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One of my parakeets died about fifteen minutes ago. The green one. The yellow one is a bit distraught and keeps singing and running around her cage looking at where the green one died, trying to find her.

I'm not entirely sure what killed her. I think it was similar to what happened to my blue one, a few years ago. She was about middle aged, for a parakeet.

I watched her have a seizure sort of thing. There really wasn't anything i could do. I had my dad pick her up and put her in the brown bag, because I couldn't get myself to touch her. My dad picked her up by her tail and dropped her in the bag I was holding. Ugh.

I took her outside and buried her by the tree near the far corner of our main lot, before the woods. My blue one is buried around there. i can't tell exactly where anymore because my parents dug out a lot of the bushed and chopped up some of the trees.

Tomorrow morning i'm going out to get another one. Budgies live in flocks, and if their human isn't around enough then they need at least one other bird to be friends with. They're quite social.

I"m not crying. Big girls don't do that. I"ll just go get a glass or two of my mom's wine. And you can take your admonitions about that not being the best way to deal and shove it.

Maybe I'll get a nice distraction tonight.

I can ride my bike with no handlebars...

Flobots, "Handlebars" is stuck in my head. Go youtube the music video, please, for full effect.

Look at me, look at me, hands in the air like it's good to be ALIVE!

Juxtapose that with "Those Nights" by Skillet, and you've got my mood right now.

I love you all, my friends, so much. I can't thank you enough for being with me.

I feel so alive, so....happy but anguished, I guess....HOPEFUL. My friends, you are the lights that guide me out of my tunnels, you show me the hope that I cling to for sanity.

Related side note: Potter gave me that, too. That's why I like the series so much. It gave me a world to take a vacation to, the messages sent are those of hope, of friendship, of a happy ending after a road of pot holes.

Having you here, the dark nights aren't lonely anymore. Damn I love metaphors.

Goodnight.

(not so) Random Thought before I go to bed

I really hope I don't die soon. I hope I get to live long enough to see how these wonderful things in my life play out. I'm reminded that my own life is just barely beginning.

So tonight I ask the creator of the universe to sustain me. Imagine it, the thought seems absurd. Something so weak begging from something so much more powerful and greater.

And yet, in a way, it's not absurd. Because it's the only thing we can do.

We're at His mercy. Completely and totally at His whim. We have to completely empty ourselves to Him, through living our lives, in return.

Remember the Doxology? My Lutheran side sings it as the meal blessing at family gatherings. I don't know if you see the connection, but the two ideas are both there in my head right now.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above yea heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Thanks to Skillet

for another song to add to my favorites. "Those Nights." Go YouTube it if you haven't heard it yet.

I'm starting to get into the mode where I transition back to my other life. As it stands I see two opposing forces, one in each, each asking me to be a different person. I know who I need to side with, which answer I need to live up to and let take over the other. It's not easy. It's tempting. But neither of those phrases really encompass what it's like. I have to do violence against myself, no matter which I choose.

When I was a freshman, I discovered two characters in my mind, "Good Katelyn" and "Bad Katelyn". Over time, more popped up, and the good and bad evolved, the others taking sides. If you want to take a spiritual spin on it, one is an advocate for this world, one for the next. I feel like they're circling each other right now, knives in hand, biding their time until one slaughters the other. I know what side will need to win this battle, who I want to win. But the projected winner won't always be strong, and won't always have the ability to keep the other submissive. Before I step on the Mount, maybe before, maybe on the plane...but sometime the decision will have to be made.

And I'll need people to help me stick with it. Plane and simple. It'll change my lifestyle. But it'll be for the best. I just hope that I have enough strength to stick to it.

I'm going to be ambiguous.

It's funny how things can really be different than how they seem. What we'll do to feign normalcy. Suppress our lives of quiet desperation. What we'll do for friendship. What we're scared of doing.

Hopefully things will still turn out for the best.

American Kryptonite

By Five Iron frenzy is stuck in my head.

Hmmm....

I had a nice talk/walk with David last night. That was fun. :-) It's awesome to just talk to someone who's gone through a lot of the stuff you have, and being able to talk about stuff without worrying that you're going to look like an idiot. I love it. :-D

Sometimes I really wonder if I should have gone to Western. I mean, that's where I most likely would have gone sans Mount. Hearing all the stories from there, then going up to pick up Nathan and looking out his window at the sun starting to set over the bay...oh man. I don't know, sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out differently. It'd be completely different, that's for sure.

But the important thing is that I don't regret going to the Mount. I like it a lot, and there are some really good people there. Maybe my school is losing some of it's glitter because I've been away for two months. But I'll be back soon, and busy as heck.

I'm a bit scared to change. I know it's inevitable, and will be easier because I'm an RA and will have a few more obligations than before. That line from the song keeps going on repeat: "save yourself from sacrifice".

Dude I just got it.

People will often say that they'll trust their best friends with their life. Awesome. But Christians who are devout have to be able to trust their best friends with their soul. If you can't honestly say that you could, they really shouldn't be one of your best friends. There's a line. There has to be. Huh.

Yay for evening revelations.

*yawns*

A good night's sleep does wonders. Another thing I discovered in college.

I should get into the habit of writing more. I think it's good for me. And gives my stalkers something to read. *waves to the audience*

hmmm, let's see. My friends, you mean to the world to me. Kayla more or less already part of my family, because I know I'll always keep in contact with her some way or another, even if we live on opposite sides of the world. Kinda like my Dad and his friend Rick, from work. Rick and him started in the same week at UL (Underwriter's Labs for you n00bs. They test everything electronic to make sure YOU don't die from it. Plus other safety equipment. It's a non-profit, too). Now Rick does a heck of a lot of stuff in Hong Kong, and his primary office is in Northbrook, IL. He's a big manager person, like my dad. Except my dad is now some sort of weird internal consultant type person who saves the company's butt every few weeks by checking to make sure their quality control is up to par with the people who are checking on them. (big long story). But I digress lots. Basically, they're a world away from eachother and still keep in pretty darn good contact. My mom sends Rick packages of cheese and sausage and salsa and other good stuff at Christmas. He's also a Bears fan. Poor misguided soul. I love digressing.

I want to be a person who gives. I love treating my friends. Not for that happy feeling people get when they know they did something good. That's not quite it. It's knowing that we all get to go and have fun, and I like the fun that we all have, so I'm more than willing to fund it. when I have cash. Or like when I was little. My church does this thing every Lent called the "Rice Bowl." It's where each family (or person) gets a paper box that you fold on Ash Wednesday and put money in so that by the end of Lent you turn it into your church and they send it to people who need food in africa, goats in South america and schooling in south Asia, stuff like that. So when I was little I loved finding all the change that I had and put it all into the box. Jess would do it too. All my money, boom when in there. When I wasn't sure if I should put the five in or jsut leave it so I could have it, I'd think 'what the heck?" and put it in.

I want to be the grandma who makes cookies for everyone, who spoils her family rotten and their friends too. I think I'm in training to become like that. My mom always told me "be kind to everyone!" I know that mroe than I know any other teaching from church. I was the person who would be friends with the outcasts, because I wasn't mean to them. Of course, this caused a rift between me and the popular crowd in 5th grade, because apparently being nice and talking to Eric the weirdo was the same thing as dating him, and all of that was a no-no.

So I know I can do better. I'm not claiming to be a saint or anything, far from it. I never understood why people are mean to each other. Oh sure, yeah, go point the finger at me and jess. That's different. Sibling rivalry doesn't count. Yet. I don't get why people are mean just to be mean. I can see being mean to thsoe people who are just plain nasty to you. But I think it's stupid.

Maybe I should go and volunteer in some mission or something for a while. I really don't need a lot of stuff. Give me water, food, soap, a bible, a blanket and a few like-minded people and I'm fine. I don't mind distances, either. I know I said I was glad I didn't have to do a mission, but I think in reality if I did, I'd jump at the chance and go.

I don't know. Maybe I will be a nun and do that, or teach or something. I don't think I'd be unhappy.

But that was when I ruled the world

((From my facebook notes))

I'm recently addicted to that song, Viva la Vida by Coldplay. For some reason it strikes a chord in me and it's still ringing.

I've been wanting to bang out a note for a while. I feel like I have something to say, but I'm not sure what it is. I guess I've come to the point where I'll explode if I don't write something, and maybe update for all of you Mount loves who I pretend still take a look at these. ;)

When I got home from David's (we were watching Donnie Darko - good times), I stepped out of my car and looked up like I always do to look at the stars for a minute before I go inside. Tonight they're so clear, I can see so many. One of the best nights yet. It also reminded me of why I wanted to go work for NASA when I was in middle school. And that that dream died by the wayside thanks to the science department at Camas High School and a lack of self motivation and esteem on my part. Opening the fridge I thought about how all of my dreams from a few years ago have gotten terminally ill, and how it's too late for me to resurrect them. Pouring water over Ramen I thought about how I don't have any dreams to replace them, which gives me that empty feeling of pointlessness. And as I spilled hot soup on myself while climbing into bed I thought about the difference between feeling like this now and feeling like this back then is that I don't think about doing away with things, because I've got a few good friends I believe in and a future at school, where at least I'll have things to distract myself.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I guess there's no escaping it for me. In high school I knocked myself down so I could be content with being normal and not achieving great things, putting the ceiling in. I suspect that by doing so I may have already committed suicide.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm having the time of my life back here. When I'm with my friends my happiness rivals that when I'm at school. Saturday Market with Jess, Powell's, Rimsky's, Stargazing, hiking, getting all but accused of illegal shenanigans by Officer Dickerson, campfires, driving up to Bellingham and back in a day, frisbee, low key partying and late night conversations about the important stuff. My friends have finally diverged into two groups, split between the college kids and the high school ones. Which is mostly a good thing. And David's coming to visit for ten days in March, maybe Nathan too, and that'll be awesome. :) It's hard to think about August right now, though.

Being back here I'm starting to get that hindsight vision of who I'll be if I keep going as I am at school. And also an idea of how I want to tweak it. It's not much, or I should say, not much that's usable to the general public. I'm trying to see my introvertedness and my apparently lack of control over my emotions as something that's not a deficiency. I'll get back to you on how that works out. Currently I have the impression that who I am doesn't carry much value in the rest of the world, compared to others. I keep asking myself why my friends bother to keep me around. Heh, yeah, I know some of you have answers to that. Which is why I stick around.

But on to a less depressing topic for me.

On top of all these rotting carcasses of deficiency and dead dreams, my prospects of where I'm going to live after college has, of course, gotten harder. I'm realizing that I really do love Washington a lot, and if I had to choose right now I'd stay here. But I don't want to choose now. I've decided to leave it up to God, and where I get the best job. That way I have the illusion that it's out of my hands for now, thus I stop worrying.

"Hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing, Roman Calvary choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain, I know St. Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
but that was when I ruled the world."

So there's hope for me yet. Goodnight everybody.