneak around the stage portraying that character, in order to make the scene seem more like a busy city street than a dark, vacant alley. seems easy, doesn't it? it wasn't. see, the catch was that there would be no talking or noise-making other than the occasional shuffling of feet.

portraying a tourist in a small tour group would have been simple if we could have talked to make our character more convincing. but silence made it so much harder, and at the same time, a lot more fun. we ran back and forth along the stage, snapping photos with our make-believe cameras, jumping up and down in order to see whatever the tour guide happened to be pointing at, being pick-pocketed by the "shady characters", interrupting a very intense poker game in the middle of the street, and getting lost among "the people of new york city."

i went home that evening with sweat and a smile on my face.

my bracelets

you'll almost always see me with a bunch of bracelets on my wrist. every once in a while, my wrist gets full and i have to take them all off and start again. these are all of the bracelets that are currently residing on my wrist.

1. the black bandanna bracelet was made for me by my friend jon, and lynzee made me the pink one.

2. the yellow armband is from when i volunteered at a snowmobile event yesterday, and i haven't taken it off yet.

3. the blue bracelet is a march of dimes bracelet that says "saving babies" on it. my mom bought it for me.

 4. the blue silly band is a saxophone, one of the pink ones is an elephant, the other pink one is a jellyfish/octopus, and the yellow one is an acoustic guitar.

5. the rainbow bracelet is a bracelet i made a few years ago, and i just found it and decided to put it on.

6. the yellow and orange hair ties are obviously for putting my hair up. i have at least 2 hair ties on my person at all times

7. the brown and black bracelet is one that i stole borrowed from my friend jon, because i liked it. (:

the little things

this right here is my best friend, lynzee. when i think about what makes us friends, the cliche criteria for friendship aren't the first things that come to mind. they still apply, sure, but when i think about the relationship i share with lynzee, it seems that the details are what make us so close.

a few of the little things:

1. i can tell her an entire story in 10 words and she knows exactly what i’m talking about.
2. she forces me into doing things i don’t want to do, because she knows that in doing them, i will benefit in some way.
3. i feel more at home at her house than i do at my own.
4. she doesn’t freak out when i inturrupt her.
5. her cats are adorable.
6. she can describe any situation or emotion by using a taylor swift quote.
7. we send each other random picture messages that are completely irrelevant to the conversation, simply because it makes us laugh.
8. she plays halo with me even though i royally suck at it.
9. even if she doesn’t agree with what i’m saying, she still tries to understand it.
10. i can be myself around her.

welcome to my blog, my life, my mind.

well hi there! i'm lani (that's pronounced lay-nee. please say it right). feel free to wish me happy sweet sixteenth on november first. i'm a sophomore at alhs, and i'm involved in way too many extra-curricular activities. band, choir, pep band, show choir, musical, student council, and also mock trial and basketball managing in a few months, all while attempting to maintain my 4.0 gpa. music is my life. i play tenor sax, flute, piano, some guitar, and--as laura never fails to remind me--kazoo. i'm also a singer. i live with my mom, dad, brother noah, and dog jack, in a house i've lived in for 15 years.

so, those are the basics. now it's time for me to type randomly anything that possibly comes to mind about myself.

my favorite number is 11. i have severe trypanophobia. i don't like large groups; if i'm hanging out with friends, i'd much rather be with one or two people, verses four or five or six. my favorite color is yellow. i sleep on my stomach. my favorite foods are cereal and pasta. taylor swift and paramore are my musical preferences. i wish i had more time in my life to read. my favorite books are; the burn journals by brent runyon, the book thief by markus zusak, night by elie wiesel and ida b by katherine hannigan. i take very good care of my african violet. when i can't sleep, i take out my book of secrets and writewritewrite! i'm very ocd at times. i hate surprises. i love compliments. it doesn't take much to make me smile. i could go on for hours about myself, but i'm sure that if you've made it this far, you're probably dying of boredom.
au revoir!