Unwritten

My future is still unwritten, yes I am listening to Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, but still it applies! I woke up this morning singing Pocahontas' Just Around the River Bend and I thought to myself that I had found myself. I may not know what I am gonna do with my life, and I may not have my major nailed down, but at this moment in time thats not what matters. What matters is who I am now and what I do now. I have a wonderful group of friends that will back me up if needed and I have a strength I never really had before, and most of all I believe in myself. I know that I wont settle for anything less than what I want, that I may not be very forward and outgoing but I can take baby steps and then I might just become more outgoing, its already working.
So, to roughly define myself:
I am sometimes naive
I am a good kid- I just dont have the need to drink or smoke or have sex
I love basketball, and am VERY eager for basketball season to start- just a couple more months!
I will more than likely go in the business field somewhere, accounting or in a hotel maybe.
Though its only two weeks into classes, I have found a passion- Accounting, we will see how it lasts.
I am in a sorority, but I dont let that define me, I want people to know me for other reasons, and I like being in a sorority because I dont necessarily fit the bill.
I like to walk but I dont get to enough.
I love my animals and my family but I am learning how to survive with out them, I may not always have my loved ones around, and college is the perfect practice.
I dont have a boyfriend, and I like being single, but I hope to find the wonderful world of couplehood. I think that I am now ready for a guy in my life, as long as he meets a few requirements! And this is coming after a year of growth.
Lastly, I am ready to face whatever heads my way, yes I am scared shitless but I have friends and family and animals and I can and will get through any hard times.

One Year Later

Today is another anniversary that is noteable. It is the one year anniversary of the death of my grandma. I miss her but more than that I am striving to live a life that would make her proud. She told me several times as I was growing up that she was so proud of me and I want to always have that image. I am not saying that I wont make mistakes, that I wont do bad things but I want to always be able to say that she would have been proud of me. Not only have I been living her legacy but I have grown so much this past year and I refuse to say that none of it has to do with her, there is something there. I feel that her presence is around and in me and that I have grown into a stronger woman because of her and subsequently her death.
So today is not a sad day where I am stuck in my room crying because I am having such a hard time letting my grandma go, but rather a day of celebration. I am looking back on all the things that I have done this past year and all the ways that I have grown, I have worked to conquer some of my silly fears, I have gotten my first real job and I am striving to accomplish good things in school, and I feel that at least part of it is a dedication to my grandma.
I think that if there is a way for people to look over their loved ones after they have passed away, my grandma is definately looking over me today, and I am having a great day in her memory.
I miss you grandma, and I love you!

Rainy Day

What is it about the timing of some rainy days that just makes me happy? My week has been sucky and its not that the rain today was just another bad thing but rather something to wash the bad week away. It makes me happy, excited and refreshed. Yesterday, while looking at my schedule for the day I was worried about not getting everything done, so I did all my homework last night. Then today I got out of lab an hour early, and I walked through the rain and I was energized.
My uncle is still alive and even improving, they took him off of the respirator today and he was awake and talking and when asked if he could see he responded with a thumbs up.
I woke up this morning sad and irritated, I was worried about my schedule for the day and I am still just emotionally exhaused from this emotion filled week. I was even sick to my stomach this morning, and I had a headache. But things have run smoothly and I have calmed down.
I am blessed that my uncle is alive, that I have been able to see my family- some of which I havent seen since my grandmas funeral, my immediate family is fine, and most of all I am fine and healthy and alive.
I think I have finally learned the lesson of balance, at least in my current state of living, I do my homework on time, and I am hanging out with my friends, maybe not as much as they want me to but hey I do spend time with them. And most of all I am really making myself a home here in Lexington. I know my mom thinks that I dont call enough and I am sorry for that because I do love her its just that I dont think about it as much, I am growing up. I love my mom, and my dad and I think that they are going through the empty nest syndrome now, where as I was so homesick last year that they didnt have a chance to really miss me. My dad even told me that he was holding Payton hostage at the house so that if I wanted to visit her I would have to go home!

Anyway, I am loving the cleansing rain and I hope you are as well. Life has its hard times but things can always get better and even if they dont, its just another lesson! (What can I say I am an eternal optimist!)
Love you all! :)

The need to cry

Funny how things work out. This time last year my granmda was dying, yet I didnt cry for that death, was it because I was aware that it was happening or was it that I just didnt feel that I had the time to mourn her. After all, I had just moved away from home for the first time and I was incredibly homesick. But I think now, a year later I am mourning her. This comes also at the time that my Uncle is hospitalized in critical condition from what we think is methanol poisoning. Still, remembering grandmas death, having to go through this thing with my uncle and then realizing just how incredibly sweet my family is, not just my immediate family but my extended family. I find it soothing in a way that the family comes together in a time of need. I have a total of 4 first cousins and they are all 30 or older so I didnt really get to know them growing up, I mean I knew of them and they were family so I saw them at holidays but I never really got to know them personally. And I guess its part of growing up, or part of this Carnes family coming together when its needed but I had a great conversation with my cousin Bobby. I even got to talk a little to Mickey too. I picked Bobby up from the hospital and lent him my car so that he could get around Lexington- afterall I have classes to go to and if I desperately needed to get somewhere I have friends that would take me, and after he returned it I realized that he had given me money to pay for parking and he had filled up my tank with gas, it was such an unexpected surprise but it made me realize that the Carnes family not only comes together but we really care about one another, looking at what he did I am positive I would have done the same thing.
This post really started out as more of a reflexive note and a way to get my tears out in kind of a final way. When my mom called Monday morning at 6 am to tell me what was going on I almost dropped the phone, I was in shock and after talking to her I cried for 30-45 minutes. In a way I guess things just kind of stopped for me, it wasnt an expected illness, but it was sudden and something that took me of guard. I have dealt with multiple human and animal deaths in the past year and I guess it all just kind of hit me at once. Now, my uncle is NOT dead, so thank god for small favors. But he still isnt out of the woods yet. Still, even 3 days later when I am left alone to my own devices I still cry, I still get overwhelmed. A part of me wants to shut down and break down but then again I want to rise above it, I want to live, I want to carry my grandmas legacy, I want to be something more.
And then theres the other part of the reaction I had. I was in bed when I got the call and more than anything I wished at that moment that I had a boyfriend who would just hold me and tell me that he was there for me. I mean I have wonderful friends that are doing their best to hold me together, the friends who hug me because I am sad, because they know this year has been really hard. But I still dont have the person in my life that is there unconditionally. I am not saying that I will find that one person that I will be with until I die, but at somepoint I hope to find the person that I feel that will happen with, in other words I know the world isnt perfect and people change and things happen but I hope to find a guy who at least for several years we have a happy healthy life together. But the moment of getting the phone call, I just wanted someone to hold me, to keep me together. It didnt happen and I am strong enough to support myself, to hold myself together but sometimes I wish to just share the burden.
Thats where my head is today.

Bittersweet

I last saw him March of 2003, roughly 4 months after he moved. This was a person that I liked and some people even believe that I loved. I liked him for 7 years before he moved and then it took me roughly a year to get over him. A person that I had wrapped my life around, the only reason that people called me a bitch- I was pretty jealous, but then again I had some of my best times hanging out with him and I wouldnt change any of that for the world. Live and learn right? So why is he in my mind now, am I worried about him, are our fates gonna bring us back together? I dont know. And even if we were brought back together he is no longer someone that I would want to be with, this person changed. But I still remember the person that was such a big part of my life. Even if I tended to be jealous of the girls that he liked, we had a great friendship. And to think it all started because of his dog! Spending time at his house- which was so close to my bus stop, playing with Nala, and the puppies. And then Nala was gone but our friendship stuck. It wasnt just me and him, there was Natalie too. She was our glue, I was just to nervous around him and she linked us. Then Natalie left, and you know we still hung out, but then his brother and sister were our glue. But then, on his 14th birthday he came over and hung out with me, for pretty much the whole day. I always felt like part of his family, I even got invited to family events. And for a long time it was hard for me to remember these things, to look at my past and be happy, I was to wrapped up in the memories where you kept telling me that I was just a good friend, like a sister(Which I guess I was). And now all the memories are bittersweet. I may have been young, but I learned, and I remember, and now I can really smile.

This post started because of a dream that I had last night, and I was kind of a blast from the past. It was shocking and I felt like I was a little kid again- not necessarily a good thing, because I was back to being shy and uncomfortable. I have worked too hard to break out of my shell to let this person push me back into it. So for me I have moved on. I will remember this person, with happy and sad thoughts. And now, I can really be bittersweet about the times I thought were insanely tough.

For those who dont know who I am talking about, his name is Tim and he was a person that I revolved many parts of my life around for seven years. And I tended to define parts of myself because of him, like people asking about me I would tell them that I liked a guy for 8 years, I am breaking away from that definition of myself, finally.

A New Day

I only have a few minutes til I have to get ready for work but I wanted to get this down. Today was a day of discovery. A little over an hour agi i decided that I wanted to play the piano. Now I had lessons when I was like 10 and I still have those books but I really dont remember much, so I started from the beginning all over again. I played for about a half hour and then decided I wanted to find the books that I started playing out of, and I found my first piano lesson but I also found a great deal more. I found the books of music that my mom had written out, songs with guitar chords- are they chords? And then I got curious, it was kind of a want to find more music but it was also curiosity spiked during a very religious conversation that I had last night, the conversation focused around Islam and their beliefs, now I wanted to contribute but I really dont know anything about Islam. So on my little search today I remembered and then found the Koran that my family owns. Inside is a note to my mom from her Muslim friend, and thats when it hit me. There is SO much in my house that I havent really ever taken an interest in. Not only do we have a Koran but we have a "regular" Bible and a book of Mormons. So much to learn and its right at my finger tips. And its not only religious books that we have but "Common Sense" and some of the classics that I should have read in school but havent. Its funny that now, when I have to get ready for work is when my curiosity is really peaked. I must wait til tomorrow to do some more searching. Not only am I intrigued by the history that is in my house but I realized the reason for keeping journals- its not necessarily for yourself but rather for the generations after you. I may be late in the game but I am going to hit the ground running.
So much discovered, a new leaf, a new day, I am about to fly away!

Old stuff

I have been finding some of my old poems, so I thought I might share one or two, probably only one at the moment.
This one is called Maybe One Day
A great person
cant you see?
happy on the outside
lonly and sad inside
though you dont see it
its definitely there
a heart broken one too many times
a soul searching for the right one
isnt it sad... how many times shes gotten shot down
told shes just a good friend
not what she wants but so what, who cares
maybe one day
someone will actually love her
maybe one day
she will be more than just a friend
maybe one day
hopefully some day
she'll be happy inside
like shes always been... outside

Realizations

So much to say, I dont know where to start. I guess I'll start with my retreat. It started and I was kind of by myself, people flocking to one another after being apart for several months, but these werent the people that got me through the hard things, these were the people who came after. And though I love each one of them, its a distanced love, if that makes sense. These people havent gotten the full Jessie experience! HAHA. Anyway after a while I was folded up into the experience and it didnt matter that these people didnt know everything about me, but that they were accepting me and that was nice. And though during the retreat there was conversation of relationships, I felt good. See usually I feel left out or like a loser when people talk about relationships, but because I am newly happy with my single status I just listened and took everything in!

Then last night/this morning I had a LONG, interesting conversation with some friends. We talked about everything from Michael Phelps, dorm room decor, homework that I was getting a head start on, Viagra, Birth Control, Guardasil, to more personal things like first thing noticed about the opposite sex, death, and virginity (in an odd manner, lol). This conversation made me realize that I have some great friends, even if they seem to be a little protective. And that I wouldnt trade the experiences of the last year, good and bad, for anything in the world.

And this morning when I woke up, I woke up from a dream that left me feeling content. I dont remember what it was about but I know that it was nice and happy. Which led me to realize that these past couple of days have been important to me, my how much I have learned since Thursday! Though I was slowly coming around to the idea that there isnt and wont be a guy in my life for a while- or so I suspect, I am in a good place, and I really do love myself. And I miss the people who have really shown that I am important to them. So I cant wait to go back to Transy!

The last thing I want to talk about at the moment happened while I was shopping with my dad. We were in the checkout line for Kroger and the bagger made the comment that he liked my shirt, (One that says Amsterdam- I kinda had an inside joke at the comment!) and that he and his dad were supposed to go there. This kid just kept talking to me and I was polite and smiled and such, and then I realize that he could be trying to flirt with me- yes I'm bad at the flirting game! haha. So when we left my dad was like so you know that boy? And I said no, he said well you all seemed to be talking a lot so I thought either you knew him or he was flirting with you. See only after the fact do I realize that flirting happened! LOL and usually its my dad that points it out to me! :) And that just makes me laugh. But kind of a take home message I got was to not give up hope- be happy with myself, have a little fun and just let life happen! So thats what I am gonna do! :)

Remembering You

I am all ok until someone asks about you.
This last time it was my mom,
just curious about how long it took
to get rid of your song
til i no longer shook
or forgot to long
to be able to remember you and not ache
i tell her it was 8 years
but still whenever you are mentioned
the wounds are raw again
its not that i miss you
or even that i want you
rather its the memory of you
because for so long you were such a part of my life
but now i only have memories
some good and some bad
but mostly they are fading
a distant ache, that i feel occasionally
and that raw hurt that happens maybe once a year
so, im grateful to remember
but also to be able to get past it
and to be open to the future

The person I am vs. the person I want to be

I depend too much on other people. It isnt necessarily a bad thing but it is something that I have noticed about myself. See when making a decision that isnt in my immediate realm of comfort I turn to about 3-5 people and ask their opinion. Luckily I usually go with my first instinct because it is what my friends also think that I should do but I think I need to start cutting out my friends, not in my life just in some of the decisions that I need to make for myself.

On another note... ther are some things that I want to do but havent for one reason or another- mostly because I am slightly scared.
One of these things is backpacking. I have been once, my mom and I went over 8 years ago when I was 11. We did a 10 mile loop at Red River Gorge. It was fun but I havent done it since, and recently I have been seeing pictures of people I know backpacking and it makes me want to get out there. So, I am gonna try!

Anyway, I am gonna go to sleep now! Goodnight!

Accepting things

So, I went and took that walk, and I am now feeling slightly better. I mean I realize that I am not cured of my fears but I am working on them one at a time. Today I went and took that walk again. Slowly but surely I will get better.
But today I am not writing about my fears, no my focus is on the dream that I had last night. See I am ok with the fact that I am not finding the guy that I want to be with at this point in my life, or rather I am slowly getting better at being ok with it. But last night I had this dream, and it made me think that I may not have a guy in my life now, and I may not have one in the next couple of years but I have faith that I will have one eventually, and I do think that I will get married and have kids, at least 2 probably more, and I am ready to just live my life as it happens.
Anyway the dream: In this dream I got married. And it was wonderful, haha. The person that I married was wonderful, he treated me right, he fit in with my family and he made me downright happy. Now, I dont remember many details of who he was other than he had dark hair and he was slightly taller than me, and he wasnt too skinny! haha. I remember what the rings we gave each other looked like and i remember that he wrote a short poem for me and had it ingraved in something (maybe bracelet or a jewelry box). And I remember that after we got married, we just hung out, I mean like instead of heading right to the reception we just hung out together in a field sharing things. And thats about all I remember. Lets just say that this is one of the dreams that I hope comes true! With that I'm gone!

The desire to be more independant

I like my life, I generally like who I am and the people that I stay in touch with but I am missing something. Its something that doesnt always stick out at me, something that I dont generally think about but it is in a way a sense of direction and adventure. I go to college, I enjoy it, for the most part, and I have some amazing friends. But I feel stuck, and its not their fault, but rather mine, I am generally a reserved and shy person, I dont like to be alone and therefore dont venture out into the world, even a world that I am familiar with, unless there is someone with me. I dont necessarily like this quality of myself, I wish that I was able to do things on my own, go out and feel the world for myself. I have an honorary family, really my neighbors and their extended family, that goes places and does things. Yes, I travel, but always with my family. Always a "safe" destination. I want to be able to go hiking on a whim, by myself, without waiting for someone to keep me "safe".
I want to be able to go out in the world, explore things like 4th Stree Live, without having a body there to keep me "safe".
It isnt that I need the people to look over me, but rather that I feel the need to have someone to look after, I yearn for the company.
Having dogs gives me some freedom, while I am home, but when at college, there are so many things that I want to do but dont because I am afraid of being somewhere alone.

My goal is to learn to be more independent.
Step one: go for a walk, by myself for the first time since someone was raped at the local Arboretum.

The Big 100

This is my 100th post. Yay. And I only have 10 minutes to write what I want. There really isnt a topic for today other than maybe sharing some of the interesting things that I have learned in the past few days. See I had an old friend get married on Saturday, and she invited me to the wedding. I went because I remember when the couple originally got together and how fun their courtship was to watch on the outside! But going through the receiving line after the wedding was over I felt out of place, my friend barely even looked at me as I gave her a hug. I guess the days of our friendship are coming to an end, I guess we have just grown up and apart. In a way I was hurt that I was looked over but then again, I am glad that I got closure, if that makes sense. See it wasnt just her that was there, there were other old friends around and they didnt really treat me any better. I guess the friends of my past were just acquaintances, not really wonderful friends, for the most part. There are a few people that I like hanging out with, although sometimes I feel that they use me and I dont like being used, I have been used enough in my lifetime, short as that might be.

Anyway, I learned that the people that I saw on Saturday, that its ok to move on. I have my Transy family, and they are the ones that have truly been there for me. So I am not looking to friends of the past so much as eager to see what the future brings me. Gotta go.

The Future

I don't know what my future holds, but I know that for some reason my head keeps thinking about the possibilities. So this is my way of keeping track of everything that is swirling in my head. Anyway, if you are actually reading this, just remember that all the situations are hypothetical.
I think I will start with the newest one. I realized today that when my brother's favorite player that he has coached graduates from high school, I will be graduatiing from college. It took me by surprise and was kind of a scary thought because after college I have to actually do something for the rest of my life, which it totally exciting but also, as I said, scary.
Another new one is that I realized that really I don't have to be married before I have a kid. I don't even have to have had a man in my life. I have always wanted to adopt and you know if I feel that I am ready to be a mom and in a comfortable place in life, I can adopt and be a mom. I have thought for a while now that I wanted to be married at 23 and have kids at 25 but if 25 rolls around and I'm not married, it doesn't mean that I cant have a kid. I thought of this because there are several people I know that are 25 or older and they don't have someone in their life. Now they are in no way being held back from life but I have just thought that I would really start my family at that age. That was a fun realization.
Now saying that I can adopt if I dont have someone in my life doesnt mean that I dont WANT someone in my life. I look around and already I have friends that are my age getting married and even my cousin got married at the age of 19, and here 10 years later she is still happily married.

Annoyance

So though I love all my friends and I will listen to anything that they are having problems with and I will answer as honestly as possible, it doesnt mean that I agree with everything. One of my friends, my longest friend, was talking to me yesterday about how lost and sad and upset she is after the guy that she has been seeing for 3 years has turned into a jerk and told her that he didnt want to talk to her anymore. She hurt and that is totally alright, I understand that but she then goes to tell me that life isnt worth it if you are single, and that just kind of irked me. I mean I know that I would love to be with someone and such but seriously why would you want to live for anything other than yourself when you are 19 years old. She said that she didnt have any friends really that she could call because they were all in relationships, and I couldnt help to think well thats why you live for yourself, because thats the way things have been for me for a long time. You just have to get over things like that. Now, I am gonna do everything I can to be there for this person but it just kind of made me mad that she thought life wasnt worth living if you were single, and thats the only way I have lived, so I cant see any other way to live. I mean it would be great if I had someone to share my life with but I dont, and I am ok.

Alright thats my rant for the day. :)

Postsecret

Is it sad that I dont want to post my secrets on facebooks postsecret page because I know how many people will read it. Yet I feel that if I post my secrets here I am safer. I dont understand this, because everyone that I know may just read this blog, but I know of only one person who reads it regularly. So obviously I am not going to share ALL of my secrets but I will share some of them, things that at least someone already knows.
~ I have thought about who would visit me in the hospital if I was there for somereason and have even thought about being injured just to see who would show up, NOW my disclaimer is that I will never do anything stupid or purposeful just to end up in the hospital. I also think about who might show up at my funeral
~ My dad said that he wouldnt make it through the year. This terrifies me, more than anything I want my dad to walk me down the aisle and I want him to be a grandfather to my children, living at least 20 more years. I never had a grandfather and I desperately want him to be there for my kids like he is for my brothers.
~ I am jealous that my brothers are married and have kids. I may not necessarily want the lives that they live but I want someone to love me and I want kids.
~ I am tired of being "just a friend", I want to be loved. But yet somehow I wonder if I am ready for that.
~ I have a timeline for how I want my life to play out, but I dont expect it to work out. I also have a list of qualities that I really want in a guy and the ONE person that I have met that has these qualities probably wont love me.
~ I have an insanely obsessive personality, but it doesnt mean that I am a stalker. I care deeply for the important people in my life, and sometimes I have a one track mind that gets stuck on one person. Usually this doesnt last very long but its there nonetheless.
~ I love traveling but and deathly afraid of traveling alone. I want to see the world but I want to see it with the people in my life.
~ I am very self-conscious of things that put me in front of people, things like dancing or exercising in a gym, yet I am totally fine with talking to a bunch of people.
~ I dont always stand up for myself or the things that I feel strongly about, but I am getting better.
~ My college friends are the closest friends that I have EVER had, yet there are things that I cant tell them.
~ After my grandma died this past year followed by 5 other people that I know I became numb and couldnt cry for the deaths. I only cried for my grandma.
~ I get very frustrated with people who are not observant, most frustrated with my mom. Its because of her that I am SO observant yet I cant teach her the same thing she taught me. And the thing that scares me the most is that when I was talking to the creepy guy she just didnt notice. And I cant help but think that if my dad was there I wouldnt have talked to that creepy guy very long.

And here is where I will stop.

Last Day and reflections

Last night was our last evening in San Antonio so we went out and about. Grandma and I met mom and a new friend at the convention center and then went on a River boat tour, which was fun and semi-relaxing. There was a small child sitting next to me and she kept grabbing me, personally I thought it was funny, the childs mom on the other hand was slightly frustrated. After the river boat tour we slowly meandered to a place for dinner, we were originally going to go to the Rainforest Cafe but it had a 2 hour wait so we walked along riverwalk to find a more available eatery and we ended up at a really expensive somewhat mexican place. Now, this is food that I really dont like to eat, my mom keeps telling my grandma not to worry about me I will find food but really, really it would be nice if just on ONE trip we wouldnt have to go somewhere different for me to find food at all, its a hassle and I dont like watching everyone else eat before I get my chance. But alas, that doesnt happen and so we had lovely dinner conversation, talking about all the fun vet stories, sharing greusome details like how mom's new friend shut her hand in the door and the door was locked and how her pointer finger was barely hanging on and such, WONDERFUL dinner conversation if I say so myself. During this dinner my mom had her first margarita off the top shelf, and made me try it. Honestly alcohol just isnt my thing, the only thing that I have really liked that has alcohol in it was an Amaretto (spelling?) Sour, that was good. But the margarita just had an odd taste, not one that I liked. After the grownups had their dinner it was my turn. The only upside to not finding anything that I like to eat when the grownups eat is that my food is WAY cheaper, seriously, my dinner last night cost LESS than the tip that we left at the grownups dinner, and with my food I get a 10% discount for being a AAA member! So HA! And thats it for our last evening in San Antonio. Oh, over the course of the day my grandma and I walked at least 5 miles.

Now for my reflections, not all having to do with San Antonio. First this trip has time and again put me out of my comfort zone. SO many strangers came up to me and talked to me and I am not just talking about J.J. the creepy cowboy or the black guy at the rent a car counter. I got stopped by two people because of my Kentucky Wildcats shirt, and told to smile again, and was asked to take pictures. I guess this trip I just didnt look real happy, I mean I had a fairly good time, yes I was frustrated with mom and grandma a lot but I still had a good time, but I see myself as a fairly smiley person, so being told to smile just really threw me off! haha. And even though J.J. the cowboy was really creepy and such he made a lot of sense, the things he talked about were true and got me to think a lot. Now I didnt get swept up under his wing and just totally admire the guy, that ISNT what I am saying, and I would have NEVER gone anywhere with him, but because I dont like being rude I really listened to what he was saying and some of the things he said got me to thinking about where I am and even who I want to be and why things happen like they do.
And so branching from that I have thought about all my friendships and how much they mean to me. So everyone out there that I am close to who reads this, know that I love you all very much and as I said in an earlier post, I am only obsessive about your life because I just care that much. And I would do just about anything for everyone of you and am honored when you tell me your deepest secrets, it makes me feel like I have done something right! tee hee.

Now grandma is pacing the hotel room packing things up, so I best get my little butt in gear. I'll write more soon!

The last few days

Its funny how when we have busy days I keep up better with the blog. Anyway the last few days have been fairly calm, the Vet conference started on Wednesday and so grandma and I walked mom to the conference and then came back to the hotel and watched a movie and just kind of hung out, we then went and picked mom up and we all ate dinner and didnt really do much more than that.

Yesterday we woke up, took mom to the convention and hung out and read while she had her first morning sessions, then we went to the exhibit hall and got LOTS OF FREE STUFF!! Then while mom attended a couple more sessions before lunch grandma and I went and hung out at the mall, we walked around the mall for about 2 hours! We met mom for lunch, and mom bought me some BOOTS! :) Real boots from Texas, I'm SO excited to get them- they didnt have the right color so they ordered them for me and are going to send them to me in the mail. After another round in the exhibit hall grandma and I came back to the hotel and watched another movie, and again, didnt really do anything. Mom stayed later this time for a Wine and Cheese and she got drunk, so we had to go get her!

Today mom woke up late, and grandma and I stayed in the hotel for the morning, and then we met mom for lunch and walked ALL OF RIVER WALK! And then we stopped by a little shoppy thing and I broke down and bought a nice sterling silver ring- I have been a little quick at spending money, imagine that. Anyway after our walk- which was about 3 miles overall, grandma and I are back in the hotel just relaxing.

Convention Center, Art Museum and J.J the (Creepy) Cowboy

Yesterday, Tuesday, we had a lazy beginning to the day. I somehow got mom and grandma to watch some random movie and then we decided to go see where the convention center was so that mom could find her way back and forth. And I admit I was not in the best of moods but I was trying hard not to let it show, so I stayed ahead and just tried to calm myself down for most of the day. I felt bad for not being in a great mood but I was trying to put it behind me, mom and grandma however commented on it everytime we stopped somewhere, needless to say that didnt help the mood, but anyway we checked out the convention center and Hemisfair park, where the world fair took place 40 years ago, and we were just meandering around taking our time getting back to the hotel, stopping to eat and such.
Once back to the hotel we just hung out for about 20 minutes, then we headed to the art museum. In the parking lot we got in another fight and I told them that I just liked walking by myself. BIG MISTAKE. The museum was nice, for the first 3 collections anyway, but then while I was sitting down waiting for mom and grandma some random guy came up to talk to me, and it wasnt necessarily a bad conversation but when mom and grandma passed me and DIDNT notice it, nor try to get me out of the situation I started to panic. The guy was telling me how I i should be an artist and that people dont live up to their potential because of fear. All in all most of what he said made sense, up to the point where he told me that it was God's plan that he and I were talking right then. I mean I believe that everything happens for a reason, and meeting him was creepy and such but I got a lot out of the the conversation. But anyway, FINALLY he let me go and I really started to panic because I didnt know where my mom and grandma were and I didnt have my cell phone and I knew that they wouldnt leave without me but I just needed to find them because that man had truly freaked me out. I look back on it as almost an out of body experience. But anyway, I find mom and grandma and burst into tears. I was so frustrated with them because they hadnt paid attention, and it isnt really their fault, they just DONT pay that close attention to things around them, but god it scared me because I do, and I was VERY aware of when they left me. I had been counting on them to be my escape and they didnt notice that the creepy guy was talking to me. They feel bad but so do I, after all I had JUST told them that I liked walking alone. But see what I meant is that I like being quiet and thinking about things, I dont like to talk constantly, and they do, and after a while the noise of chatter gets on my nerves. SO I learned my lesson, to not be so snappy and to understand that maybe I am hurting their feelings without wanting to, and for that I am sorry. But I wish that they would learn to be more aware of things around them, I think that this episode also scared them so maybe they will be more aware. That and my mom gave me a lecture on how it is ok to be rude to strangers, especially if they are creepy.
Anyway, I think that is about it for what happened yesterday, tomorrow morning I plan to post today's happenings... nothing to get too excited about though!

Panera, Botanical Gardens, Wildlife Ranch and Bertha

Today we started by going to Panera breads for breakfast. We had a really cheerful cashier and that put me in a good mood for the day! After breakfast we went to the Botanical Gardens here in San Antonio, we probably spent two to three hours there, it was beautiful and fun. They had random gardens, a rose garden, and 3 native Texas gardens. Our favorite was the Texas Hills garden, reminded us of home. The best part of the botanical gardens, in my mind was feeding the ducks and turtles. The first time I fed the animals it was just 4 ducks and they were very friendly and demanding, but demanding in the nicest way of course!! It was fun they were mallards of course. Then we walked further around the pond and found another feeding spot. My generous grandma gave me some more quarters to feed the ducks and the next thing I know a Red Eared (spelling?) Slider was on the bank eating some of the food that I had dropped. It really took me by surprise. :)So I then started trying to feed the turtles as well as the ducks and ended up with 6 ducks and about 13 turtles. WOW. I really dont know why but that was my favorite part of the botanical gardens!! :) After walking around we went to the gift shop! And thank goodness we had grandma, just kidding. But grandma splurged and bought herself a shirt that cost over 100 dollars and said that since she was splurging that we could splurge too, so I got a nice Dragonfly totebag and little turtle, to remind me of the feeding fest.
From there we went to the Wildlife Ranch and that was fun. Wow where to start? Well we get our tickets and our bags of food. We pass some giraffes which arent with the rest of the animals, though we arent sure why, maybe because they are just SO BIG. But still there are giraffes there and we got to see them, lots of adults and some babies as well. Then we start driving in the wild areas, where all the other animals are loose, allowed to just wander around. The food that we are given is supposed to be thrown at the animals but the animals were real friendly so we ended up hand feeding them. The first thing that I hand fed was a Barasingha deer. We then saw lots and lots of other animals, including, Watusi cows, the famous Texas Longhorns, some Bison, Kudu, Springbok, Gemsbok, Formosan Sika, Elk, Scimitar Horned Oryx, Nilgai, Wildebeest (there were VERY cute, VERY young babies!!!), Aoudad, a Rhino, Bactrian Camels (a baby one here too, a Cape Buffalo- BIG, Ostrich- which tried to come in the car, NOT my idea of fun, and therefore I was called a sissy by my mom and grandma because I was unwilling to feed the Ostriches, Rhea, Emu, Donkeys, Addax, Llamas and my favorites the Damaraland Zebras. There was a whole herd of zebras and they understood that cars=food. So they would come up to the cars and DEMAND food, I was all to willing to comply!! There were several youngsters here too and feeding the Zebra's was my highlight of the whole park, well that and 2 cute guys but thats besides the point! The zebras also tried to get into the car, getting their WHOLE head in the car and demanding food; they were also tame enough to pet and that was just so much fun.
Bertha is our GPS system that is just wonderful, she has gotten us all around Texas, well with my help of course!! haha. Bertha doesn't always go the way I want her to so I force her to recalculate when I dont do things her way! But we like Bertha and she is a big help!
After the wildlife park we came back to the hotel, stopping at wal-mart for essentials.
We chilled in the room for a while and then went down to swim and that was nice, a good way to relax. Mom and grandma were asleep at about 9:30 and I only made it to 10 before I turned everything off and fell asleep myself.

Riverwalk

Apparently San Antonio is pretty well known for their River walk which is actually about 20 feet below the city, and its really neat. We went exploring it some earlier in the day, theres tons of eatery's along it and I think its just pretty soothing. Not sure why exactly but soothing nonetheless. This time while walking I decided that I was feeling firly, which never happens for those of you who dont know me, lol, and so I wore a skirt!! Amazing huh? I thought so... anyway we had a good walk down along the river, although we didnt go very far. Anyway we had fun, and I felt girly. OOH we also saw a pretty cute guy and he was wearing a kilt!! :) good times... Alright that's all I had to say really about Riverwalk.

San Antonio, flight and Day 1

So now its the middle of the day and very hot in this nice Texas town, and we are inside trying to stay cool, mom and grandma are sleeping and I am watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl.
Today started early for us, we were up at 4 and left the house at 4:30, at the airport at 5 and flew out at 7. Our first plane was just from Louisville to Charlotte N.C. it was the first flight that I can remember actually falling asleep on and even being fairly comfortable. And our layover was relatively pleasant as well, it was about an hour and a half and thats where we had brunch. I had a fruit bowl with pineapple!! It was good, and a sweet tea from Starbucks, also very good. Anyway the flight from Charlotte to San Antonio was about 2 and a half hours and there was a teenage boy infront of me maybe 13-14. He was very talkative and somewhat annoying and pointing out EVERYTHING to his mom, but then he got some music going and was quiet! I also slept quite a bit on that flight as well. So we get to San Antonio, get in the shuttle that will take us to our rental car place and the first words spoken to me by someone other than my mom or grandma in Texas is "smile". This black guy that was on our shuttle bus saw me and said smile, so I did. Then while we were waiting for our car, a Ford Fusion, he asked me how old i was. TALK ABOUT RANDOM. That question totally threw me off. But he insisted that he was just trying to cheer me up, apparently I looked like I wasn't very happy. So then drove to the hotel, which is a really nice, OLD hotel and its across the street from the Alamo, I can see the wall of the Alamo from our room!! Exciting.
After checking in and such we went exploring, which included seeing the Alamo, making a trip to the Del Sol shop and walking around river walk and eating. We at at some British Pub and there was a table next to us with some really drunk people so drunk that they were cut off from the bar. Kind of interesting to watch them.
Grandma was having shoe issues and so we came home for the hot part of the day. I think we plan to go out walking and exploring later. Until then... have fun!!

Frustration, Irritation, and Getting Away.

So I am frustrated and irritated, obviously. I mean I know that I have somewhat of an obsessive personality but its not because I care about you oh so much, but rather its because I care about everyone. I remember things, I think about things, its just who I am. And apparently this is just too much for some people. Its not that I am stalking anyone, its just that its what I do, I get to know the people I am around and I tell them of the things that make me think of them. So dammit I am sorry if I may scare you, its not on purpose, I dont have evil plans in my head.
ARG, I am angry. I cant really put a finger on a single reason for my anger. I think though, its related to my teeth still hurting from the dentist and getting the cold shoulder so to speak from a person who I had up until now considered one of my really good friends from college.
And by the way, I am going to San Antonio and so as usual, I will keep my travel stories on here. :) That is if anyone reads this still, on a regular basis.
One last scream before I move on, so SCREAM!!!!! And goodnight everyone.

The Start of Summer

First I will address the previous post, because things have changed. I definately still love the person that I was talking about in that post, and I hope that they will always be in my life but I am not so hung up on him as I was. I have realized something, and partly it was because of something revealed to me and partly I think it was just the time for me to move forward. This person was my rock for a while and it occured to me that maybe I wasn't as ready for a relationship as I thought. Sad as it was I need a guy, someone who meant a lot to me, to help me understand that I really am a good person, that I can be wanted. This person helped me with that and I am eternally grateful.
I am really glad to be home with my family and I even have an interview tomorrow, which is exciting for me. I have learned a lot and grown so much in the past year, and I am thankful for that.
So in wants to keep this post short, I will stop here. Goodnight

Missing You

It is hard for me to admit how much I miss you, mostly because we aren't together. There's not much more in this world, at this time that I would like more than being with you. But then again I have been hurt in the past and its just hard for me to step out on that limb one more time. I know you may never read this but I feel just a little bit better, writing out how I feel.
Anyway, I miss you more than you know, I feel like something huge in my life is missing since you are gone. I know that is kinda silly but the past couple of weeks, we have been together a lot, basically all of my free time we have been together, and it has been so nice that I dont want it to stop. I know that we will see each other again before the beginning of summer break and I just hope, really hope that I am able to tell you the way that I feel.
I dont know if you like me back. And I dont know where you stand.
But I do know that I like you;
I know that you are constantly on my mind,
I know that I have never felt this way about someone before
And I know that if something doesnt happen, at first I will be really hurt
But I will get over it and if we cant be a real we, I hope with all my heart that we can at least be friends for a long time to come.
Now, that I have beared my heart for the world to see, I will now do something else!
Til Next time,
Jessie

My 19th Birthday

here it is my ninteenth birthday
and i dont know whats wrong with me
i sit here at 12:07 in the morning
and i am crying
i cry myself to sleep,
because i cant think of many good things
i wake up the next morning and see all my birthday wishes
i cry again
maybe its because the things that i really want
the things i feel i need in my heart
are things that im not going to get
i wish for them every year
and only once has it come close
its a void that most people can fill
one that i have been ignoring for a while
and i cant ignore it anymore
sure, im loved
by friends who are wonderful
and a family that is always there
but i need something more
someone to really love me
someone who wants to be with me
someone who can hold me
someone to make these tears go away
but im doubtful ill find him today
so i will get up and face the day
i will wear a smile
so that i can hide all this pain
for just a little while

After Israel

So we are back, we have been for a few weeks now and the routine is the same, things are happening and life is flying by, but there are some things that I just cant stop thinking about. So first off, the people that stick with you, you know the ones that get stuck in your head for random periods of time and then they are gone, but then they show up again. I have one of those and I dont know what to do. On the one hand I would love to be in a good relationship but I have kind of high standards and I wont let myself be with someone who I dont think could be THE ONE, not that there is only one but still. For some reason I wont entertain the idea of a relationship unless I think it will be long lasting, I am just not a fling type of girl. Anyway, theres this person that is in my head for days at a time and I wonder about him, hope hes safe, and I can see having a future with him but my logical brain is telling me that it doesnt have a good chance of working out. That sucks, but hey I guess I gotta live life and see how things go. But before that I am just ready to have someone who will hold me, be there for me. I suppose I am picky about the person that I am looking for but if he is going to have my heart dang it I HAVE to be picky, I have to protect myself. I dont want to go through the ordeal and pain of a broken heart again, its just not something that I consider fun. And being pretty much an eternally nice person I cant stand to think that I might break someone else's heart, thats ALMOST as bad as having my heart broken, but I dont want to lead a person on because thats wrong, is there a way that I can nicely tell someone that I am just NOT interested in being anything more than friends. But I do want to be friends. At this point there is one person that I would want to be with, though it is incredibly hard, but I dont want to wait around for a few years for him to decide one way or another, co bottom line, im SCREWED, and have been all my life.
Thanks for reading the Rant.
Jessie

The last day in Israel and the trip home

Well this is the last post of mine dealing with my trip to Israel. At least this trip to Israel. So Friday we woke up with Alia and the boys. We discussed possible events for the day but eventually Alia and the boys had to leave for work/school and grandma, mom and I stayed at the house. Alia, Yusef and Ibrahim were supposed to get home around 1 but at 1:30 we decided that if we didnt go to Appollonia then we were goning to get cabin fever. So we walked about 40 minutes to Apollonia, which is a fortress on the coast in Hertzilya (the town that they lived in). We got there at like 2 and the guard was closing the gate, things close early in Israel on Fridays because of the Sabbath. Sabbath is the Jewish holy day, for those who dont know, and I'm not sure about the details but it starts sometime Friday and ends sometime Saturday I think. Anyway, so the guard tells us that he is closing at 3. So we wander around to see this fortress, which is really cool. It was built on a cliff near a natural harbor. It was REALLY windy, REALLY windy, but fun and interesting. Not much to report other than it was windy and we saw lots of ruins, which was intersting.
After seeing Apollonia, Alia picked us up and we went to the beach. The beach was fun and I can now say that I have set foot in the Mediterranean Sea. Pretty cool. But it was very windy and cold and so we didnt get very far!! It was rough, which apparently is very unusual in Tel Aviv, or so Alia says. She says that its usually smooth as glass. So after stepping into the Med. Sea we decided that we would like to do a little shopping but it was Friday and the start of the Jewish sabbath. And Israel is a Jewish state, therefore pretty much everything was closed. It was worse than Sundays in the states. So after a half hour of driving around we decided to just go home and hang out with Alia and the boys before flying home.
Alia cooked a dinner of potato/chicken soup, rice and turkey legs. I wasnt going to eat anything but they started laughing and said that just once they would like to see me eat something. So I ate some rice, to which everyone cheered. But apparently that too was too plain and too similar to bread. So I decided what the heck, and tried soeme of the soup. I dont believe that I have eaten soup in 2-3 years, not even chicken noodle. So on the last day I tried something new, and it really wasnt that bad. Maybe just maybe I will start trying new things more.
After dinner, grandma, mom, Alia, Ibrahim and I sat around the table and just talked. It was laid back and easy and fun. Then we took pictures and at a wuarter til 9 headed to the airport. We checked in and went through minimal security, like our checked luggage got thoroughly checked and then we were going to do some shopping before we went through human security. Alia and Ibrahim came into the airport with us for a while. And then after several minutes of discussing exchanging money and buying things we said goodbye. Two rounds of hugging and through security we went.
On the other side of security there were LOTS of duty free stores. And since we had kind of a lot of money left we spent it!! :) It was fun. But after a while we got tired of shopping and went to our gate. The plane ride was fairly uneventful. It was pretty empty on account of it being sabbath and so we got to spread out a little bit. It was a long flight and luckily I got to sleep through some of it! Once we got to New York, JFK and we learned that there was a tornado in Atlanta, where we were supposed to go. SO mom and grandma tried to get us on a direct flight to Louisville but it didnt work. So we took our chances. We got to Atlanta fine but getting out of Atlanta was another story. We loaded the plane to go to Louisville fine and we were out on the runway but then air traffic control shut down the WHOLE airport on account of more weather coming in. So we sat on the runway through a hail storm. NOT fun. But between the storms we were able to take off and we got home around 6pm, a full 24 hours after we started coming home.

Well thats the end of the trip. It was fun and I miss Israel but I am also glad to be home. Now I just have to do all the homework that wasnt done on the trip!!

Ok, the days I missed. Wednesday and Thursday

So Wednesday we were very lazy. We all just sat around the house and did nothing at least til 4pm. Then the boys got back from school and we conned Ibrahim into walking around Herzilya, the town where their house is. We spent a couple of hours just walking around, first we went to a castle thingy but it was closed and then we tried to go to the beach but it was not easily accessible. So then we headed back to the house. We stopped on the way back to get fruit that I would eat... things like Kiwi and Apples. And Ibrahim made fun of me because he thinks that kiwis are about as weird as you can get and he was totally surprised that I will eat them. So we get back to the house and Alia is sitting in the car waiting for us. She wants to take everyone to Caesarea for dinner. Well I was tired and didnt want to go, she asked mom to go for her and so mom, grandma, and Yusef went with Alia to dinner. ibrahim and I stayed at the house and just hung out. First we ate, which for me was some bread and a few kiwis and for him it was half a chicken and some curry and such!! He was shaking his head the whole time we were eating! Kinda funny if I say so myself. At that point I got on him for never replying to emails and he told me that he hadnt gotten one from me on just over a year. To which I told him that was bull and that he should check his email! So he said that he would prove it to me. Therefore we checked his email and what do you know there are 252 UNREAD emails. He laughed and I showed him about 7 that I had sent in the course of a year that he hadnt read. He said that he was sorry, he doesnt do well with the whole email/internet thing, he runs out of things to say. He told me that he was better at talking when he can see peoples faces so I should get a webcam so that we can talk over Skype. I also showed him facebook and conned him into getting one, not that he ever checks it but hey hes got one!! lol. I also showed him all my friends at Transy- I used the pic of Megan's birthday party. So then we cooked snails. This was a really long process, we started at 8:45 and didnt finish til 11:30. First we dumped all the snails out. Then we made sure that they were all alive- this by far took the longest. In order to make sure they were alive we had to make sure that they were moving, some of them didnt want to move! Then after making sure they were moving we cleaned them, scrubbed them really, and rinsed them. After that we put them in boiling water to kill them. And then put them on the cake pan type thing and smothered them with butter and garlic, and stuffed them in the oven to cook. I did not try any of the snails but I had fun cooking them. Ibrahim and I also had some good conversation throughout this whole time.

Thursday- The Dead Sea and Massada.
Thursday we woke up REALLY early and I set off the alarm by going out of my zone before it was turned off. OOPS!! But once it was turned off we were all good. So we got ready, went to The David International Hotel and caught our tour. The man that was our guide was very knowledgable and has even published two books, so I look forward to reading one of them when it is printed in English. Once we were picked up we drove to Jerusalem to pick up other people on our tour. We had 2 people from Chile, one from Spain, 4 from Canada and 3 from California. From Jerusalem we went to Massada. The way to Massada was beautiful. We saw some Bedouin people hearding their sheep and that was really neat. We then drove through the West Bank, but we were never fired at nor did anyone in our group get killed! From the West Bank we drove along the Dead Sea, which was BEAUTIFUL. During this drive we also saw the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, talk about interesting. I remember seeing these caves on the TV when there was news about them, and now I have seen them in real life! Then we drove past a real desert Oasis, we didnt get to see it but Ibrahim told us that it was amazing. Still it looked neat as we were driving by. And finally we arrived at Massada. Massada was the place where the Jews lived and the romans came and took three years to get to and then the Jews killed everyone the last night. I remember seeing a movie about it in Mr. Music's AP European History class I think, one of Mr. Music's classes anyway. :) Anyway it is like a plateau but really high and kind of hard to get to. I dont really know how describe it so people will just have to wait for pictures or google it! Anyway to get to it we had to ride a cable car. That was a new and interesting experience for me. I wanted to rock the cable car but my mom told me I couldnt. :( So we spent an hour on top of Massada and visited the first EVER synagogue. We even saw a boy celebrating his Bar Mitzvah. After that we went back down via cable car and had lunch and shopped. We got some fun dead sea mineral cosmetics. EXPENSIVE but hey we are only gonna do this once so why not! lol. After lunch we went to the Dead Sea. We went to a place called Mineral Spa or something like that and swam- or rather floated- in the Dead Sea. First we got in, and it was really cold!! Then we floated for about 20 minutes. Amazing really, but we had to be careful not to get it in our mouth- it tasted bitter- or eyes- it REALLY stung, or our ears- no problem. As you can see, me being me, accidentaly got it in every place your not supposed to! Ok so after floating we got mudded. It is said that the Dead Sea has healing powers especailly the minerals in the mud. So we put mud all over our bodies- mom and I did. EVEN IN OUR HAIR!! And the mud was BLACk- so we looked like black people. We waited for 15-20 minutes while the mud dried and then washed it off. It didnt come off very easily! We then went and floated in a hot spring pool that fed the dead sea but it wasnt in the dead sea, it was something different. It was VERY nice and warm, and sulfer-y. After spending some time in the sulfer hot water where we floated, just like in the sea itself. We took showers and got ready to head back. As we were driving back our guide let us off to take pictures of the 4 Dead Sea Scroll Cave, the library where the found a map of all the caves. That was pretty darn interesting. Anyway, our trip back to Tel Aiv was long because we hit rush hour traffic in Jerusalem. But once we got back I was pretty tired and just about fell into bed.

Today I think we are packing and taking it easy. We will walk to Appolonia which is a fortress on the coast I think. Apparently its really cool, and its close by. I will write about it when we get home to Louisville. I have had a good time and I dont really want to leave!
Anyway... off to breakfast- see I told you writing this would be the first thing that I would do today!!

update

Ok, well im really tired and probably wont write much tonight but i just wanted to say that i havent forgotten about my blog. I will update it tomorrow before or in between our events for the day. I will write about yesterday- which doesnt consist of much, we didnt even leave the house til 4pm, but I did have a new experience- like cooking snails- which took forever. And then I will also write about todays adventure to Massada and the Dead Sea- both were really interesting. Plus our guide let us stop and look at the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, very interesting. So I will write about everything tomorrow. Sorry to keep people waiting, if anyone is actually waiting that is!
Goodnight and i will write in the morning.

Jerusalem

So today was interesting. We went to Jerusalem. We first got up REALLY early like 6 am which is 12 midnight back home, and we went to a hotel in downtown Tel Aviv so that we could catch our little van, and tour guide. We went on this tour with two other groups of three people each. One group was two Canadians (saying eh? a lot) with a Israeli friend of theirs and the other group was a couple from Texas and the husbands younger brother. They were all very friendly people. Anyway we make our way to Jerusalem and I've got to say the way people drive around here is totally INSANE!! I dont understand it, i dont understand how there arent more wrecks here. The drivers are NUTS, anyway so we are driving to Jerusalem. We drive through the area that is around the West Bank, where all the fighting is but we were safe. There is a wall that is similar to the Berlin wall that separates the Palestine from the Israeli parts of this country. Its all very confusing but there is a wall that separates these two fighting nations. Ok, so we then went to Mount of Olives. It has an amazing view of Jerusalem, the one that people normally see. So we are looking at the view and then look up and theres a CAMEL!! And it has a saddle of sorts on it. And they are selling rides on the camel!! So we got on and went on a camel ride. It was AMAZING... SO fun and interesting. We just went around a circle a little bit, and then the man had him jogging. It was just so fun and it totally made my day!! It was a wonderful way to start the day. We then went down some really steep hills that they compare to San Francisco. And we pass the Garden of Gethsemane which is where Jesus was betrayed. And then we went inside the old city of Jerusalem itself. We started at the Western Wall, something that I had to cover my head for. It was really moving. And yes I wrote down a wish of mine and put it in the wall. I must say that being in Jerusalem, a place that Jesus was over 2000 years ago was VERY moving, and im not a religious person. So after the Western Wall we walked around more of the old city of Jerusalem and saw the stations of the cross. We saw nine of them anyway, i thought there were only nine but grandma thinks that there are twelve, but we saw nine. Then we went to where Jesus was crucified. We followed the path that he carried his cross on, talk about interesting and moving. Then we went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is on the land where he was crucified. This church was very ornate. Lots of detail and many fine things around this place. After seeing the place where he was crucified we went to the cave where he was buried. We actually went inside, it was really dark and kind of creepy, really small and just amazing. There were pieces of paper which i assume were prayer notes like the ones that people stuff into the Western Wall. After that we went shopping and had lunch, which for me was a piece of pita bread and a sprite! After lunch we went to the place where the Last Supper took place. Now its just an old mostly empty building but walking into it, I got a sense that something important happened there. We then went to drop off part of our group so that they could go to Bethlehem while we went to the Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial. We had to go through a check point in order to drop off the part of our group. It was kind of interesting because Bethlehem is controlled by the Palestines and Israeli's are NOT allowed to visit. So, our tour guide could NOT take these people to Bethlehem, we had to meet up with someone who could take them there. Well after they were headed to Bethlehem we went to the Holocaust museum, it was interesting. And there were a great deal of Israeli Army there. In Israel EVERYONE has to serve in the army, women for 2 years and men for 3, starting right out of high school. So these army people are my age and they are carrying around HUGE rifles! No in the museum but as they were leaving they all were attached to a rifle. This is just mind boggling to me. I mean I understand it I suppose but im not used to it yet. And honestly a lot of the guys here arent that bad to look at! Especially when they are in uniform, just had to say it, sorry everyone!! :) Anyway from the museum we met up with the people who went to Bethlehem and then came back to Tel Aviv. We havent done much since getting back and in fact i think everyone is asleep or getting ready to go to sleep. I dont think anyone has really gotten anything other than a glimpse of Ibrahim since we got back. Yusef says that he turns into a bear, so other than a weak attempt so see what he was up to we have left him alone!
Tomorrow is our day of rest! We are going to hang around the house and maybe visit some close by things. Nothing real big or exciting, but I will keep everyone posted.

Oo, one thing that I forgot to mention. While walking around in Jerusalem today I got a sunburn. This is after the guide was making fun of me because I am so white. He asked me to please go to the sea and get some color, I tried to explain to him that I just dont tan. And now I have proof that I just dont tan. We werent even out and about in the sun THAT much but I STILL got a sunburn, and because I was wearing the head scarf it is only sunburned on my left side... quite interesting. But my face didnt get sunburned. It got a nice healthy Tan!! :)
So til tomorrow... goodnight!

Oops, forgot to mention

So there have been some very funny times in the last couple of days and i shall reflect on those now. The first one was when we were going through security in Louisville. So the person looked at moms ticket and passport and then grandmas ticket and passport then looked at me and said "So i guess that makes you Jessica" to which i responded with a happy "I sure hope so" and then later realized i probably shouldnt joke about my identity with the security people at the airport.
Second... going through security again... grandma packed some yogurt, its not allowed but the head security guy asked about our destination and when he realized that it was FAR away he took the yogurt- that was still sealed- and scanned it for explosives... not really a funny story but something noteworthy.
Third, we had gotten to Atlanta, and mom was saying that she hoped the plane from Atlanta to Tel Aviv was larger than the one from Louisville to Atlanta. And i told her that it was.. she could even see the proof outside. I described the front of the plane as a dome and told her it was the dome over there and i pointed out the window. To which grandma says is it inside or outside? I looked at grandma and said "well grandma, planes are usually outside". A funny moment we had there. Sadly usually when we laugh on trips its at grandma's expense.
Fourth- on the plane from Atlanta to Tel Aviv... the headphones. hopefully everyone knows about standard airplane headphones, they curve around your ears and the plug into the seat. Well i look over at one point during the flight and mom is fighting with her headphones. So i put them on her ears. Then shes still struggling, well the headphones come with a one prong and a two prong, the two prong can come off depending on what kind of flight you have. So mom is trying to get the two prong and plugging it into the one prong that is on the seat. i carefully show her what shes doing wrong, and she starts laughing hysterically. all this happened with NO words exchanged!
i suppose thats the only really funny things here so far. But theres another mentionable piece of information. I am a VERY picky eater. Its something that my family knows how to deal with and so they basically ignore me and expect me to fend for myself. But other people cant bring themselves to ignore me. So they go out of their way to try and fix me foods that i might eat. Perfect example was tonights dinner. Ibrahim cooked chicken curry and realizing that i probably wouldnt eat it he made plain rice and peas and carrots. Which would have been fine. BUT he decided that i would need something more than that so he also cooked me hotdogs. But i dont eat hotdogs either!! Needless to say... i do just fine on my own, and people dont need to go out of their way to make me food that i will eat, because it may not work out the way its expected to! And with that i am gone. Til tomorrow!!

Israel- Flight and day 1: Jaffa

Well the flight over here was a little iffy. First we got a big snow storm at home which piled 12 inches of snow on the ground the day before we left. So we go to the airport a little earlier than usual just to make sure that we can still leave. Turns out our flight from Louisville to Atlanta was the only one that hadnt been cancelled for the enitire day. We were lucky and apparently meant to go on this trip. But we werent totally out of the clear. The plane was delayed about 2 hours. Which could have been a problem for our connecting flight but we had a 4 hour layover in Atlanta and so we were able to get food and sit in Atlants for a few minutes before we had to board. So it all worked out really well. The 11 hour plane flight was LONG.. REALLY LONG. Everyone had their own individual television screens and was able to choose to do several things like watch movies, play games, listen to music, or watch an episode of a television show like House or Eureka. So I first watched Enchanted. Love that movie. Then I tried to sleep but that didnt work out well on account of mom getting really sick. She was sick for about an hour but once she vomited she felt a lot better. Sorry for the gory details! Before mom got sick we had dinner, there was choice of pasta, chicken, bread and butter or cheese and crackers. Mom had the pasta, grandma had the chicken and i had the bread and butter! I think that we eventually all got some sleep, but not much and it was very crowded on the plane. They had breakfast which was like self serve bananas and muffins. Pretty good actually. I actually first looked at the clock when we were five hours into the flight. So after that i tried to sleep more and ended up watching The Game Plan. During that movie is when i got my best sleep on the plane! After watching The Game Plan we were served a lunch of sorts, they offered pizza but mom, grandma and i just ate the fruit that they gave us. Then we made it to Tel Aviv. Actually we were 30-45 minutes early in arriving and Alia was not yet at the airport, so we were able to exchange money and kind of just cool for a few minutes. Alia picked us up and took us around a dark Tel Aviv. Interesting but really at that point i was ready to kind of sleep!! But was glad for the tour this morning. We had dinner and hung out and then slept.

This morning, we were all woken up by the burglar alarm which was set off by grandma. She didnt realize that the downstairs living room type thing was out of her zone. But it was not a terrible wake up call! We had breakfast and loaded 6 grown people into a small VW Jetta. We were squished. Grandma was sitting on my lap. So we went to drop Ibrahim and Yusef off at school and Alia took us to a hotel so that we could see about tours to Jerusalem. She then went off to work and we booked our tour and walked from Tel Aviv to Jaffa. It wasnt a long walk and it was along the Mediterranean Sea which was nice. It kept looking like it was going to rain but never did, yay. On the way to Jaffa we stopped at a small museum which honestly i still dont know what it was about but it was a nice stop. Once in Jaffa we mostly just looked around and went up and down streets. We went to a flea market which kind of stunk really bad and it was just people selling things that they didnt want anymore. And we also went to a few shops. Apparently you are supposed to barter here but none of us are really good at it so we just ended up spending the asked price! We saw a shop that sold Hookas (spelling?) and so we took our picture there! We had lunch at a little place where the waiter didnt know ANY english so other patrons translated for us. Mom and grandma ate weird food and I ate pita bread and drank sprite! After lunch we felt as if we had seen all of Jaffa so we just found a place to sit and hang out while we waited for the boys to get out of school. We met up with the boys at around 2:30 and were going to just ride with them in their cab home but had trouble because taxi drivers cant take more than 4 people. it is a serious crime and their licenses could be taken on the spot. So mom, grandma, Ibrahim and myself rode in the taxi home and i think that Yusef just walked home. But we got back to Alias and mom and grandma crashed. Ibrahim fixed some tea and we did homework and then i crashed. I woke up at 5:30 and just kind of relaxed some more. It is now 7pm and mom and grandma are still asleep, while i am writing this. I assume we will have dinner in a little while, Chicken Curry i am told. OOH almost forgot... they have orange trees right outside their house here and they are very good but leave my lips burning after i eat them!
So I suppose that is it until next time, hopefully tomorrow. The game plan is Old and New Jerusalem tomorrow!

What i dont know

Some people may think that they know me but really how can they know me when i dont even know myself. Life sucks, not always but usually and theres no getting around that. Things almost never work out the way you want them to and even if they did theres something right around the corner that will shoot good things down. I live for myself, i usually like myself, but i am so tired with putting up with everyone elses stuff. Its not my fault that you didnt make it to lunch, i dont have to call you we eat at the same time every day, or just about, sometimes people are early and sometimes they are late but EVERY day we eat at just about the same time. Oh and wanting to go somewhere with me after months of not talking to me im sorry i just dont think im ready for that. You dont have to tell anyone anything, i can make my own plans. Seriously. There are some people from home that i dont mind not seeing, there are the people from back home that were toxic to me and its one thing to talk to them but an entirely different thing to see them. I dont like to be pushed aside for other things that are kind of trivial in your life, and you know what im not going to push you away unless you are just driving me crazy and honestly I like to have time to myself. But if everytime that we make plans you just decide that it cant happen then soon enough im just going to stop making plans with you. There are other people in this world who like my company and who are nice to me. As you can see im not really in a good mood and if this seems personal its not. If i happen to be going on a trip with a guy that you may like and you found out from him im sorry, but honestly the reason i didnt tell you is because you hurt my feelings, telling me that when i wore eyeliner i looked dead, thanks thats a great feeling to have. Oh and dont forget when a comment is made about me in my sorority letters, that just plain hurt. I dont think people mean to hurt me usually but it happens, i am a very senstive person. Im not going to take of my letters just because you ask me to, i was asked by people to put those letters on and i already feel leary to be happy in the sorority, not for my sake but because of the people around me. Damn it im just not emotionally stable to handle all the bull that has been thrown my way. So if i feel distant its because im afraid that if i say something then i will be shot down, i dont need your approval to be myself but then again i dont need your help in making me feel invisible. I can fall flat on my face all by myself. And yes there are things that i am slow in getting, and i will laugh at myself for some of these things but when i say that im not in the mood, im not and i dont find it funny. So please dont laugh at it because it will just make me angry and i dont like being angry.
I am venting, dont take everything said in this post to heart but these are the things bothering me. I dont need your help to be myself but i do need you to be there for me when im lying on the ground. So thanks to those of you who have been there. And to those who are trying to help me, making plans for me, being sarcstic about things that i have done that werent the greatest decisions, thanks for being the ones who make me stronger, maybe when its all over i wont be so sensitive.
The last thing on my mind, its the leaving the country bit. I am so happy to be getting out of this country for a week, this trip cant come soon enough. Oddly enough its trips away from home, away from KY that center me. So heres to Israel, the trip that will make me feel like myself again.

There's only one final between me and second semester of college

So this semester has been stressful and sickly, new and scary, fun and weary. But its almost over and im gonna recap a little.
The first week of classes i was incredibly homesick.. thinking that i would even have to transfer colleges, just to be home again. I was also really sick sick, to the point where i couldnt talk, talk about an interesting first few days of classes.

Then i decided to drop one class. That was kind of a hard decision but totally worth it now that i look back.

Then the second week of classes, my grandma passed away. That was such a hard time but honestly i think that college, and being away from home helped me move on faster.

October was fairly uneventful and nice i suppose... Even if it was a little stressful.

November, i stayed my first weekend at Transy, mostly because my parents came for family weekend. Then the week before Thanksgiving i had a cousin pass away. Another hardship but as my chem professor said, you are only given what you can handle, even if you dont think you can handle it.

December has been short, and quick... Basically two weeks in december and the first full week i had two test and this week i have two finals... hmm... so December has been stressful but that will be over in two days when i get to go home for 3 weeks.

Up next? More chem and spanish and FLA... but adding Bio too... hopefully ill make it!
Til next time...
Jessie

What is this feeling?

I feel as if you are right beside me,
though I know you are nowhere near
Its hard to know what to do
when I dont have any real contact with you
i want to be with you
but its so hard because of the worlds between us
you are the one who grounds me
and for now you are so far from me
ill see you in a matter of weeks
but its not soon enough
i feel like the world cant get to me when im with you
and thats the best feeling in the world
i dont know if its something that will last
or something that you feel
but that feeling is what i long for
i think about it all the time
and have the need for it now
life is rough
and you will be able to help me figure it out
maybe we are meant to be
or maybe we are just supposed to be friends
whichever it is i cant wait to see your smiling face
and be held in your arms, even if we are just friends
so thinking of you til then
I cant wait to see you in Israel

Its been a while

So its been a while since I last wrote...
First of all my grandma died in September. It was a hard loss but I think she is in a better place, she was suffering at the end and it was no fun.
Second, I am almost done with my first semester at college, its definately been challenging and I may not have the best grades but I think that I have grown tremendously, and I have learned lots of things too.
Third, I started to like someone here at Transy but I realized that it wasnt him that I liked I was projecting my feelings for someone that I dont get to see very often on to this guy at Transy. I wasnt really able to start a conversation with Transy guy and I was more shy than I normally am and I knew that something was off and Im not able to put it in words but I now know where my heart belongs, or at least for now.

Other things... I am going to Israel in March, hopefully, and that makes me so happy. I cannot wait.

I dont really have a poem to put on here right now, Im feeling just a bit sick, both of my parents had the flu this past week and I was home for the weekend... great, I am going to get this.

At this point I think my heart is with a person who is not living in the United States at the moment, I dont know how this will work out, though I really hope it does, I will keep this updated... or at least I hope I will.

Back to college life for a minute... I have met some really incredible people here at Transy, and I am so thankful that they put up with me and are my friends, they are ALL amazing!

This is me

So this is to make of list of things that make up me.
I am a tomboy that can sometimes be a girly girl.
I fall hard and fast for guys and I dont get over them easily.
That being said, I care deeply about the people that I am around.
I dont like to party, drink or do drugs.
I love my family, and I spend as much time with them as possible.
My neices are very important to me and I want to always be there for them.
I love animals, I have all my life.
I fight for what I believe in.
I get hurt incredibly easily.

And thats it for now... if i think of more ill write them here!

Road to life

So here i am just shy of two weeks before i move off to college in Lexington. There are many things running through my head as there usually are and again, this is my place to vent. Ah, where to start. Well i suppose i could start off with my feelings about college. I am told that its an amazing time in life but i am pretty much completely and totally scared of whats going to happen. Although i have to admit that im incredibly excited also. There is so much going on right now and its all scary and exciting. I have to admit too that i am worried, not so much for myself rather i am worried about my family. They all have things going on and life, gosh life is not nearly as perfect as it used to be! As for me, i cant stop thinking about my future. Not my college future, but my life after college. For some reason i have started to become somewhat infactuated with what im going to do in life as well as who i am going to spend my life with and where my life is going to take me. I really hope that i make lots of money as well as my future husband and i hope that we get to travel lots and have a family that appreciates the things that i have grown up to appreciate. Well as usual when i type my things out they seem smaller than they do in my head. Thats a good thing i suppose. Well, ill be heading out now... and ill try to keep things small! til next time,
Jessie

Hard facts of my life

So this is no poem. This is no bad news, nor is it any good news. This is me thinking about the hard facts of my life, trying to understand some of the things that i do whether they are important facts or not, it doesnt matter. Ive been going though some things lately and im just trying to wrap my head around these facts. So i suppose i will do this in a list.

Boys- at the beginning of this summer i found myself being liked by two guys. Since being liked by one guy is incredibly rare for me, two was almost imaginable and so i told myself that would make no commitments, meaning i wouldnt date anyone over the summer. Ok at this point i will talk about the specific guys. There was M, my ex-boyfriend. And A, a guy that i met at prom. M and i went fishing a couple of times and we texted pretty much nonstop. That was nice but i realized, for the second time that i didnt really like him. I liked that he was a nice guy but i really couldnt see myself dating him. Then there was A, well we met at prom and then talked some on the internet. He went on a mission trip and i went to Arizona. We got back on the same day and his church had a welcome back party and i was invited. So we got to hang out then and then other times. Which was nice and i really like A but for some reason im keeping him at an arms distance. I know there are many reasons for this distance that im putting, one is that we are going to college and arent going to be around each other at all. I feel that the distance really has nothing to do with A but at the same time everything to do with him. After all its this amazing guy that im holding at an arms distance for no good reason. So thats the basics of one problem. Oh, wait, theres more to this problem. Ok so now that we've gotten the M and A people taken care of theres is this other person, he his I. I and i have only known each other for about 3 years, we met because our mothers were friends when they were growing up. Ok so i just saw I for the first time in 3 years. This kind and myself became fast friends 3 years ago and have been in touch even though he is living abroad. But friendship is all that was there. This trip, we didnt get to spend a great deal of time together but we were there. Again things werent like lovey dovey or anything like that. Far from it infact. But since ive gotten home there have been these bugs in my head. Not bugs like "i cant live my life without this guy" but rather those saying "i could definately live my life with this guy." Im not by any means understanding all of these thoughts or lack there of but this is just what im feeling.

Then theres the im going off to college problem. My mom and i have always gotten along great, but recently we have been getting into a great deal of arguments. They arent any fun, but the saddest thing is that these fights are pushing us away and at a really bad time. I need her and i want to be around her and hang out with her before i go off to college. But unfortunately this is becomming harder and harder because anytime that we are around each other for an extended period of time we fight. This fighting is breaking me apart. My dad and my brother feel as if its because she is worried and scared for me. But whatever it is she needs to see that i am going to be ok without her but i want to hang out with her. This fighting though is just making me to desperately want to get away from this house. I want to be at college but then again im scared. See, im having lots of problems! Starting today however, my father seems to have taken up the agnst that my mother has been giving me. Or maybe its just me and everyone else is just annoying me and i need to go to transy. Who knows.

Ok i think im going to stop there because as i have written this tears have come to my eyes several times. Not a good thing.

Oh wait. I almost forgot, this past Tuesday my father had another one of his heart issues. Its scary for him but also for me and the rest of us. But on the drive home i was just so annoyed with him because he kept saying that hes basically the perfect patient. When in reality hes not. I love my father but even though he claims that he doesnt smoke, he does, he smokes cigars, and granted its not all the time but it is when he is in a car. This really upsets me. And he says that he exercises 4-5 times a week. Yes he goes on walks, but its not rigorous activity. Im not going to go any further.

By the way, though i understand if some people read this they will be hurt and for that im sorry but this is what im feeling at the minute. Well these things and im hurt, scared, and totally confused.

PINK JEEP!!!

So Thursday we drove up to Sedona. Its different from Phoenix in that instead of all desert its all rock! Red rock realy pretty. On our way to Sedona, actually really close to the city itself we stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Its a really neat church that is built into one of the red rock formations. We spent a little while there and my dad een lit a candle for out family. It was just a really cool church i dont know how else to explain it! Then we went into downtown Sedona. And on the recommendation of a friend, Jennifer we decided to take a Pink Jeep tour. What happens is you basically go 4 wheeling in a pink jeep. WE climbed around all kinds of rocks and even went up and down some of the formations. I think that this was THE BEST part of the trip. At one point we were going down one of the formations at a 45 degree angle! IT was SO FREAKIN fun!And while we were in Sedona we shopped!! Good times shopping. There were some cool shops and things to do. Over all from this trip i came home with 6 new t-shirts!!
Stay tuned for Friday's story!
Jessie

Off Day

Again.. i got a little behind on writing about the vacation but i did take notes silly as that might sound so that i wouldnt leave anything out. Ill even separate the days by making them different posts so its easier to understand. Ok so Wednesday we drove homre from Tuscon and on the way back to Phoenix we stopped at the San Xavier Mission. Its a mission church that is on a indian reservation and it was really neat and moving. The inside was just so beautiful. There was reconstruction going on and near the construction site there was a sign warning about lightning. It said that if you hear thunder or see a storm coming in then you should leave that area because lightning was very dangerous and that area was NOT safe during a storm. It kinda made me laugh. After that we finished the drive back to our hotel in Phoenix. And we spent the rest of the day in our hotel. Just kinda hanging out and reading and all that good stuff.
That was Wednesday...stay tued for Thursday!
Jessie

Tuscon

So i know this is a day late but its better late than never! yesterday we went to Tuscon. We took kinda f a long way there and went through Saguaro National Park and the Senora Desert Museum. So Tuscon is like 2 hours away. And on the way there we passsed an Ostrich farm! we didnt go there but it was kinda of a fummy thing to see. Ok so we went first to saguaro National Park and it was kinda cool and interesting, and very cactusy! That isnt a work but i like it anyway! There are lots and lots of cactus in the park. Which is probably not a bad thing! So there really wasnt many interesting things there other than the cacti so we drove down the road and to the Sedona Desert Museum. It was a pretty cool little museum. There was an outside path that took you through many parts of a desert and it was almost like a zoo. They had lots of different animals in various habitats. They had hummingbirds and javainas (spelling?!) and coyotes and rattlesnakes! They had all kinds of animals. The only down side was of course the heat!! Funny story: I was ooking at a t-shirt and trying to figure out if it would fit me. Well the man at the store said that i could try it on so i stepped into a closet to try on this shirt. it fit and so after putting on my other shirt i stepped out so that we could buy the new shirt. Well five minutes go by and i look at my shoulder. I noticed that a seem was facing me and i thought "thats not right" so i looked at the design on my shirt and well my shirt was inside out. I put it on inside out after trying on the other shirt!! I had a good laugh at that for about 5 minutes and since there wasnt a bathrom around me when i oticed that i had it on inside out i walked around for a few minutes with my shirt inside out!! It was a embarrassing thing to do but i got a good laugh out of it and thats all that matters! After the desert museum we went to my mom;s cousins house. And we met my second cousins. Olivia who's 13 and Jol whos 20 i think. They were very nice their mm, my moms cousin, BA was not home at the time, she works for American Airlines and was going to the airport to pick up her husband. Anyway so Joel and Olivia were the only ones that were home when we got there. So we lounged around the pool (they had a very nice inground pool that went from like 3 or 4 feet to like 8 or more feet and it had a diving board at one end). So we lounged around and went swimming. Then BA and her husband, Jason brought home soe diner and we all ate and chatted. It was a pleasant evening and then we went to bed. So thts it for yesterday. I am going to write a separate post for today! Later ya'll!!
Jessie

I dont think ill ever know why its 'heard' rather than 'herd'

Ok well to explain the title: we went to the Heard Museum. Its this museum that focuses on the Native Americans of this part of the country. It was a pretty interesting museum. But the museum didnt really deal with the sense of hearing. I could see why it would be called the Herd museum because many indian peoples followed the herds of te animals that they hunted. So i really dont understand why its Heard rather than Herd but it doesnt matter does it?! After the Heard Museum we went to a ghost town. It was called Goldfield Ghost Town, and mine. It was preety cool place too. WE did one of those old timey pictures and i got to be a saloon girl!! Which some people would today calla hooker! :) It was fun and at least i didnt have to go out wearing the clothes i tok he picture in because that would just be too much for me to handle!! The ghost town also had a reptile exhibit and Arizona has at least 13 different types of rattlesnakes. This exhibit had all of the types and they were just a little scary. Needless to say im glad they were in cages!! So that abous sums up today! Til tomorrow!!

Arizona and the architecture

So today was the first full day in AZ. It was pretty good. We got up kinda late, which is understandable because of all the traveling that we had yesterday. We had breakfast, i made a waffle... it was good. Then we went to Taliesin West. A home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Hes my favorite architect. MAN are his houses WONDERFUL... if ever i becomerich im going to buy blueprints for a house that he has designed because i love his houses so much. So we went on a 90 inute tour of the house which was so fun. While on tht tour, i got a great start to a nice tan!! Then after that we went and saw some petrogyphs.that was fun and the signs on the side of the path said watch out for rattlesnakes!! EEEK... good thing we didnt see or hear any!! Well that was all that we really did today. So ill write later... Hasta luego!!
Jessie

Flying to Arizona

So as promised to many people. Here is day one of my daily travel blog! Yesterday we left KY for AZ. We left KY at 4 EST. We arrived in AZ at 9 AZ time or 12 midnight KY time! S then we slept. What a boring first day. The fun things about yesterday were getting lost and dancing to electric slide at the hotel. Apparently there was a graduation party going on and so i felt compelled to dance as we were checking in!! Another fun part of yesterday was the car rental. See i had my sights set on renting a Jeep. I wanted that SO freakin badly. But it just wasnt meant to be. Nope we got a newish Rav4 instead. for those reading who dnt know me i drie a Rav4. But the one that we rented its way more spacious and the back seats move almost as much as the front ones. This is something that i find VERY exciting. OH, its kinda like sittingin bulkhead seating on the airplane, which i got to d for the first time yesterday. Oh, man it was WONDERFUL!! The plane rides werent bad, on the first flight we were on the very last seats on the plane and then we were in bulkhead seating on the second plane with two airly cute guys sitting behind us. See i notice the important stuff in life!! Well we are about to start today's adventure so ill write later. by the way there are LOTS of spanish speaking people here!! hasta Luego!! (see you later)
Jessie

After Graduation

So the last post was not very long, i was distracted to say the least. After graduation i went to Outback with my family, i paid, arent i so nice?! My brothers and father and my nephew had shirts with a picture of me saying "My little sister"; "Daddy's Little Girl"; "My Aunt Jess" respectively. Seeing those almost made me cry! Other than that graduation was just something to get through. As i said earlier i wont really miss many people but rather the teachers that i have grown to love over the past couple of years. So im happy to be graduated and excited to move to the next point in my life: college!

As for right now, I am preparing to go to Arizona for a week. I am packing!! YAY!! So i hope to write like i did when i went to Hawaii, stay tuned. Also, in July i am going to Washington DC for the vet conference with my mom. So look forward to my daily travel blogs!!

Last thing before im done for the night. This summer is going to be a busy one for me. I have 4 jobs lined up, though im only currently working two. I have a job at my chiropractors office, im working with my mom at the vet clinic. The other two that i have lined up, though havent started yet is a tutoring job for a friends son and a decorating job for my friend who received Yeager as a service dog this month!! SO though my summer is going to be busy i will try to write soon!

Til next time....
Jessie

Graduation

So tonight i am graduating. Its kinda exciting but then again its also very sad. See im really not going to miss the people that im graduating with, well at least i wont miss most of them. Its sad though because its the end of a huge chapter in my life. Its funny how for 12 years your parents make you go to school and then one day you are on your own, deciding whether or not you are going to go to school. I just want to be me for me but right now i dont know exactly who i am. So i guess this summer is going to be a mission, if you will to find who i am. Well ive got to go. Will write more later! Til next time.....
Jessie