You don't have to read this.

i am losing patience. i don't like this feeling. but i just am really frustrated, and nothing is working out the way i want it to. i wish i could customize my entire life, every little detail. just go through and build a little Sims life for myself. i want to be passing all of my classes like i have been for the past 12 years, i want to not wreck my car on wildlife, i want my best friends to actually live near me, i want to be able to do wrestling cheer because i love it, i want to have enough money to pay for my cruise and to afford clothes that aren't falling apart, i want to go on the music department's trip to California for the final time, i want unlimited texting and service at my house so i can communicate with my far away best friends, i want to go back to Lumberton and see all of the kids i grew up with, i want to be certain of which college i want to go to, i want a normal-looking haircut, i want to stop being constantly exhausted all the time, and i want the only thing that can always make me smile for weeks on end without fail. materialistic as this may sound... i kind of don't care. because my toes are cold and i have no bedsheets and i have weird dreams. thus, i am exempt from your judgement.

And then some.

following yesterday's awesome awesome experiences, i hit a fawn this morning on the way to seminary. it is dead. fortunately though, Missy is not. i was pretty proud of myself though, i didn't even cry. (which is what i usually do if anything bad happens to my car. like... at all.) i've got some photos of the damage, but there's also some other stuff that you can't see. like, how something happened to the thing that holds my washer fluid, because that was full a week ago, and it's been leaking out all over the place all day, so i'm down to... well... none. i considered taking a picture of the deer for like .2 seconds, then i realized that that is sick and morbid and plus i didn't even want to look at it, let alone document it. you're welcome.

i'm actually not as mad about it as you'd think, because i can't really blame the deer (i guess i could, but what's the point? as i type this, it's being eaten by scavenger birds. i just can't bring myself to put the blame on dead Bambi, you know?), and i don't blame myself because it just blind-sided me. it's not like it was chillin in the middle of the road when i wasn't paying attention and i just mobbed over it or anything. it came barrelin at me from a blind slope on the right side of the road. i did try and avoid it by steering left, but that became my downfall, as i later found out when i realized that if i had just hit the brakes and kept going straight, i would've missed it entirely. oh well.

My fender is all crazied up. And there's deer hair stuck in weird places.

Just a different angle so you can see that HUGE dent under my headlight. Hmm... i wonder if i can get new headlights out of this...

When i was driving home from school today, i came up over the hill just before where i'd hit the deer, and i saw that i left some massive skid marks. So i turned around and took a picture.

also, Dad pointed out that my car isn't even supposed to leave skid marks. but as some of us may remember, Missy's ABS system is... well pretty much nonexistent. hence my 2 accidents involving sliding off the road in snow, due to locked-up brakes. poor poor Missy... she's blowin light bulbs all the time, her headlights have no distinction between high-beams and low-beams, she's got a banged up fender now, some of her paint is chipping (due to the deer. awesome.), her average MPG has been suffering lately, and she's pretty dirty. sad. :(

well folks, it's about 4:00 in the afternoon, but i'm going to go to bed. why? because (don't judge me) i am going to the midnight showing of "New Moon" tonight in Hurricane, but i still have school in the morning. so i'm going to attempt to get some sleep in before i have to head out for that. whoo!

P.S. i took those pictures on my new phone. pretty dang good ones, i'd say. (: haha

Jennifer's No Good Horrible Very Bad Day

WARNING:
The following content consists of a huge rant of a 17-year-old girl that has a tendancy to overdramatize things that, in all reality, are not that big of a deal. It also may contain the words "PMS", "menopausal", and other possibly traumatizing phrases to those who are not expecting it. Plus, this is kind of long. You're welcome for the warning.

today was one of those days that probably would have been normal, were it not for just a couple of things that went badly. and because of those things, you begin thinking about the rest of the day and all of the other things that went wrong, and then it strikes you that it was just a horrible, horrible day. and like i said... today was one of those days.

to be fair, there were only 2 things today that just made my mood drop fast, and everything else was just kind of fell into place to make this a bad day. some of the little things included:

--Waking up just late enough to think i had time to get ready, then realizing that i couldn't do my make up and still be on time to seminary. Plus my hair turned out looking funny.

--On my way into town, i saw a deer that was kind of in the left lane, and there was an oncoming vehicle. i tried to do a courtesy by beeping my horn to kind of push the deer the rest of the way off the road, but what does it do instead? Double back directly in front of me. Duh. (But my plan worked... the other car didn't have to worry about hitting it.)

--A kid in my seminary class (that gets on my nerves anyways) said something to me at the start of class, so i turned around to answer him. But before i could say anything, he got an honest-to-goodness look of shock on his face and he said "Wow, Jennifer. You look... uh... tired."

--Later, before i had a chance to actually put on my make up, one of my best friends (who is an extremely unobservant boy, bless his heart) said to me "Jennifer, where are your glasses today?" "What?" "Oh wait, you don't wear glasses, huh?" (He couldn't figure out why i looked so radically different.)

--i learned that our boys basketball team doesn't even play Millard at all until January 26th. That is really, really far away. Hopefully the girls play them sooner.

--Since today was a half day, i went to X-Press feeling like i should go to lunch afterwards... but i didn't get to.

--i was reminded (once again), this time by Mrs. Terry, that i am completely broke and that i need another job desperately.

--One of my best friends has been throwing a hissy fit for the past couple of days and absolutely refuses to talk to me for an unknown reason. Mainly, he (yes, "he") is just being a chick. Nothing is better than a overdramatic teenage girl... except for maybe an overdramatic teenage boy that is acting like a girl.

--I had no one to go eat lunch with when school got out, and i didn't want to go by myself, so i didn't eat lunch.

--I had like an hour and a half to kill between school and my first appointment of the day, and no one to kill it with, because all of my friends were either in dance practice, preparing for Sterling Scholar interviews, or in EdNets. Or being menopausal.

--I spilled my $.32 Coke on my shoes. :(

--When i went to the dentist, i got the World's Most Aggressive Dental Hygienist trying to shove that vibrate-y cleaning pokey thing BETWEEN my teeth, mostly in places that i can barely get floss through, let alone a shaking metal stick. Good one, guy.

--Well, i'm kind of PMSing.

now for the 2 big fat stupid things that ruined my Wednesday. first of all, i think most of you probably know of my recent Chemistry struggles. if not, i'll give you a quick rundown: i struggle in Chemistry. my first term final grade was a C+, right smack in the middle of otherwise straight A's. i attempted to drop that class--as in, i had the form signed, turned in, and was already moved on to performing a new class schedule--but then the principal stepped in and we had a nice little afternoon of him and the school councelor telling me i was a failure if i dropped Chemistry. sooooo i got back in after one day. back to the present. i got my midterm report for that class today, and i currently am running at a very, very low C-, because i got a 34/57 on an exam that i studied with the teacher for. obviously, something here isn't right. so after i got that, and after holding back my fury and disappointment for the rest of the class period, i stormed to the councelor's office and showed him the report. then i said "look what you made me do."
"did you study for the exam?"
"for hours."
"did you study with Mrs. Titus?"
"for as long as she could."
"well maybe you should go in every day after school."
i couldn't handle that nonsense, so i walked out with my ugly report, while he called out his door "You know Jennifer, i really do think you're a great student. You can do this." bad deal.

next extra bad thing: i usually tend to love getting haircuts. i get excited for them, because my hair will get to a point where i just think it looks gross and shapeless, so i like to go to the local salon and say "cut it short with lots of layers" and it turns out adorable. however, through a series of unfortunate miscommunication, i ended up getting a hair appointment with a local lady who works out of her house (not the salon that i like), from whom i have never, ever come away with a good feeling about my hair. i ended up having her cut my hair anyways, and... well... i kind of think i look like a cross between Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" and my friend Austin from Freedom Academy. it was worse when i very first got it cut, but only because the lady not only didn't style it at all, but she parted my hair almost directly down the middle, so it just looked bad bad bad. but then i came home, straightened it, parted it in the right place, so it's... better. i think i'll get used to it.

however, since this is in the top ten pissiest posts i've ever done, i decided to give put some light to good things about this haircut:

This is how i'll probably wear it most often...


...unless i'm feeling particularly emo/urban that day...


...or maybe even like wearing a barrette that i can't wear with longer hair...


...and where is the rule that says you HAVE to part your hair?

but in all reality...

...maybe i should just wear a hat and solve my problems.

also on a slightly brighter note, i have 3 of the best friends i could ever ask for. unfortunately... those 3 best friends all happen to live very far away from me. to Ashton, Nikiah, and Rendon... thanks for helping me through my No Good Horrible Very Bad days, even though you're far away. (: keep it real.

The time has come.

i have to start deciding what college to go to. i'll explain to you my dilemma:

as you may or may not be aware, i am doing Sterling Scholar this year in the English category. no one is running against me, so i automatically become the English Sterling Scholar winner for Kanab High School. duh. well, Dixie State College in St. George has a deal with Sterling Scholar that they give a full tuition scholarship to the winners from high schools. meaning, i've already got tuition paid for at Dixie for my whole first year of college. unfortunately... i really don't want to go to Dixie. financially speaking, it's certainly my best option. it used to be that the whole Sterling Scholar scholarship covered tuition, housing, books, etc. but i learned yesterday that now it's just tuition. still, that's a huuuuge chunk of college pain taken care of. but like i said, Dixie appeals to me in no way, except that it's close to home, it's warm, and my friend Dustin is going there the first year, and he can hook me up with tons of concert tickets. haha

another one of my options is BYU. i've always been a big fan of BYU, and it's always been my dream to go there. i haven't sent in my application yet (i still need to get my ecclesiastical endorsement), but i started it at least. Mom and Dad even said that they really want me to go to BYU, because it's a "tradition", but i don't know... like i said, i've always wanted to go there, but i've been changing my mind a lot lately. i don't really think i could even get into BYU in the first place, seeing as how i only got a 26 on my ACT this last time, and the majority of the people attending BYU have like a 28. even if i did get accepted though, it is crazy expensive to go to school there and live there and everything. as for BYU-Idaho... it used to be my second choice, now it's probably like my 3rd. no offense to all of my siblings that went there, but it just doesn't really strike a chord with me. i can't seem to psych myself up to live in Rexburg at all.

on the other hand, we have Southern Utah University. i love this school. it's where i went to Girls State, so that's how i knew that i'd like the campus and everything. also, after talking to friends who go there and the ambassadors and everything from SUU, i get really excited when i think about going. they have an awesome, awesome psychology program (which is what i want to go into) and best of all? Nikiah is planning on going to SUU after she graduates from high school and Snow College, so we could be roommates and such.

yesterday (Friday the 13th... hmm...) was "Distinguished Scholars Day" at SUU, which Ashley, Nikiah and i (among several other Kanab people, plus my friend Clay from Millard) were all invited to. we had some workshops like On-Campus Housing, Getting Involved, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Study Abroad, etc. after that was some group activities with the students, then went on to tour the campus. Mom and Dad weren't able to come until later in the day, since Mom had to work in Kanab until 1:30, but i had ridden up with Ashley and her mom so i could be there at the start of the day. anyways, they split all the kids up by their intended majors (mine was "HSS-Psychology", HSS meaning Humanities and Social Sciences), then again so that there were 4-6 people per tour guide. i ended up tagging along with Nikiah and her parents, and we were the only ones in our tour group, which was led by a guy named Skyler. he was awesome. he showed us around campus, and we eventually got up with Mom and Dad right before we were shown to Cedar Hall... which happens to be where i want to live. Juniper Hall is where i stayed at Girls State, and i barely made it through a week. i can't imagine living there for months and months. Eccles is highly discouraged for use by freshmen, since it's kind of a secluded living space, and isn't exactly social, which is one thing they kind of want freshmen to focus on. Cedar Hall is right in the middle, where it's a lot nicer than Juniper, but also more social than Eccles.

so here is my actual dilemma: i've already landed a free year at Dixie, but i really want to go to SUU. i know i could get a ton of scholarships to SUU to make it cheaper, but it would still be more expensive than Dixie, but i would be happier. technically, i could go to Dixie first, then transfer to SUU. however, if i do that, any scholarships i earn at SUU will expire, and i will pay out the butt to go to the school i wanted to go to in the first place. so i just don't know what to do.

actually, this would be considered (as my mom would put it) counting my chickens before they hatch. see, i've applied to both Dixie and SUU, but i haven't really been accepted yet. however, cocky as this may sound, i pretty much know for a fact i'm going to get in both places. my ACT score and GPA are high enough to get me into both, so i'm not too worried about that. but still... i'm really kind of stressing about this. i really want to go to SUU, but what if i can't afford it? what if i have to go to Dixie on my scholarship and just work my tail-end off in St. George so i can afford to go to SUU in Cedar City my sophomore year? well heck, what if i don't get in anywhere? what if i fail life?

meanwhile, i'm attempting to pass Chemistry and high school, get another job so i can afford to go on the Bahamas cruise in June AND the music department California trip in April, and i might possibly do wrestling cheer this winter, all while trying not to lose my mind. i think i need a hug. :(

Fury and Rage!

so you may have noticed that on my sidebar thing, under favorite books and TV shows, i have like 5 Jodi Picoult books listed. this is due to the fact that she is an incredibly gifted writer with shockingly accurate metaphors and descriptions, and she has the most intense plots. however, i just want to do a little rant on the one thing i hate hate hate about Picoult books...

let's just say that yesterday, i was coming to the end of "Handle With Care", and i was thinkin "oh i know where this is going." and i did. so i was all "hurray for me, i guessed the ending and it's exactly how i wanted it to end." however, i read the great ending... but then the book wasn't over. there was a whole other chapter after that. it was after reading this chapter that i literally threw the book across the room and started to cry because i was soooo mad.

i swear, some of her books, you finish it and then you just have to ask, "what the *&%^&$ was even the point of that &$&#~* book?!?!" because you HAVE your happy ending, you HAVE what you wanted to happen, you HAVE the $8,000,000. but then the book continues after everything, and then it all goes to crap and the entire book feels like it was just a waste. i know this is silly because it's a book, and it didn't actually happen, and the actual point of a book is to occupy my time and expand my mind. but still, it makes me crazy. but do you want to know the one thing that still makes me even madder about Jodi Picoult's books?

when i went to school today, i turned in "Handle With Care"... and immediately began looking for any of her other books that i haven't read yet. i'm apparently a glutton for stupid endings.

Singin' In The Rain!

that was the theme of our concert that X-Press had earlier this week. since i really don't feel up to narrating very much, i'll do more picture-posting and captioning. (:

(that was our theme. obviously.)

X-Press!




the boys "reelin' with a feelin'" during "Splish Splash"... they got props. ha.

i got to introduce "Weep No More." this was me saying "Well... we're singing this song at a Singin' In The Rain concert because well, when it rains, we shouldn't weep anymore!"

Judah. Is so freaking cool. he doesn't even need music to accompany us.

that's me. i sing. (:
so, we sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with X-Pressions. this was what we did when we said the words "the lion"... little was i aware that Andrew gets really, really dramatic when he sings this part. this is pretty much the X-Press photo of the year. what a guy.

now, we're done with the fun songs. now, we work on Christmas music. now, we order formals to get ready for Christmas. now, we sing "Breath Of Heaven" so often we think we need an actual breath from heaven to rescucitate us after we pass out from singing it too much. now is when we start praying for competition season to hurry up and come. not that i'm not jazzed to the max for Christmas... i just don't love singing Christmas songs for 2 months straight. dig?

Let the countdown begin...

i'm going to be 18 in a month and a half.

i need to go beat up some little kids while i still can.