Well, this is been a crazy day, to say the least. I’m not sure if I even want to talk about it. Yick. Let’s just say that I’m glad it’s over. And it’s not really over until tomorrow, when I take my last two tests in highschool. I also attend my last day of highschool ever tomorrow, and then I am DONE. Done with grade school for eternity. Okay, not eternity since I believe in reincarnation, but for this entire LIFETIME. And I’ve been in grade school for 13/18 of my life! That’s 72.222222222222222222222222222...percent!

Anyway, I’m glad it’s over. I should be sappy and boo-hooey that I’m going to be leaving all these memories behind, but I’m really not. I have to be honest and say that I am not losing much, but gaining so much more when I go to college. What’s going to be really tough come fall is that my best friend is going to school in Vermont, and I’ll still be in Colorado. I must admit, I will cry on the day that she leaves for Vermont.

But I’m not Suzie Highschool. I don’t have a secure little clique that I tag along with, from which to base my security. I have friends dispersed sporadically throughout the comfy little groups of my high school. I don’t fit in one particular place, and I suppose I’ve always been like that. Is it that I’m just so eccentric, or that I’m special? Haha, I think it’s both. The thing about my high school is that it’s big enough to be scary, but not big enough to hold a place for me. That’s where college will come in. I’m already attending an outdoors activity I mentioned in a previous post, for which I’m outrageously excited. I hope to find a writing group, where I can work on my “college project.”

Oh! Did I mention my college project? I’m soooooo excited about it. There are particular issues of the day, concerning life and United States politics that have me fired up beyond the comprehension that could possibly gained by merely reading the words on this page. Corporate America has gone too far. Not that the freedom of business isn’t a good thing. I’m all for it. There’s just a place I draw the line. And it’s wayyyyyyyy before the sacrifice of human lives.

Why would human lives in the United States have to be sacrificed for corporate America? Well, let me explain. Health insurance in the U.S. is ridiculously expensive, increasing in price with age. Of course, that would be because older people have more health problems. But the problem is that not everyone can afford it, especially a percentage of blue-collar workers. Medical care is also so expensive, that the average American could not afford it without insurance. Especially considering that if an American is not insured, he or she will be charged seven times as much as an insurance company will be charged for the exact same procedure. Let’s put this into perspective now. Freshman year, my mom had a few angina attacks, which are almost-heart-attacks. In order to prevent a heart attack, she had three heart surgeries. Might I mention that without these three surgeries, she’d be dead? They saved her life. And at the time, she was a mother of a fourteen and eleven year old. Now, we had health insurance. My parents are well-off enough to where it isn’t a huge problem. Guess what our insurance company paid? Over a hundred thousand dollars per procedure. I kid you not. Just being in a hospital room for one night costs fifty grand. Now, imagine that we didn’t have insurance. That would be over a hundred grand per procedure times seven. TIMES SEVEN. Now, imagine that we were blue-collar workers making, more likely than not, less than twenty grand a year. How probable is it that a person in that situation could afford THREE procedures of over seven-hundred-thousand dollars? Not likely. If that had been the case, my mom would have died, pure and simple. Does that ever happen? Absolutely. Not only have I read about incidents of that happening...

My best friend, Annie and I were walking down the street in Denver, and I saw a wallet on the sidewalk. I picked it up, and looked inside, to find a couple bucks and a social security card, owned by someone with the last name of Shaw. I figured whoever this was would probably want his social security card! However, I had no idea how to contact him.

So Annie (my best friend) and I took it home, and her mom found a little paper with a phone number on it. She called the number, and found out who the owner of the wallet was. He was a thirty year old guy who had congestive heart failure, had been forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills, had no health insurance, and couldn’t afford a heart transplant. He was homeless, but moved from friend’s house to friend’s house to survive. And all he could do was wait it out. Because he was going to die.

I don’t even know if he’s still alive.

See? It happens. Thirty year old guys who can’t afford health insurance are condemned to die, merely because they don’t have money. This is a democracy, but if someone doesn’t have money, their lives are not as important as those with money. And you know what’s sick? The head-honcho of one of the drug companies made a profit of three hundred million dollars last year. THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS! At what expense? The lives of people like Richard Shaw, who die at the age of thirty of congestive heart failure when wealthy people have the ability to give him a heart transplant, but won’t, because he won’t increase the volumes of their massive pockets.

Sick, isn’t it?

Anyway, I want to write a book about this. I understand very well that it requires a massive amount of research. What better a place to be for a project like this than a university? I’m sure I can find lots of help.

Oh, and when I was thinking about this idea, I was on a walk, and I found a five-leaf clover. If four leaves is lucky, what is five? HUGELY lucky?

I’m thinking so!

Anyway, I’m gonna go get some shut-eye for my last school night...ever! WHOOHOO! Nighty, everyone!

Happy Birthday to Daddio! Fifty-five years ago, in 1949, Daddio was born to Dorothy and James, the third baby of the family and first baby boy. Then, he grew up to be a strapping young lad who had eyes for a lovely lady such as my mother, and...viola! I popped into the world!

Okay, it wasn't that simple, especially considering that he didn't have me until he was 36, but...it's something along those lines.

And Daddio totally rules. So he deserves a fantastico birthday!

Oh, and I NEED to go to the mall to grab something for him. Daddio is soooo hard to shop for. Really. I have no idea what I'm going to get for him. He's into sports, but I think we've given him enough golf balls to stack from the ground to the top of the Empire State building. As far as shirts go, he could wear one a day for a century. Ya know, sports shirts. He has a basketball, a baseball bat, and baseball balls signed by various of his favorite players.

Then, there's the practical stuff. But you know what the thing is about guys? They ALWAYS buy the stuff they want. Okay, not always, but I can't afford a car for my Daddio! Maybe I will when I win the lottery, even though I don't buy lottery tickets. Then, I'll buy him an adoreable little Porche. He's so conservative, it'll probably be a black Porche, but still.

So, yeah. I had this dream. And I don't have ANY idea what it means. I can usually improvise some sort of explanation for my bizarre dreams, but not for this one. Guess what this dream was?

Haha, you'll never guess. My family, extended family included, and I were flying. Ya know, people can fly in dreams. And we were flying up these mountains, pretty close to the ground. They looked like the Rocky Mountains, which makes sense, cuz I grew up around them. Anyway, as we were flying, we were watching the spectacular view of...get this...giant leaping elk. I kid you not. GIANT LEAPING ELK! And when I say giant, I mean GIANT. I mean like...the size of Blue Whales giant. And they were just sort of prancing up these mountains. I suppose this was a pretty gigantic mountain. Then, all of a sudden, they were under a chair lift (the kind you ride up when you go skiing) and they were hitting these poor people and knocking them off! Everyone that fell off died! It was HORRIBLE! I was so sad for the people, but I knew I coudln't do anything about it for some reason. I kept telling my family we had to fly higher, or else the elk would hit us and kill us too! Ahhhhhhh! And then...and then...they just stopped jumping and stopped for lunch. So my family stopped and decided to take a nap, and I wanted to go on an adventure, so I went away, and all of a sudden ended up in this silent library with a sophisticated-looking libratian (I was still flying, and he didn't notice me) and then I went into this room and a really hot guy walked in and then my mom woke me up!

Anyway, as I sit here, quivering in fear over gigantic leaping elk, I wonder what the heck this dream might have meant. It can't be good, can it? AHHHH! I'm going to get trampled by an elk when I go to First Tracks!

Oh! I didn't write about First tracks yet, did I? WHOA! It's the COOLEST thing EVER! Wait, I probably did, but I'll write it again. I want to do the Outdoors Activities program at CSU, so I get to go on a sumemr camping trip thingie with incoming freshman in July, where I get to camp, river-raft, rock climb, hike, and other fun stuff. I'm excited!

Anyway, enough rambling, gotta head over to Spammy's house! And have lunchy! Yummmmmmmmmy!

Well, here I am, ready to post. Let's see how much I can write before the fam boots me off. You practically have to beat someone with a stick to get ten minutes on the internet around here. Oh well.

To catch up? I'm a senior in highschool, about to graduate. Graduation is the 21st of May, actually. WHOA. I'm so excited! I can't believe I'm about to become a so-called adult. Actually, when polled, Americans reported that they don't consider anyone to be an adult until the age of 22, not 18, but I'm going to leave home and everything come August and leave all this highschool life behind me. Periods of transition are just so exciting! So here's what's coming up.

I'm going to Colorado State University, potentially majoring in microbiology. Yes, I did go through the stage where I thought I wanted to major in psychology, but loe and behold, I took highschool psychology and decided not to. Why? Because I don't want a job that comes with a dark outlook on life. If I spend eight hours a day working with the abused and crushed souls of the world, my opinion of humanity will drop significantly. Not to mention, I'll just be sad and angry at the a-holes who put my patients through such traumatic events. Or worse, I'll hate my patients for doing that to the people around them. Well, I won't hate them, but...I don't know. Maybe it just isn't for me.

But microbiology. I took the class sophomore year, and LOVED it. It was my favorite class all through highschool. That has to mean something. Especially when the material covered wasn't exactly designed to please a highschool audience. I'll have to ask the guidance counselors at CSU just how much opportunity a degree in microbiology will bring me as far as jobs go, but I'm pretty sure it's a good road to take. If not, there are tons of majors in natural science! Whoohoo! Who knows...CSU has the second best vet school in the country. Maybe I'll end up as a vet! I'm a total sucker for animals, as well as guys who are nice to animals. Ooh, the guys I could meet there. Ooh, the fun I could have saving doggies and kitties! Yay!

In the meantime, I am currently preparing for a Cultural Foods final. It's exciting, really. My country is Switzerland, and I get to bake Zopf! Yay! It's actually bread that is woven into a really cool-looking braid thingie. Whoa, making bread is fun! I got to knead it for ten minutes, and do all that fun stuff. I braided it about half an hour ago, and now I have to go brush the yellow of an egg on it before I bake it for 55 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees. It'll be yummy! And then, I get to take it to school, and put Nutella on it, and it'll be super super super yummy, cuz Nutella is the best thing in the whole wide world! Yoohoo!

And yes, I am aware that I sound like a five year old. I suppose I'll always be a five year old, because I truly am at heart.

And whoa, no one's kicked me off yet! But I have to go bake my Zopf, so I'll have to finish my endless rambling laterz. Have a good evening, everyone!

Whoa! WHOA! First off, I finally figured out how to make this thing work again. Second of all, craziness. It's been almost two years since I've successfully published an entry on this site, and...well, I just have to tell this story, because it's totally nuts! I joined a critique group in Yahoo! groups, where I have met several awesome, intelligent, and fun people from all over the world. One of them, Siddharth, whom I call Sidley, is from India. He's REALLY cool! Not to mention a great writer, totally intelligent, and sweeter than anything. And he asked me today in IM "Is your middle name Noelle?" I told him it was, and guess what? He read my blog! Two years ago! And now we met each other in our little writing group!

Is it a small world after all? I think so!

Anyway, I'm going to consider that my style has probably changed, and try to get back into the habit of writing entries. I treasure the printout of my blog. It's a way to help me remember me, and who I was two years ago, as well as particular events that fade in my memory. So I'll write again.

Soon, I'll catch up on all that's happened the the past two years. In the meantime, the freshman sissie of mine is beside herself with anxiety since she isn't mingling online with her friends. So I'll spare her, and let her have the computer. It's great to be back! Hugs to Sidley!

Testing...testing...